Supporting Your BIPOC Staff

It may seem self evident but it bears repeating: the responsibility for addressing workplace equity and inclusion falls first and foremost upon the employer. A hiring policy to increase the diversity of staff is an obvious visible step in transforming a workplace, but it must be accompanied by a commitment to change workplace culture. It is not uncommon for organizations to wait for complaints or issues raised by their BIPOC employees before attempting to address (or indeed even noticing) racism in the workplace -- placing the burden of change on the people already being harmed. The burden and responsibility is not on BIPOC employees. It is first and always on the employer.

The Coalition for Diversity & Inclusion in Scholarly Communications (C4DISC) has created a series of "Toolkits for Equity" designed to help organizations proactively address racism in the workplace as a long-term, on-going commitment to diversity and equity:

"Inclusive leaders provide BIPOC employees with the space for them to be true to who they are and cultivate an environment where their ideas and perspectives are respected and valued."

The toolkits contain resources and strategies for things like:

• Avoiding BIPOC Burnout and Overburdening.
  
• How to onboard BIPOC Employees.
  
• How to mitigate the impact of Code Switching.

See the full toolkit here:
Supporting BIPOC Staff from Toolkits for Equity in Scholarly Publishing Project Volunteers

How do you unjudge someone?

Imagine sitting down for an open conversation with someone whom you just don't understand or perhaps don't agree with.

The Human Library is a remarkable, and frankly beautiful organization dedicated to bettering our understanding of diversity in order to help create more inclusive and cohesive communities across cultural, religious, social and ethnic differences.

It's "books" are human beings willing and eager to talk to others about their experience. Every "human book" from this library represents a group that faces prejudice or stigmas because of their lifestyle, ethnicity, beliefs, or disability.

At a Human Library event, people can "borrow" these people who are open books for a one on one conversation where it is safe to ask hard questions, as long as those questions are asked with respect.

The idea is to challenge our inherent stereotypes by putting a human face on them and listening to their real, lived experiences, including things like homelessness, drug addiction, being an alcoholic. But also topics like being transgender, or embracing body modification, or being Muslim or atheist.

The Human Library was founded 20 years ago by Ronni Abergel, a Danish human rights activist interested in creative nonviolent activism. He says he based his idea on his own town library -- "the one truly inclusive institution" in his town.

From its inception the idea has grown to hold events in more than 8o countries, and has more the 1000 human books in circulation in more than 50 languages. With the onset of the pandemic, the Human Library has also adapted to using virtual session.

SIBA’s 21-Day Racial Equity Challenge
February 14-March 7, 2022

SIBA's 21-Day Racial Equity Challengeis returning for 2022. This year's Challenge will take place from February 14th to March 7th. A self-guided program open to any member of the book industry, Challenge participants receive daily emails that contain prompts for reflection, discussion, and action. The prompts are also posted at a dedicated blog, along with resources and links in support of each day’s prompt and topic. Resources are actively curated to be relevant to contemporary issues.

The Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA) stands against Racism. SIBA is committed to amplifying and supporting BIPOC voices in our membership and industry, and to offering DEI educational programming to members, SIBA staff, and Board.

REGISTER

The Challenge’s Keynote Launch event will occur on February 7th at 7:00 PM EST:  In Pursuit of Racial Justice: A Conversation between Laura Coates and Steven Wright.  Laura Coates, the author of Just Pursuit: A Black Prosecutor’s Fight for Fairness, is a CNN senior legal analyst, SiriusXM host, and adjunct professor at the George Washington University School of Law. She'll be in conversation with Steven Wright, a clinical associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School, where he co-directs the Wisconsin Innocence Project.

Registration for the Keynote.

The 21-Day Racial Equity Challenge Blog

Register to take the 21-Day Racial Equity Challenge

SIBA’s 21-Day Challenge is designed specifically for its member booksellers and draws its format and many of its resources from the 21-Day Racial Equity Habit Building Challenge created by Food Solutions New England (FSNE), a regional collaborative network organized to support the emergence and continued viability of a New England food system that is a resilient driver of healthy food for all, racial equity, sustainable farming and fishing, and thriving communities. We are so grateful for their extraordinary work creating this program and making it available to other organizations.

