‘How Do We Hold People Accountable for Wrongdoing And Yet Remian in Touch With their Humanity Enough To Believe In Their Capacity to Change?’ Bell Hooks

Can communities buld a new relationship of trust with their (ex ) oppressors?

This blog is taken from the Christmas Edition of my newsletter, which is part of my creative liberation business, Die4Art. My approach to decolonization is holistic: to be a courageous ally and social justice warrior begins with spiritual healing of Self (especially for those who identify as women from marginalised backgrounds). It starts with having tough, honest conversations within our families—learning how to face uncomfortable truths break generational curses and creating space for real change. These conversations help us challenge old ways of thinking and build stronger, more empathetic connections. The best part? The skills we develop in our families can be applied to larger issues, like racial justice. If we can handle the hard talks with our loved ones, can we take that same courage out into the world and have difficult conversations with our colleagues?

Rebuilding a Relationship of Trust with Difficult Family Members

Right now, as I write this, I am feeling anger, resentment, and even paranoia toward people I know love me but have triggered deep core traumas of being unseen and having my needs ignored.

The problem with any form of guidance or self-help found on the internet is that it often feels shallow and detached from reality. It is often rooted in unrealistic idyllic idleness, assuming forgiveness is easy, even passive. Advice like, "Turn the other cheek" or "Be the bigger person," while well-meaning, often ignores the weight of negative emotions that can take a long time to unpack.

I could write a positive, polished piece urging you to transcend your feelings, but that would ignore the raw, messy truth of healing. It would ignore the very real emotions which can take a while to process. Luckily I am someone who had years of therapy, counselling, art therapy, so I know the process. For those who don’t, this writing is for you.

Lesson #1: There’s No Such Thing as a Perfect Family

Do you know anyone with that idyllic, Disney-style family? I don’t. I’ve been exposed to families across all kinds of socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds. The white millionaire families I encountered as a child when I went to private school were as dysfunctional as the Black and brown working class families I grew up around: full of estrangement and buried pain ; scarred by generational trauma handed down like a bitter legacy.

Society loves to sell us a rosy picture of family relationships, but the reality is that real families are messy, complicated, and imperfect. Accepting that truth is liberating. It allows you to set aside impossible expectations and see people for who they really are: flawed humans, projecting their shadows onto you because they don’t know how to face them themselves

Recognising this in your own family begings the shift of: It’s not you; it’s them. Their behaviour isn’t a reflection of your worth but of their own struggles. They don’t resent you because there’s something wrong with you, they resent the parts of themselves or their lives they can’t accept. So they project their self hatred on to you, making you resent parts of you and project on to others which is how the cycle of generational trauma continues

If you are reading this you are already disrupting this though. Because, from that realization should comes a glimmer of compassion. Not pity, and not forgiveness yet, but a loosening of resentment’s grip. Compassion whispers, “I see how your personal wounds and unhealed trauma make you difficult towards me .”

Lesson #2 Moving from Compassion to Forgiveness

Some people are so horrible it is as if their souls are lost souls that may never find their way back in this lifetime. Like bell hooks, I do want to believe that people are capable of reconnection and transformation. But that’s their journey, not yours; something you cannot control.

What you can control is this: forgiveness.

Forgiveness doesn’t mean excusing their behaviour or giving them access to your life. Forgiveness is for you.

Take the example of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). After decades of apartheid—a system defined by systemic racism, oppression, and violence—South Africa had to confront its deeply scarred past.

The TRC wasn’t about pretending atrocities didn’t happen or urging victims to “move on.” It was about facing the truth. Victims shared their pain. Perpetrators could apply for amnesty, but only if they confessed fully and proved their crimes were politically motivated. It was controversial, yet it prioritized transparency and healing over vengeance.

Some victims forgave, not because they were required to, but because it freed them from being consumed by their pain. Others couldn’t or chose not to, and that was valid too.

Therapy taught me that forgiveness is liberating for your soul. I’ve forgiven those who hurt me: my mother, who projected her anger onto me as a child because she witnessed her father physically and sexually abuse my grandmother. My father, who was absent for much of my early life, was paralyzed by his own fear of becoming the kind of father his was: someone who could not meet his child’s needs.

Forgiveness doesn’t erase the harm. It’s about releasing yourself from the power their harm is holding over you.

More Lessons I Learned From Therapy

1. Truth Comes First: Healing begins with naming the harm. Therapy was transformative because it helped me confront those truths. If you’ve never tried therapy, this is your sign to look into it in 2025.

2. Forgiveness Is an Invitation, Not a Requirement: Forgiveness can be a profound gift to yourself. It’s about reclaiming your freedom from the prison of anger and resentment.

3. Boundaries Are Essential: Forgiving someone doesn’t mean reconciling with them. It doesn’t mean letting them continue to hurt you. Some relationships are better left at a distance, and that’s okay.

4. Accountability Matters: Forgiveness doesn’t replace justice. The TRC wasn’t about letting perpetrators off the hook—it was about truth and accountability. In your life, accountability might mean calling out harmful behavior or walking away from relationships that are beyond repair.

