Tuesday morning thought: why is it that rare book librarians as a profession are morally outraged by theft from white institutions than they are by the legal but exploitative trade in modern cultural products from marginalized communities?

Not defending theft AT ALL but at least we talk about/decry it, whereas scooping up family photo albums, year books, and ephemera from garage sales, storage container auctions, and thrift stores and selling it up market to make its way to libraries is seen as totally acceptable

A lot of the people who produced this stuff are still alive! Do they know their lives are up for sale? Do they see a profit?

Genuine questions. Would love to be proved an alarmist who is reading too much into things.