Why Host An African American Read-In?

Two years ago through my awesome professional learning network on Twitter, particularly thanks to Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, I found out about the National African American Read-In.  This event is sponsored by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and the Black Caucus of the NCTE and has been held since 1989. You can find out more on the NCTE’s African American Read-In site. The more I read and researched about the Read-In, the more convinced I became that I needed to host one at my library!

And yet I knew that when someone thought of my small town (population around 17,000 - but that’s being very generous, really) they might ask themselves why I felt an event like this was a perfect fit for my patrons.  According to the 2014 census the African American population of my small mountain town in New Mexico is .07%. For New Mexico as a whole, the African American population is 2.5%. That, of course, was exactly why I thought it was a perfect fit.

It is White people’s racism that makes us think African American literature is only for African Americans.  By that same account, it is our work as White people to dismantle this misconception.  No one assumes only White people will want to read Shakespeare or, say, Emily Dickinson.  We are taught those works are universal, they are for everyone. But too often, racism tells us that books by Native people or POC are only for the members of those groups.  We conveniently forget the windows element of “doors and windows” and assume that means minority groups have windows into the White experience.

The African American Read-In was the perfect chance for my libraries to open some windows.  And to share some great books - of course. For one week, we designed all our programs for 0-5 around books and songs by African American artists and writers.  We sang and danced to Ella Jenkins songs and read Langston Hughes poems at Toddler Time.  After school, we lined the spaces of our reading circle with books by African American authors and read picture books by Jacqueline Woodson and N Joy out loud. In the second year of our celebration, three local AP English classes visited from the high school and spent an hour reading picture books.  We designed a program for our homeschool book club around Faith Ringgold’s Tar Beach.

Because I had a clear vision of how I wanted these programs to happen, getting staff buy-in wasn’t really hard.  Instead of vaguely hand-waving “let’s do something for Black History Month, I guess?” the African American Read-In gave staff some real direction and a framework. From there, it was easier to see why we were doing this - and measure impacts.

In each of these programs, we talked to patrons about the African American Read-In and we shared bookmarks we’d downloaded from the NCTE toolkit.  We always had piles of books (for all ages) by African American authors and illustrators on hand and encouraged them to check them out or even just browse through them. One thing I trained my staff on in preparation for these events was that we wanted to be deliberate about these programs.  I didn’t want to present it as an incidental program - I wanted patrons to understand that planning and thought had gone into these events, that our library was choosing to promote and spotlight this work. I agree that we, as White Librarians, need to do more than just talk about and use these books during Black History Month.  But I also love that the African American Read-In takes place in February.  It’s a way to do more than make a display but to put the titles in hands and in action. Every time we saw how children laughed or were entranced by this work, it was a reminder that these books are for everyone during every month of the year. Using them, programming around them, thoughtfully choosing them, watching patrons embrace them made a much stronger impact and meant so much more than just putting them out with a “It’s February, You Know The Drill!” sign.

This year, during one of the AP English classes sessions, a particularly intense boy suddenly started waving his hand around, calling me over.  It was such an elementary school gesture for a senior in high school to make, it made me smile.  When I walked over to him, he had two books spread out in front of him, a juvenile non-fiction book and picture book.  

“Look,” he whispered, gesturing at them both insistently, “they are both about - about - Gullah.” He was especially proud that he had made this connection and he was grinning at me.

I realized this very smart almost 18 year old boy had never heard of Gullah before.  “Yes,” I said.  “Gullah is a language and a group of people.” He was nodding but had already looked away and was reading the notes in the books.  He mostly, I think, just wanted to show me what he’d found.  He was already back to the books.

This encounter is why I knew the African American Read-In was valuable, essential even, to my patrons.  Windows matter.  So do White librarians unequivocally standing up for the concept that these books deserve a place in our collection and our programming because they are relevant, useful, and even joyful for everyone. Promoting and programming for the African American Read-In has been eye-opening for patrons and staff, which was another goal.  It’s on White librarians to start the progress and push forward on the idea that books by African American authors, any by Native writers and other writers of color, are for all our patrons: no matter where we’re located.

The African American Read-In was our first push forward at my library, but it won’t be our last.  I urge you to look at your community connections and your programs and see how you can participate in the African American Read-In next year.  It’s not too early to start planning now. 

Here's some pictures from our Read-Ins!