For instance, I recently quit a job that was causing harm to my mental health. It was a difficult, life-changing decision, but one that had to be made. Are there family relationships in your life that require similar honesty and boundaries? Do you need to walk away?

Moving forward in 2025?

Not every family relationship will heal, no matter how much effort you put into it. And that’s okay. Focus on what you can control: your actions, your words, and your perspective.

If things get heavy during family gatherings (looking at you, holiday season), prioritize your well-being:

Step outside for a walk.
Go to another room and practice deep breathing or grounding exercises.
Repeat affirmations like, “I am worthy of love and respect,” or, “Their actions don’t define my worth.”

If self-care feels overwhelming, I’m creating a YouTube video on this topic. You can subscribe here.

Forgiveness isn’t about excusing or forgetting. It’s about reclaiming your power. It’s about saying, “You hurt me, but you don’t get to keep hurting me by living in my head.”

You may not be able to rebuild a relationship with every difficult family member, but you can rebuild the relationship you have with yourself. Let go of the resentment, pain, and unmet expectations that weigh you down. That is a gift worth giving—especially to yourself.

Merry Christmas and see you next year

Naomi

Reimagining Western Libraries for Decolonial Futures and Decolonial Epistemic Justice

For me, decolonizing the mind means questioning our ways of being (ontology), our ways of knowing (epistemology), and our design and purpose (teleology). This provocative essay aims to provoke this by shattering what we think we know about libraries; the mainstream assumption that the Library is a safe and benevolent institution. By exposing the relationship between Librarianship, colonialism and white supremacy It is hoped that we can begin a much-needed conversation about this issue and continue to develop conversations on how to design he decolonial future we are all aiming for.

A good starting-point is what does a decolonial future look like for you? The term ‘decolonial’ is open to many different meanings based on geographical context and personal identity. Nonetheless, within the Slow Factory community, there's arguably a shared philosophical and spiritual vision of a decolonial future where equity and justice have won; and where historical, systematic, and structural violence have ended

through the dismantling of oppressive institutions and the use of indigenous wisdom to shape and create new systems. For me, when freedom dreaming what the new decolonial world will look like, I regularly ask myself whether current [colonial] institutions can evolve and be re- imagined to fit into a new world, or whether they require complete abolition? It may come as a shock to many that my line of work (Critical Librarianship) involves arguing that the Library, often seen as a ‘neutral’ and ‘benevolent’ institution, requires significant re-imagining. Since completing a Master’s degree in Race and Resistance. In 2018, followed by a Masters in Library and Information Studies in 2020, I have heldvarious roles in academic libraries. Although I benefit from ight-skinned privilege, as a black woman, being a librarian isn't the safe or ‘cute’ profession many assume it to be. In a field dominated by middle-class white women (Statisticsvary slightly but 82% - 96.7% of librarians are white in the UK and USA). Racism from library colleagues and library users is commonly experienced by librarians, libraryassistants and library technicians of colour. This takes many forms. For example, I plan to publish an open-access article on the regularity of hair microaggressions I and other racialized black and female gendered librarians have experienced in UKlibraries. Unfortunately, this will build on and echo other documented experiences of microaggressions and forms of racism(s) experienced by librarians in USA.

The physical whiteness of the profession is not the only reason why I argue librariesare in need of a radical reimagination. There is a deeper and more serious issue of epistemic violence. We are all familiar with the phrase ‘Knowledge is Power’ and often view it as a positive term. This is a one-dimensional understanding of the phrase though. ‘Knowledge is Power’ underlines the reality that colonial hegemonic Power controls, owns, shapes and influences what is passed onto to us as ‘knowledge’.

However, did you know Western Libraries played a key role in this process? Whilst pre-colonial societies, of course, had their own forms of knowledge preservation and production, they differed significantly from the modern libraries we know and visit today. One major difference is that pre-colonial societies gave great importance to oraltraditions and other indigenous modes of communication. Indigenous wisdom was often passed down through family lines, secret societal rituals and divination, folklore and stories, symbols, languages and other modes of communication whichColonialism destroyed. Personally, I have indigenous American in my DNA. Aspects of this identity will forever be out of reach to me because the vocabulary and knowledge needed to access the Truth has been systematically and epistemically destroyed by Settler Colonialism. Western Libraries played a key role in this epistemic destruction. Libraries were established by European colonial powers, with specific concentration on writtenmaterials to dismantle local knowledge, suppress local language and traditions and replace them with ‘civilised’ Western knowledge and culture. Even today, academic institutions and consequently their libraries continue to favour and place emphasis on written materials over oral knowledge, and in particular western forms of knowledge from the Global North The dominance of English-speaking Western scholars, largely from hetero-normative, cisgender male, white, European backgrounds, clearly

reinforces systematic othering and exclusion created by colonialism. Moreover, it is further evidence of the negative entanglements between ‘knowledge’ and power.Power defines knowledge because as Audre Lorde noted “power writes the books”(and builds, designs and defines the educational holders of this knowledge such as libraries)

