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Stop white centering.
On February 2, the School Library Journal, a publication for librarians and information specialists that reviews and recommends children’s books, released the cover of their February issue, which drew immediate criticism on social media.
Happy Friday, and welcome back! This one is personal. For my 9-to-5 (I don’t run this newsletter full-time!) I run a company that creates diverse mindfulness content for kids, and I just published my first children’s book with the same intention. For both of those projects, I’m committed to centering Black and brown kids because of how often they’re overlooked. Today’s topic – during Black History Month no less – is infuriating.
Thank you all for your support. This newsletter is made possible by our subscribers. Consider subscribing for $7/month on Patreon. Or you can give one-time on our website or PayPal. You can also support us by joining our curated digital community.
Nicole
Ps – be sure to sign up for 28 Days of Black History.
TAKE ACTION
Support the work of We Need Diverse Books, which advocates for essential changes in the publishing industry.
Buy books that center children of color, particularly books beyond “issue books” from independent writers and publishers—recommendations on our Bookshop.
Consider: How do you center the “benefits” of diversity, equity, and inclusion at your office? In your community? At your school? Does it align with centering the needs of those most marginalized or the white community?
GET EDUCATED
By Nicole Cardoza (she/her)
On February 2, the School Library Journal, a publication for librarians and information specialists that reviews and recommends children’s books, released the cover of their February issue, which drew immediate criticism on social media.
Before we dive in, the statement on this cover isn’t factually wrong. The article highlighted on the homepage names the challenges that libraries in majority-white school districts experience when diversifying their collections. It’s correct that, as the article states, centering whiteness in children’s media can promote an ethnocentric, superior mindset against other communities of color. You can read the full article here.
But this is a disappointing example of white centering – when the case for change has to be rooted in the benefit of dominant culture. It’s a violent manipulation of privilege, a way to disregard the sentiments of a non-white person or community and prioritize white feelings instead. White centering is often found in tone-policing, racial gaslighting, and in the refusal of apologizing or holding oneself accountable for their actions. It creates the assumption that diversity is only important when it benefits white people.
The illustration, personally, makes this positioning most damning. The cover depicts a white child holding up a Black face speaking Spanish over their own. The two images merge, so the Black face becomes theirs, too. This is a form of blackface (Anti-Racism Daily) and normalizes the idea that white people can adopt the culture of non-white people for their own gain – as if it’s automatically theirs to own. It perpetuates the idea that the experiences of non-white people should be designed for white consumption, white empowerment, and white advancement. This notion is the foundation of white supremacy.
Rebekah Borucki, author, and publisher at Wheat Penny Press, emphasizes that “what happened here was no accident or oversight. The decision to center white children and their needs in an educational institution’s cover story, written by a non-Black woman, during Black History Month, is exactly why we desperately need more Black authors, publishers, and librarians creating and curating content for our children. Black creativity and labor does not exist for white people’s benefit.”
This perspective on books is quite common in the publishing industry. We already know that the industry is largely white, and the books written by people of color that succeed are “issue books,” books that educate and illuminate their struggles. We wrote about this in more detail in a previous newsletter. Consider the controversy around “American Dirt,” a novel that glorified the trauma of immigration written by a white woman. Publishers celebrated it and accelerated its rapid success without listening to the Latinx voices adamant about its harm (Vulture).
And this is reflected in the children’s book publishing space. A 2019 study by We Need Diverse Books found that 71% of the characters found in children’s books are either white or non-human (BookRiot). It’s 2.5x more likely that a children’s book character will be an animal than Black/African American, and only 1% of characters are of Native background. Currently, there are several top bestselling kids’ books featuring kids of color. Still, all but one of them reflect the inauguration of Vice President Harris (there’s also one that celebrates President Biden). We can’t wait for another inauguration to see this type of diversity (Barnes & Noble).
I was one of the few kids of color at an otherwise all-white school. I'd go home and wrap a towel around her head to pretend to have the long locks of my peers. I tried everything I could to fit in. Abby, an American Girl doll that represented a nine-year-old enslaved child, was the only Black doll I owned. In the first pages of the book that accompanied the doll, her overseer forced her to eat a worm found on the tobacco plants because she wasn’t removing them fast enough (Paris Review). Who was that doll created for? Who was that story created for? Was it designed to offer this young Black girl representation, vision, and hope, or make the horrors of slavery consumable for a broader audience? And would the diversity efforts of my school actually support me and my experience?
As of now (mid-day Thursday), the School Library Journal has yet to respond to the feedback on their cover. It’s clear that it’s up to us as individuals to stay educated and aware on how to center diverse kids’ books – by centering the experiences of marginalized children that deserve to be seen, heard, and celebrated.
We’ve created our own recommended reading list of diverse children’s books for Black History Month. You can explore the collection in our Bookshop.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
The School Library Journal released an off-putting cover in February that centers the need for diversity in children's media for the benefit of white students
This is an example of how white centered diversity efforts only perpetuate white supremacy
The publishing industry is notoriously white, and often only celebrates diverse stories when they seem to have a benefit for white readers.
RELATED ISSUES
11/19/2020 | Decolonize your reading habits.
7/15/2020 | End racial bias in school discipline.
9/7/2020 | Learn about critical race theory.
PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT
Thank you for all your financial contributions! If you haven't already, consider making a monthly donation to this work. These funds will help me operationalize this work for greatest impact.
Subscribe on Patreon | Give one-time on PayPal | Venmo @nicoleacardoza
Understand the white-presenting experience.
