I just started re-reading Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States for a book discussion series happening at my local library soon. This is one of those types of books everyone has in their personal library but never gets around to reading because it is so long – nearly 800 pages! This book discussion series is meant to get people to not only read but really think about how the book relates to issues going on in America today. According to Zinn, American history is to a large extent the exploitation of the majority by an elite minority.
Zinn has left a great literary masterpiece behind for the rest of us to enjoy!
I have written a lot here about the need to have more books in classrooms today that reflect the changing cultural diversity in America. According to the Cooperative Children’s Book Center, out of 3,500 children’s books in schools surveyed in 2014, only 180 were about black people. The numbers are even worse for books about Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans.
I attended this wonderful panel discussion at the Harlem Book Fair a couple of weeks ago that brought together diverse writers and publishers to discuss how to change this. They all agreed that multicultural literature is the future, and as one panelist said “If we are going to be an inclusive society, we need diverse books.”
Stacy Whitman of the famed multicultural publisher, Lee and Low Books, gave out this great list of ways to make reading more inclusive:
Does your book list or collection include books with characters of color? LGBTQ? Differently-abled?
Does it include books with a main character of color? LGBTQ? Differently-abled?
Does it include books written or illustrated by a person of color? Of different nationalities, religions or sexual preferences?
Are there any books with a person of color on the cover? Do the characters on the book covers accurately reflect the characters in the book?
Think about your student population. Does your list provide a mix of “mirror” books and “window” books for your students—books in which they can see themselves reflected and books in which they can learn about others?
Think about the subject matter of your diverse books. Do all your books featuring black characters focus on slavery? Do all your books about Latino characters focus on immigration? Are all your LGBTQ books coming out stories?
Do you have any books featuring diverse characters that are not primarily about race or prejudice?
Consider your classic books, both fiction and nonfiction. Do any contain hurtful racial or ethnic stereotypes, or images (e.g. Little House on the Prairie or The Indian in the Cupboard? If so, how will you address those stereotypes with students? Have you included another book that provides a more accurate depiction of the same culture?
I think this is a great list that all librarians and educators should seriously consider when selecting future books! I also found this video that is helpful.
Last week, NPR had a great series on the role paper plays in an increasing digital world. As much as I like technology, I still like using notebooks to jot down ideas, story pitches and possible blog posts. I keep a notebook in my bag at all times and take it out whenever I want to write down what is going on in my mind.
I go to a lot of in-person business meeting where I am nowadays the only person in the room writing down my notes, whereas everyone else is typing on some gadget.
The great thing about writing on paper is that it is “crash-proof” and I don’t have to wait to “turn on” my notebook. You can write down your thoughts quicker than typing it on a computer, mobile or tablet. Most importantly, research shows that handwriting supports better learning and memory retention. Writing on paper is about being in the moment.
So I was glad that NPR did this story and reminded me that I am not the last “analog dinosaur” standing, but I do worry about the new generation of digital natives who are missing out on this art form.
A couple of weeks ago I had a really interesting conversation with my friends Linda and Reginald about the need to have more books in K-12 schools representing diverse authors and perspectives. This talk was spurred on by a recent article by science fiction writer K. Tempest Bradford who challenged readers to stop reading books written by heterosexual, cisgendered white males for a year. (FYI – cisgendered means someone who psychologically matches the gender they were assigned to at birth, as opposed to transgendered. It’s a new term to me too!).
Bradford says she grew tired of reading other science fiction in mainstream magazines that were mostly written by straight, white guys. So she took on the challenge to only read works by women, people of color and LGBT writers for one year. After the year-long “sabbatical,” Bradford said that “cutting that one demographic out of [her] reading list greatly improved [her] enjoyment of reading short stories” and that she now has “a new understanding of what kind of fiction [she would] enjoy most, what kind of writers are likely to write it, and how different the speculative fiction landscape looks when you adjust the parallax.”
Bradford is not the only one who took on this radical way of reading books. Australian writer Sunili Govinnage also took the challenge herself to only read books by writers of color, and then realized “just how white [her] reading world was.”
