“To Teach Empathy and Fight Racism”

Abstract

“Fugitive libraries,” as described by Shannon Mattern in her titular work, are Black libraries that emerge in American contexts in response to conditions of exclusion and antiBlackness. The question of whether they are necessary in a Canadian cultural context has not been investigated before, in part due to the lack of distinct existing scholarship on Black Canadian librarianship. Using an interdisciplinary framework informed by Black Canadian and Indigenous scholars, I undertake a content analysis and close reading of Black History Month and Black Lives Matter programming and booklists in two Canadian public libraries from 2020-2021 to investigate whether the programming meets the needs of Black Canadian communities, and whether fugitive libraries are a necessary response. I determine that though clear efforts towards the inclusion of Black narratives are apparent in these libraries, Black History Month programming and the discourse surrounding it are shaped to benefit and mobilize non-Black Canadians, rather than to address the needs of particular Black communities, and propose fugitivity as a solution to these conditions.