Empowering White People to Educate Themselves: A Call to Utilize Local Libraries for Informed Conversations

White people, I’m gonna put y’all on game real quick. So don’t say I never did anything for you. I feel like I’ve been seeing a lot of videos on this app of white people trying to start conversations or asking genuine questions about things and kind of using TikTok as a public forum to explore certain topics. And I would really just like to remind you all that you probably have a local library near you and there is probably someone who has written a book about the question that you’re asking, but probably an article that you can read online in your local library can probably get you access to some of the ones that are paywall, because I see a lot of y’all trying to start these conversations, and there are conversations that we’ve already been having. The conversation has already been started. We’ve gone through the lecture. There has been an extended Ape P course and you are just late. And that’s okay. We all learn things at different times and no one knows everything. But a lot of you all are making these videos, trying to start conversations, and then people jump down your throat or get kind of frustrated and upset in the comments because you are opening up a can of worms that has been open for a very long time. And then I see a lot of y’all get really frustrated and feel like you’re being attacked. And I know that y’all, a lot of times are asking in good faith, but you aren’t putting in any genuine effort to answer the questions. And then you’re expecting us to be like free Ted talks, free. You see how that gets kind of annoying? So next time you get the urge to open your phone and ask the internet something that you could probably find on your own, go hit up your local library, and they’re being attacked right now and they need your extra attendance and they need your support. So go hit up your local librarian. Go use the free access that your library probably gives you to scholarly peer reviewed resources and do some research. We don’t have to start with TikTok. We don’t have to put these raw bots out there. We can do a little bit of research. We can do a little bit of investigation before we come on here and put ourselves in front of the internet.