2018 School Spending Survey Report
A very good question
Lee and Low's blog is asking a good question: "Why hasn't the number of multicultural books increased in eighteen years?" They have assembled a good variety of responses, and I have two more, one only semi-facetious and one perhaps semi-impolitic:
Semi-facetious response: While the blog states the disparity between the non-white population in this country (37% of the whole) and the percentage of children's books with "multicultural content" (hovering around 10% over the last eighteen years), I want to know what percentage of children's books are in the first place about people (as opposed to talking rabbits or outer space, for example).
Semi-facetious response: While the blog states the disparity between the non-white population in this country (37% of the whole) and the percentage of children's books with "multicultural content" (hovering around 10% over the last eighteen years), I want to know what percentage of children's books are in the first place about people (as opposed to talking rabbits or outer space, for example). Things may look worse than they are.
Semi-impolitic response: The Coretta Scott King Awards have been both blessing and curse. Blessing, because they have allowed some amazing books to have been published that probably would not have been otherwise; and curse, because they have straitened publishers' ideas about what a good "multicultural book" should be: earnest, good-for-you, and preferably historical. We need more rubbish!
Added To Cart
RELATED
RECOMMENDED
Please register with us to continue reading.
ALREADY A SUBSCRIBER? LOG IN
We are currently offering this content for free. Sign up now to activate your personal profile, where you can save articles for future viewing.
ALREADY A SUBSCRIBER? LOG IN
Thank you for visiting.
We’ve noticed you are using a private browser. To continue, please log in or create an account.
Add Comment :-
Comment Policy:
Comment should not be empty !!!
Claudia Pearson
Have you read THE SUMMER PRINCE yet? Would love to hear opinions about it here and am anxious to see how it fares. Award worth IMO, but will it get one?Posted : Oct 14, 2013 01:14
Kate
This may not work...but is there a rubric or structured process to minimize bias, so judging is more fair?Posted : Sep 26, 2013 02:57
Anne Sibley O'Brien
"The inherent, insidious, and largely unconscious biases of white librarians need to be brought out into the light, even if it makes us uncomfortable." Thank you, Patty! Two years ago I attended a lecture at Bates College by Mahzarin Banaji of Harvard's Project Implicit, a neuroscience study of unconscious bias. It was enlightening. Although the Project addresses bias of all types (and bias is, of course, a universal human condition), Banaji talked quite a bit about racial bias, including the finding from their study that 80% of white people are biased *towards* whiteness - i.e. showing a preference for white people. Despite such findings, to my ears Banaji's talk was full of good news. She talked about how the data from the study was putting into our hands the tools to make our actions match our intentions. One key is in recognizing the nature and prevalence of *unconscious* bias. It is not intentional. It is not "what you mean." It is not affected by what you consciously believe or what you consciously intend, and it can be there even when you are positive it is not. The nature, the prevalence and the dominance of unconscious white bias (not white *people*, but white patterns, what I call "White Mind") must be named in order for all of us to get free from its often invisible hold. There are ways to explore this that are neither divisive nor accusatory. We are all impacted by white bias, and we can all benefit from understanding more about how it works and making conscious choices about how to navigate it. It's a liberating process to ask, in Obama's words, "Am I wringing as much bias out of myself as I can?" Although, as you point out, Patty, the process might involve some discomfort, the longterm result is getting ourselves back, with a coherence between our intentions and our impact. Then it becomes possible to make the changes that will result in our children's books representing all of our children.Posted : Sep 25, 2013 04:40
ChristineTB
Thanks Patty for your honesty. I'm sad to know that my days of sitting through the Boston discussion in 2010 was not an isolated incident limited to that one committee. More sad because those people purport to serve children in their library jurisdictions. I'm lucky to have been nurtured by a more enlightened group when growing up in Ohio. Those seeds sown when I was a child spending most of my free time among the stacks shaped me greatly. If Notables can't operate without bias, then perhaps it should be required to be filled with half people of color to reflect the current birth trends in the US.Posted : Sep 25, 2013 02:17
Kate Barsotti
In case you missed it: some good news to balance out the gloom. September 18, 2013, MONTPELIER, VT – Vermont College of Fine Arts (VCFA), a national center for graduate education in the fine arts, and Barry Goldblatt Literary, LLC, announce the creation of The Angela Johnson Scholarship, a talent-based grant for writers of color attending the MFA in Writing for Children & Young Adults Master of Fine Arts program. The $5,000 scholarship will be awarded to up to two students annually. http://www.vcfa.edu/wcya/news/literary-agent-barry-goldblatt-announces-new-writing-children-young-adults-scholarshipPosted : Sep 24, 2013 03:26