Anti-Racism – Resources and Support

Our Commitment to Equalities, Diversity and Inclusion was first approved by the CILIPS Trustee Board in September 2021, and below is an evolving collection of external anti-racism resources from Scotland and beyond.

All of the links contained in our evolving collections are aimed at providing a diverse selection of relevant resources for further reading and consideration. It is ultimately the responsibility of our members and their organisations to make decisions on their professional practice, based on a wide range of information and underpinned at all times by the CILIP Ethical Framework. We also note that the content of external links may be subject to change without our knowledge, and we encourage our members to please let us know if this ever appears to be the case.

We welcome feedback on our ongoing EDI work from our members and the wider library and information community – if you have any comments or suggestions to share, please add them anonymously to this padlet page or email us anytime at admin@cilips.org.uk.

Collection last updated September 2024.

Organisations

• Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights (CRER): A Glasgow-based racial equality charity promoting racial justice in Scotland.
• Scottish Refugee Council: A Scottish charity that supports refugees and helps people to navigate the UK asylum system whilst settling into life in Scotland.
• BEMIS: A Scottish body which supports the Ethnic Minority Voluntary Sector, aiming to address inequality and to build a more inclusive society.
• Refuweegee: A charity dedicated to giving those arriving in Scotland a warm welcome.
• Saheliya: A mental health and well-being organisation that works with women from minoritized ethnic backgrounds in Edinburgh and Glasgow.
• The Anti-Racist Educator: A collective of educational stakeholders based in Scotland who are working to build a more equitable education system free from racial injustice and critically engaged with issues of power, identity, and privilege.
• Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust: A charity set up following the racist attack and murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993. It works with 13-30 year olds from underserved backgrounds to help them succeed, aiming to create a fairer society.
• Stand Up to Racism: An organisation with local groups throughout the UK.
• Black Cultural Archives: A national heritage centre dedicated to collecting and preserving the histories of African and Caribbean people in Britain.
• Runnymede: An independent race equality think tank which challenges race inequality through research, debate and policy engagement.
• Black Minds Matter: A non-profit that empowers 13-25-year-olds to make the improvements they want to see and to create a more equal society.
• The Black Curriculum: A social enterprise addressing the notable absence of Black British history in UK curriculums, including learning resources for many different school subjects.
• The Free Black University aims to transform historically racist curriculums and create a space where the healing and wellbeing of Black people is centred. ‘You cannot decolonise something that is built on colonisation itself… we exist to build a space that can produce decolonial knowledge, untethered from a colonial space.’
• Stop Hate UK: A national organisation that challenges all forms of Hate Crime and harassment including those to do with race, sexuality and gender identity, among others.
• UK Black Pride: Celebrates LGBTQ+ people of African, Asian, Caribbean, Middle Eastern and Latin American descent.
• Black British Women Writers: A website bringing together writers whose identities intersect as Black British Women and highlighting their drastically under-acknowledged contribution to British and world literature.
• Color of Change: An organisation which supports people to take practical steps towards tackling racial injustice.
• Antiracist Research & Policy Center (ARPC): Works to understand and solve racial inequality and injustice issues, based in Washington DC.

Reading Recommendations (suggestions welcome)

• Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race – Reni Eddo-Lodge
• Kindred – Octavia Butler
• Ain’t I a Woman: black women and feminism – bell hooks
• New Daughters of Africa: an International Anthology of Writing by Women of African Descent – Margaret Busby (ed.)
• Hidden Figures: The Untold Story of the African American Women Who Helped Win the Space Race – Margot Lee Shetterly
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks – Rebecca Skloot
• Becoming – Michelle Obama
• Girl, Woman, Other – Bernadine Evaristo
• Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire – Akala
• Americanah – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• The Adoption Papers – Jackie Kay
• Just Mercy – Bryan Stevenson
• The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness  – Michelle Alexander
• Freedom is a Constant Struggle – Angela Y. Davis
• So You Want to Talk About Race – Ijeoma Oluo
• Possessive Investment in Whiteness – George Lipsitz
• I know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou
• Black British History – David Olusoga
• No Problem Here: Understanding Racism in Scotland – Neil Davidson, Minna Liinpää, Maureen McBride & Satnam Virdee (eds.)
• Race, Culture and Media – Dr Anamik Saha
• Narrative Expansions: Interpreting Decolonisation in Academic Libraries – Jess Crilly and Regina Everitt (eds.)
• Taking Up Space: The Black Girl’s Manifesto for Change – Chelsea Kwakye and Ore Ogunbiyi
• Glasgow Women’s Library Readers of Colour blog