The acquisition of library resources is also historically intertwined with global epistemic oppression for other reasons. For example, modern library collections often include artifacts and documents which were acquired through colonial exploitation and plunder. Indeed, I have worked in an academic library that prided itself on having oneof the earliest copies of the Quran. The document was ultimately stolen by a white British colonist visiting the UAE. Furthermore, the way resources are classified in libraries is also embedded with colonialist biases. Users of libraries know that library books have a unique code on their spine which is how they are found by users and how they are catalogued in library systems. The Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) and Library of Congress Classification (LCC) systems, which are widely used for cataloguing books, reflect Eurocentric biases because of who designed them. For instance, “ LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex) topics have been classified as Abnormal Psychology, Perversion, Derangement, as a Social Problem and even as Medical Disorders. Similarly, the Library of Congress only recently ceased using the term "illegal aliens" to describe non-citizens who have entered the United States without authorization. It is of course undeniable that public access to information, via institutions like Libraries, is vital for governance and civil life. As Slow Factory have posted before “we can’t dismantle systems of oppressions without critical thinking and open education”. Libraries arguably can provide thus by facilitating access to knowledge, education, and diverse perspectives. Arguably, this is why they have been attacked by many conservatives in the US, through book banning which form a wider political strategy of anti-decolonisation. Similarly, in the UK, tax cuts have meant many public libraries have been forced to close. This further reduces communities’ access to information that can surely help to liberate their minds and consciousness. Nevertheless, this information is not neutral. Decisions such as who writes, and about whom and in what format; who gets to have a platform, who gets published, who hastheir voice amplified, who has their voice suppressed are choices that continue to bemade by hegemonic identities and institutions like libraries. Therefore, libraries aren’t neutral. They are part of a wider structure that needs to be disrupted if we are to create a decolonial future.

Whilst there are many BIPOC and Critical librarians such as myself and others who are doing the much-needed physical and emotional labour to decolonise libraries, we cannot work in siloes to do this work. We need more of you to disrupt the Western Library. Therefore, the next time you walk into a library, remember they are not neutral institutions or spaces. Begin to ask critical questions such as: Whose knowledge and knowledge methods are missing? How many non-white library staff can you see, and if you see them, question if they are truly happy and safe? Can you see any signs that show the library space has been designed to promote intersectional ways of being and knowing for multiple intersectional communities? Library work is clearly political and whilst many of you reading this essay may have had pleasant experiences in libraries,if “the rhetoric surrounding librarianship continues to border on vocational and sacred language rather than acknowledging that librarianship is a profession […]and as an institution, historically and contemporarily flawed, we [will continue ] to do ourselves a disservice”. As already mentioned, Decolonizing our minds entails questioning our ways of being, knowing, and purpose. Rethinking the design, purpose, and essence of libraries, and challenging our beliefs about them and the knowledge they hold is integral for a decolonial epistemic justice and a decolonial future in general.

To research further into some of the issues mentioned in this article access

these free open access resources:

Vocational Awe and Librarianship: The Lies we tell ourselves by Fobazi Ettarah

https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/

Libraries, Silence and Social Justice; why finding our voice and being mouthy is needed by Caroline Ball and Naomi Smith : Read Here

How Effective are Academic Libraries' Attempts at Dismantling Racism? by Naomi Smith https://www.earll.co.uk/post/how-effective-are-academic-libraries-attempts-at-dismantling-racism

Change the Subject Documentary | Full Length | Watch this film and learn why

“words are also actions.” The Change the Subject documentary has been screened

at over one hundred universities and libraries in the United States and around the

world, and has inspired library workers to address the ways that systemic racism

continues to pervade institutions, particularly in controlled vocabularies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SroscdR7-Y

Libraries are not neutral: A pocket sized guide to libraries and their colonial legacy: https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/en/publications/libraries-are-not-neutral-a-pocket-sized-guide-to-libraries-and-t

Knowledge Justice: Disrupting Library and Information Studies through Critical Race Theory : Black, Indigenous, and Peoples of Color scholars use critical race theory (CRT) to challenge the foundational principles, values, and assumptions of Library and Information Science and Studies (LIS) in the United States. They propel CRT to center stage in LIS, to push the profession to understand and reckon with how white supremacy affects practices, services, curriculum, spaces, and policies.

https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-edited-volume/5114/Knowledge-JusticeDisrupting-

Library-and

Critical Library Studies guide by Symphony Bruce

https://subjectguides.library.american.edu/c.php?g=1025915&p=7749810

Inclusivity and library cataloguing

https://www.zotero.org/groups/4901078/social_justice_and_higher_education/collecti

ons/P3GEBWTV

up//root is a community + publishing platform amplifying critical voices in

libraries, archives and cultural heritage

https://www.uproot.space/about;

We Here®️ seeks to provide a safe and supportive community for Black and

Indigenous folks, and People of Color (BIPOC) in library and information