The Unspoken Quota: Using Radical Inclusion to Disrupt Institutional Whiteness

by Peter Langella and Meg Boisseau Allison, September 2020

During a 2019 keynote at the University of Vermont, White Fragility author Robin DiAngelo explained that most white people, especially those of us from rural areas like Vermont, will go through life surrounded by other white people, and we'll never think anything is missing because of it. From the schools we attend and the teachers we have to the attendees at our weddings, funerals, and other life events; it's white, white, white, without question.

And, because this is the truth for most white folks—that whiteness permeates so many aspects of our lives due to the segregationist beliefs, policies, priorities, and laws baked into the foundation of the United States—it is also true that for white educators and white school librarians, our society has conditioned us to view whiteness as "normal" and color as the "other" or "extra" in our practices and pedagogies. Educator and #DisruptTexts co-founder Tricia Ebarvia says, "How books became 'canonized' is directly related to racialized power. Those in power—predominantly white men who had access to and control of the academy—enacted policies to maintain their power, just as almost any dominant power does" (Twitter post November 10, 2019).

It is this very social conditioning and historical power dynamics that has created "The Unspoken Quota" in schools when it comes to books, and other resources and programming. This is the idea that once we have a certain number of books by people of color, we've done enough. This is the idea that an English teacher who trades out a book from the traditional canon in favor of something that is newer, more relatable, and more diverse has finished the difficult work to update their curriculum. This is the idea when schools and districts invite a Black person to speak to the faculty on race and racism (or any subject) that they have done great work along the path toward diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Peter recently had an exchange with a colleague about updating the reading lists in their classes. The teacher wanted to make one switch, so Peter gave many recommendations, but when he suggested taking a closer look at the learning goals to see if more changes could be made, the teacher responded: "I'm happy to replace these books, written by old white men, but I don't intend to replace all the books I teach with books by Black authors and about protagonists of color."

And there's the Unspoken Quota in action.

Even though the school is 92% white, and even though the vast majority of those students fall under that societal umbrella that DiAngelo described, Peter's colleague didn't see the point in offering more than a glimpse into the experiences, perspectives, and humanity of people who aren't white.

One updated, culturally relevant book was the hard work; that's not radical inclusion.

Radical Inclusion means an absolute focus on policies and practices that 'demonstrate an understanding of and commitment to inclusiveness and respect for diversity in the learning community.' Radical Inclusion means that libraries are not neutral or apolitical spaces. Radical inclusion means understanding the library's walls are porous; the library is a reflection of the greater community and dominant culture, and therefore its priorities must ebb and flow to maintain steadfast equity of access and opportunity (Allison and Langella, forthcoming).

Applying this lens to schools and school libraries (our greatest sphere of influence) means that we (mostly white school librarians) must become the lead voices in disrupting institutional whiteness.

Xusana Davis, Vermont's first director of racial equity, says the work of mitigating institutional whiteness and "systemic racism will fall largely on the shoulders of white [people] who don't experience it. 'It is your moment to act...because as people who wield outsized and often unearned power and privilege in our society, it's especially important and necessary that you be the ones to exercise that privilege in a way that makes things more equitable for everyone'" (Hirschfeld 2020).

And, make no mistake, our profession is very white.

Chris Bourg, director of libraries at MIT says, "We are over 85% white as a profession, in a country where non-Hispanic whites make up only 63% of the population. I submit to you that a profession does not become so disproportionately white by chance, and there's nothing neutral about the fact that our profession and most of our organizations have remained stubbornly white for decades, despite changing national demographics and despite all of our rhetoric about how much we value diversity" (ALA 2018).

When this extreme whiteness is transformed into the curricula in our schools, the results can be devastating. Cierra Kaler-Jones, Education Anew Fellow with Communities for Just Schools Fund, says, "When teaching about Black history, the curriculum often starts with enslavement, but leaves out the contributions of how enslaved people defied and resisted captivity, even if that meant risking their lives. It dismisses Black history to one month or a few figures, when Black people have been the architects of the fabric of our nation. It leaves out the strategic organizing efforts that continue to persist, and stops at the Civil Rights Movement, as if we have nothing still left to fight for" (2020).

This happens in our schools in Vermont, and it happens in most of your schools too. Black History Month is a prime example of the Unspoken Quota in action. Because white is "normal" and color is the "other" or "extra," we're fine with diversity being limited to a lesson or a month. This impacts our students, explicitly and implicitly, and it only exacerbates the overall lack of understanding among white people about race and racism. Going further, it creates the expectation that Black people only appear in books about enslavement, civil rights, and related justice topics.

