Systemic Oppression Requires Systemic Change

Team We Here members Jennifer Brown, Jennifer Ferretti, and Charlotte Roh were invited to speak at the Association of College and Research Libraries 2021 Virtual Conference. They presented, “Systemic Oppression Requires Systemic Change: Recasting the Roles of Academic Libraries in Contemporary Contexts,” which is now available publicly.

In this presentation, the speakers discuss the ways in which academic libraries have erected unnecessary boundaries that stifle workers who identify as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, cause inequitable pay gaps, neutralize progressive race-related legislation and policy, and encourage toxic work environments, and more, all while repackaging and oversimplifying solutions to systemic oppressions that bedrock our field. The speakers also make offerings, possible solutions they hope to see built upon and utilized.

Watch all the presentations publicly available from ACRL 2021

Thanks to Jessica Dai and Katie Quirin Manwiller, you can take a look at all the presentations from ACRL 2021 available publicly. In their crowdsourced list, they write:

“Some of the presenters at ACRL’s 2021 conference opted to make their presentations publicly available given how cost prohibitive the conference was for many library workers. This action was in alignment with the conference’s theme: “Ascending into an Open Future.” 

Shoutout to Preethi Gorecki, Arielle Petrovich, Ashley Rosener, and Denisse Solis who led the way by making their presentation “Lift up your Residency Program: How to Move Your Institution Forward” publicly available. Thank you to every presenter who made their presentations publicly available.”