Seattle’s vaunted morning coffee wasn’t the only thing awakening the audience at Winter Institute 2023. At a breakfast keynote on Feb. 22, Loyalty Bookstores founder Hannah Oliver Depp engaged in a riveting conversation with Michelle MiJung Kim, author of The Wake Up: Closing the Gap Between Good Intentions and Real Change. Depp encouraged ABA members to glance at those sitting next to and around them: “This room looks different than when I started bookselling,” she said, “but it’s not that different” in its implicit structures and reward systems.
The book industry and corporate culture in general take pride in constructing excellent policies with lackluster follow-through, Kim agreed. Kim’s subtitle references the genuine “good intentions”—optimistic mission statements and idealistic sets of best practices—that fail to guarantee DEI reform. “If we could dismantle centuries of systemic oppression with a 1-2-3 checklist, we would have done it by now,” Kim said. She recognizes that binary thinking is part of the problem: a person is racist or not, sexist or not, and terrified of being banished from society for making a mistake. Yet she nudged the audience into “the messy middle,” reassuring the audience that “we need to take the process of transforming ourselves seriously. All of us are stumbling,” and embarrassing mistakes are inevitable.
Kim, a Korean American immigrant, came out as queer in high school and did grassroots youth activism before turning her organizing abilities into a management consulting career. “I had so much cognitive dissonance from the way corporate America was talking about diversity,” she said, because despite aspirational rhetoric, a white status quo prevailed. She also noticed how drained she felt—“I was doing the work for the movement but making myself expendable”—and she realized that people from marginalized communities can feel compelled “to bring up things that are not working, and it takes a toll. It’s not a light emotional burden to continuously be the squeaky wheel.” Burnout affects those who speak out and receive little empathy in return.
Depp, who identifies as a Black and queer person, knows firsthand the risk of being a spokesperson and role model. On February 18, a Loyalty Bookstores branch in Silver Spring, Md., was targeted by a hate group during a Drag Queen Story Hour, putting the staff, presenters, attendees, and counterprotestors in danger. (Depp did not mention this frightening event during the keynote.)
She shared Kim’s perspective that folks from historically underrepresented groups get exhausted by performative DEI gestures that do not manifest change. “That’s actually not pushing beyond the surface,” Depp said, and unenforceable policies come off as “broken promises. How do we get beyond the knowing that things have to change [and begin solving problems]?” For example, Depp thought about the virtuous goal of “hiring for diversity. But what happens after that person clocks in for their first shift?”
Bookstores have a reputation as havens for free expression and creative thinking. “We’re smart people who read a lot,” Kim said, yet we exist in a fundamentally inequitable system. “How do we create the conditions so we are not traumatizing the same people over and over?” Kim concluded with a reading from The Wake Up, saying, “We will not always be on the same page,” yet we need to have the courage to attempt the ongoing work of transformation.
‘All Hands on Deck’
After Depp and Kim shared their DEI approaches, booksellers adjourned to education sessions. A few dozen participants chose the DEI Idea Exchange, attended by Kim and Depp and moderated by KJ Williams and AJ Williams of the King County, Wash. organization RISEWITHUS, LLC (Radical, Insightful Solutions to Create Equity). The moderators encouraged audience questions and anecdotes, and the result was an emotionally charged and openhearted exchange.
Participants talked about subjects as varied as their assimilation into cisgender appearance “for the safety of that,” while others—transracial adoptees and first- or second-generation immigrants—described a sense of loss that influences the bookselling and representation work they do: “How do I get my culture back?” asked one person. “I’ve whitewashed that away from me.”
Several attendees described themselves as “high-functioning, disabled” individuals and talked about tamping down their anger in order to seem pleasant, when confronted with inaccessible spaces in bookstores and other professional spaces. It was impossible not to notice that the Washington Convention Center and conference hotel, although equipped with elevators and escalators, presented vast spaces to navigate.
A bookstore manager asked how to encourage staffers to be themselves “without overstepping as a manager” into territory that is too personal. Another asked for tips on creating a true sense of belonging among staffers. A neurodivergent bookseller admitted that “bringing your whole self to work can get messy” and reminded the audience that they frequently wonder “how comfortable and safe” they can feel in a workplace setting, anxious about doing a task or communicating in an unexpected way. KJ Williams urged them to make sure to establish trust and to think about an employee’s questions: “why would I want to work at your store? What are the unspoken norms? And what’s going to keep me there?”
The discussion took another turn when Errol Anderson of Charis Books & More in Decatur, Ga., raised the concern that mission-driven stores like the indie feminist, radically inclusive Charis—established in 1974—“are the locus of the culture wars right now. We’re fighting in a war against education, language,” and diverse storytelling, Anderson said, emphasizing the word war. “It’s all hands on deck for me, and I’m freaked out and mad.” His comments echoed a February 21 session at which Caprice Hollins, co-founder of the Seattle group Cultures Connecting and author of Inside Out: The Equity Leader’s Guide to Undoing Institutional Racism, led ABA members in conflict resolution and de-escalation techniques related to anger and aggression.
Michelle MiJung Kim, in the audience, responded to the sense of threat Anderson identified. “It really is an all hands on deck time,” she said, taking a moment to remind the audience to imagine diverse perspectives on social justice and our political climate. “So many marginalized people have been living in a state of urgency for a long time.”