Articles, Webinars, Learning Resources and More

• ‘We are only now recognising that we are not neutral and that we have, without consideration, been complicit in perpetuating the ideologies of previous centuries.’ Curating Discomfort at The Hunterian Museum puts forward discomforting provocations and interventions to help us to understand that cultural spaces have perpetuated ideologies of white supremacy: a political, economic and cultural system in which white western ideas control the power of the texts, the material resources and the actions that continue to underpin notions of cultural superiority. Discover more or visit the CILIPS 2022 Annual Conference webspace to learn more about the work of our keynote speaker, Curator of Discomfort Zandra Yeaman.
• Over 150+ people registered for CILIPS’s extended online learning session Decolonizing Library Collections: Past, Present and Future. If you missed it or would like to watch again, the recording and slides are available here.
• Visit The Anti-Racist Educator’s Glossary for working definitions of key concepts related to racism and privilege.
• Histories of Colour by Carissa Chew (illustrated by Annie Adam) is an easy-to-read yet informative website that features articles and podcasts introducing learners to areas of history too-often neglected by traditional narratives. Carissa is also the founder of the Cultural Heritage Terminology Network, a Slack online group open to all cultural professionals interested in Equalities, Diversity and Inclusion. The group includes access to an extensive Terminology Guide & Glossary that Carissa produced as part of her work as the National Library of Scotland’s EDI intern.
• The National Library of Scotland’s Struggles for Liberty learning e-resource opens modern eyes to the fight for freedom and social justice led by African American freedom-fighters in the USA and in Britain and Ireland during the 19th century. Find informative, well-researched resources, interactive maps and further recommendations.
• ‘Anti-racism is not about perfection or completing a number of tests. You won’t be awarded an anti-racism certificate at the end. Instead, anti-racism is about learning, unlearning, reflection and the ability to recognise oppressive structures, to take on feedback and experiences from people who are racialised as Black and as People of Colour (PoC) and our ability to take new input on board, translate it into improving our praxis and to envision new and non-oppressive ways of being.’ Access A’ ADAMS’ BAIRNS?, a self-learning anti-racist toolkit for educators authored by Titilayo Farukuoye and supported by Scotdec and the National Library of Scotland.
• ‘When an institution insists that librarians of colour conform, we have lost the opportunity for change and the institution has not created a sense of belonging… empathy education can increase connections among colleagues and reduce isolation…’ Edith Scarletto and Chris Robinson-Nkongola for In The Library With the Lead Pipe journal on how libraries can encourage empathy, tackle microaggressions and empower minoritized professionals.
• ‘Now in [that] system, they had one number—326—that meant slavery, and they had one other number—325, as I recall it—that meant colonization. In many “white libraries”, every book, whether it was a book of poems by James Weldon Johnson, who everyone knew was a black poet, went under 325. And that was stupid to me.’ Howard University librarian Dorothy Porter challenged the racist biases embedded within the Dewey Decimal System – learn more about her incredible life’s work or scroll below to watch our wonderful Winspiration x Black History Month webinar on Dorothy Porter’s legacy, led by Professor Zita Cristina Nunes.

• ‘We find that ‘BAME’ (black, Asian and minority ethnic)/working class audiences are undervalued by publishers, both economically and culturally. This in turn affects the acquisition, promotion, and selling of writers of colour.’ Rethinking ‘Diversity’ in Publishing (2021) is a hard-hitting report written by Dr Anamik Saha and Dr Sandra van Lente, Goldsmiths, University of London, that examines the presence (and absence) of writers of colour in publishing, emphasising the need to recognise structural inequalities and ‘understand that modern Britain consists of multiple audiences’.
• ‘Anti-racist education empowers children and young people to engage in an increasingly diverse and globalised world where people can be united by their common humanity and enhanced by their diversity’. Education Scotland have published an overview of what anti-racism means in education and why it is such an essential component of the learning process – read it online.
• ‘Each of us can make a difference, and together accomplish what might seem impossible’ (Wangari Maathi, 1940-2011). Challenging the historic under-representation and under-acknowledgement of black voices in the sustainability movement, the Carbon Literacy Project have shared this concise yet informative blog: highlighting the extraordinary work of climate activists of colour from the 19th century to the present day.
• Follow LIS-DECOLONISE on JISCMail to be part of important conversations around decolonisation and liberation of library collections. Decolonisation of curricula and collections is not about ‘throwing out’ work by white authors but rather thinking critically in relation to what narratives are most common, questioning who has held power and space, and amplifying work by a diverse collection of writers and researchers to ensure all perspectives are heard.
• Can data drive decolonization? Researchers at Imperial College London have developed a tool to convert reading lists into machine readable code, from which you can rapidly visualise the geographic origin of citations and tackle the ‘preponderance of references to research from the global north’ that has historically characterised most reading lists. Find out more.