Stand Up and Say Something
During these times of distress, we need to know that our voices are heard. As part of the UC Berkeley Library community, we must respond with both our intelligence and our hearts. Protests against police brutality and racial violence erupt around us, echoes of the historical injustices and race riots of decades past. History has shown us that we have the power to transform our communities, including our work environment. As an organization, showing our intolerance toward racism is essential. Together with the Library’s systemwide response, we have created this informal publication — a zine — to inspire organizational awareness and empathy for our communities of color and allies. A compilation of photos, essays, illustrations, song lyrics, poetry, and video from staff members across the Library, Stand Up and Say Something raises our collective voice against systemic discrimination and explores how our actions shape us as individuals, and as an organization. Stand Up and Say Something is our call to action.
Shannon L.
Monroe
Interlibrary Services
“How Are You?”
June 2020
Motivated
Loved
Liked
Joyful
Blessed
Fortunate
Resourceful
Determined
Supported
Ambitious
Intelligent
Encouraged
Powerful
Eager
Excited
Black
Enraged
Anxious
Nervous
Hunted
Frustrated
Exhausted
Disrespected
Hated
Aggrieved
Suspicious
Prejudged
Discounted
Disgusted
Numb
Assaulted
Murdered
Michele
Buchman
Life & Health Sciences Division
Images from the Oakland Streets
June 9, 2020
In the days immediately following the recent demonstrations in Oakland, amazing artwork appeared on boarded-up storefronts along Broadway. In sharing these images I’m hopeful their impact will be felt more broadly, because even if these boards are dismantled in time, the message that has found collective strength and expression on our streets will not be.
Murals on Broadway
37° 48’ 10.584’’ N, 122° 16’ 19.452’’ W — 37° 48’ 23.94’’ N, 122° 16’ 10 .992’’ W
12th and Broadway — 17th and Broadway, Oakland
Photos by Michele Buchman and Ron Cohen
Elizabeth
Dupuis
Doe, Moffitt, and the subject specialty
libraries
My laptop sticker says “Fight Dystopia” — a reminder to myself not to be too passive. After the last presidential election I learned to cope with a world that I found distressing and misguided by carefully rationing my intake of news and focusing mainly on the things over which I had control. Then in March the coronavirus came. We all sheltered in place for months — the scope of my world seemed even smaller, and the things over which I had control seemed even fewer. In the midst of this isolating and disorienting time, in May it felt like a bomb of collective awareness was tripped. Already shaken out of our normal routines, we are now struck by images and stories — yes, many stories — of the grievous, malicious, deadly acts against Black, Indigenous, and people of color and the rising chorus for change. Our American Spring amplified not only how differently people of color were experiencing the pandemic, but how differently their communities experience life in every way. To realize the just world I long for, so many parts of our systems and societies need to change to reflect equity, respect, and humanity. But in this moment, I am reminded that words and actions have great influence, that individual people can make a remarkable difference, that even small local actions can be powerful, and that we are all designers of the world we live in as well as the world we want to create. Fight dystopia!
Nicole
Brown
Instruction Services Division
Erica
Howland
Social Sciences Division
Ignorance Breeds Hate
Information Creates Change
David Eifler, pictured with his wife and son.
Photo courtesy of David Eifler
David
Eifler
Social Sciences Division
“White Privilege, Black Power”
The sign in my office reads, “If you don’t see white privilege, then you have it.” As the white father of a Black college athlete, I’ve had to face my white privilege — and its attendant racism — through my son’s young eyes. There was the time four kindergarteners, including my son, got into trouble for chasing another child in the schoolyard; the three white kids were scolded while my son was suspended for three days, and the father of the chased child demanded he be permanently expelled for being “dangerous.” At 8, he was forced to leave a Piedmont comic book store for reading the magazines, while other white kids continued to read and roam the store freely.
When confronted, the salesperson replied, “Sorry, I didn’t realize he was yours — he looks much older than 8.” My wife and I often reached for our blanket of white privilege to throw over these and other racist incidents. Yet our job was to raise a confident, independent Black man. We navigated the tension between helping him develop racial callouses while trying not to crush his spirit. One of “the talks” came at 16. Before teaching him to drive I had him rehearse how to display his hands when pulled over by the police; how to request permission to reach for his registration; how to “yes, sir” and “no, sir” a hostile white cop. He already knew, but I reminded him that “people who look like me are going to mess with people who look like you.”
At 18 he declined a scholarship to Cal because “Berkeley doesn’t show much love for football.” I understood the subtext: “Berkeley doesn’t show much love for Black football players.” His instincts may have been right; last year he had a run-in with the UCPD in University Hall when a random white person threatened to call the police as he entered the building. He calmly explained that he was helping his professor mom move into her new office — to no avail. When UCPD arrived, Mom drew on her arsenal of professorial privilege and unsuccessfully schooled the cop on racial profiling. No one left that encounter happy, but at least everyone left alive.
