 Today I have the pleasure of introducing two very exciting keynote speakers. We have Frida Afari. She is an Iranian-American librarian, translator, and writer. She has served as an adult librarian at the Los Angeles Public Library for over 20 years. Her work has included organizing many library programs on philosophy, literature, economics, feminism, U.S. history, and current world events. She is the 2023-2024 co-chair of the Penn Translation Committee and an active member of the American Library Association. Her book, Socialist Feminism, a new approach, was just published by Pluto Press. Today she will be speaking to us about confronting disinformation and book bans by cultivating critical thinking and empathy. We will also be hearing from Linda Powell. She is currently a professor, Amarita, of history and ethnic studies at Los Angeles Southwest College. She is a graduate of the University of Michigan and the University of California Los Angeles, respectively. Her master's program included history and ethnic studies with a special interest in African-American folklore. She is a writer, poet, and in the words of Bert Tolbrecht, a worker who reads, a long academic career of over 40 years includes teaching in the Los Angeles Community College District, tenure as department chair of behavioral and social science, passage program at UC Irvine, California State University Los Angeles, and numerous other conference and community engagements. Her topic today will be from critical thinking to critical race theory on earthing history. Hello. It is an honor and a pleasure to address San Francisco Bay Area public librarians about the future of libraries. We're discussing the future of libraries at a truly crisis-ridden and dangerous moment in history. The effort to ban books on gender and race from many U.S. and U.S. school and public libraries has been relentless in the past two years. In 2022, the number of attempts to ban or restrict library resources in schools, universities, and public libraries is on track to exceed record counts from 2021. And that record count in 2021 was 1,597 attempted book bans in 700 different libraries or library systems. It represented the highest number of attempted book bans since the American Library Association began compiling lists more than 20 years ago. At the same time, the spread of this information and misinformation through social media and various networks have been poisoning the environment in the U.S. and globally. The U.S. education system has been greatly challenged and weakened by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. All children have been impacted by the isolation and lack of in-person school instruction. Black, Latino, and Native American children in low-income and marginalized communities have fallen far behind. By some accounts, the pandemic has set schools back by two decades. U.S. children are also facing an unprecedented mental health crisis. Moreover, many are mourning the death of family members who are part of their support system. When it comes to higher education, enrollment, especially at the community college level, has massively declined because so many former college students have had to take on extra jobs and spend more time on helping their families. So I believe that in 2019, enrollment was at about 19 million and now it's about 15 million college and university students. Those public libraries are faced not only with the task of confronting book bans and disinformation but also represent the only side of truly free after-school education for children and continuing education for young adults and adults. In the recent past, U.S. public librarians have tended to focus on programming on book clubs and book talks, fun activities for children and teens, computer classes, small business instruction, life skills and pleasures, ranging from cooking and gardening to health, fitness, and music. All of these are necessary and need to be continued. However, I would like to argue that the challenge of our times demands a major rethinking of our focus and direction when it comes to programming. It demands a return to the historical concept of libraries and librarians as guardians of knowledge, memory, and truth. What is knowledge? Knowledge is not the same as information. Knowledge is information that has been tested and proven to be true factually and historically. Knowledge involves concepts and assumes receptive minds that are critical, inquisitive and willing to explore. Knowledge is not about dogma or slogans but learning that builds on previous accurate learning and understanding of history, philosophy, science, and expands the mind. Why do we need knowledge? Information by itself is like having a bunch of facts without connection. Knowledge allows us to create connections between facts. Knowledge is the process whereby we use conceptual frameworks to make sense out of facts or to draw out meaning. The main claim of the current assault on librarians and educators by the extreme right is that we are quote-unquote indoctrinating children and the public. The American Library Association in response has argued that libraries promote a plurality and diversity of views. This is definitely correct. However, emphasizing plurality and diversity is not enough to confront the assault. In my presentation today, I would like to argue that this information, bookbands, and the charge of indoctrination can only be truly confronted if public libraries become sites for cultivating critical thinking and if librarians see themselves not only as providers of information but as guardians of knowledge, memory, and truth. Let's look at what critical thinking means from the vantage point of Mary Ann Wolfe and Audrey Lord. Wolfe is currently a leading scholar of information and education studies. Lord was a renowned poet, writer, and also a librarian. So first, Mary Ann