Hannah and Allie Talk Jewishness and Whiteness

Guest Blogger Hannah Gomez and Allie Jane Bruce. Thanks Lisa Nowlain for the images!

Allie:  Today we're joined by Hannah Gomez, a librarian, reviewer, WNDBer, blogger, and Deep Thinker.  Hannah, thank you so much for joining us for a conversation on Jewishness and Whiteness and how they intersect (or don’t) here at Reading While White.  We’re all so grateful.  And while this is a me-and-you conversation, I want to name at the outset that Sam is also Jewish--I’m not “the one” Jew on this crew!

I just started reading How Jews Became White Folks & What That Says About Race in America by Karen Brodkin.  I barely finished the Introduction, and already I’m like YES.  On p. 3, she differentiates between “ethnoracial assignment” and “ethnoracial identity”--the difference (if there is one) between how the world sees us, and how we see ourselves.  So here’s my question for you: How do these two concepts manifest in your life?

Hannah: Oh wow! I love new terms like that. I definitely think about that a lot, and how concerned I get when people misuse “race” and “ethnicity” as if they’re interchangeable (like how people seem uncomfortable with the word “sex” and use “gender,” even though those, too, are not the same!). Race is what you are, and it’s the biological* thing that you can’t shake - unless you have a LOT of money, you can’t really alter your appearance significantly enough. Ethnicity, though, is culturally based, and it can be chosen or rejected, held onto or forgotten. So I think Brodkin’s terms are similar.

I was adopted, so I can’t speak to all my family tree, but from what I know, I am not genetically descended from any branch of Jews. That said, I was raised by an Ashkenazi Jew as a Jew, and as such my ethnic and cultural upbringing were tied to American Ashkenazi culture--at least from my mom’s side. That being said, when I spout out the Yiddish terms that are 100% natural things to come out of my mouth, people find that jarring, because while my racial identity is technically biracial (half Black, half White), I am no Nella Larsen. I can’t pass, so what people see when they look at me is not all that I am. So my ethnoracial assignment, I guess, is Black, mixed, or of color - and in the US, I am assumed to be African American, at least by White and Black people. Latinx people, especially if they hear me speak Spanish, ask if I’m Cuban, Dominican, or something else Caribbean. My ethnoracial identity, though, has more pieces to it, and I didn’t grow up a part of a large African American community. I grew up in Tucson, and my father is Chicano, so my social surroundings were definitely more Chicana/o and Jewish than anything else.

I think that’s why I often get, especially from Jewish friends, the “compliment” that “Sometimes I forget you’re Black, because you’re just Hannah to me.”

*I know race is commonly described as not biological at all, and a total construction, but that’s a derailment used to excuse racism. Race is real because society made it so, and when I say here that it’s biological, I mean it’s the thing that, for the most part, manifests in your genes with regard to appearance.

Allie: Yikes.  I’m so sorry.  The density of insults-per-words is ridiculously high there--you’ve got “Being Black is bad,” “I’m going to casually erase a crucial component of your identity,” and “I deserve a medal for having said the previous two things.”

My mom’s side is Jewish (Ashkenazi, reform) too, but it was a much bigger part of her childhood than it ever was mine.  We did Christmas and Chanukah, Easter and Passover, and I remember eating apples and honey on Rosh Hashana, but that was pretty much it.  She definitely brought some cultural elements into the mix, though; she still has a compulsive need to feed people at every moment.  I refused to try lox over and over as a kid, bewildered as to how anything so bright and slimy could possibly taste good.  When I finally tried it as a teenager, something very deep in my gut said “this is RIGHT,” and I’ve been eating lox ever since.

I did a brief volunteer stint in Jackson, Mississippi, at an after-school program, and while I was there I felt a deep homesickness that often expressed itself as a longing for lox, which was not readily available.  Once, I drove half an hour to the one bagel place that advertised itself as having lox.  I was so excited--it was right there on the menu, “lox and bagel.”  I ordered it, repeating myself twice (the girl at the counter had never heard anyone order it before), and waited to savor it… only when it came, it was a bagel with veggie cream cheese, lettuce, tomato, and a piece of lox.  I was so upset.  I traded it in for the right combination: bagel, plain schmear, tomato, onion, and lox (they didn’t have capers), totally aware that I was probably fulfilling a stereotype as I insisted that veggie cream cheese and lettuce simply would not work.

