tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27760240.post3819684820027274011..comments2024-03-27T14:08:51.191-05:00Comments on American Indians in Children's Literature (AICL): Amazon deleted my review of Killen's NOT ME!Debbie Reesehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14972409006633565859noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27760240.post-6226139775133180672011-06-17T07:20:06.626-05:002011-06-17T07:20:06.626-05:00I visited Killen's blog. Wow. What an interest...I visited Killen's blog. Wow. What an interesting discussion. Keep up the good work.nonehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15902970183089919383noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27760240.post-80835974500892717762011-06-15T10:43:03.903-05:002011-06-15T10:43:03.903-05:00Hi, Debbie--
I just sent the following review to ...Hi, Debbie--<br /><br />I just sent the following review to Amazon. We'll see what happens.<br /><br /><br />For children to be encouraged to play-act any ethnicity—Lakota, Chinese, Mexican, Muslim, Jewish, Hawai’ian—one of which is illustrated by NOT ME!—is distasteful and inappropriate at the very least. That “playing Indian” often occurs in the U.S. or the U.K. or anywhere else—and therefore is seen as “harmless” or “cute,” is a non sequitur. Rather, it’s a flat-out illustration of cultural hegemony—dominance and control—and it’s wrong. Children’s books like this do real damage to real Indian children, and give non-Indian children a false sense of superiority. It’s an assumption that lives in the dominant culture, and is often manifested in children’s books. In the case of NOT ME!, the author’s and publisher’s intentions may be innocent, but the damage is done.<br /><br />NOT ME! is a sweet little book—except for its stereotypic description of a particular ethnicity—and that is too bad. I would rather have seen a picture book illustrating a child’s playing with a headdress that he has found somewhere, and his mother’s trading it for a baseball cap, for instance, instead.<br /><br />For anyone who wants to be educated on the subject, I recommend PLAYING INDIAN by Philip Deloria. It’s a history of the American tendency to act out Indian roles, and it’s a great read.Beverly Slapinhttp://bslapin@gmail.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27760240.post-47988950219647753752011-06-14T18:05:29.741-05:002011-06-14T18:05:29.741-05:00Alas, Amazon has a history of deleting pro-social-...Alas, Amazon has a history of deleting pro-social-justice comments if other readers get on their hind legs about them.Laughingrathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18131160040248786774noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27760240.post-31209645901332257762011-06-14T11:53:21.608-05:002011-06-14T11:53:21.608-05:00Sounds like J. Bennett has never heard the term &q...Sounds like J. Bennett has never heard the term "racism" in his life and has no idea what it means.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27760240.post-52668030493672030302011-06-14T11:30:17.370-05:002011-06-14T11:30:17.370-05:00I went to Amazon to see what you had written just ...I went to Amazon to see what you had written just this morning, and wondered where your comment was.Kaethehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01138988651491869091noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27760240.post-33463233619775053522011-06-14T08:40:57.136-05:002011-06-14T08:40:57.136-05:00Looks like another case of the invisible hand of t...Looks like another case of the invisible hand of the Internet at work!Stephen Bridenstinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02709883498078367644noreply@blogger.com