The Fort Wayne Parks and Recreation Department presents Community Concerts this summer at the Foellinger Theatre - featuring music for all ages.

Friday, it's the Fort Wayne Childrens Choir on stage starting at 7:00.

Details at FortWayneParks.org.

and a movement originated in Denmark in 2000 where instead of borrowing a book to read a story you borrow a person instead.

>> The idea is to publish people as open books so that a person can ask questions of someone's life and experience.

And we'll learn more about the Fort Wayne Human Library on this week's Prime Time.

Good evening.

I'm Bruce Haines and with us today is Dustin Thorpe.

He is Headly rarin at the Fort Wayne Human Library and Thumper who serves also as a library and ambassador at the Fort Wayne Human Library.

>> And we're glad you're here as well to check out that story and also to join us in the conversation regarding you see the number on the screen.

>> Feel free to call with any questions or comments as we widen out and welcome to your TV screen.

>> There's me there's Dustin.

Thank you both for being here.

Thank you for having us.

>> It's a natural first question.

It's really easy.

What is the human library?

>> So I'll go and take that one.

The Human Library is an organization that provides a safe space for people to come in and check out books and those books are human beings who have experienced stigma's prejudice bias, hate crimes and they are typically within our organization.

They are organization is filled with mostly minorities or people of minority and then those books have also experienced something along the lines of social prejudices or people who work in areas with stigmas that people wouldn't normally talk to.

So you come in, you check these people out and you're able to have a 30 minute conversation with them.

But the difference is with us and other people in other organizations is that you control the conversation.

You're the one who is asking the questions of the title of that person and making sure that you're trying to understand them better and hopefully at the end maybe you're challenging yourself to maybe unjudged somebody.

But at the end all we really want is an open minded conversation between individuals so that we can bring more people together.

>> Mm hmm.

May how about for yourself the the idea of having an orientation where voices can be heard but it isn't at a high volume.

It's a very conversational kind of check out and reference and interaction.

>> Mm hmm.

So when I hear at the human library, um no monolingual librarian is just the library where you would check out books Bahir hear the attached name is Human Librarian and when a friend of mine introduced me to a human library I was hesitated because I wasn't sure how that would go to having a conversation to another person especially with my background and to be able to sit in and just have a conversation like a cup of tea conversation have very it's really nice.

>> And in those conversations I believe the founder had even said that these are not motivated by an agenda.

These are not motivated by by a political thing or any it's all apolitical and that in fact you're giving the steering wheel of the conversation to the person who's borrowing the book.

>> Absolutely.

I think one a great quote from a movie that I that I typically say to our guests as they come in to the human library from Goodwill Hunting is that epic scene with Robin Williams and Matt Damon where they're sitting in front of the in front of the pond and he's talking to him and he says and he says something like and I'm paraphrasing here he says I just because I've read Mark Twain does not mean that I understand what it means to be what I mean what it means for you to be a foster kid.

And the only way that I can get to know you is for you to be able to open up to me and for me to get inside of that and that is our letters a whole entire strategy for the person to be able to talk and get that kind of notion or whatever their prejudice or biases, stigmas or just trying to get to know somebody new within the community so it Ronnie Abargil Ebru had said that all of us have unconscious bias, all of us judge and will judge something based on just little information if we get the chance.

>> But that this is about I love this navigating the dangers of diversity but that we're saying come and unjudged and that strength can come from diversity but only if we embrace it.

>> What are your thoughts on?

>> My thoughts on that is that it's really hard for us to uh to in a way with other people day to day but to be able to have that chance to strengthen our point of view on these other experiments is really a wonderful thing for him.

>> The dangers of diversity was related to things that we don't understand or the things are just foreign to us.

>> So we just put up a wall and the conversation knocks the wall down.

I mean studies show it only takes a tenth of a second for an individual to base a judgment on somebody just by their visual science.

So and we all do it or we have we prejudge people before we see them and we hear a name or something like that and the wall comes up and what we're trying to do is knock that wall down or just make them a little more experienced and knowledgeable based on the people within the community and these books.

One thing that I want to say these books aren't representing an entire community as the mayor is not representing an entire refugee community or a trans books aren't representing entire trans community.