Wolfe on critical thinking. In her book, Reader Come Home, Mary Ann Wolfe, director of the Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners, and Social Justice at UCLA, and professor in residence at the UCLA School of Information and Education Studies, has issued a challenge to all readers. She argues that with the transition from a literacy-based culture to a digital one in the 21st century, over-reliance on digital or screen reading has the potential for long-term damage to our memory, our ability for critical thinking, reflection, empathy, and democracy itself. Society, she argues, is at a hinge moment. On the one hand, over-reliance on digital mediums and media and their algorithms of distraction can change the brain's circuitry of humans and possibly diminish our distinctive human potential for critical thinking and reflection. On the other hand, if we build on the best characteristics of both print and digital mediums, we can develop what she calls bi-literate persons with quote, ever more sophisticated forms of cognition and imagination that will enable our children to leap into new worlds of knowledge. End of quote from her. End of quote from her. Developing ever more sophisticated forms of cognition and imagination requires the practice of what Wolf calls deep reading. What is deep reading? Deep reading begins with attention, remembering, following the sequence of the text narrative and drawing connections between the observations and questions gleaned. It requires putting oneself in the position of others. It is thus connected to empathy as both knowledge of and feeling for the other. In deep reading, and this is a quote from Mary and Wolf. In deep reading, we welcome the other as a guest within ourselves and sometimes we become other. For a moment in time, we leave ourselves and when we return, sometimes expanded and strengthened, we are changed both intellectually and emotionally. End of quote. In other words, deep reading leads to a deep understanding of the other. Deep reading requires that readers approach the text with internalized background knowledge, including conceptual frameworks that allow us to draw meaning, inferences, engage in critical analysis, evaluate the writer's assumptions, ideas, conclusions, and reflect on the whole process in order to arrive at new insights and thoughts. Our conceptual frameworks need to be flexible enough to be open to new ideas, changes, expansion, and enrichment. For a child, for example, a conceptual framework can consist of an understanding of concepts such as friendship, empathy, and fairness gained through picture books, early reading, and conversations with adults. For an adult, conceptual frameworks can include philosophical, psychological, and economic concepts and theories learned in school and through reading and conversation. Wolf argues that deep reading is the antidote to disinformation, manipulation, and demagoguery. When we do not read deeply and do not delve into complexities, we can become prey to simplistic answers, homogenization of thinking, and extremism. A democratic society requires the development of deep reading abilities and what she calls cognitive patience in all its members, young and old. It is toward the same that Wolf has written her book. She thinks we can build on the best characteristics of both print and digital mediums to develop biliterate use who are skilled in deep reading in all mediums and media. At the same time, it is the responsibility of teachers and librarians to teach children and use what she calls digital wisdom. That is how to evaluate what they have read online and how to make sure they are paying attention and remembering what they have read. Like David Olin, Los Angeles Times book critic, Wolf calls deep reading, quote, an act of resistance, some quote. While she remains fearful that the deep reading brain will be short circuited in future generations, she thinks that if we humans rise up to the challenge of the current hinge moment in history, we will be able to build on the human brains, quote, pluripotential capacities to embody all of our species exponentially growing intellectual, affective, and moral faculties. End of quote. Let's move on to another scholar and activist, Audrey Lord, black feminist poet, writer, and librarian, whose various essays address critical thinking in diverse and creative ways. Lord, similar to Wolf, calls on us to engage in deep reading and comprehend and develop empathy for the other. Lord also helps us see what it means to go beyond pluralism and truly engage in critical thinking and hence develop empathy for the other. For her critical thinking is far more than tolerance of the other to whom we are indifferent. In a letter written in 1984 and addressed to the organizers of a conference on the lives of American woman, she wrote, difference must be not merely tolerated, but seen as a fund of necessary polarities between which our creativity can spark like a dialectic within the interdependence of mutual non-dominant difference. She further clarified what she meant by non-dominant difference in another essay, also written the same here, where she argued that racism, sexism, heterosexism, and homophobia represent an inability to recognize the notion of difference as a dynamic human force, one which is enriching rather than threatening to the defined self when there are shared goals. So, Lord is making a distinction between dominant differences and non-dominant differences which are not about racism, sexism, homophobia, but rather the notion of difference as a dynamic human force which is enriching when there are shared goals. Lord challenged the distorted view of relationships that lead from disagreement to destruction. She wrote, quote, this jugular vain psychology is based on the fallacy that your assertion or affirmation of self is an attack upon myself or that