Bestselling author Nic Stone says, "I can't help but wonder how different the world would look if we'd all grown up seeing Black people do the stuff white people did in books. Going on adventures. Saving the day. Falling in love. Solving mysteries. Dealing with a broken heart. Getting caught up in a riveting love triangle. Taking down oppressive regimes. …What if we'd seen Black people in books just being human?" (2020).

If we don't fix this; if we don't use our social capital to ensure that students are meeting diverse adults and reading books by and about Black, Indigenous, and people of color "just being human," then we are complicit in the problem.

The Unspoken Quota exists on an invisible plane and sits very comfortably in all its white, heteronormative privilege. It often goes unchallenged or unnoticed as it undergirds our traditions, norms, curricula, and even some of the most sacred cows of the school library world; our book awards.

In Vermont, we pride ourselves on having one of the oldest children's choice book awards in the country. Each year since 1957, students in grades four through eight have selected their favorite book from a list of thirty nominees. Meg served two consecutive terms from 2013-2016, under the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Book Award moniker. Until recently, many librarians and students were unaware that Canfield Fisher was a proponent of eugenics programs in the 1920s–30s. Indigenous rights activist and teaching-artist Judy Dow made her concerns public: "Historians, teachers, librarians, and students that have studied both DCF and eugenics know it's time for change. The essence of racism is denying it exists. Only through speaking out can there be acknowledgment and healing" (2018). Dow's research has led to a movement to change the award's name. Canfield Fisher's ties to eugenics had gone unremarked until Dow spoke up. It is an area for further exploration, how whiteness operated to ignore Canfield Fisher's abhorrent and racist views to canonize her name in an award for over sixty years.

To illustrate the pervasiveness of the Unspoken Quota, the following is but one small story of how that award maintained white privilege and white centrality. It was during one of the selection committee meetings a number of years ago, when each of the eight members nominates a title to be voted on by the entire committee. The first round or two went by quickly and uncontested, with books filling up the first dozen spots that intersect with major awards and accolades elsewhere. Black authors such as Rita Williams-Garcia, Sharon Draper, Christopher Paul Curtis, and Kwame Alexander were named and their books got on the list.

Meg doesn't remember what specific book was nominated next, nor in which one of those four years, but there was a book, authored by a Black author, featuring Black characters on the cover. As members were discussing its merits, someone questioned whether or not the list "had enough" books by Black authors already. The concern voiced was that books featuring Black narratives would languish on library shelves, getting passed over for other, "more relatable" choices. In other words, books about white characters, written for white students. Suddenly, someone had spoken the "Quota" aloud, articulating that it had been reached. Spoken from a place of whiteness, it needed no evidence to back up its claim, no critical inquiry into the underlying reasons . Instead, the response went unchallenged by the white librarians around the table. DiAngelo posits that "white solidarity" operates to preserve the peace, reinstating white equilibrium, racial comfort, and the maintenance of white dominance within the racial hierarchy (2019). How many books have been left off of the award list, over the years, because of white solidarity around the Unspoken Quota? This particular book, in fact, was left off. Rejected by an unnecessary numbers game.

When we speak of reparations owed to our library collections and our programming, this is what we mean to say: that Black authors and voices are owed. Not just for recognition of books they've written and published, but for the very monetary repercussions associated with being nominated. Libraries and booksellers buy these books in droves, sometimes devoting entire budgets for the nominees alone. Black authors need to be amplified, celebrated, and honored. If every book nominated for the book award was an author of color, so be it. Let there be thirty books on the list, if that's the only way to apply an equity lens to the situation.

What does it mean for this prestigious book award program if only one Black author has won in over sixty years? How many opportunities for Black authors have been denied? How many generations of white children have seen only white authors win, leaving a white racial hierarchy unchallenged? One could wonder if the prominence of white authors not just on the list, but winning the award year after year has something to do with the books our majority white librarians and educators read, promote, celebrate, and display. This idea about only certain books appealing to white children needs to be addressed; how else will white children learn to decenter whiteness and the unchallenged hegemony of whiteness in everything they encounter in their homes, communities, schools, and libraries?

Meg teaches at a high school that enjoys a robust student journalism course, resulting in a rich lens into the opinions of students. In the fall of 2018, a student letter to the English department was published, demanding more diversity in the curriculum. In response, a journalism student wrote a controversial article that countered that the English curriculum was in fact discriminatory...against white students.

