Interesting Conversation

Over at Strollerderby, my late-night post about Little Black Sambo has generated quite the discussion in comments.

I have to admit to you, my blood runs cold at the idea that white parents are reading this book to their white children and think it's an okay way to represent Black children. I would guess those are the same white children who have little to no contact with real-life children of color, too.

This is the kind of thing that makes me roll my eyes when people say "only old people are racist and they will all die off and then everything will be fine!" as someone did, last week.

Yeah right. In my dreams.

Comments

[Allie]

I think it's important that books that reflect our cultural history are protected so that people can study and understand in generations to come. That doesn't mean they are a suitable choice for stock in a contemporary children's library, bookshop or school. Their place is in an archive or academic library.

I have to confess that, as a teenager, I worked in a children's bookshop where I was guilty of posting copies of this book down the back of the shelving unit so people wouldn't buy it for kids...

[electriclady]

Your post is featured on today's Babble newsletter

[electriclady]

Oops, hit "post" too soon. Normally I end sentences with punctuation.

[pearl in pa]

I'm going to be culturally illiterate and admit that I've never heard of that book. I did grow up in white-bread, small-town America, but honestly, that character (let alone tigers turning themselves into butter) never crossed my radar screen. Maybe that's a good thing.

I did want to comment on this though:

>I want never to have to explain slavery, Jim Crow, minstrelsy and blackface, lynching, [snip]

I ran into that issue only two weekends ago. I've been dreading it too, and it is indeed no easier than I thought it would be. If you remember me, my daughter is from China. She's also nearly six, and is at the age where she wants everything she reads/sees/hears explained. Well, Ken Burns' 'Civil War' was on PBS the other weekend, and we were watching some of it. I did try explaining the basics of slavery, and ended up crying. Mommy needs more practice, or at least a stiffer lip. :(

[PA Merritt]

I recently obtained a copy of the Joel Chandler Harris' collection of Br'er Rabbit stories; they aren't necessarily something I will be reading to Junior without some serious translation and paraphrase on my part. I still want her to hear the stories, to talk when she's older about the different levels of who the rabbit is versus the predators he comes across, but for now I just want her to find the fun in the rabbit as trickster.