my defining myself will somehow prevent or retard your self-definition, unquote. Instead she envisioned, quote, moving together as self-defined persons toward a common goal. Anything short of this was to Lord an oversimplified approach and an incomplete vision. For her critical thinking was not an academic question but a skill for survival and creating a world in which people do not simply tolerate each other but come together through shared knowledge and understanding and help each other flourish as caring and empathetic human beings. This is what Lord saw as the mission of librarians. What we see in both Wolf and Lord is an appropriation and further development of the concept of humanism with its roots in the Socratic method of dialogical or dialectical reasoning and the Aristotelian ethical concept of seeing the other not simply as a mere means but as ends in themselves. However, unlike the ancient Greeks or some of the later European humanist thinkers who limited their concept of humanity to property men and accepted slavery and the oppression of women, Wolf and Lord see humanism as a philosophy of critical thinking and empathy that can liberate the ordinary public and especially the marginalized and the underserved. Now I would like to devote the rest of my presentation to discussing how critical thinking can translate into library programs and partnerships. So this this section is titled library programs that promote critical thinking, democracy and empathy. The year 2022 marks the 90th anniversary of the publication of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, a work depicting a future in which a caste-based misogynistic totalitarian state capitalist system rules the world. The family and emotional love have been abolished, embryos start in test tubes, fetuses grow in incubators, babies and children are raised and ideologically conditioned by the states. Thinking and reading of books are banned but unlimited use of drugs and sex are promoted. In his Brave New World Revisited published in 1958, which includes Huxley's reflections on his book, Huxley has argued that he views this type of authoritarianism as more viable than that depicted in George Orwell's 1984 in which more force and brutality is used to promote dictatorship. Whether the future of humanity will be like Huxley's Brave New World or Orwell's 1984 or a combination of the two, there is no doubt that a dystopian authoritarian system ruling the whole world is not so fantastical given the current global rise of authoritarianism and neo-fascism. Given these very ominous possibilities, I would argue that for librarians, organizing programs that promote critical thinking and empathy is the most practical response. Here I would like to offer ideas for four types of focus areas for programs. Philosophy, world literature, feminism and current world events. So first philosophy. During my 20 years or over 20 years as an adult librarian at the Los Angeles Public Library, I conducted philosophy classes that were popular and mostly well attended. For these classes, we relied on videotape lectures from the teaching company on the great ideas of philosophy, masters of Greek thought and Plato's Republic. The teaching company offers a variety of videotape courses and gives permission to libraries to use their courses for programs. In the various philosophy series that I organized, each session started with showing a 30 minute lecture and then continued with 45 minutes of facilitated discussion. I usually took about 15 minutes of the facilitated discussion time to further clarify and explore the themes of the reading and the lecture before questions and comments from other participants. These classes taught us a great deal about the principles of critical thinking and allowed us to discuss those principles in relationship to the questions of the day. For instance, Plato in his Republic argues that democracy is based on arbitrariness and lacking critical thinking and principles leads to tyranny. He says that it leads to the rise of demagogues who use the populist language of being for the people to promote their own self-interest. Our library discussion on Plato's Republic led us to conversations on how to teach democracy and distinguish between a thinking democracy and a thoughtless democracy. It led participants to the conclusion that critical thinking is a necessary part of being human if we want to survive. Discussions on philosophy and critical thinking also need not be limited to adults. Thanks to books such as Philosophy for Kids and Philosophy for Teens which come with guides for discussion and exercises, it is possible to have truly exciting and fun philosophy programs at the library for younger age groups. Whether it's with courses from the teaching company or books on philosophy for kids and teens, we as librarians can take responsibility for facilitating these discussions if we have time to prepare for them. If not, we can reach out to local educators or retired educators who are often willing to do the preparation and act as facilitators free of charge. The second topic I would like to propose is the World Literature Discussion Series. Librarians are very good at having book discussions, whether through in-person book clubs or via Zoom. What I would like to emphasize here is the need for a consistent and persistent attention to world literature and global non-fiction in order to promote knowledge of and empathy with other cultures and peoples. Some works in the latter category are originally written in English. For example, Azar Nafici's Reading Lolita and Tehran which gives readers a powerful understanding of what happened in Iran after the 1979 revolution and recounts the efforts of an English professor to promote critical thinking through discussing world literature with her students even as the religious fundamentalists took over the