Africa does not apply
We recently had an event for our transracial adoptive families. Transracial means a lot of things, but for the program I work on, this means families — pretty much exclusively white — who have adopted African-American kids. Or, as one of our moms — in an unparalleled Midwestern show of euphemism — puts it “Peachy people raising cocoa kids.”
The event had all sorts of activities and stuff going on, and for our general theme, we used the Seven Principles. For those of you not hip, the Seven Principles are mainly a Kwanzaa thing, but just like the spirit of goodwill and Jesus-stuff is supposed to permeate your life year-round, Mr. Scrooge, the Seven Principles are meant to be general guiding principles, culled from some basic African ideals. And, too, not to mention, this is a pretty central thing to African-American culture; Whitey McWhiterson has probably never heard or seen the word Kujichagulia in his life, though Blacky McBlacksalot sure as hell knows who white Santa, white Jesus, and white angels are.
We do this Seven Principles thing with the kids for a few reasons. One, the Seven Principles are pretty cool (seriously, go read them). Two, we are saying, “Hey, kids, Africa — that place you’re a part of — came up with this really cool thing. You are a part of a really cool thing.” Three, we want to give these kids a cultural education. You, Whitey McWhiterson, can go into black company and profess total ignorance of the Seven Principles, and you will find yourself in the town of Business As Usual, population: white folk. But if you are Blacky McBlacksalot, raised by Peachy Midwestern Mom, and find yourself in black company professing utter ignorance of this most basic of African-American cultural ideals, you are going to hear some pretty nasty names get tossed your way. Four, we want to give these parents a cultural education. They need it just as badly, if not more, than the kids.
By the by, readers, maybe you could do with some cultural education, too. The Seven Principles are really neat, and there’s no reason you shouldn’t have at least the same passing familiarity with them as you do with any other non-white yearly holiday; if you know something vague about Chinese New Year and the color red, or Jewish people and that candle thing, then you ought to know something vague about black people, too, because hey, we’re post-racial, right?
Anyway. ANYWAY. After the event, when we asked families what they would like to see changed next year, we heard a resounding cry.
1. Less Kwanza stuff, please
2. Less African stuff — that doesn’t apply to our family
Hoo boy.
On a sort of related note, I am participating in a new thing this year that I saw on a blog. It exhorts you, this holiday season, to purchase a book by a black author and give it to somebody who is not black. Simple, yeah? Oh, wait, an addendum: don’t buy Toni Morrison. EVERYBODY BUYS TONI MORRISON. Also, quick, name somebody black and female not Toni Morrison and not Maya Angelou. FUCK.
Okay, a little harder, but still simple, yeah? I majored in African-American Studies, and I read TONS of books. Except, wait, I’ve got cousins who are pretty little. Like, nine and ten. I can’t give them James Baldwin. And, hey, I’ve got girl cousins, I want to give them something relevant to their gender, too. So, black female author, writing a book about and for females, appropriate to a pre-teen age bracket, and not just another book about Obama or slavery because damn that shit gets boring.
Not so fucking simple anymore. Can you name a single black children’s book author? Or a black author who writes shit comparable to, like, Sweet Valley High? I sure as hell can’t.
So, it’s a process. And a process that is making me more and more uncomfortable in public spaces. Walking through a used bookstore yesterday, I became overwhelmed with whiteness. There was not a single non-white customer or employee. And the books, jesus god. If I wasn’t in the “African-American Studies” section, a whole half a bookshelf long (and not full of fun kids’ stuff, let me tell you), there was just nothing. I was thinking, damn, can’t they have a separate section? Like, “African-American Fiction”? Then I thought how weird and fucked-up that would be, to separate African-Americans out, like they’re some weird novel entity. And then it occurred to me that what I would really like is some honest labeling: could we label the all-white fiction section “White Fiction” please? Because it’s not just “Fiction,” Blindy McPrivilegeFace.
I’ve been feeling it in restaurants and stores. Looking around at the decorations, promotional materials that are nothing but pictures of smiling white people. I mean, it’s not segregation the way we were taught about it — that is, the segregation that used to exist and was super sad but now it’s gone and we’re post-racial — but this is a segregated public sphere. The businesses I frequent are targeted at my race. Let me say that again: they want my business because I am white and for no other reason. That comes before any additional targeting, at my age group or gender — the addendum is always my (white) age group or (white) gender. The business I frequent do not care for the business of black people, because they have no products or posters or employees with black faces; or, to put that another way, their products and posters and employees are exclusively white.