They're representing their individual selves, their own personal lived experiences, which is what's great because you get to learn about somebody new along with their title and then being able to move along through there through cohesiveness.

>> So we mentioned at the beginning that the concept of the human library started in Denmark.

>> Yep.

In Copenhagen and now it's I believe as they say a global bestseller more than 80 countries 80 plus 85 thousand something books available in 50 different languages and so all the way from Denmark to Indiana.

>> How did the Indiana version of all this come to be so in twenty eighteen actually our original founders of the Fort Wayne area were Alan Sauer and Nicole King.

We want to give them their due diligence.

They brought it to Fort Wayne and followed along with the international organization they stepped away in 2010 right before the pandemic and then myself and for me and for other people who are now the depot managers we stepped in and because we wanted to keep it going we thought this was a great opportunity we had built up a big community as far as books and on top of that the community wanted to see more of us as well.

>> So we've kept that going here in the Fort Wayne area and we continue to do that to this day and the kind of books that we were discussing this covers a wide range of of topics which and of course like any library that's being curated, there are always new books coming.

>> What was it like for you to step forward and think I could do this?

I could be a book.

>> What what goes on in that process?

Well, to be honest with you, in the beginning when I hear about the human library front of um actually from the the co-founder she approached me with a human library and I hesitated a little bit because it's harder for me to express myself and especially share my struggle and to take on the challenge of going out there and being open it take a courage for me and I I'm glad I take that courage especially because within the four when we have a high population immigrant refugee especially towards the Burmese communities and not a lot of people are able to interact with the Burmese community and having to create that bridge for them to interact is um really amazing for me.

>> Is there special training guidance and for that matter certain guardrails or guidelines for the person who's borrowing the book?

>> How does that.

Absolutely.

So in order to I guess kind of become a book or to be able to be a part of the process, the training you'll go through and we will do much of the interview process here in Fort Wayne if you're in the area.

But also at the same time we will make sure to send you to the international organization and you'll do all of that over resume at your own leisure and they will go ahead and give you two different types of trainings and they will go ahead and then send you back to us trained and there's there's obviously Enda's and other things that you need to sign.

But then once you get into actual events and just kind of the guardrails that you were talking about that we set in place for the books as they come in and maybe in the head librarian responsible for basically their safety and the safety of the books and the readers as they go along.

So if anything is going on that that isn't kosher with the reader or the book for that matter, they can kind of give me a heads up and I can come in and intervene or maybe kind of move the conversation along if there's a lull or something like that.

So there's there's there's measures in place to be able to to get trained and then also at the same time to be able to put in place while we have the events for their own protection for their safety.

>> So how has the experience been for you in these conversations and having that opportunity to share your story and hear what's on people's minds?

Oh, it has been very eye opening for me and as well as really connecting moment for me and for our communities.

>> Um, as a refugee bug, the bias about me is that I'm a refugee who is uneducated, who come to the land of Americans, the land of the opportunity to steal people dreams.

>> So I have that and going around the communities it has been very difficult for me to communicate with everyone, to connect with everyone and then having joined the human library and being able to share my discom nations and by is um I have opened a lot of opportunity for the community to learn about the refugee communities as a lot of our readers are those who are teachers who have students that are from the country and within the refugee families and get what they want and to bombard their students and they have the opportunity to check our human library and my book as a refugee.

>> They learn a lot and they have very appreciate it.

Our guests today are from the human library in Fort Wayne Mapai and Dustin Thorp joining us here in prime time talking about being a book in the Human Library Project and making yourself available.

>> Another human book is Charly's Jamison, a transgender woman living in Muncie, Indiana in a story for CNN in 2021, Charlie says she spent years denying who she was while working in corporate America.

We spoke with Charly's about what encouraged her to be a part of Muncie's Human Library .

I had never heard of it.

I had coffee with Peggy Lewis.

I was invited to coffee and she wanted to talk to me about this.

I had never never heard of it, didn't know anything about it.

But we were about 30 seconds into our conversation and I said yes, absolutely because I hadn't that long ago come out as transgender and what I learned quickly was there was so much education that needed to take place, so many myths, mistruths that were out there and I thought this what better way to help help do my little part and help educate than this?

