How many of you racist mofos have used the Dewey Decimal System?

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A librarian at Cornell University has claimed libraries are 'fraught with racism' - and highlighted their outdated book classification system as evidence.

Reanna Esmail, an outreach and engagement librarian at Cornell's Olin Library, spoke during a discussion last Friday aimed at combatting anti-Asian racism.

She said: 'As a librarian, I see the ways in which my profession has the capacity to confront bias and misinformation in ways we approach and teach information and digital literacy.

'Libraries are predominantly white fields, and Cornell is no exception in this regard. Libraries themselves also have a fraught history of being complicit in racism, and in some cases, upholding and disseminating racist ideas.'

She made the comment during a virtual school event on Confronting Anti-Asian Racism on Friday. Esmail said she believes libraries should be held accountable for reinforcing white supremacy, even if it's inadvertent, The Cornell Daily Sun reported.

Esmail used the example of the the Dewey Decimal System to illustrate her point.

The system, also known as DDC, was devised my American librarian Melvil Dewey in 1876. It is used to classify books by subject by awarding them a number between 000 and 999. Decimal points are then used to subdivide categories further - 974 is used for New England, with 974.1 given to Maine, 974.2 used for New Hampshire, and so on.

Esmail accused the DDC of using 'outdated' language to refer to Asian people. She did not elaborate further, but the system gives individual codes to many western countries, but then refers to Thai people as 'Tai,' and puts them into the same 'miscellaneous' category as people from Vietnam.

Similarly, the entire continent of Africa is lumped under a single sub-heading, which also includes people from Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.

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