Of course, a black person could shop there, if they wanted to — that part of legal segregation is over — but obviously, the stores do not care if they do. And they do not care if they do based entirely on race and for no other reason.
I feel less and less comfortable purchasing gifts for people that are 100% lily white, that reflect a 100% lily white world, from 100% lily white stores, in 100% lily white neighborhoods. It’s easy to do this. In fact, as my Christmas expedition is proving, it’s ridiculously hard NOT to do this if you’re white. And it’s hard to realize you’re doing it, that you’re living in a white space with white products for white people. Most of my life, I’ve remained innocent of this. And, I think, most (white) managers, owners, employees, suppliers, and consumers who participate and uphold this process are innocent of this. To them, to include non-white people would take a conscious active effort, though they do not realize or admit that only including white people is a conscious, active effort — all-white spaces do not occur naturally, like the Fibonacci sequence. That shit is manufactured, and it is manufactured by the racist, and manufactured by the innocent, and the racist and the innocent are the same fucking people. And that’s what makes it so goddamn evil and unapproachable.
Here is a thing I think is missing from liberal white people trying to go post-racial. When you start to notice, accept, think about, dissect, analyze, and become conscious of race, you will start to get angry. You will start to feel unwelcome in innocuous social and public spaces. You will start to feel that the innocent are hostile, because you will find yourself thinking twice about the reaction you will get if you point out, “Hey, Applebee’s manager, why are all your poster decorations full of white people?” Because you will know it will quite likely be a hostile reaction, because you have somehow falsely accused this supposedly non-hostile (as long as it stays white) environment of something dirty.
If you are white and you think you are pretty aware of race and racism, ask yourself this: do you feel comfortable in all-white spaces? Do you feel comfortable reading books without more than one non-white character? Or watching movies where there are never more than two black people (and if there are, in a modified Bechdel test, do they speak to each other?) Do you feel comfortable in stores or restaurants with all-white staff, all-white employees, all-white posters, all-white products? Do you feel comfortable when every banner ad on Amazon shows you a white person, unless you search for products with the words “african-american” in them?
Or does it make you feel angry, or unwelcome, to walk into an all-white space?
If you are not angry, you are not post-racial yet.
And if you wonder why you should be angry, or why I am, you are as racist as they come.
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Look up the book “Smoky Night” by Eve Bunting. Even though I think it’s written by a white person, it’s a really good children’s book that makes obvious references to racial discrimination. The story takes place during the L.A. riots. You can read a sample of the book over the internet on Google Books. I bought it in a thrift store for a dollar a couple years ago. The artwork in it is awesome too.
She wrote another one “How Many Days to America?: A Thanksgiving Story” the story goes . . .After the police come, a family is forced to flee their Caribbean island and set sail for America in a small fishing boat.
But I agree, we need more non-white themed shit everywhere from literature to christmas decorations.
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I just realized the books I suggested are for little kids, so I suggest the Bluford High Series as a good series for the young adults.
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Thanks! I really appreciate that!
I managed to get some really good suggestions around work (Sharon Draper is a big name, it seems), but suggestions are only the first half of the problem. The second half is finding the books. I can always order them off Amazon, but well in line with my usual practice of working myself up into a goddamn dither, I am sort of on this angry and hostile mission to find these books in my local bookstores instead. It’s helping me figure out the businesses I want to give my money to.
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Try reading Chinua Achebe, particularly “Things Fall Apart”. It’s not angry in the Amero-centric African-American way, but it’s a view of African life you might find interesting. Sorry if this is an obvious suggestion. I read this as a kid but since I’ve been living in the US (15 years) I’ve not heard him mentioned as any kind of worthwhile voice. It appears that much of the “angry” literature from black authors is very centered on the American experience and this is quite different.
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Thanks! That’s actually one of the books sitting on my shelf, for that far-off day when I read all the books I have been meaning to read since forever.
I actually personally prefer “angry” African-American lit — for me, it was the first time I’d read American literature that really dovetailed with my personal sense of and experience with America. Only once I’d gotten into African-American lit/history/anything did I really start to feel like an American; until then, I’d felt my shitty experiences of poverty, child welfare, abuse, and drug addiction, and abandonment were personal problems that made me an outsider in a country where we’re all prosperous and middle-class now. Reading about a whole group of Americans with very similar experiences made me feel, for the first time, like a part of this country, and like a part of a history — I could not and do not connect with the history that’s usually taught, the Little Engine That Could variety of “oh, once things were bad, but we had a little sit-in and a little feminism and now everybody is happy!” But I do connect with an African-American/minority view of history, the “we’re fucked and they keep fucking us” observation.
