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Multiculturalism and the unending adventure/activism
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From: Sarah Hamburg <srhf92_at_hampshire.edu>
Date: Sun, 16 Feb 2014 18:32:49 -0500
It seems like everyone here is in some way trying to challenge others' assumptions? To that end, there are numbers, and then there is also the importance of listening to one another's stories... this business we're all in.
There are many first-person accounts of what it meant, as children, for readers to have encountered only an absence when it came to stories about people and experiences like their own. Several people have shared them here... another powerful example is Chimamanda Adichie's talk about "the danger of a single story."
I feel like there are some assumptions, too, in something like Charles' discussion about the value of books that don't come from, or reflect, a more singular viewpoint. I don't think this is about some one-to-one identification that's necessary for children to find meaning in books. (Children from x religious and y ethnic background need z number of books that reflect their explicit individual indentities or they won't become good readers.) Instead, it's partly about the experience of erasure, or of being rendered only through someone else's eyes. Partly, too, it's about the power dynamics inherent in this silencing. This larger erasure, and lack of space in which to tell, and hear, other stories (not just the one the majority think they know) affects *all* of us. So, too, the audience for books from and about other experiences should be all of us?
And maybe these same dynamics play out in discussions within our community, too?
There have been quantitative studies looking at self-esteem and depression related to questions of representation. I'm sure there must also be studies involving inter-cultural perceptions related to story as well. It always seems, though, that this is a place where the adage holds true about the nature of the questions you ask determining what sort of answers you find.
I have to say that looking at the book-buying habits of particular minority groups feels somehow like a refraction of the question, to me, too. Partly because it deflects, or ignores all of the power structures at work here, and reduces, again, the audience to people who share the same characteristics as the author (though, as the article Christine linked to points out, still assumes books by white authors and artists are for everybody), and also-- isn't marketing *always* about creating demand, not just filling it? (Though I really still want to join others in pushing back against the argument that the problem is lack of actual demand.) I do understand, though, and sympathize with, the changing and uncertain landscape of children's publishing as a business, and also the fact that as people who work with children and books, all of us are already somewhat at the margins. Unless you're John Green...
I wondered if I could ask a question (or re-ask a question people have already been looking at). Ideally, it seems like conversations like this should always be working as a movement towards action. I love Uma's point about writing and art as being political, and their potential as a form of activism when they stay with and in those places of unsettling. (And conversations can be a form of action in this way too, I guess.) People have also talked about asking for, and buying, a more inclusive selection of books, and other forms of possible action. And I know organizations like the CCBC Diversity Committee, along with individual authors, editors, librarians, educators, booksellers, bloggers, publishers, reviewers, book packagers (I love the idea behind CAKE Literary), conference organizers, agents... etc have been thinking about and taking direct action on these issues.
I just wanted to ask in general, and across all of those spaces: what does/would activism on these issues look like to you?
Sarah
Date: Sun, 16 Feb 2014 18:32:49 -0500
It seems like everyone here is in some way trying to challenge others' assumptions? To that end, there are numbers, and then there is also the importance of listening to one another's stories... this business we're all in.
There are many first-person accounts of what it meant, as children, for readers to have encountered only an absence when it came to stories about people and experiences like their own. Several people have shared them here... another powerful example is Chimamanda Adichie's talk about "the danger of a single story."
I feel like there are some assumptions, too, in something like Charles' discussion about the value of books that don't come from, or reflect, a more singular viewpoint. I don't think this is about some one-to-one identification that's necessary for children to find meaning in books. (Children from x religious and y ethnic background need z number of books that reflect their explicit individual indentities or they won't become good readers.) Instead, it's partly about the experience of erasure, or of being rendered only through someone else's eyes. Partly, too, it's about the power dynamics inherent in this silencing. This larger erasure, and lack of space in which to tell, and hear, other stories (not just the one the majority think they know) affects *all* of us. So, too, the audience for books from and about other experiences should be all of us?
And maybe these same dynamics play out in discussions within our community, too?
There have been quantitative studies looking at self-esteem and depression related to questions of representation. I'm sure there must also be studies involving inter-cultural perceptions related to story as well. It always seems, though, that this is a place where the adage holds true about the nature of the questions you ask determining what sort of answers you find.
I have to say that looking at the book-buying habits of particular minority groups feels somehow like a refraction of the question, to me, too. Partly because it deflects, or ignores all of the power structures at work here, and reduces, again, the audience to people who share the same characteristics as the author (though, as the article Christine linked to points out, still assumes books by white authors and artists are for everybody), and also-- isn't marketing *always* about creating demand, not just filling it? (Though I really still want to join others in pushing back against the argument that the problem is lack of actual demand.) I do understand, though, and sympathize with, the changing and uncertain landscape of children's publishing as a business, and also the fact that as people who work with children and books, all of us are already somewhat at the margins. Unless you're John Green...
I wondered if I could ask a question (or re-ask a question people have already been looking at). Ideally, it seems like conversations like this should always be working as a movement towards action. I love Uma's point about writing and art as being political, and their potential as a form of activism when they stay with and in those places of unsettling. (And conversations can be a form of action in this way too, I guess.) People have also talked about asking for, and buying, a more inclusive selection of books, and other forms of possible action. And I know organizations like the CCBC Diversity Committee, along with individual authors, editors, librarians, educators, booksellers, bloggers, publishers, reviewers, book packagers (I love the idea behind CAKE Literary), conference organizers, agents... etc have been thinking about and taking direct action on these issues.
I just wanted to ask in general, and across all of those spaces: what does/would activism on these issues look like to you?
Sarah
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Received on Sun 16 Feb 2014 05:33:11 PM CST
