The Outreach and Member Engagement Subcommittee held its latest CAA Reacts meeting last night, June 6, at Empirical Brewery. Five members attended, and we had a wide-ranging discussion on decentering whiteness in archives. We used Michelle Caswell and Gracen Brilmyer’s poster pages (http://www.gracenbrilmyer.com/dismantling_whiteSupremacy_archives3.pdf) as jumping-off points, and also talked about some of our own past and current projects.

Topics ranged from description (reparative processing, undoing "sanitized" descriptions, community assistance in identifying metadata, the role of memory in collecting) and appraisal (power structures inherent in being the collector); to access and use (requiring ID, experiences and treatment of people of color in archival reading rooms) and professional life (is CAA doing enough?).

Due to the wide range of points discussed, notes with links can be found here: 20190606 CAA Reacts notes if anyone is interested. 

Our next CAA Reacts will be September 10, and we welcome input on topics or speakers!

Feel free to upload any other photos taken at this event to our photo folder.