>> So I was an immediate yes for me.

Yeah, I know that in the CNN story that about which you were a part that you wanted to encourage empathy.

>> Do you feel like that's happening?

Yeah, definitely.

I have to tell you when I of course I lived in Chicago for almost 20 years and it would have been so much easier to to do this in Chicago no one would have cared I would have stood out but when my father got ill and I came back to to Muncie that was the timing and I thought oh, this is going to be a disaster.

I'm going to lose I'm going to lose everybody all my friends.

I'm going to lose respect.

I'm going to lose just it was just going to be loss one loss after another.

And you know, the human library is all about judging people and I had done a pretty terrible job of judging the people of Muncie, prejudging and actually it's been just the opposite.

I haven't lost a single person of significance in my life since they came out.

I read reacquainted with many friends I've known for four or five decades and they're getting to know Charly's but it's been a it's been a wonderful experience, not what I expected.

So there's a lesson for me and for your listeners.

You know, don't judge a book by its cover .

>> Well, and that is a great segue to that notion of what the experience has been like for you and how that compares to the expectation of that experience when say you first volunteered you I had no idea what what to expect but it's been way more I thought I was going to do a few readings a year in Muncie and that would be pretty much it.

But I've gotten to Fort Wayne .

I've met some of the people there in the Fort Wayne depot traveled I was at the University of Chicago Medical School to talk to medical personnel about how they handle and treat transgender patients.

I've been to New York City.

We had an event with 40 or 50 of the top C C H.R.

people on the on the executive suite.

They came in from all over the country and so who I've been engaging with has been truly remarkable.

You know, as you know, I spent almost 30 years with Sears and I never had a single conversation even when I worked at the headquarters building I never had a single conversation with the chief human resources officer and here I am sitting in a room with 50 of them dialoging with them about hiring LGBT plus people.

Never in my wildest dream would I have thought that Turley's Jamison is one of many human books at the human library of Muncie the same experience available at the Human Library in Fort Wayne and Dustin, you were nodding as as you were hearing the video and I wonder you were talking about applications.

It's not only personal but there has been a corporate dimension to particularly in this time of a refocus on diversity, equity and inclusion in corporations.

>> Absolutely.

I think I think Charlie is actually kind of hit with more of that.

But for us here in the Fort Wayne area, something that we are able to participate in on a pretty regular basis and books all across the country and the world for that matter are able to get online we assume and to be able to do these events with international organization that set up these Zoome conferences month by month and be able to do these four different places.

We also hear within the Fort Wayne area have done stuff like that for Indiana Tech.

We've had Zoome conferences for them to be able to talk to students there and also at the same time we're actually working with the Diversity Equity and Inclusion team in Defiance, Ohio and that is actually one of our partnerships that we allow for the community to be able to do with us and we have been there already once this year and we're going back for a second time for another event October 21st.

One of the key segments I want to be sure we cover before the conclusion of the show is how folks get together with the books and it seems having a community event if not pushed online because of a pandemic if you can do them in person but walk us through what the event is a format is like and we have some images too I think to help tell that story.

>> Yeah, absolutely.

So what we what we have is we ran out Parke's Pavilion's the Allen County Public Library.

Some of the images that you're looking at her from events that we've had throughout the year that's when you park at Lakeside Park and then these events go from 11 to three.

All of our events are live in a three and then we set up we have the available and online books that are with us and anybody who is anybody can come to these events, come in, they'll talk to our person and check out any one of the books and we will sit them down, do a brief training and then get them in to be able to go and sit with the book of their choice.

>> And this is the area in case your book is onload in most cases it's just hanging in there in about a half an hour you'll have a chance.

Absolutely.

And these made these make me smile.

Explain explain what you have a chance to take a conventional freeze and just kind of play with it a little bit it looks like and there you see it as it goes through and really what in and around these events then are separate conversations.

>> Is that right?

Absolutely.

Even even our own books if they will, they will sit down with each other and and have their open discussions about about their different topics and they will sit down and have and do readings if they don't if they are being chosen or something like that.

But at the same time is that people want to maybe address is that if people are waiting and the book that they wanted to be able to check out, we actually very much encourage them to maybe challenge their own bias or stereotype.

