(no subject)

[darchildre]

Had a lady just now have a long conversation with my coworker (who is a librarian and excellent at doing, y'know, the actually librarian stuff that she was helping this patron with) and ask me "Are you the librarian?"

Which, like, I know that the vast majority of people don't know that "librarian" is a technical term - I don't expect that. I'm just saying that when you have a long interaction with someone wherein they use their greater education and technical know-how to assist you and then assume for no reason that someone else outranks them, it's a little hinky. Especially since I am white and my librarian coworker is not.

(Might not be that! It might be that I'm older than my coworker. Might be that I'm the one standing behind the desk right now. But you do have to wonder.)

I just smiled and said, "Oh gosh no. [Coworker]'s a librarian - I just work here. But I'm happy to check your books out for you."

Comments

[silveradept]

It's usually that, unfortunately. People expect the white person to be the Librarian because they haven't been able to conceive of the idea that people of color would have the qualifications or would want to work in a library. Or they think of the library as a place for Whiteness, whether they think so consciously or implicitly.