White ascendency is the system of “thinking and behavior that arise from White mainstream authority and advantage, which in turn are generated from Whiteness’s historical position of power and domination” (Gusa pp. 472). This leads to a sense of White entitlement, the notion that it is right and natural for Whites to maintain control over spaces, discourses, and outcomes.
White ascendency can be seen in the domination of white voices in our collections, as well as the sense that this is both right and natural. This reflects a history of white domination in the academy, including white privilege in hiring and promotion of faculty and librarians, privilege in the selection of books published by academic presses, and privilege in which voices are included in syllabi, curricula, and assigned as textbooks.
White ascendency and entitlement is also reflected in the anticipated users of our collections. Library collections historically reflect an “imperialist desire to know and gather the cultural artifacts of marginalized cultures” (Brook, Ellenwood, and Lazzaro; 2015) Thus even our materials on diverse topics are often not for diverse communities, but instead for white consumption.
When we work to change the white domination of our collections, we frequently see white entitlement in the pushback to the diversification and weeding of collections.