Taking data from a Lee & Low Diversity Baseline Study that pointed to a dearth of diverse voices due to historical underrepresentation in publishing, this student misconstrued the data to erroneously conclude that since more books get published by white authors, white authors are better writers—"the simple fact is that when the pool of content is overwhelmingly white, the top end of the spectrum of literary quality will also be overwhelmingly white" (Chronicle Team and McMahon 2018). The student editors took down the article after students of color expressed outrage and Meg directly questioned the ethics of printing an article when data had been dangerously misconstrued and misrepresented in order to present an overtly racist conclusion. Within the week, the article was reprinted with the data from Lee & Low removed, but the premise remained the same—whiteness needed to be recentered in the curricula; the Unspoken Quota was made manifest. In the views of this student, the diversity of voices had reached the point "of oversaturation" (Chronicle Team and McMahon 2018). How many more feel similarly, yet keep silent about it? How many white people disagree, yet keep silent due to a lack of courage and/or language to talk about racism and white privilege?

Disrupting the Unspoken Quota (and the insidious spoken ones) means that we have to take a side. It means that we have to commit ourselves to policies and practices that name and dismantle inequities. It means a radical and absolute focus on inclusion. And, it means that librarians must lead this work in our spheres of influence by using our purchasing power to amplify historically marginalized and underrepresented voices and by using our knowledge of books to help other educators in our buildings fully embrace the power of this approach.

We are in the process of planning the triennial visioning retreat for the Vermont School Library Association (VSLA) and we plan to work with the rest of the board to draft an organizational commitment to equity that can serve as both a guide and a catalyst for our state. We aren't exactly sure what the collective group will agree to, but we will advocate strongly for language that urges libraries, schools, and districts to disrupt institutional whiteness by making curricula and programming choices with a radical inclusion lens. If a school is 92% white, the books students are required to read (this is different than choice books from the library collection) should almost exclusively be written by authors who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color. If a school is 92% white, speakers and presenters should almost exclusively be Black, Indigenous, and people of color. If a school is 92% white, those white students should be learning about race and racism all the time; a deep understanding of whiteness and the social conditioning and privilege that comes with it should be embedded into every class in every discipline.

The VSLA Board will also look at recruiting, supporting, and retaining a more diverse librarianship in our state, we'll focus on culturally relevant and identity-literate pedagogies and practices, and we'll center intersectionality in our discussions. Understanding intersectionality is to recognize "the social, economic and political ways in which identity-based systems of oppression and privilege connect, overlap and influence one another" (Bell 2016). Not all Black people experience racism in the same way, for example, and not all Black people identify as part of the same culture. Lenses of gender, sexuality, (dis)ability, socioeconomic status, home languages, and more should also be applied when we make choices about policy and practice.

We know some of you are already doing this work, and we thank you. We also understand that some of you may be thinking that this isn't your work, or that it can't be your work, for any number of reasons. If that's the case, please consider that inclusion "must be radical, or it will fail. It must be intentional, or it will fail. It must be made through coalition building and collaboration, or it will fail" (Allison and Langella, forthcoming).

Works Cited

Allison, Meg Boisseau, and Peter Patrick Langella. "Inclusion." In Core Values in School Librarianship: Responding with Commitment and Courage, edited by Judi Moreillon. Libraries Unlimited, forthcoming.

ALA. "Are Libraries Neutral? Highlights from the Midwinter President's Program" American Libraries (June
1, 2018). https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2018/06/01/are-libraries-neutral/.

Bell, Monita K. "Teaching at the Intersections." Teaching Tolerance 53 (Summer 2016). https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/summer-2016/teaching-at-the-intersections.

Chronicle Team and Martin McMahon. "Did the Chronicle Cross the Line? The Limits of Free Speech." U-32 Chronicle (November 8, 2018). https://u32chronicle.com/2018/11/08/did-the-chronicle-cross-the-line-the-limits-of-free-speech/.

DiAngelo, Robin. "Seeing the Racial Water." Keynote. Rowland Foundation Annual Conference. University of Vermont, Burlington, October 23, 2019.

Dow, Judy. "Opinion: Essence of Racism Is Denying It." Burlington Free Press (April 5, 2018).
https://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/opinion/my-turn/2018/04/05/opinion-essence-racism-denying/33585059/.

Hirschfeld, Peter. "Juneteenth Commemoration Spurs Call To Action For White Vermonters." Vermont Public Radio. June 19, 2020. https://www.vpr.org/post/juneteenth-commemoration-spurs-call-action-white-vermonters.

Kaler-Jones, Cierra. "When SEL Is Used as Another Form of Policing." Medium (May 7, 2020). https://medium.com/@justschools/when-sel-is-used-as-another-form-of-policing-fa53cf85dce4.

Stone, Nic. "Don't Just Read about Racism—Read Stories about Black People Living." Cosmopolitan (June 8, 2020). https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/books/a32770951/read-black-books-nic-stone/.