At 22, our son effectively manages his complex life as an adopted person from a multiracial family, finding support within his Black community of friends, birth family, coaches, and teammates. This community provides him the resilience and true power he needs to navigate the treacheries of being a Black man in America.
Reza
Yaghobi
Catalog & Metadata Services
We need a reform in our police department practices. I stand with my people who fight for justice, racism, and equality in a peaceful way. Our voices matter in this movement.
“
A
civilization
is
not
destroyed
by
wicked
people;
it
is
not
necessary
that
people
be
wicked
but
only
that
they
be
spineless.
”
— James Baldwin
Illustration by Danielle N. Truppi
Jesse
Loesberg
Library Communications
In my first year of college, I took an introduction to political theory course whose core text was a collection of essays called Anatomy of Racism. Among its more provocative chapters was a piece about our country’s justice system. Because racism is our country’s default setting, the writer said, we should reverse our innocent-until-proven-guilty stance in cases involving an accusation of racial bias. In these instances, the default assumption should be guilt.
As a 17-year-old white student attending a mostly white private liberal arts college in the Northeast — and having graduated that spring from a high school that was more than 90 percent white, in a neighborhood that was 100 percent white — my reaction to this essay was exactly what you’d expect: anger, defensiveness, and a knee-jerk desire to defend what I perceived to be a bedrock principle of the American legal system.
That was over 30 years ago. I am ashamed to say that it really wasn’t until much, much later that I began to understand that my gut reaction in that first-year class was informed by white supremacy.
This isn’t to say that I passed these 30 years in a state of complete racial ignorance. I was a good performer of white liberalism: I took a lot more courses like that Political Theory 101 class; as a young man, I read The Autobiography of Malcolm X; I studied the work of Audre Lorde; I searched out histories of the Black Panther Party that weren’t written by white people; I could be counted on to say the right things at the right time. But all of these things were done in service of “understanding the Black experience.” I didn’t use them to recognize the white pipeline through which I was moving, and would continue to move, right up into my current position as the web designer for the UC Berkeley Library.
Ibram X. Kendi describes white supremacy as a continuous downpour that insists that you’re not actually getting wet. I’ve been holding a closed umbrella this whole time. It’s long past time for me to open it up, dry off, and see what I can do to make the rain stop.
Danielle N.
Truppi
Library Business Services
Heading home with our signs from the vigil, a neighbor walking her dog stopped to ask us:
“Did you know the biggest percentage of people killed by police are white? It’s in the national database.”
She said it like a reprimand, like she was the only one with any sense. But I was holding a very long list of names of murdered Black people (many omitted, many unknown), and I knew she was trying to use numbers to tell the wrong story. Her story made everyone a fool, so there was nothing to do.
Illustration by Danielle N. Truppi
Lark
Ashford
The Bancroft Library
From an American Boomer, Old Caucasian Lady
Dear White People, Our lack of melanin and pigment genes DOES NOT make us superior to anyone! Stop embarrassing me.
Dear Black People, I apologize for my people.
“Child of the Universe”
You walk down the street, feeling all alone
with nowhere to call home
And the people who pass you by, turn their eyes
You are a Child of the Universe, born perfect and free
You have a right to be here, and
you are beautiful to me
Pain inside your heart, nothing left to give
Your love’s a fugitive
You have the strength to pull on through
You have to trust in You
Feel your power, hold your head up high
Shoot your dreams straight up into the sky
Rain washes away, the cobwebs in your mind
and you have survived
You’ll see the skies, will turn to blue
the light will shine through You
Know that You are a Child of the Universe, born perfect and free
You have a right to be here, and you are beautiful to me
— Lyrics by Lark Ashford
Becky
Miller
Life & Health Sciences Division
My son and I made this sign and joined other families in a low-key march. It was a small way we could be involved, and I was glad to do it together.
Photo courtesy of Becky Miller
Ryan
Barnette
Access Services Division
Crown
Claude
Potts
Arts & Humanities Division
Kids march for
Black Lives Matter
Berkeley
June 5, 2020
Photos courtesy of Claude Potts
A.
