My fellow cocoa librarian stopped me yesterday and informed me of the conversation he had with a few of the vanilla librarians earlier. He was asked by one if there was a Negro National Anthem and if so, what is it? As he was explaining to one, another jumps in and admits that he had never heard of the song(folks are nosey up in here and they will butt in on your conversations from 1-3 aisles over.
He was disturbed by that lack of knowledge that our fellow librarians exhibited. I told him that maybe it depends on where and how you are raised. He insisted that a person's upbringing had nothing to do with what they should know in aduthood.
Final Result: He will be conducting a mini-cultural awareness training during the next staff meeting. The sole focus will be what the Negro National Anthem is and it's history.
4 comments:
I 'think' you're in SF or somewhere else in the Bay Area but still....
I'm from Oakland, went to predominately White schools and always read, sung, talked about Lift Every Voice during Black History Month. And I'm 38 so where are these people coming from??
I believe that the men in question are from the midwest. One is from a big city and the other is from a small town and grew up as a fundamentalist.
The song is sung more than once every year at programs held in this library. I do know that the attendance of the vanilla co-workers is usually only at the opening or closing receptions(when food is involved.) The men are aged 50-64.
I don't know what they were doing during the Civil Rights Movement.
yea we sung it too. i think i still know most of the words but the reality is that we were closer to the civil rights movement then...these days our history seems more like old news!
@Miss Ahmad,
I guess what makes my co-worker so angry about the whole thing is that these are Librarians who have chosen not to be aware. They are old enough to have lived through watching the events play out on the nightly news.
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