country. This book will in fact face a renewed interest now with the current mass protests of Iranian women against the compulsory hijab and for women's rights free speech and against a religious fundamentalist government in Iran. There are other relatively recent translated works of literature or non-fiction which deserve special attention. Works such as Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk's My Name is Read about 16th century life in Ottoman Turkey or the works of Andrei Kurkov and acclaimed Ukrainian writer who writes in Russian or the works of the Egyptian feminist Nawal al-Sadawi who wrote in Arabic or the selected writings of Chinese Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo. As the 2023 co-chair of the PEN translation committee I'm currently involved in an effort to create a speakers bureau for the committee. The translation committee is part of PEN International a 70-year-old organization of writers devoted to free speech and human rights. The speakers bureau includes stellar translators who have translated a variety of works of world literature and are willing to offer book talks to public libraries either in person or via Zoom. For example, Sandra Smith has translated various books of the Ukrainian Jewish novelist Irena Nemirovsky and also most recently Simone de Beauvoir's Inseparables, a book which is appropriate for both an adult and a young adult audience. Smith is available to speak about any of her translations or these and other French writers in general. Jeremy Tiang a Chinese translator novelist and playwright who has offered is also another another possible candidate who is offered to speak about the folktale Nine Colored Deer which they have translated from Chinese. Such a partnership with PEN can greatly enrich library programs. The third topic that I would like to propose a series topic that I would like to propose is feminism and women's rights. So this would be a feminism discussion series. Whether it's reproductive rights or the Me Too movement against gender violence or gender identity and gender orientation, feminism is a hot and timely topic to discuss. The fact that the extreme right is banning books on these topics and accusing librarians of pedophilia, unquote, should be even more of a reason for us to address these issues in rational and thoughtful ways. According to a poll from the National Public Radio and Ipsos earlier this year, only 18% of US parents said their child school taught about gender and sexuality in a way that clashed with their family values. 19% said the same about race and racism. Thus in fact most parents in the US are supportive of the teachers and librarians who educate their children. This means that the majority of parents in the US are not offended by the mission of libraries to promote diversity and critical thinking. It means that we librarians should not be intimidated by the bullying minority. In that spirit I would like to propose that public libraries hold discussion series on the future of feminism and women's rights and allow the public to learn about the basic ideas of women's rights as well as the different themes within feminism today. In my book Socialist Feminism A New Approach, which was just published by Pluto Press, I have examined the contradictory developments within global gender relations in the past 40 years and have also critically evaluated four series of gender oppression. The book comes with a free of charge online workbook study guide which contains key terms and study questions for classrooms, community and library study groups or by individuals. It also serves offers and extensive bibliography. In addition books such as Unbound by Tarana Burke, founder of the Me Too movement or collections such as Abolition Feminisms by Alicia Bieria or Black Feminist Reader by Joy James and Tracy Sharply Whiting or Profit and Pleasure by Rosemary Hennessey among others can be illuminating resources. I hope these books and others can be useful for librarians who want to organize discussions on the future of feminism and gender equity. So this is the last section, the last type of program that I would like to propose current world events discussion series. Whether it is climate change seen in the increasing fires in California or immigration or the war in Ukraine or the state of the economy, there are topics that the public is hungry to hear discussed in a coherent thoughtful, informative, analytical manner and not just with sound bites or quick tidbits on the news interrupted by commercials. Thanks to some excellent Pan America videos on media literacy, librarians can make media literacy a regular feature of programming whether for adults or teens or children. Media literacy or teaching people how to spot misinformation and disinformation is only part of the task however. We also need regular discussions on topics in the news with a librarian or a local educator, facilitator who is qualified has done enough research to present the facts and the main issues and can offer a couple of suggested readings and discuss the issue in a thoughtful and informative manner. So just to sum up in the end, in all the above proposed program series, the learning objectives will be threefold. First, identifying and comprehending the basic principles of critical thinking and how it relates to promoting democracy and empathy. Second, applying the basic principles of critical thinking to an understanding of human rights and current world events and third, articulating and formulating the process of engaging in respectful and constructive conversations that address differences and controversial issues by reaching out for solutions. So thank you for this opportunity and I hope this presentation has helped motivate us all to take responsibility for cultivating critical thinking as we shape the future of libraries in these momentous times.