From: cwilson2 at kent.edu <cwilson2>
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1999 23:51:22 -0400

Dear Beverly,
    In your reply to Susan's reply (which I seem to have missed receiving) to Debbie, I'm afraid you did, in fact, let your temper overcome your reason. I can understand your anger about the past and the fear that children could still be hurt now and in the future, but we have to face reality. Racial prejudice exists and always has. It will continue to be promulgated whether or not it is alluded in children's books, best selling adult novels, or newspapers. Ignoring it ignores the truth. If we remove it from books, does that mean it never existed?

    I've tried to arrange snips from two different writers here along with my own opinions, so I hope you can follow (Beverly on the right, Susan on the left and in italics).

 "In responding to Susan Daugherty's comments, I hope to be able to put
 reasoned thoughts to print. Please bear with me, because I am furious.
                   In my mind, Susan's comments exemplify the problem."
                                                              --?verly
" I try to impart respect for all cultures of the world. "
                                            ---Susan
       "This sounds pretentious. Do you teach about "all cultures of the
                                                                world"? If you don't, how do you teach "respect for all cultures of the world"? Or do you just try to "impart respect," as all adults should do with all

                                                              children?"

    Seems an obvious answer to me. I hope to "impart" respect or an open mind about other cultures to anyone who comes my way by words and especially by example. I hope the students would not have to have me there to tell them to respect the Egyptian culture (were they suddenly to encounter it), even though I never mentioned it specifically. Your statement sounds to me as if we can't teach respect for Indian culture if we don't actually teach Indian culture, if not from a native, at least from sources acceptable to you.

It is a teacher's job to teach all children, whether "of the particular
  minority" or not. It is not a parent's job to "help teach" an area in
       which the teacher happens to be unprepared. knows all about that
        "particular minority" or is able to teach about that "particular
                                                              minority"
       or has the time to teach about that "particular minority" or has
                   the energy to teach about that "particular minority."

    On the other hand, you rightly point out that sometimes parents don't have time to come to the classroom and teach. I'm guessing that a parent who is truly concerned about his child's self-esteem as a native American will find the time to talk to his child's class and dispel many of the erroneous beliefs that the children might hold as my Jewish friends have done over the years. The teacher can't be omniscient or be prepared for every thing that might come up, and you yourself that a non-native probably could not convey a true picture of Native Americans.

We talk about truth in books,
 whether it be nonfiction, fiction, folklore. We talk about versions.

                     "children of this age are just not developmentally
      able to think in those terms, nor are they able to process what is
                                                                  meant"
    Don't underestimate the abilities of children. I always realized that the Wilder references to Indians were not necessarily accurate in their treatment of Indians but were accurate as far as the attitudes of the time. Truth in literature actually involves great truth as revealed in character or plot or whatever more than mere accuracy of details. Truth and accuracy are not at all necessarily the same things, and the guidelines for judging for depictions of Native Americans are only guides for evaluating accuracy. The Wilder books certainly do reveal human truths, as does Birchbark House, truths about families and enduring hard circumstances, and trying to live in a way that is morally right, even though there may be double standards (as in the argument about whose land it was). Native children could do well to read the Little House Books just to understand the thinking and the feeling of the whites who killed their forebearers and took the land. A good book also is Avi's Escape from Home (the first of the Beyond the Western Sea series). Along with other books, it shows what those whites were running from that made them so insensitive to the rights of people here.

    People have always conquered other people and taken their lands, and while we see it as wrong now, it looked much more fair even 100 years ago. I happen to be of Irish ancestry. The Celts don't go ranting about the Anglo Saxons (well, maybe in Ireland), and the Saxons have apparently gotten over the Norman Invasion (I have never seen a biography of William the conqueror either through the eyes or a Saxon or a Norman.). All through literature are characters who express all manner of hatred and derision towards the Irish (even the term "paddy wagon" refers to the drinking habits of the Irish or Paddy), but it does nothing to me. I will never be found picketing a Notre Dame football game because of their pugilistic little mascot, the Fighting Irish man. During the Irish potato famine, 10,000 Irish children were sent as slaves to the Indies, and there have been other instances of white slaves or whites of a lower class being mistreated.
    Can you tell me how you talk about "slavery, etc." in a "way that is
                                                                    not
 too frightening or upsetting"? Do you leave out the children sold away from their parents, the whippings, rapes, chopped-off feet, murders? If
                                                    you do, what's left?
    Isn't just the fact that people were allowed to actually own other human beings a terrible enough concept to comprehend? Other more horrible things happened to slaves, too, black and white, but exposure to too much violence and cruelty at a young age, albeit secondhand, can probably do more to decrease sensitivity to suffering than to hear racist remarks made by people of the past in books.
   I know that atrocities happened; the attitudes may make me angry at the people who held them but not at the people who merely portrayed them in books.

