Article

We Already Know (Better): Private Thoughts, C/overt Harm, And A Call to Center Beneficence in Librarianship

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Abstract

As direct actions and corresponding documentation of the brisk desertion of equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) values and activities continue within the United States academic landscape, troubling ideas linking EDI efforts to invasions of privacy are attempting to be seeded in the LIS field. However, lived experiences of historically ignored and racialized library workers who have been harmed in library workplaces reveal that resistance to authentic acceptance and integration of EDI have long been made known by the dominant membership of the field through both unconscious and deliberate responses to EDI at all levels of development, and even during its absence—from the simple presence of BIPOC librarians to the funding of recruitment and retention programs. Recognizing that c/overt EDI resistance both intensifies harm and reveals a willingness to turn away from interrupting harm, I explore parallels between EDI and beneficence, posit EDI resistance and thought privacy rhetoric as proxy resistance to difficult knowledge, share narrative data revealing BIPOC library workers’ observations of long-standing industrial ambivalence and resistance to EDI, and call for the practice of beneficence—already recognized by and intentionally practiced in professions centered on helping individuals not only survive, but thrive, by reducing known harms and recognizing and mitigating harms as they arise during research, inquiry, and practice.

Keywords: beneficence, low-morale experience, EDI, diversity rhetoric

How to Cite:

Kendrick, K. D., (2025) “We Already Know (Better): Private Thoughts, C/overt Harm, And A Call to Center Beneficence in Librarianship”, The Political Librarian 8(2), 35-44.