My mother has always taught me that I was a Black woman. My fair skin and blue eyes were, in her words, simply a product of centuries of violence on Black people and the effects of colonization. Had I been born in another era, my appearance would not have freed me from slavery, nor would it have offered me much more privelege in a world where people looked to expose “white-passing negroes.” In fact, one of my passing ancestors was hired by Macy’s and was unceremoniously dismissed when they discovered that she was Black.
Happy Wednesday and welcome back to the Anti-Racism Daily. I was excited to see that Passing, a 1929 novel on the white-presenting experience by Nella Larsen, had been adapted into a movie that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this past weekend (LA Times). Nia joins us today to chat first-hand about the white-presenting experience.
Are you signed up for our 28 Days of Black HIstory exhibition yet? Camille Bethune-Brown and Shanaé Burch have curated an incredible series, and I've had the privilege to enjoy it alone for the past month. I can't wait for ya'll to see it unfold: 28daysofblackhistory.com.
Thank you all for your support. This newsletter is made possible by our subscribers. Consider subscribing for $7/month on Patreon. Or you can give one-time on our website or PayPal. You can also support us by joining our curated digital community.
Nicole
TAKE ACTION
Shift your language to say “white presenting” instead of “white passing” when referring to Black people that physically look white.
Learn about the history of the “one drop rule” that allowed for the disenfranchisement and continued enslavement of Black people in America with white ancestry.
Read books like “The Vanishing Half” by Brit Bennett and “Passing” by Nella Larsen.
GET EDUCATED
By Nia Norris (she/her)
My mother has always taught me that I was a Black woman. My fair skin and blue eyes were, in her words, simply a product of centuries of violence on Black people and the effects of colonization. Had I been born in another era, my appearance would not have freed me from slavery, nor would it have offered me much more privelege in a world where people looked to expose “white-passing negroes.” In fact, one of my passing ancestors was hired by Macy’s and was unceremoniously dismissed when they discovered that she was Black.
This story has been told over and over again in pop culture since the 19th century. Initially introduced by Lydia Maria Child, the “tragic mulatto” is a character that has been explored repeatedly in literature and film. Child told the story of the light-skinned descendant of a slave-owner and a slave whose identity was discovered. She lost her white lover and her status and was subsequently enslaved (Ferris). This trope was replicated over and over again in pop culture, painting mulatto women as sexual objects, and often ending with the tortured mulatto committing suicide or losing everything due to the discovery of their “Blackness” (ThoughtCo).
We can’t talk about the “tragic mulatto” without also discussing the “one drop rule” of slavery and the Jim Crow era. In American history, Blackness was defined as having “one Black ancestor.” This rule effectively enabled America to keep the mixed-race descendants of slaves and slave owners enslaved, and to disenfranchise mixed-raced Americans from suffrage and opportunities. Whiteness is something that has largely been forced upon us through rape and colonization (PBS).
So my mother taught me to appreciate my Blackness from a very young age, in spite of me being under the illusion that it was mostly irrelevant. I have joked that she named me Imani Nia (both Swahili names and principles of Kwanzaa) so that I would have to explain to everyone upon introduction that I was biracial, despite these baby blues. However, my Blackness is, has always been, and always will be a major part of my identity. My entire family is Black and has many trailblazers in our lineage. My grandfather was a legal clerk on Brown v. The Board of Education and my grandmother was the first Black woman in Western Pennsylvania to head a major charitable organization. My great-grandmother was a union organizer.
Another problematic facet of being white-passing is society’s desire to separate us into a binary, or force us to identify one way or another. There is a pressure to identify with one group or another (NPR). White people have often told me that I am “white” because of my skin tone, and have been told that my children (who have a white father) are also white. It has been suggested to me that I raise my children as white, which I find problematic because this would require me to effectively cancel their ancestors. Instead, I will teach my children that Blackness can be found in all spectrums.
So what does white-passing look like in America today? I have largely switched to saying white-presenting as opposed to white-passing. The historical context of white-passing is rooted in violence and disenfranchisement of fair-skinned Black Americans. However, we also cannot acknowledge this without also mentioning colorism, when light-skinned Black people (and white Americans) tend to turn their internalized racism towards darker-skinned Black people. For example, there was a higher monetary value set for light-skinned slaves, and even historically Black sororities and fraternities have been known to show colorism in member selection. (Nova Southeastern University). Even today, light-skinned Black Americans are less likely to run into the same barriers as their darker-skinned counterparts (Time).
To say “white-passing” has the implication that I have the desire to pass, which is one I have never had. What’s more interesting is the desire of white Americans to claim Black ancestry, as shown by Jessica Krug and Rachel Dolezal (NBC). These women used their false claims of Black ancestry to take up spaces and procure funding that could have otherwise been for people of color, provoking a national dialogue
When examining my own identity, I have largely decided that the only identity that I need to claim is my Black identity. For a long time, I said mixed or biracial, but another Black woman explained to me, we are all mixed due the violent history of our country. This made sense to me, so I shifted my language to Black. In America, we have never been asked or expected to claim our whiteness, instead it is something that has been inflicted upon us without allowing us the opportunity to claim the benefits.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Blackness in America comes in all colors, and most Black Americans are mixed to some degree.
Historically, the term “white-passing” was used to disenfranchise Black Americans with white ancestry.
In recent years, white Americans such as Jessica Krug and Rachel Dolezal have tried to capitalize on a Black ancestry that was not theirs to claim.
RELATED ISSUES
11/26/2020 | Support the land back movement.
12/17/2020 | Respect Hawaii’s sacred land.
6/25/2020 | Capitalize B in Black and I in Indigenous.
PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT
Thank you for all your financial contributions! If you haven't already, consider making a monthly donation to this work. These funds will help me operationalize this work for greatest impact.
Subscribe on Patreon | Give one-time on PayPal | Venmo @nicoleacardoza