Now back to my discussion, my friend Linda is a half-white, half-Puerto Rican high school English teacher and a mother of a nine-year-old daughter, and my other friend Reginald is a gay, black man from Trinidad who works in the adolescent book publishing industry. As you already know, I am a writer who runs a digital imprint, do advocacy for my local public library and has worked in a multicultural bookstore before. The three of us are in total agreement that schools should have reading lists that represent diverse writers. Linda likes the position Bradford and Govinnage take on multicultural school reading and would like to see more books by writers of many marginalized backgrounds in high schools. She says she also encourages her daughter to read diverse literature.
“I think my school district does an so-so job with multicultural writers, but their ideas of ‘multicultural’ is reading Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes during black history month,” Linda said. “I am tired of teaching mostly about white guy writers. Everyone knows who Mark Twain and Shakespeare are, but Esmeralda Santiago, Junot Diaz, Jhumpa Lahiri and Octavia Butler are great writers too who need more attention and are more contemporary. I would like my school to have more required reading lists to include other people of color, even lesser known writers, and writers with disabilities.”
Based on his 12 years in the publishing industry, Reginald said that it is still hard to increase the number of diverse writers in schools and in bookstores in general. He said many schools have reading curricula that are decades old and don’t reflect the changing racial demographics in America today. This has mostly to do with the lack of people representing marginalized groups in positions of power in both school districts and publishing houses to make decisions about making more diverse literature available to students and readers of all ages for that matter. He also said that some school districts find it easier to stick to “tried and tested” known authors, which are usually dead white guys and occasionally diverse writers like Maya Angelou and Ralph Ellison, because it is easier to teach and cheaper to buy mass market copies of Huckleberry Finn or The Great Gatsby than a lesser known book, which is usually written by a marginalized writer.
However, Reginald had an even more radical take on diverse reading that even Linda and I were thinking: “Schools should put a moratorium on dead, straight, white guys, at least at the high school level. High school is great time to expose students to diverse ideas and views, since teenagers are beginning to develop their own identities and perspectives.”
As for his own reading habits: “I don’t read books by white guys anymore. Those books don’t reflect my life, my color, my culture, my masculinity or my sexuality.”
Reginald said he likes reading James Baldwin, Thomas Glave and E. Lynn Harris. Linda said she had similar reading habits. “I only seek out books by black, Asian and Latino writers. Their experiences reflect my own experiences as a person of color.”
I understood where they were both coming from, but I was actually kind of shocked by the fact that a school teacher and a book publishing executive would take such an extreme, and possibly narrow-minded view on literature.
So what do I think about this matter?
I like reading books by all kinds of authors – black, Asian, Latino, Middle-Eastern, LGBT, disabled, women, men, political, apolitical, religious, atheist, and, yeah, even some dead, straight, cisgendered white guys! While I enjoy reading books by people who I have a shared background with, reading to me for the most part is more about learning about other people’s experiences and perspectives. In order to be a well-rounded person in today’s society, you have to understand everyone’s perspective, even if it offends or scares you sometimes. That is how we evolve as a people.
If you have been following my writings for a while, you know that I like to read biographies and books about politics and history, and I write long, exhaustive essays about them. I like learning about how other people think and how their thinking shapes society. Two of my favorite writers are Upton Sinclair and Ernest Hemingway – two dead, straight, cisgendered, white guys. I am also a big fan of Richard Wright not just because he is black, but also because he is a great storyteller. Although he is best known for his racially-charged fiction work, I actually prefer his non-fiction travel writing like Pagan Spain, Black Power and The Color Curtain, which I wrote about last week.
Currently, I am rereading (yeah, because rereading is fundamental) The Politics of Change by Michael Manley, the charismatic former prime minister of Jamaica. Obama’s recent trip to the Caribbean to meet with CARICOM sparked my interest in reading Manley’s most influential work again. I didn’t read it just because he is black and Jamaican like me; I read it because he has interesting views on development economics and social policy.
As far as schools are concerned, yes, more diverse authors and perspectives need to be added to reading lists, but don’t cut out the white dudes. Everyone’s perspective should be welcomed at the table of ideas.
But maybe I’m wrong here.
If Linda and Reginald feel this way, there must be others. Please leave a comment below or email me about your reading habits. Does the author’s background influence if you will read their book? What are you reading now and why?
I just started re-reading Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States for a book discussion series happening at my local library soon. This is one of those types of books everyone has in their personal library but never gets around to reading because it is so long – nearly 800 pages! This book discussion series is meant to get people to not only read but really think about how the book relates to issues going on in America today. According to Zinn, American history is to a large extent the exploitation of the majority by an elite minority.
