September 13, 2022 by Gary Price

From the Introduction: 

The Toolkits for Equity project emerges as one such mechanism to work toward a more equitable, affirming, and just industry. In the larger scope of an increasingly unequal world where racialized people suffer in many different ways, this particular toolkit, the Antiracism Toolkit for Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC), is a small yet specific contribution, and one that we hope will be meaningful and useful to BIPOC-identifying individuals navigating an industry that can be wonderful, but also hostile.

The two previous toolkits, the Antiracism Toolkit for Allies and the Antiracism Toolkit for Organizations, serve as wonderful resources to understand the structural problems that exist within the industry, to gain a working analysis of antiracism, and to access resources for individuals and institutions looking to be more inclusive. The contributors of this toolkit have felt the ways in which the opportunity to confide securely with other BIPOC staff in our careers helped validate our experiences, gain new perspectives, and brought comfort in knowing that we are not alone in our struggles and joys as we do our work. But we also know that sometimes it is not easy or indeed, possible, to confide in someone at our own workplaces and we have had to find networks and ways to meet other BIPOC editors, designers, marketing, and business staff at other organizations to talk to. In other words, the contributors of this toolkit, BIPOC-identifying publishing professionals of all levels from across the United States and Canada, envision it to be a conversation between us, as well as a resource for future generations of BIPOC workers who will enter the academic publishing industry. With that in mind, the toolkit will reflect our positionality and limitations as individuals whose experiences have been shaped by navigating North American organizations. We hope that BIPOC publishing staff from across the world will feel encouraged to share their perspectives here. This toolkit is intentionally designed as a living document that will give BIPOC readers with different experiences the opportunity to contribute to this ever-changing conversation. It draws largely from personal experience as a legitimate and generative source of knowledge.

Though grounded in personal experience, most of the contributions in this toolkit are anonymous. This Toolkit is authored by Nobody, speaking on behalf of everybody who can only share their stories by remaining nameless, camouflaged in the shadows of anonymity to protect themselves from professional retaliation and persecution. We share the anxieties of being outed, identified by the way in which we structure our sentences, frame our position, articulate dissent, illustrate objections, and justify our right to sit at the table. We bear the burdens of finding nooses in the restroom or banana peels on our desks. “Don’t let them change you,” said Bob Marley, “or even rearrange you.” We are invisible, unseen, except as targets of off-color jokes embedded with microaggressions, strategically designed to trigger reactions and to provoke responses to justify our classification as “Other.” So, we choose to be Nobody. Nobody connected to everybody who is a Nobody at the table, in a room of few.

Direct to Antiracism Toolkit for Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC)

Direct to Antiracism Toolkit for Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) (PDF Version; 36 pages)

Filed under: Associations and Organizations, Jobs, News, Publishing, Scholarly Communications

About Gary Price

Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com. Gary is also the co-founder of infoDJ an innovation research consultancy supporting corporate product and business model teams with just-in-time fact and insight finding.