Hamilton
Library Communications
Handed an oversized pink heart, cut from construction paper, I was instructed to crumple it up into a ball, then pause, and uncrumple the paper and flatten it back into its original shape. Not having much available to manage this job, first I used a tissue box to try and iron out the creases, with minimal success, then decided to try other techniques — rubbing the paper along the edge of the table and then using the bottom of my fist to smooth out the larger creases on a flat surface. Nothing worked. The paper still had hundreds of wrinkles in it. In my head, I rationalized that if I had the right tools, I could steam and hot-iron the paper to flatten the creases but knew that the initial act of squeezing did more damage to the structure of the paper than what was visible to the eye. Along with other labels used to acknowledge racism as a form of social trauma are notions that resemble the outcome of my crumpled paper heart. Describing race as a social construct, or identifying institutional racism, implicit bias, and white privilege are heated topics in the news and among family, friends, and colleagues. In this environment, plotting a new course to make a difference in my community is frightening, but if I have learned anything at all from those who have lived before me, it is that understanding who I am and my truth is essential to preventing further hurt. I have to believe that standing up and building alliances will strengthen our abilities to empower change for Black Americans and people of color. We need to provide access to uncensored stories so that we can appreciate the struggles and contributions of communities who have been deleted or marginalized in history. By unveiling these truths, we’ll stop feeding into prejudice and begin to see pathways to equality through education. We may not see the power of this work in our lifetime, but we must continue for the benefit of future generations, and not give up hope.
Video by A. Hamilton
Annalise
Phillips
Instruction Services Division
Angela
Arnold
Arts & Humanities Division
“The Umbrella”
Ten years ago, after work early one rainy Friday evening, I stopped at my church just off campus to drop off sheet music (as a part-time professional soprano). Leaving there, it was sufficiently cold that I was wearing my down-filled black jacket. Rainy enough to use my (black) automatic umbrella a few steps out. A well-dressed woman and man, I imagine a couple, 60s or so, approached in the opposite direction on the sidewalk between the building and parking lot, perhaps headed to a public event scheduled there. I didn’t recognize them. The couple and I got ever closer.
I’d already begun raising my umbrella slightly (directed outward — I do not point umbrellas at people), then pressed its button to open it. Now a few feet in front of me, the woman gasped, jumped, and grabbed her companion. My umbrella opened as soon as she started. I instinctively smiled and said, “Hello.” I sensed a strange vibe, but I can try to please to a fault. We continued walking our respective ways. I soon heard her say to her companion, “I thought she ...”
A moment later, I couldn’t help thinking this woman imagined I had some kind of weapon and was drawing it. A painful inference. I am a brown person, and to me, the couple presented as white. Can opening automatic umbrellas startle people? I suppose so. But it was raining. The woman seemed to react not simply to the umbrella’s motion, but also to what she thought the situation, that motion from ME, was. I cannot help thinking there would have been no such scenario in her mind had I appeared to be white. I left what was to be a simple errand involving my church and beloved music very sad and upset.
Ann
Glusker
Social Sciences Division
Murals on Broadway
37° 47’ 58.272’’ N, 122° 16’ 27.228’’ W
Seventh Street and Broadway, Oakland
Photo by Ann Glusker
“
Ever since I first read it, an
Alice Walker title has pretty
much been my
life
motto.
And it has more power for me
now than it ever has.
The Way
Forward
Is with a
Broken
Heart.
”
“free people of color”
pre-1865
“citizens of color”
Martin Luther King Jr., 1963
“person of color”
(POC)
Frantz Fanon, late 20th century
“men of color”
(MOC)
“women of color”
(WOC)
“Black, Indigenous, and
people of color”
(BIPOC)
2010
Brian
Light
Social Sciences Division
“Being an Ally Is a Constant Thing”
Being a white man I have to think about it. I can walk through life and miss so many slights, and low-level attacks (microaggressions). I can ignore them if I do see them and pretend I didn’t. I can pretend, and few will ever call me out.
I try not to ignore them, though. I try to be intentional about what I say. I try to speak up when appropriate, and I try to listen. This is how I became an ally.
I will also say that to this day, I hate being in a room with only white people. Something about the homogenous grouping encourages the slights and dismissive comments about POC. I know this means those people always think those things, but in mixed company, they tend not to say them ... and frankly, that is one of the best arguments for political correctness ever. Thinking just a little bit before one speaks can make the world a more comfortable place for all of us.
Even being married to a Black woman and being the father of a Black girl does not mean I am an ally. I still need to actively think about them, and what they see, and listen to their concerns.
Perhaps the most important thing I need to do on a regular basis is listen.
Listen when I am told that something I said is offensive, listen to the struggles of others, and listen to suggestions on how I can help.
