This weekend, there are protests, demonstrations, and vigils being held across the country in response to the release of the video recording of another horrific incident of police brutality, in which police officers beat Tyre Nichols to death.

The twist this time is that the 5 police officers are Black.

This changes nothing for those who come to the table with an understanding of racism as a structural issue. Increasing representation without changing the fundamental structure of policing was never going to effectively reform anything. It was only ever going to indoctrinate a few racially minoritized people into upholding white supremacist structures.

Improving equity and inclusion to build a sense of belonging requires deep structural work, not just surface level representation, no matter what system you’re working within.

This applies to libraries as well. We can’t keep *just* creating “diversity fellowships” to bring in more minoritized bodies (on limited term contracts, of course) and implicit bias workshops and expect anyone to believe we are honestly committed to equity & inclusion. We have to do more long term structural work. Maybe fellowships and workshops are part of the plan, but they are not enough on their own.

In April, I’ll be co-teaching another section of Examining Institutional Racism in Libraries with Lorin Jackson. We’ll read and discuss some foundational and current scholarly articles that examine the underlying structures of racism that shape the library practices and policies we see on the surface. Our goal is to support librarians in learning how to analyze these structures, so you can advocate for effective change in how things are done.

This isn’t your 2 hour “racism 101” workshop with 10 changes to make today. It’s more “structural racism 101”, focusing on how to evaluate the changes that other workshop suggested.