I had a lot of interesting experiences in Mississippi, actually.  I was one of a few White volunteers at an after-school program that was 100% Black kids.  The kids were totally stunned when I revealed I was half Jewish.  When I left, a small group came to me and said “Miss Bruce, are you going back to Egypt?”  That’s a sharp contrast to here in New York, where everyone takes one glance at me and immediately knows I’m Jewish.  In retrospect (and with education) I’ve realized that I had no business being at that program in Mississippi; I would have served the world better by spending those months unpacking my own Whiteness.

Hannah: I refused to eat lox for the longest time, too! And I still won’t go near gefülte fish.

Allie: Me too!  I hate the stuff.  And the maror (bitter herbs) we have to eat on Passover.  I was usually the youngest at Seders, and I always wanted to ask, “Why on this night do I have to eat these damn herbs when I could be eating jellybeans?”

Hannah: Your point about unpacking your privilege only after performing some sort of community service or other “service” to the underprivileged speaks to me, too. I worked with low-income kids in a summer school program when I was done with college (and before, but in different settings) and didn’t realize until after I was done what a disservice I did them by assuming they all had internet access at home, interest in applying to fancy colleges, etc.

In my family, where my dad is Catholic, my mom is the Ashkenazi one but was raised a secular Jew, so we did the Christmas and Hanukkah thing, took off of school and work for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, and had a (speedy) Passover seder. In college, I attempted to become more Jewish and even had a fellowship at Hillel and a Birthright trip, and looking back, I realize that it wasn’t really that I wanted to explore religion and theology but just that I was desperate to be accepted as a Real Jew since I couldn’t rely on “looking Jewish.” And I hated that whole year of college where I tried to do that. Now, although I went to Shabbat services with a friend once a month or so (she was converting, and I just wanted to try it out again) last year, I really find that secular Judaism, intellectual Judaism, and cultural Judaism are the only Jewish domains where I actually feel welcome and like my contributions, upbringing, and past experiences are valued without question. I work a few hours a week for our branch of PJ Library/PJ Our Way, and as a college student (prior to Hillel), I interned at our Jewish Federation. Whether I want to try religious Judaism or not, I am generally finding that the stares I get for not looking right, even to other Ashkenazi Jews, makes it not worth the hassle.

Allie: And that’s where we get into all this thorny business of race and Judaism and “looking Jewish.”  It’s so bizarre.  You are more educated in Judaism than I, and you’ve spent much more of your life practicing Judaism than I have.  And yet, I’ll bet if we stood next to each other and asked 10 people “which of us is Jewish?” 9 of them would point to me.  I have the complexion (light but tan skin coupled with dark hair) and especially the (dark, thick, curly) hair of a prototypical Ashkenazi Jewish person.

I’ve lived outside DC, in the midwest, in London, and in Mississippi, and I’ve never felt more Jewish than I do now--living in New York.  Everywhere else, I was another White person.  Here, I’m (often) a Jewish White person.  I’ve never had this experience before--I present as White AND as Jewish.  The one does not cancel the other out.

And here’s an interesting thing we share: The most hurtful experiences I’ve had that relate to my Judaism have come from other Jewish people, and it sounds like that’s true for you too (the ones who stare, or who’ll never really accept you as Jewish because of your Blackness).  For me, it’s the ones who call me a “fake Jew” or a “self-hating Jew” or “the wrong kind of Jew.”  Six days after I moved to New York, I went for a haircut, and the hairdresser (with whom I’d exchanged maybe 2 sentences) ran his fingers through my hair and proclaimed it to be “nice, thick, BEAUTIFUL Jewish hair!”  It’s hard to hear myself called a fake Jew after an experience like that.

Hannah: There are parallels here with skin tone politics and intragroup racism in the Black community too, but that’s a post for another time and another blog…

I guess what I’ll end with is that every time I look at it, I still come to the conclusion that I feel Jewish and am Jewish, and especially that my politics and ethics and intellect are Jewish, so I can’t not be Jewish. But I still haven’t found a way to be a part of a Jewish community (at least IRL; I have found like-minded internet friends and websites) where I don’t feel like I have to either perform or do a lot of catchup work to understand what’s going on. I don’t know that I’ll ever feel any differently given the many different spaces I’ve tried to enter and then left, but I certainly hope I will someday.

Allie: Thanks again for this conversation, Hannah. Let's continue it in the comments section.  Have a wonderful Passover!!

