Episode #210 Diversify Your Library

Five Problems

• We tend to fill our libraries with books that already align with our beliefs.
• Dissent is discouraged wherever empire demands compliance.
• When we actively resist the teaching of history, we demonstrate a desire to repeat it.
• The right to read was denied to enslaved people throughout American history.
• A misinformed understanding of facts leads to misinformed opinions.

Five Principles

• It is more important to seek out marginalized perspectives than multiple perspectives.
• Banned books are often the very books that the world would most benefit from reading.
• Every human being is unique, and we are each of equal and infinite value.
• Authors and artists are incarcerated not because they don’t matter but because they do.
• There is value not only in diversifying our libraries but also in diversifying who we follow on social media and podcasting platforms.

Three Practices

• Vote in such a way that supports diverse authors, educators, and curriculum.
• Pause before purchasing your next book to consider whether there is a similar book written by an underrepresented author.
• Commit to never again buying a book from Amazon.

One Perspective

• Books are sometimes windows, offering views of worlds that may be real or imagined, familiar or strange… When lighting conditions are just right, however, a window can also be a mirror. Literature transforms human experience and reflects it back to us, and in that reflection we can see our own lives and experiences as part of a larger human experience.” – Rudine Sims Bishop