Black NYU librarian complains of “race fatigue” dealing with whites

A librarian at New York University suffered “serious race fatigue” at Chicago’s American Library Association (ALA) last month, experiencing “mounting anger and frustration” after having hit her limit of dealing with white people.

April Hathcock, scholarly communication librarian at NYU, summed up her experience at the ALA in her blog as nothing short of a sea of excruciating whiteness.

“Five straight days of being tone-policed and condescended to and ‘splained to” by an “88 percent white” profession, she wrote. “Five days of mounting anger and frustration that you struggle to keep below the surface because you can’t be the ‘angry and emotional person of color’ yet again.”


She went on to complain about white men holding higher positions with higher pay and not understanding “the basics of systemic oppression.” Then she took a shot, saying, “They’re librarians. You’d think they’d know how to find and read a sociology reference, but whatever.”

The “nice white ladies” also gave her race fatigue, reminding her to be “civil and professional” when speaking about “the importance of acknowledging oppression and our profession’s roll in it.”

All was not lost in self-induced racial animosity, however, as she also “caught up with friends and colleagues of color and met new ones” and described those as the moments that kept her going.

Hathcock presented along with two other panelists on “Intellectual Freedom and Open Access: Working Toward a Common Goal?”

Although her position as a librarian at NYU revolves around issues of ownership, access and rights in the research lifecycle, her research interests are more racial in nature and include, diversity and inclusion in librarianship, cultural creation and exchange, and the ways in which social and legal infrastructures benefit the works of certain groups over others.

7 thoughts on “Black NYU librarian complains of “race fatigue” dealing with whites

  1. This the end result of massive and unwarranted education of people who do not beling in any educational setting. I have race fatigue dealing with blacks.


  2. It sounds to me like she is unqualified for the job. And she wonders why other people have higher positions with more pay.

    Fire her unappreciative ass. Give the job to someone who will appreciate it.


  3. How did this woman get her job since she knew that she would be dealing with white people, and black people, yellow people, brown people, red people and some that come in rainbow colors?

    Oh, she was hired by NYU. Nevermind!


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