Sarah Hannah Gómez is a former school librarian and currently works as a freelance writer and editor, fitness instructor, and project leader at We Need Diverse Books. She lives in southern Arizona. Find her online at shgmclicious.com and on twitter @shgmclicious

Reviewing While White: Unidentified Suburban Object

By Nina Lindsay

Spoiler alert.  There is no way to discuss Mike Jung’s second novel here without fully revealing the twist that the industry reviews manage to dance around.  So here we go.

Now in seventh grade, Chloe Cho is pretty fed up with the microaggressions that result from being the only Korean American (even Asian American) in her school.  To add to the annoyance of constant comparison to famous violinist Abigail Yang, and ridiculous mispronunciations of her name, her parents ever more firmly refuse to discuss anything about their life in Korea, while her best friend, Shelley, seems to go overboard in helping Chloe explore her roots.  When a new teacher, Ms. Lee, becomes the second Korean American in the school, and assigns a project to explore family history, Chloe finally succeeds in pressing her parents for their story, and it is not quite what she expected.  Her parents, it turns out, are not only not from the United States. They are not from planet Earth.

The only known survivors from Tau Ceti Four, her parents escaped destruction in an experimental spacecraft her mother was developing.  Because of their very close physical resemblance to Koreans, they tried first to settle in Korea, but quickly found they stood out there too much because they “did it all wrong, everything from speaking the language to finishing a bowl of noodles. It was very, very uncomfortable” (p. 146).  So they found safety in a place where people don’t know any better: Primrose Heights, a super-white suburb somewhere in the United States.  Chloe’s father assures her that despite “all the stupid crap” she has to listen to, the alternative is worse. To this Chloe responds, “What’s worse than being surrounded by racists all the time?” (p.148-9)

Jung is very, very funny.  It’s this humor that allows him to explore the intersections of cultural and individual identity, friendship, and being thirteen with immense clarity through an unusual conceit. It’s when the twist happens, when we enter the surreal, that the emotional narrative starts to feel more real.  It may be, in fact, that White readers have more access to empathize with Chloe through this preposterous lens, since it seems so hard for us to otherwise see racism.

A few weeks ago, the Library of Congress announced that it would stop using the term “illegal alien” in subject headings.  It is great news, but tempered by the fact that the replacement phrases are negatives: “noncitizens” and “unauthorized immigration.”   Sometimes seventh-grade humor seems to best way to expose, live with, and struggle against this kind of absurdity.  Chloe does, as she returns to school with her new knowledge about herself, on page 153:

I trudged into the building and stopped at the trophy case next to the main office. If you stand at just the right angle you can see your reflection in the glass on the side closest to the front door, and I stared at myself. Kids’ faces appeared over my shoulder, some of them looking at me curiously, then were replaced by others. None of those faces looked like mine, of course. None of them ever had. That wasn’t anything new--people were always treating me like I was from outer space, and I’d never looked like everyone else, no matter how I acted or what I wore. Were things actually all that different now?

I can imagine a myriad of reader responses to Jung’s novel, including disquiet or discomfort, but Jung seems to make a safe place to explore them through his use of fantasy or surreality or absurdity ….or whatever it is you want to call this singular story.

The Inaugural Walter Dean Myers Awards

The Walter Award winner. L to R: Brendan Kiely, Jason Reynolds,
Kekla Magoon, Ilyasah Shabazz, Margarita Engle.

On Friday morning, We Need Diverse Books (WNDB) presented the inaugural Walter Dean Myers Awards for Outstanding Children’s Literature at the Library of Congress.  The Walter (as it is often called) was awarded to Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely for All American Boys. Two Walter Honor Books were named: Enchanted Air by Margarita Engle; and X: A Novel by Ilyasah Shabazz and Kekla Magoon.

WNDB President Ellen Oh

Ellen Oh, President and CEO of WNDB, spoke briefly about the award and the gorgeous setting for the ceremony, noting, “We walk in the footsteps of giants, many of whom are in this room.” Author Jon Scieszka, the first-ever National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, spoke about his memories of Walter Dean Myers, noting: "Walter could do the talk, if he had to, but he was really a doer." He then turned the program over to host Christopher Myers, the award namesake’s son and a multi award-winning author/illustrator himself, who spoke about the various fights involved in creating children's literature that reflects our world.  "We are fighters here, and this is where the fight happens: In an exchange of ideas," said Myers.

