A Letter from Sandy Berman to HCL Director Charles

Director Brown,

I understand that Tim Wise -author of the attached \”Membership Has Its
Privileges,\” Rethinking Schools, Summer 2002, page 15–lately addressed
HCLers on Staff Development Day. Presumably, he spoke about the twin
issues examined in his articles: combating racism and, especially, White
privilege. Material on those topics has been readily accessible through
the HCL Catalog for some time under the subjects ANTI-RACISM and
WHITENESS (CONCEPT). However, since HCL is shortly to become
LC-standard, only accepting and assigning strictly Library of Congress
descriptors, and inasmuch as LC has not yet (to my knowledge) validated
or established forms for ANTI-RACISM or WHITENESS, these subjects will
no longer be directly findable in the HCL Catalog. Doesn\’t it seem
somewhat out-of-synch or disharmonious for Hennepin County Library to be
promoting to staff the message of anti-racism and abandoning White
privilege while at the same time eliminating specific and swift access
to those very topics in its own catalog?



In letters dated 3-7-02 and 3-8-02- which you have not condescended to
answer – I posed several diversity-related questions, asking, for
instance, if you were aware that essential concepts like NATIVE AMERICAN
HOLOCAUST (1492-1900) and MIDDLE PASSAGE (ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE), still
unsanctified by LC, would drop out of the HCL catalog as fully
cross-referenced, searchable subjects and would never again be assigned
to incoming material. I also noted that HCL\’s carefully equitable
treatment of religions in subject nomenclature would revert to the prior
situation whereby Christianity enjoys preeminence over all other faiths.
\”How,\” I queried \”does that square with HCL\’s commitment to diversity
and multiculturalism?\”



Well, how does it?



And how can you justify the loss of myriad–literally, thousands – of
HCL-created headings still absent from LCSH that identify and illuminate
a broad spectrum of cultural, religious, gender, ethnic, class, and
racial themes, ideas, and events (for examples, look at ANY issue of the
HCL Cataloging Bulletin)?



How, in good conscience and with intellectual integrity, can you
countenance the reversion to calling Hansen\’s Disease Patients \”Lepers,\”
disabled person \”handicapped,\” Tongva and Hotcangara (or Ho-Chunk)
Indians \”Gabrielino\” and \”Winnebago,\” and Mbuti and Twa peoples
\”Pygmies\”? These are variously demeaning, stigmatizing, or simply
inauthentic names. And there are many more.



Why should useful, longstanding headings like ANTI-ARABISM, CULTURAL
APPPROPRIATION, CULTURAL IMPERIALISM, ETHYNOCIDE, FEAR OF IMMIGRANTS,
MULTIETHNIC NEIGHBORHOODS, NEOCOLONIALSIM, and WHEELCHAIR USERS be
snuffed, declare unfit for future use?



How do you explain the coming retrogression from INDIANS OF NORTH
AMERICA–FORCED REMOVALS to INDIANS OF NORTH AMERICA–RELOCATION, as
well as the return of JAPANESE-AMERICANS–MASS INTERNMENT to JAPANESE
AMERICANS -EVACUATIONI AND RELOCATION? Doesn\’t the sort of euphemistic
language represent a masking and reinforcement of White privilege?



Why must SENIORS revert to the outmoded and alienating AGED? (I have a
personal stake in that one.)



Why will the exotic, imprecise, and arguably racist ORIENT and its
several \”Oriental\” permutations be permitted to re-enter the HCL
catalog, which had been a relatively bias-free zone?



Pardon me if I find your announced embrace of \”diversity\” to be –
bluntly – incredible.



With best wishes,