Sign In | Register
The SIBA 21-Day Racial Equity Challenge
Blog Home All Blogs
Search all posts for:   

 

View all (102) posts »
 

Day 4: Expression of Racial Diversity in Your Bookstore
Posted By Nicki Leone, Thursday, February 9, 2023
Updated: Friday, February 3, 2023
Day 4

Zora Neale Hurston"Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It’s beyond me." - Zora Neale Hurston

Author Photo Credit: Carl Van Vechten | Excerpted from Words of Change: Anti-Racism by permission of Sasquatch Books. Copyright 2020 By Kenyra Rankin. All rights reserved

Learn

Booksellers know it’s important to view their physical and online store through the eyes of their customers. You check out your window displays, walk through the aisles, look at what books you and your staff have positioned for special promotions and recommendations. Today we ask you to do this exercise through the lens of anti-racism and racial equity. What do you see?

 

Reflect

  • Are your reading choices, and what's displayed on your staff picks’ shelf inclusive of BIPOC authors? 
  • Are you buying books and gifts that reflect white authorship/white audience?
  • What is the BIPOC representation in your online and in-store displays?
  • What is the BIPOC representation in your author event programming?
  • Could you and your store culture be actively supporting white superiority, even if unconsciously?

Act

Write an internal Anti-Racist statement for your store. Involve your staff and pay attention to the parts of the process that generate discomfort. (Here is a resource for talking about Anti-Black racism.) Ask yourselves how you would turn that internal policy statement into an external, public statement. For inspiration, see the Anti-Racist Action Plan created by Tubby and Coo's Mid-City Bookshop in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Here are 5 Things Bookstores Can Do. Pick one or two to do right now.

Dig Deeper

Don't forget! Explore other links on the Challenge Resource Page. See how other Challenge participants are doing, and let them know how you are doing on the Challenge Bulletin Board

SIBA thanks its generous sponsors, who have made the 21-Day Racial Equity Challenge possible:

SourcebooksIngram Content Group

Many of the quotes used in the Challenge are excerpted from Words of Change: Anti-Racism by permission of Sasquatch Books. Copyright 2020 By Kenyra Rankin. All rights reserved.

Although SIBA has modified when appropriate for a bookseller audience, the majority of prompts and resources come directly 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.

Feedback? We welcome your thoughts.

This post has not been tagged.

Permalink | Comments (0)