So many feelings about email etiquette and norms on main today! A few thoughts from mid-career library land.

1. We cannot (and should not) seek to control how/when others check, create, send email based on our own needs and comfort. 1/ 2. We can (and should) establish how/when we check, create, and send emails based on our own needs and comfort.

3. We can (and should) cultivate workplace norms around email and other forms of communication that honor diverse schedules and work to discourage overwork. 2/

It occurs to me this morning that discussions about folks' willingness to use a COVID-19 vaccine follow a similar trajectory. There are progressives quick to label any distrust of vaccines "anti-vaxx" when there are at least two *very different* reasons for opposition. 1/

https://twitter.com/feministlib/status/1352750963363352581

The first is an ideological objection by Christian nationalists &/or far-right libertarians to government providing social services &/or requiring action that supports communal thriving. They see it either as a usurpation of God's will or intervention in "natural" selection. 2/

Reminder! A new #QueerJoyGiveaway title drops tomorrow, but in the meantime I still have copies of the following titles left if you're looking for weekend reading... [transcript to follow] 1/

https://twitter.com/feministlib/status/1350475053360701441

3 copies of Undertow by Jordan L. Hawk
3 copies of Nine Years of Silver by Parker Foye
2 copies of Nothing More Certain by R. Cooper
22 copies of A Little Familiar by R. Cooper
1 copy of Reverb by Anna Zabo
1 copy of Hold Me by Courtney Milan
2/ #QueerJoyGiveaway

Speaking from a household with $700/month student loan payments the EO extending forebearance until September 30, 2021 is a major step toward freeing *generations* from educational debt and enabling us to invest in and financially support our communities. Permanent forgiveness for all holders of federal student loans is the next step.

I think the thing that is most galling about the "we cannot know and we shouldn't label historical people queer they wouldn't have used that language" argument is that we never debate the historical accuracy of identifying people as cis or heterosexual. Heterosexual as a category has been around for less time than homosexual but of course no one is hedging their research with stuff like, "Joe Smith married three times and had eleven children but who knows what words he would have used?"

Still thinking this morning about white (often straight, cis) women in #romance. A crucial lesson all of us must learn in order to do effective anti-oppression work in our daily lives is that to the extent we feel comfortable and comforted in exclusive spaces, ... 1/ ... our comfort is crafted by exclusion.

Gonna say this again: Our comfort is crafted by exclusion.

And that should make us uncomfortable. And, ultimately, it should make it impossible for us to feel comforted by those spaces. 2/

I think that many people with marginalized identities and experiences understand "your fave is problematic" on a deep, deep level. We understand that both can be true: 1/ 1) That the work in question is flawed, carrying with it traces (or much more) of whatever toxic shit we are all marinated in AND ALSO 2/

Another thought about the #alacouncil disaster is that in addition to the narratives of benevolent white ladyness that saturate the library field, we also have a potent cocktail of White Feminism + professional anxiety. 1/? Many of the white women in librarianship have primarily experienced marginalization in terms of misogyny directed at them by white men with power over them. They lack (and have not sought out) intersectional analysis that would expose where they have power-over too. 2/?

I've been thinking a lot about what I learned or had reinforced in my life this year. I'm not into New Year's resolutions but I do like reflecting on where I have been and where I hope to go as we descend into dark, generative midwinter. 1/ 1) I really had driven home how important it is in this political moment not to be reactive to (or even know) every twist and turn of every news story. You can get the work done without it. 2/

I say we need to be strong amplifiers for those below us and shelter them from power from above. I we need to learn what the people we supervise do and how they work. We need to listen well and synthesize.