Walter Honor recipient Margarita Engle

In her acceptance speech, Margarita Engle said, “Being misunderstood is a writer’s greatest nightmare. And to be understood is a dream.” After reading a poem from Enchanted Air, Engle spoke about the historically tense relationship between the US and Cuba, noting, “When I was a student, it was easier for a US citizen to walk on the moon than to visit Cuba... I hope [Enchanted Air] will not just speak to Latinos... but also to readers from other backgrounds who might feel like a bridge or a storm for any reason.”

Walter Honor recipient Ilyasah Shabazz

Kekla Magoon shared a question that she and Ilyasah Shabazz have frequently been asked: With The Autobiography of Malcolm X being widely read, why do we need a book about the first 14 years of the Civil Rights activist’s life? As Magoon said, even when things are bad, young people have the power to make a change in their lives, a capacity that Malcolm X exemplifies. As Magoon and Shabazz were set to receive their awards, Shabazz returned to the microphone and delivered one of the day’s most powerful statements, directed at adults who work with children: “When young people are in pain, they don’t always make the best decisions. That’s what happened to my father and that’s why we need adults to see the beauty in, and invest in, our kids.”

In his acceptance, Brendan Kiely called for change, both in the world of children's literature and in the larger world.  "This is one of the most dangerously powerful aspects of privilege--the privilege to look away, to choose NOT to engage.  Just as the statistics clearly expose the injustice in the world of law enforcement, the numbers are starkly apparent in book publishing, too.  We need a more diverse workforce, a more diverse array of book reviewers and books reviewed, and a much larger pool of diverse authors getting published regularly."

Jason Reynolds added, "We need stories that appeal to the diversity inside us.  I am not a monolith."

Walter Award winners Brendan Kiely and
Jason Reynolds read Bad Boy by Walter Dean Myers.

"The most exciting thing about The Walter Awards," said Chris Myers, "is that we get to define what is is we're looking for.  It's nice to define our own standards, to have a hand in creating our own Canon."

-by Sam Bloom and Allie Jane Bruce

The Long Haul

Image by Lisa Nowlain

It’s 2016.

It’s 2016 and the increased attention given to discussion of multicultural literature, race, and racism in children’s and young adult literature over the past two years, including the launch and ongoing work of We Need Diverse Books (which looks at all aspects of diversity), and important if sometimes painful discussions of books like A Fine Dessert and A Birthday Cake for George Washington, among others, feels like a turning point of some kind.

Maybe it’s social media and the internet, which has enabled the discussion to extend farther within and beyond the world of children’s and young adult books. Maybe it’s that we’re starting to see effort to create tangible and meaningful change to the status quo. School Library Journal’s commitment diversifying its reviewers is one example of this. So, too, is its launch of Indie Voices, a quarterly review of self-published books reflecting diversity, which builds on the important work of author, activist, and scholar Zetta Elliott, who has been calling attention to the possibilities and importance of self-publishing for some time.

And yet this increased visibility comes with an increased sense of resentment, sometimes vague, sometimes overt. Why are activists calling for changes and challenging racism in children’s and young adult literature so demanding, so radical, so angry, so sensitive, so unwilling to give kids credit? And why can’t we understand that change takes time?

I want to talk about that one in particular.  That change takes time.

It’s true. Change does take time.

But it’s 2016. And as we look at recent, welcome examples of change and progress, it’s important to understand and remember that this work—to get more books published that authentically reflect the diverse lives of children and teens, to get those in the children’s and young adult book world who are gatekeepers in one way or another to do something that is not only meaningful but lasting—has been going on for a long time.  A very long time.

Many people reading this blog know that. They know it because they’ve been part of the effort for years. Sometimes decades.

But not everyone knows—or acknowledges—that everything happening today, right now, has grown out of activism that stretches back years. Not a few years. Not ten or twenty. Not even fifty. Nancy Larrick’s 1965 Saturday Review article “The All-White World of Children’s Books” wasn’t the starting point, either.

Everything happening today is part of an ongoing effort that spans at least ninety years. Think of Pura Belpré, reaching out to the immigrant communities in New York City in the 1920s, and eventually writing books reflective of her Puerto Rican culture, which many of them shared. Think of Augusta Baker and Charlamae Hill Rollins, both advocating for collections reflecting diversity and the lives of children and teens in the mid-twentieth century. This foundational work took place long before the Larrick article, which articulated a reality with which families of color and First/Native Nations had been aware for years and years.