Jean
Dickinson
Catalog & Metadata Services
Marjorie
Bryer
and
Christina
Velazquez Fidler
The Bancroft Library
“Toward ‘an archive of the exorbitant,
a dream
book
for existing
otherwise’”1
We first want to acknowledge that we are on unceded Huichin Ohlone land, and that we stand in solidarity with striking graduate students at UC Santa Cruz. We say this because we know that the ongoing struggle we’re engaged in is not just for Black lives and liberation, but for the liberation of us all. Police brutality and disrespect for Black lives is not new. There’s a lot to say about the recent murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and Tony McDade — among many others — but we can’t say anything that has not already been said by people of color for hundreds of years. We stand on the shoulders of folks who have stood up before us.2 As archivists we are fortunate to help preserve their history and culture.
Historically, archives have privileged white, male, heteronormative, middle- and upper-class, ableist, imperialist, and settler colonialist narratives. As archivists, we have an obligation and an opportunity to build stronger collections by addressing inequities in the archival record, and working to dismantle structural racism, anti-Blackness, and white supremacy in the archives. As advocates for social justice, we have a duty to amplify voices that have been excluded or marginalized, not just to tell more inclusive histories, but to correct the historical narrative.
As archivists we will listen to and share resources with community archives and underrepresented groups so they can preserve their own histories on their own terms. In our experience, when people see themselves in the archival record, they make emotional and political connections with their past, recognize intersectionality and common cause with other oppressed groups, and are inspired to envision a more hopeful future.
We cannot understand our institutions without understanding structural racism. Reni Eddo-Lodge provides a stark definition: “Structural racism is dozens, or hundreds, or thousands of people with the same biases joining together to make up an organisation, and acting accordingly. Structural racism is an impenetrable white workspace culture set by those people, where anyone who falls outside of the culture must conform or face failure.”3
We recognize that, like inherited wealth, there is inherited power at all levels of academia. The concept of “the right fit” is an insidious form of structural racism, preserving a disproportionately white academic culture.4 Black faculty members number just 3 percent at UC Berkeley.5 The repercussions of this truth reverberate across all aspects of our campus. We recognize how this permeates our own library spaces.
Youth Solidarity Project poster from a Richmond protest on June 8, 2020.
We have to do better. It is our responsibility as a community to continue to identify where and how current practices continue to support structural racism. It’s also our responsibility to then strategically and thoughtfully rectify these long-standing problems, and to be led by the chorus of voices that have brought us to this long-overdue moment.
One great thing about working at Berkeley has been collaborating with colleagues in support of the struggle for racial justice and collective freedom.6 For Christina, this includes serving as co-chair on the LAUC-B Diversity Committee. For Marjorie, this includes working on exhibits that document solidarity among marginalized groups. We look forward to doing more in service of these struggles.
Our identities as Latina and queer, respectively, do not elevate our understanding of the Black experience, but we recognize that we are stronger united. This call to stand up and say something unites us in our advocacy and our shared responsibility as colleagues to actively work toward a transformed archival framework and a society that privileges living-wage jobs and affordable housing and health care over policing, prisons, and profit.
We hope that, collectively, the contributions to this publication send a larger message of love for our diverse community, but also express our grief and anger for the injustices that remain.
1 Hartman, Saidiya. Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women, and Queer Radicals (New York, 2019), p. xv.
2 We’d like to recommend this webinar from the UC Humanities Research Institute: “The Fire This Time: Race at Boiling Point”, featuring Angela Y. Davis, Herman Gray, Gaye Theresa Johnson, Robin D.G. Kelley, and Josh Kun.
3 Eddo-Lodge, Reni. (2018). Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race.
4 Sensoy, Özlem and DiAngelo, Robin (December 01, 2017). “‘We Are All for Diversity, but . . .’: How Faculty Hiring Committees Reproduce Whiteness and Practical Suggestions for How They Can Change.” Harvard Educational Review, 87, 4, 557-580.
5 “Workforce diversity.” (2020, May 21).
6 Thanks to our colleagues at ESL for their powerful statement, “The Ethnic Studies Library Statement of Solidarity with the Movement for Black Lives” (2020, June 12). Retrieved from http://eslibrary.berkeley.edu/.
Murals on Broadway
37° 48’ 39.096’’ N, 122° 16’ 1.308’’ W
22nd Street and Broadway, Oakland
Photo by A. Hamilton
Contributors
Angela Arnold
Lark Ashford
Ryan Barnette
Nicole Brown
Marjorie Bryer
Michele Buchman
Jean Dickinson
Elizabeth Dupuis
David Eifler
Christina Velazquez Fidler
Ann Glusker
A. Hamilton
Erica Howland
Brian Light
Jesse Loesberg
Becky Miller
Shannon L. Monroe
Annalise Phillips
Claude Potts
Danielle N. Truppi
Reza Yaghobi
Stand Up and Say Something
Project Team
A. Hamilton
Tiffany Grandstaff
Tor Haugan
Virgie Hoban
Amber Lawrence
Jesse Loesberg
Jami Smith
Alison Wannamaker
