The problem of whiteness in libraries
When thinking about the problem of Whiteness in libraries it is good to remember that this isn t just a random thing that happened, but a problem that was built on top of structural racism within the United States. People in librarianship then made choices to make these situations better, or worse, within living memory.
I ve been doing a project to make sure state library associations have Wikipedia pages. Many didn t. Putting these pages together meant delving into a lot of library association history. While Carnegie doled out money to build White and Black libraries (mostly White), he could have used his immense financial power as leverage to lobby for different outcomes, to lobby against segregation. He didn t.