In 1980, the now-defunct Council on Interracial Books for Children published a checklist for evaluating books for racism and sexism. It was published in their Bulletin and has been reprinted and republished in print and online over the past 36 years. Many others have offered culturally-specific insight into racism in children’s books.

And yet stereotypes and racism persist, not occasionally, but consistently.

Add to all of this the numerous books and articles that have been written—and continue to be written—by scholars, librarians, and teachers, not to mention the commitment of activist authors, artists and publishers (Children’s Book Press, Just Us Books, and Lee and Low, to name a few) across more recent decades, and a detailed picture begins to develop of a struggle for change that has more than paid its dues. And sure, we can point to progress, but when we're having some of the same discussions and conversations and arguments we were having ten and twenty and thirty and fifty and more years ago, we can also point to systemic and, yes, willful resistance to change.

Yes, change takes time. But the long haul has already happened, and there is still so far to go.

That’s maddening, to say the least.

If you want a refresher, or want to learn more, about the history of activism around multicultural literature, here are some people and efforts to start reading about (please add your own suggestions in the comments):

•  Augusta Baker
•  Pura Belpré
• Rudine Sims Bishop
• Council on Interracial Books for Children
• Daniel Duran
• Violet Harris
• Coretta Scott King Task Force
• Debbie Reese
• Charlamae Hill Rollins
• Barbara Rollock
• Isabel Schon
• Doris Seale and Beverly Slapin

And the "Kindred Spirits," listed to the right, are among many who are ensuring the work continues.

Finally, when people of color and First/Native Nations and allies demand more multicultural books, and authentic multicultural books, when they call out racism when they see it, they are doing more than advocating for books, they are advocating for the lives of children and teens.

None of us should ever forget that.

(Check out the We Need Diverse Books “Looking Back” series for more history.)

"The All-Too-Familiar Fog of White Authenticating"

Thank you to Lisa Nowlain for our new blogger portraits!

A couple weeks ago I presented online to a class at San Jose State University's SLIS program.  The class was Info 263, "Materials for Children," taught by Elizabeth Wrenn-Estes, who asked me to speak to our work on this blog, and my approaches to critical analysis of children's literature.

There were a few late questions that I didn't have time to answer, and rather than write an email back to the class, I thought I'd try to answer them here.  Some of you may be able to add other thoughts, and I'm hoping some of the class might continue the discussion.

Nina, since so many book reviewers are white, do you think that books written by non-whites will get the same chance at a good review as white authors?

Statistically, in reality? No. Because white people don't "get" everything in stories by people of color or First Nations/Native people.  I've learned so much from people taking the trouble to point out some very obvious things to me.  For instance, long ago I presented an oral review (thank goodness I hadn't published it) in which I complained the pacing was "off" in a picture book because the protagonist, on a journey, encountered four strangers, and it felt like one beat to many to me.  Someone graciously pointed out to me that in many cultures, things in stories happen in "fours" instead of the "threes" of most European traditions. 

Malinda Lo went into this from the writer's point of view last month on Twitter. She said "If you don't explain the context for non-Asian readers they won't get it. But if you over-explain you lose the storytelling tension." Numerous reactions prompted her to expand: 

Nina, how big of an impact do book reviewers have and do you think that a reviewer’s race has a large impact on what books get more publicity and recognition? Do you think that reviewers try to separate themselves from the race they identify with and look at the big picture when reviewing?

Getting any reviews at all definitely has an impact on selling book.  Even a negative review can help sell a book over no reviews at all, though of course it doesn't serve a book as well as a positive review. 

Given my thoughts about the first question above, I certainly think that the race and background of reviewers, as a whole, has a large impact on the recognition of books. On an individual case, theoretically, if we can each hold ourselves individually accountable to reading with an full understanding of our biases, it shouldn't.  But I think it has an exponential impact as you look at the entire publishing output.  If, collectively, we can gain momentum on our individual accountability, we should be able to shift that overall impact. Kirkus Reviews and School Library Journal are clearly making strides to hold themselves and reviewers accountable, especially since Lee & Low started collecting survey data for the Diversity Baseline Study. 

So how do you celebrate diversity without normalizing whiteness?

In the example I gave above about my cluelessness with a review, I was normalizing Whiteness; assuming that my knowledge as a White person was not based in any cultural or racial context, but was somehow "normal."  When you read for analysis, you should try to locate yourself...your own person with your own perspective...within your mind, and observe yourself reading and reacting to a text.  If you are White, you should examine that reaction and assume that not everyone experiences it that way.  "It's not all about you," is a mantra that works for me.  