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Well, 6 months later, you could do worse than Octavia Butler. Race is in her stuff the way it’s in the world — it’s there, and it’s an issue, and she’s paying attention, so the reader has to. However, the books are ostensibly sci-fi, so the reader is free to ignore the “race stuff” if they want to.
BTW, someone linked to this blog in the Shakesville blogaround on Friday, and I’ve been working my way through your archives ever since, and very much appreciating reading about your journey. Thank you for sharing your life, talent and insight with us.
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Okay, two things I love:
1. Conversations about race
2. Sci fi books.
Fuckin’ awesome!
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Butler will serve as a starting point for a conversation (book club question: how does the character’s race affect her choices? her interactions? god I hate book clubs) AND she’s a GREAT Sci-Fi writer in a genre devoid of black female writers (or even just black or even just female, and no, fantasy is a SEPARATE genre).
I was so bummed when she died last year.
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Nalo Hopkinson is another good sci-fi/fantasy author who is black and female. She’s from the Caribbean and now lives in Canada, so she’s only African-American in a continental sense, and her stories give a window on a cultural background that is let’s say not often represented in the neighborhood bookstore. She’s also queer, so she sits in the intersections of a whole lot of underprivileged sets. Also, I met her once and she was marvelous in person.
An acquaintance linked one of your posts on facebook this afternoon and I have been reading for almost six hours, occasionally out loud for my partner’s benefit, which is how I ended up back in last year. You’ve written a great deal that is fascinating, thought-provoking and *true* and while I know you’re doing it for yourself, I really must thank you for the education and support you’ve also provided for others. This is a really wonderful blog.
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For kid’s picture books, Faith Ringgold — her best-known title is Tar Beach, though she has another 16 titles in print as well. She’s primarily a fabric & quilting artist — my mother took a couple courses with her when she taught for a while at UCSD.
(I found you through a link to one of your “another post about rape” series on boundaries, and kept reading.)
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For young adult books – Malorie Blackman is a pretty great writer, and quite popular in England. I’d especially recommend Noughts and Crosses – black and white are reversed and I remember reading it when I was about 13 and it really hitting home. And that’s only one where race i the major issue – she writes a lot of young adult books that are just about young adults who are like anyone else, they just happen to be black too. Which is a surprisingly rare occurence. And if you don’t cry at the end , you’re heartless.
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Edwidge Danticat is one of my very favorite authors of all time. She’s a Haitian-American who came to the US when she was twelve, and most of her books are not necessarily young-adult-appropriate, being about crappy things that happen to Haitians in Haiti (like torturing and being tortured under dictatorships) and crappy things that happen to Haitians when they leave Haiti (like the 1937 massacre of about 20,000 Haitians living in the Dominican Republic, or painful adolescences in the US, or dying while in custody of the Dept. of Homeland Security because being an ill 81-year-old with a valid passport and visitor’s visa doesn’t mean you’re not considered a massive security risk). But she has two young adult works that might be good for future Xmases, etc.: Behind the Mountain, from Scholastic’s “First Person Fiction” series, which “features authors from a variety of backgrounds writing about the experience of coming to America,” and tells the story of an adolescent leaving Haiti during a violent election period and moving to Brooklyn (but which I think is out of print these days, so while you will have no problem tracking down many copies used through Amazon.com, etc., it will be trickier to find in a local bookstore), and Anacaona, Golden Flower, from Scholastic’s “Royal Diaries” series, which is mostly marketed to preteens obsessed with princesses, I guess, and certainly has plenty of books about European princesses, but there are lots of non-European visions of royalty, too, and Danticat’s is about the Taínos in Haiti, opening in 1490 and continuing through the conquest. Both of the books contain violence and other not-so-fun stuff, but they’re definitely written for a young adult audience.
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Have you read Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Helen Oyeyemi? They’re both OMG amazing. Not really African-American (although Adichie is in the States now, I think; Oyeyemi is British), and not for kids, but I can’t recommend them highly enough. I think Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus would be fine for teenagers, and probably Oyeyemi’s Icarus Girl too.
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