" As a result, libraries were culled to remove hurtful images."
 There was a move at that time to cull blatantly racist material, but I
                        question to what extent that actually happened.
    It seems to me that, in your anger, you're just picking on everything Susan said.


"...some teachers preferred to not touch the subject at all than to teach
    Teachers don't all of a sudden become "more sensitive" by virtue of
                                          having racist books discarded.
    So why would it help to have all of the Little House books and their ilk discarded?

This is more rhetoric. Of course, teachers should not completely neglect

       an area they are supposed to teach. Should they do this in math?
       Science? And I don't know what you mean by "do the best you can, expressing your ignorance honestly." Would you do this in math? Science?
    To compare trying to teach the culture of every group in the world to teaching science and math is ridiculous; there is no analogy here at all.
                 In fact, many children are so shamed and humiliated in class that they can't or won't talk about it?even with their parents?and

 they'll try to hide the fact that they're Indian, from the class, from
                                      the teacher, even from themselves.
    If this treatment has been going on for so many generations, why would Indian parents not be aware of it from their own childhoods and take steps to strengthen or protect their children ahead of time?

 However!!! I do not believe that banning the Little House books is the

Here, the accusatory use of the word "banning" is rhetorical. Would you
"ban" toxic substances, or would you put them on a high shelf? Would you

 "ban" sharp knives, or would you put them in a drawer? Would you "ban"
   aspirin, or would you put it in the medicine cabinet? We protect our
        children from that which is hurtful. And, it is not a matter of
        "intelligence" in seeing the "subtleties" in the
                                                   books?there are none.
    Again, you're overreacting and trying to make analogies that don't really exist. The Little House on the Prairie books are not comparable to toxic substances or sharp knives. Apparently the subtleties of Wilder's words in the books escaped you. Mark Twain's irony when he describes an explosion on a Mississippi riverboat in which no one was hurt but "killed a nigger" says far more about the characters who say these things than it does about the blacks. To me, it just says, "Don't trust this character or his perceptions any more because he's so obviously twisted." Jim was about the most noble character in the book yet was treated with more distaste than Huck's drunken, mean, filthy, thieving, stupid, shiftless father. I remember that this made a really strong statement to my high school class (in Texas) when we reread it in American Literature.


I believe that I did as a child. I knew that pa admired the Indians although frustrated by government policy. I understood
 that ma was terrified probably mostly unreasonably. Laura was mainly fascinated. I thought I would have been too.


 Again, this is rhetorical. Would you comment this way about books that
      stereotype any other race or ethnicity? Try this: "I knew that pa
     admired the Negroes....I understood that ma was terrified probably mostly unreasonably. Laura was mainly fascinated. I thought I would have

                                                              been too."
    Well, yes, actually I probably would have. It seems even more innocuous with the labels changed.
    Having just come through the reminders of Banned Books Week, saying that the books by Wilder could not be taught as literature did not sit well with many of us. "Banned as dangerous pesticide?" It's just a children's book, for crying out loud.
    I do appreciate the guidelines for evaluation of the accuracy of books by and about American Indians; I'm sure it will create a greater sensitivity in all of us and make us better judges as to what to add to our collections. But as far as judging literature by those standards, they are not valid. Why don't we try for some guidelines as to how offensive a book can get before we take it off the shelves of a library? Is the objectionable part inaccurate? Not as Laura Ingalls Wilder remembered it from her childhood. Is the objectionable portion a major portion of the book? No, there are only a few references (most of them mild and some admiring) in the series of, what, six or seven books? Does a mis-portrayed group actually do anything vile or harmful? No, in fact, they go peacefully.
    The Dear America book does sound like a piece of trash because it actually lies about motivations, events that actually took place, and customs. It also sounds pretty shallow, with a non-English speaking girl beginning a journal in English, pigeon English at that. As far as the remark that Indian siblings always respected each other and would never have spoken so disrespectfully of each other, what about the little brother, "Pinch" in Birchbark House"? He and his sister had some pretty strong words and thoughts about each other as did the older sister.
    I'd like to hear thoughts and opinions (Is anyone still reading?) from other members. May this make us all more sensitive, especially in our presentations.
        Cassie Wilson
Received on Fri 15 Oct 1999 10:51:22 PM CDT