This document provides an overview of a workshop on systemic racism and its implications for libraries. The workshop was facilitated by Donna Bivens and Paul Marcus from Community Change, Inc. and attended by Kate Thornhill, Letisha Wyatt, and Laura Zeigen from Oregon State University on August 24th, 2016. The workshop framed systemic racism as social constructs that are supported by power structures within institutions and culture. It explored how racism exists within interactions between individuals, internal thought processes, roles within institutions, and cultural norms. Examples of systemic racism discussed included the work of Ta-Nihisi Coates on the enduring myth of black criminality and Peggy McIntosh's concept of invisible white privilege. The document lists resources

1. If I Hadn't Believed It, I Wouldn't
Have Seen It: Exploring Systemic
Racism and Its Implications for
Libraries
Overview of workshop at Oregon State University
Attended August 24th, 2016
By Kate Thornhill, Letisha Wyatt, and Laura Zeigen

2. Framing of workshop
• Facilitators: Donna Bivens & Paul Marcus
• Facilitator organization: Community Change, Inc.
• This is a baby overview – we should have these people come do an all
or half-day workshop
• We cannot do all the content from the 4-hours justice in just 30
minutes.
• Framing: the idea of "try it on"

3. What you want to create; OHSU Library Mission,
Vision, Values; What gets in the way
Mission
As an intellectual steward of information, the OHSU Library advances knowledge and improvement of health in
partnership with our community.
Vision
• The OHSU Library anticipates and meets the information needs of our diverse communities when and where
needed, by:
• Teaching skills to navigate, interpret and analyze the information landscape.
• Preparing students for success as health providers and researchers in pursuit of knowledge.
• Fostering the intellectual innovations, continuing contributions, and lifelong learning of our faculty and staff.
• Serving the local, regional and global society by providing high-quality biomedical information that leads to
optimal outcomes, patient satisfaction and the elimination of health disparities.
Values
Collaboration, Innovation, Diversity, Research, Knowledge, Integrity

4. Dimensions of a system
Interactions
between
individuals
INTERNAL INTERPERSONAL
INSTITUTIONAL CULTURAL
Individual's
inner process
Negotiation of
roles, resources,
responsibilities,
within given a
system
Interwoven
pattern defining
who individuals
are and how they
are to do things

5. Definition(s) of race and racism
• Social construct
• "While prejudice is simply the unfavorable
attitudes or actions against other races,
racism exists when such attitudes or actions
are supported by the power of law,
institutional structures & culture."
• We can't see the systems we are in (fish in
water)
• Experience of whiteness/white privilege

6. Systemic racism
• Ta-Nihisi Coates
• Grew up in Baltimore, MD
• American writer, journalist, and educator
• National correspondent for The Atlantic
• The Enduring Myth of Black Criminality

7. Peggy McIntosh - Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack
On the daily effects of white privilege

8. Resources
• http://libguides.ohsu.edu/exploringsystematicracism
• Next steps for us here?