The Displays: On Anti-Racist Study and Institutional Enclosure by David James Hudson (up//root)

It is early June, and there are beautiful things happening, inspiring things happening. There are also imperfect, perhaps severely limited gestures being made by people whom I trust genuinely do care. There are ups (the surge of attention to abolition, the statues of refined predators toppled into the rivers) and there are downs (the deadly violence of police “wellness” activities from which the public attention to uprising provides no apparent reprieve) and it’s disorienting.

I am called upon to ground myself, to respond as a library worker, the appeals to what Fobazi Ettarh has called “vocational awe” somewhat self-critical this time, but present nonetheless. It is a post to cling to, it is said, the mission of information provision framed as a clear and concrete course of action in these troubled times. But most of what I feel is pessimism.

Read the article in its entirety here.