[Libs-Or] BIPOC Mental Health Trends and Disparities

[Matthew Baiocchi]

With the Library 2.023: Mental Health and Wellness Conference(1) and the recent LJ article "Working Toward Wellness: Exploring Trauma-Informed Librarianship"(2) (featuring, in part, Oregon libraries' very own fabulous Bryce Kozla) it is important to bring up mental health awareness for our BIPOC colleagues (3)(4) .


Non-BIPOC library staff absolutely need to be aware of the daily and lifetime traumas faced by our BIPOC colleagues, including those experienced in our library workplaces. We need to:

A) Acknowledge white privilege. Don't believe in white privilege? Imagine all of the stuff you go through on a daily basis - all the struggles and joys and boredom - now imagine dealing with everything you deal with while also having to deal with everything from a greater chance of getting a jaywalking ticket(5) to dying more frequently during childbirth(6) to being incarcerated with greater frequency and duration(7) to being murdered while out for a jog(8) or driving(9) or sleeping in your own bed(10) to the extreme generational wealth gap(11). Your white privilege means not having to deal with any of that...ever...much less on a daily basis.

B) Listen to our BIPOC colleagues. Listen without prejudice. Listen and believe despite your lack of experience in the matter. From the LJ article, "In libraries, the main goal is to be anticipatory and move the discussion from 'What is wrong with you?' to 'What do you need?'"

C) Don't treat EDIA as a separate thing. It is not only a committee. It is not only a position in your organization. EDIA has to be fully integrated by everybody everyday in the workplace because that is the only way to combat the systemic injustice our BIPOC colleagues experience every day.


Don't know where to start? Ask the OLA EDIA Committee(12), check out their Antiracism Toolkit(13), or the Western States Center’s Confronting White Nationalism in Libraries Toolkit(14).


By the way, much of this also goes for our LGBTQIA+ colleagues. Imagine not being accepted for who you are. For state and federal legislators to try and pass laws (and at times succeeding) to make who you are illegal(15)? This is the trauma that our LGBTQIA+ colleagues face every day, and they have faced it for their entire lives.


Frankly, it goes for every marginalized group of people who are made to be "other." It isn't us vs them, it is all of us simply allowing people to be who they are.


"Love is an action, never simply a feeling."
― bell hooks

Do something.



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1 - https://www.eventbrite.com/e/library-2023-mental-health-and-wellness-registration-528485994837

2 - https://www.libraryjournal.com/story/Working-Toward-Wellness-Exploring-Trauma-Informed-Librarianship

3 - The Work of Women of Color Academic Librarians in Higher Education: Perspectives on Emotional and Invisible Labor by Tamara Rhodes, Naomi Bishop, & Alanna Aiko Moore, https://www.uproot.space/features/the-work-of-women-of-color

4 - BIPOC Mental Health Trends and Disparities, https://adaa.org/learn-from-us/from-the-experts/blog-posts/consumer-professional/bipoc-mental-health-trends-and

5 - Analysis Finds Tickets Disproportionately Issued to Black Pedestrians, https://eji.org/news/analysis-finds-tickets-disproportionately-issued-to-black-pedestrians/

6 - Working Together to Reduce Black Maternal Mortality, https://www.cdc.gov/healthequity/features/maternal-mortality/index.html

7 - Dissecting racial disparities in Mass. criminal justice system, https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/09/black-latinx-people-overrepresented-in-massachusetts-prisons-study-says/

8 - Ahmaud Arbery: Three US men guilty of murdering black jogger, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-59411030

9 - What we know about the killing of Tyre Nichols, https://www.npr.org/2023/01/28/1151504967/tyre-nichols-memphis-police-body-cam-video

10 - Breonna Taylor: US police charged over shooting death, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-62427546

11 - Here's one reason why America's racial wealth gap persists across generations, https://www.npr.org/2022/08/13/1113814920/racial-wealth-gap-economic-inequality

12 - OLA EDIA Committee, https://www.olaweb.org/ola-edi-antiracism-committee---HOME

13 - OLA EDIA Committee Antiracism Toolkit (PDF), https://www.olaweb.org/assets/EDI_Antiracism_Comm/OLA_TOOLKIT_Digital_Copy%202021_02_11.pdf

<https://www.olaweb.org/assets/EDI_Antiracism_Comm/OLA_TOOLKIT_Digital_Copy%202021_02_11.pdf>14 - Western States Center’s Confronting White Nationalism in Libraries Toolkit, https://static1.squarespace.com/static/6127dea2925e45475fcbfca9/t/63b49601f2f90f18fd230c94/1672779266254/Confronting+White+Nationalism+in+Libraries+FINAL.pdf

15 - Mapping Attacks on LGBTQ Rights in U.S. State Legislatures, https://www.aclu.org/legislative-attacks-on-lgbtq-rights



Matthew Baiocchi
REFERENCE LIBRARIAN
__

City of Lincoln City  |  Driftwood Public Library
801 SW Hwy 101  |  PO Box 50  |  Lincoln City, OR
P: 541.996.1261  |  E: mbaiocchi at lincolncity.org<mailto:mbaiocchi at lincolncity.org>
W: Driftwoodlib.org | W: LincolnCity.org

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