They came in to support somebody on a day that maybe they check out a different book that they wouldn't or we recommend a book to them to be able to to kind of push that kind of the opportunity for them to see somebody different.

>> So some of the upcoming events include right downtown in Fryman Square.

>> Absolutely.

Yep.

Or Chastel the arts festival that is on the twenty sixth of August.

And then to me if you want to talk about the other three that we have going on.

>> Yeah.

Um so he mentioned take up all and then we have an app for Stoppard it would be unacceptable.

>> Sixty and then in December would be with Defiance College and October 21st and then lastly for this year we have in November the 18th at Freking Park and all of that is available on the organization's website.

>> We'll share that with you right now and that is Human Library F W and you dotcom of course and then forward slash events and you can get a chance to see when the opportunities arise for you to to interact with the human library and all of these you and I hope from the readers perspectives what's your sense of talking to patrons, if you will, following events of this kind?

And I'm sure it's a mix of things but are you encouraged by those reactions?

>> Yeah, I let them go first as a book I think to be great hear so that's the human books.

Like I said before it has been very wonderful for me to have a chance to share my story and then then once I shared my story with the readers I have a time to to fill out the service and in those service they were all share that ninety five percent of that one have not been able to get that chance to interact with someone that is from a refugee family household and staying with others who are from our book titles with with a lot of book titles like Immigrants Alcohol um uh adopter waves hit illness Muslins depressions and they get to choose to not have the chance to sit and uh have that conversation with those folks.

>> Yeah, they covered the comments keep coming back that people want to have safe spaces to connect and maybe diffuse some of the tension in the air.

It makes you wonder if in fact the library's mission is taking on maybe even more urgency in these recent times.

>> Absolutely.

Especially for maybe our maybe our LGBTQ plus community when they come in and they maybe reach out and they sit down with a parent of a trans child or a trans person or just people in general Muslim or different religions like we said, we're apolitical.

We're not pushing any type of agenda.

All we want is for people to be able to come and speak with people that they wouldn't regularly talk to or like I said, have those pre existing biases that they that they have already built up and and have that open dialog of questions that they already have within their mind to be able to talk and be able to ask them so and did I understand that the human library may even be an app or already is?

>> Absolutely is an app right now and that app is I think still in the still in the development stage like it it is here but it's not I don't think it's on a worldwide network yet so OK how about for folks who would like to get involved with the human library?

>> How do they go about doing it?

Absolutely they can contact us at a human library FWC at Gmail dot com and they can let us know or they can come to events and when once they filled out surveys or they come up and do the sign they can let us know and we have librarian book or other and they can mark any one of those down and let us know if they would like to do that and we get back to them as promptly as possible and if they end up being a librarian, I'm the one who reaches out to them are our other depot manager Jan. She reaches out to anybody that wants to become a book and she gets all the paperwork sent out and like I said, we also have a meeting with that person we assume or we meet them out for coffee on a on a day.

A few of us probably three of us from the team will sit down with them to be able to hear their story and see where they fit within our pillars of prejudice to see if they are able to be a part of our community so well and it sounds like there's nothing but growth opportunity for the Fort Wayne Human Library and so the future is looking good all the way around, right?

>> Oh right.

Right.

And again to circle the date with Taste of the Arts coming up next in August on the twenty sixth that's your next one.

And for a lot of information that you may have heard tonight would like to review again place online human library f w dot com where the chance again is to get us to get beyond the social media bubbles, the beliefs and come together some of the again it said and that's Ronnie Abagail strength can come from the diversity if only we embrace it and thank you for taking the time to introduce us to you.

>> Absolutely.

Thank you for sharing best wishes indeed.

Justin Dustin Thorp rather is the head librarian at Fort Wayne Human Library and a PA is an ambassador, a librarian, a human book all those things at the same time at the Fort Wayne Human Library.

>> Thank you so much for being a part of it all of us and you as well for everyone with prime time on Saints, thanks for watching and we'll see you back here again next week.

>> Good night The Fort Wayne Parks and Recreation Department presents Community Concerts this summer at the Foellinger Theatre - featuring music for all ages.

Friday, it's the Fort Wayne Childrens Choir on stage starting at 7:00.

Details at FortWayneParks.org.