Over at Heavy Medal: A Mock Newbery Blog – a commenter noticed that the nineteen Heavy Medal readers who volunteered to read and participate in discussing and choosing our 2019 Heavy Medal Award winners/honorees all identify as White. I wrote my longish response in a comment there and repeat the words here:
The predominately white Committee (with Steven, white, and myself, Asian/non-white, serving both as manager of the blog and occasional commenters starting January) simply reflects the librarian profession as a whole.
Here’s the finding from ALSC itself in 2016 via an Environmental Scan study of librarianship in the U.S. (Note, the Librarianship counts are almost 10 years old by now so hopefully the number has increased.)
“The overwhelming majority of librarians, including children’s librarians, are white women. Librarians are disproportionately white compared to the population of the United States as a
whole, as demonstrated by the “Librarians and US Population” graph that follows (Librarian data from Diversity Counts 2009-2010 Update; US population data from “Outreach Resources for Services to People of Color”). It is clear from this graph that people of color and Native/First Nations people are grossly underrepresented in the field of librarianship.” — The graph shows the following:88% of Librarians are white and 12% are non-White: 1.8% are Latino, 6% are African American, 3.8% are API, and 0.4% are multi-racial or Native American.
So, out of 21 people (including Steven, white, and Roxanne, Chinese,) we should have 2.5 persons who are “non-white” – we have 1, making it 4.7% diversity: if we only look at race. If we look at other factors, gender (5% of the profession is male, and we have 4 members identify as male, making 20% of the membership.) We also have some diversity in political views, abilities, ages, sexual orientation (openly identified or not,) professional focus, etc.
This brings me to explain an important process during the Committee formation to balance representation so Committee members look MORE like the nation and the children our professional serves than the profession itself. ALSC, through members and the Board, intentionally balances the representation of each Committee (Newbery, Caldecott, Bepre, Sibert, Notables, and many more,) through both the voting and appointment processes.
We here at Heavy Medal do not use any balancing mechanism. If no Heavy Medal Readers of Color volunteer to serve, then we have no HMAC Members of Color to participate. Do you think we should have pushed during the call for participation to encourage more readers of color to sign up for this process? I am curious to what outcome would have been then.
Last year’s Newbery Fifteen included three (counting me) Asian participants — we did not have any African, Latino, or Native American participants, either. Or could it just be very possible that we do not have many/any Readers of Color — and this is merely a parlor game for white (and Asian) children’s literature enthusiasts?
Much to think about.
Fairrosa Cyber Library 