I do think that normalizing Whiteness has gotten in the way of appreciations of many books by people of color.  It's hard to prove, but I feel like I've seen it enough, in Mock Newbery discussions, for instance, when a mostly White group starts comparing one excellent book with another.  Inevitably, some people "just feel" that Excellent Book A (by a White person) does "more" for them than Excellent Book B (by a person of color).  It probably does; and that's not the point. 

This has dangerous repercussions not just for the immediate reception to a book in its publishing year, but on what standards are set in the literature in general. Since my post on Jump Back Paul by Sally Derby, I've been reading more about Paul Laurence Dunbar.   Poet Kevin Young writes about him in his prize-winning collection of essays The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness (Graywolf Press, 2012).  He talks of the famous review by White "tastemaker" William Dean Howells, which secured Dunbar's success in the White literary establishment.  This review praised Dunbar's dialect poems in a very particular way remains today the most accessible interpretation, repercussions of which can still be seen in Sally Derby's book, for instance, despite the fact that Black writers, like Young, have been offering alternative interpretations for decades. Young says "Howells's simple if not simplistic review is still appended to most editions of Dunbar, making it impossible to get to Dunbar without the all-too-familiar fog of white authenticating." 

Or, as students in the Oakland schools African American Male Achievement classes explained to me, it's "Matrix thinking."  Clear the fog, see through the Matrix.  It's not all about you, White people. 

Reviewing While White: Braids & Buns, Ponies & Pigtails; 50 Hairstyles "Every Girl" Will Love

by Allie Jane Bruce

Don't be fooled by the smiling East Asian girl on the cover of Braids & Buns, Ponies & Pigtails by Jenny Strebe (Chronicle, 2016).  This guide to hairstyles for "every girl" firmly centers Whiteness.

By page 13, I found 9 tips to help "minimize frizz" and make hair more "smooth" and "silky".  Strangely, though, when I perused the "Tools" section (p. 8-10), I saw that Strebe recommends curling irons and silk pillowcases, but not the hot combs, straightening irons, and oil/grease that much of the population would need to pull off these styles (including me--I'd need a bathtub of keratin).

By this time, I'd committed, so I spent a good chunk of tonight doing tallies (it's OK, I was listening to Hamilton the whole time).  Here's what I found:

107 photos of girls who present White
14 photos of girls who present Black
22 photos of girls who present East Asian
4 photos of girls who present South Asian

I'm using "present" deliberately above, as I recognize that I cannot know how a person racially identifies merely by looking at them.


For each hairstyle, the book provides information on the "Difficulty Level", "Ideal Hair", and "Accessories".  "Ideal hair" indicates what texture hair works best for the style, and includes terms like "straight" and "wavy".  Here's how many times the book describes the following hair textures as "Ideal":

Straight - 3
Straight to Wavy - 24
Silky - 1
Wavy to Curly - 10
Wavy - 1
Curly - 2
Straight to Curly - 2
Afro texture to medium coarseness - 1
Thick and curly texture - 1
Wavy to frizzy - 1



...yeah.

This book promotes itself as a resource for "Every Girl" (in the subtitle).  This book features "Braids" as the very first word (of the title).  Yet, nowhere will you find braids or cornrows on Black girls (the closest is a Black girl wearing "ropebraid pigtails").

I guess they didn't mean "those kinds of braids."

What of the Black girl with tightly curly hair who happens upon this book, reads the title and the subtitle, then flips through it to find that nearly three-fourths of the pictures are of White girls, that more than half of the styles describe "Ideal Hair" as "straight" or "straight to wavy", and that not a single image of Black braids or cornrows is to be found?  What messages is this sending her?

I think the message "straight, smooth hair is ideal" is definitely there, but that's only half the problem.

The other half is a tougher nut to crack, and it goes like this: "Black girls, we're going to Other you, and we will never, ever acknowledge that we're Othering you.  You're just not Every Girl."

Sure makes me grateful for books like Hair Dance! (by Dinah Johnson, with photos by Kelly Johnson, Henry Holt & Co, 2007) and Puffy: For People Whose Hair Defies Gravity (by Aya de León, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013).  More like this, please (and feel free to leave more suggestions in the comments).