SIBA would like to thank Kenrya Rankin, author of Words of Change: Anti-Racism, Powerful Voices, Inspiring Ideas and her publisher, Sasquatch Books, for providing most of the daily quotes and images of activists. SIBA also thanks Sourcebooks for their contributing sponsorship.

For more information about SIBA’s 21-Day Racial Equity Challenge, contact Linda-Marie Barrett, Executive Director, at lindamarie@sibaweb.com

About Thanksgiving

It's a major American holiday. It is a time weighted with family traditions and memories. It's a vitally important day on the retail calendar. And it is also a Day of Mourning for many Native Americans.

In fact, Thanksgiving is a holiday so overlaid with myth that its original significance has been all but lost. For example, the Puritans who landed in Plymouth were more likely to celebrate with fasting, rather than feasting.

How do retailers, heavily invested in Thanksgiving and post-Thanksgiving shopping excitement and sales, navigate between the idea of Thanksgiving they have always been used to, and the historical reality what colonial settlements meant for the people who already lived there?

Sean Sherman, the author of The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen, remembers having Thanksgiving dinners with his grandparents. "I remember the mingling smells of dishes cooking throughout the day as our moms and aunts crowded every kitchen surface preparing for the large offering. We had the staples, like roasted turkey; mashed potatoes and milk gravy; sweet potatoes with marshmallows...Those were good memories."

Sherman acknowledges that many indigenous people refuse to celebrate Thanksgiving, but says he has not abandoned the holiday:

"We do not need the poisonous “pilgrims and Indians” narrative," he writes, "We do not need that illusion of past unity to actually unite people today. Instead, we can focus simply on values that apply to everybody: togetherness, generosity and gratitude."

Togetherness. Generosity. Gratitude. Along with honesty and empathy, they make any day meaningful.

Anti-Racism Resources for Discussing Thanksgiving:

• Decolonizing Thanksgiving, a Toolkit
• More than Turkey, Books to Foster Cultural Awareness and Gratitude
• A Racial Justice Guide to Thanksgiving
• Thanksgiving, a Day of Mourning
• Reclaiming Black Friday
• Bringing Anti-Racism to the Thanksgiving Table
  

SIBA’s 21-Day Racial Equity Challenge began on Monday, April 12. 90 booksellers and book industry professionals from across the country are participating, receiving daily prompts for learning, reflection, taking action, and digging deeper. Challenge prompts can be accessed on the Challenge homepage, to read and share with colleagues. We’re hosting a Challenge Bulletin Board where participants can share links and post comments. So far, the response has been inspiring.  We've also compiled a list of resources to check out as well, for future reading. 

We were inspired to offer the  Challenge when we learned of Food Solutions New England’s (FSNE) 21-Day Racial Equity Habit Building Challenge during the American Independent Business Alliance (AMIBA) 2020 conference, “How Local Businesses Can Survive and Thrive: Building Equity in the Local Economy Movement.” FSNE graciously granted us permission to adapt their framework for booksellers and the book industry. We’ve been working on the Challenge since the fall, compiling resources, discussing what we could contribute through format and design, to accomplish the goals of raising awareness around racial equity and racism, changing behaviors and patterns, providing helpful resources, and building community.  Once we completed the main work on the Challenge, it was vetted by Cultures Connecting, LLC. We very much appreciate their encouragement and professional counsel.

Putting together this programming required a lot of staff time and professional guidance. When SIBA first issued its statement against racism, it recognized it was committing to a course that would require deep involvement from the organization and deep engagement from its members. To that end SIBA has created a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Fund dedicated to supporting DEI programming and training to its members, and supporting and amplifying BIPOC voices our membership and industry. We’ve created a Donation portal to support SIBA’s commitment to amplify and support BIPOC voices in our membership and industry, and offer future DEI educational opportunities. We're deeply grateful to Sasquatch Books, Sourcebooks, and HarperCollins for their early and generous support for this initiative. 

Here in the SIBA Offices we have also been taking the Challenge, using it as a springboard for re-examining organization policies and habits that may not have changed since they were created decades ago. It has been a slow but exhilarating process, marked by busy discussions in chats and Slack channels. The general mood around the virtual office is “hopeful” and “excited.”

We will keep improving and updating the Challenge so that it becomes an annual event. If you are participating in this year’s Challenge and/or have ideas to share, we welcome your feedback, always.