About Christine Taylor-Butler's Facebook Post

On Monday, September 7, 2015, Christine Taylor Butler started a conversation on Facebook by talking about heated conversations that took place over some things that Maggie Stiefvater said about writing the other (if you didn't follow it, see her response on her Tumblr page). Christine wrote (quoting what she said in its entirety):

I am watching the Maggie Stiefvater controversy and finding myself thinking that we don't progress as an industry because the internet has developed a new phenomena. The "attack by blog" cowardice from narcissistic sociopaths who use it as a form of passive aggressive expression for their anger management issues.

We don't have dialogue - we have attacks. We don't invite debate. We demand rote adherence to a single point of view.

We anoint movements as surrogates for real action and change but ignore the others that were on the front lines of the battle.

We attack the white speakers, but not the conference organizers who perpetuated the problem.

Why attack Maggie, when we didn't attack the authors who were appointed to an all-white male BookCon panel.

This. Must. Stop.

Children's literature is about creating engaging works for children. Not wars between angry content creators who, unable to pinpoint the true villains, tear down each other.

This. Must. Stop.

For those who can't conceive of sharing the landscape so diversity has a broader meaning. For those who say whites can't write "other" instead of addressing the real problem which is that those of us who are "other" should be able to write across boundaries, too, I say get out of the kidlit business and write for adults. Because you don't understand where the real problem lies.

As people responded to her, I read some comments that indicated some people may be unaware that, in children's literature, the discussion of "who can write" is not a new one. I posted a comment with a link to my post about dinner with Deborah Wiles. That post includes a quote from Kathryn Lasky, a writer who called critics "self-styled militias of cultural diversity." That quote is from 1996.  A few minutes later I got a notification saying Ellen Hopkins had commented on Christine's post, so I went back to see how the conversation was developing. My comment was gone. Christine had deleted it. That was surprising to me. Right after Ellen's comments, I saw one from Christine:

In that comment, she didn't name the blogger. Because she'd just deleted my comments, I assumed she was talking about me. I had asked her for an ARC. I did review her book, The Lost Tribes. At that point I more or less shrugged it off.

Later, however, there was a longer post (below) sent to her 800+ friends that I felt I couldn't shrug off. In it, she replaced "Dine (Navajo)" with "another culture" and "Indian Outreach Center" with "Outreach Center". Even without the references to Native culture, people who she sent it to thought she was talking about me. They wrote to me to ask about it. They sent me the text itself. I also received screen shots of it. Here's the text (my apologies for the not-great quality of the screen caps):

In the longer comment, this line is the one that prompted me to write this post:

"She didn't bother to explain in her blog that over several months she and I had discussed the research I had done."

The reason that line prompted this post? Lot of writers and editors write to me, seeking my help with content specific to Native people. My worry about that line? She was scaring people away from seeking my help. If they assume--like I and others did--that she was talking about me, she was effectively casting doubt on my integrity.

Was addressing it, however, buying in to social media drama? Yesterday morning (Tuesday, September 9), I said (on Facebook) that I was thinking about writing this post. Yesterday afternoon, Christine said (in a comment to me) that she was not talking about me. Other things she said in that comment contradicted that assertion. She deleted that comment, too. I don't have a copy of it.

Contradictions aside, I can take her at her word. This post was intended to be my effort to make sense of what Christine was saying. In an early draft of this post, I wrote about our interactions via Facebook and email, quoting extensively from those interactions. I'm setting that draft aside.

As Christine's initial post (top of this page) indicates, this is a heated moment in children's literature as we (once again) engage the debate of who-can-write. It is heated in adult literature, too. As I write, people are discussing Sherman Alexie's post about why he decided, in his role as editor of The Best American Poetry 2015, to include a poem by Michael Derrick Hudson, a white man who submitted that poem with the name "Yi-Fen Chou" rather than his own name. I think Alexie was wrong to include it. Writers use pen names for many reasons. Names matter. There are studies that show that people with ethnic names are, for example, denied job interviews, loans, and opportunities to publish. In some of those studies, the very same content is submitted using names like Smith, and those applications get further in the process.  Hudson did the opposite thing. He exploited a marginalized population for personal gain. There are excellent responses to Alexie's decision. See, for example, the letter by Craig Santos Perez.

I'm on the record, for those who don't know, for preferring Native writers because when a teacher or librarian shares a Native-authored book with a child, that teacher or librarian can use present tense verbs to tell that child about that author and that author's tribal nation, that nation's website, and so on. Those present tense verbs push back on the idea that we're a primitive people, and ideas that we no longer exist. My review recommending On the Move by Flynn, who is not Native is evidence that I think a non-Native person can write a story about Native people.

As for what Christine said about bloggers attacking authors? Some writers view negative criticisms as attacks, or, as dangerous. I understand they feel that way to writers, but the work I do here on AICL and elsewhere privileges the children who will read what writers write.

Update, Wednesday, September 16, 2015
I continue to be puzzled by this incident. Though Christine said it is not me she was talking about, interesting things come my way. For example, I posted a review of her book at Amazon several weeks ago. I get notifications when someone comments on a book I reviewed there. I've gotten two notifications in the last few days that suggest I am the person she is talking about:

Obviously, I disagree with KCmomof2. I don't care what genre someone is working in; if there are Native people in the book, the presentation of them must be accurate. I'm also revisiting the premise of the book in its entirety. None of the main characters (including the Navajo girl) are actually human beings. They're all aliens, masquerading as human beings. It is a twist on playing Indian that I find troubling.

For the record: It wasn't me who discussed research with her over a period of months. Via Facebook messenger, we talked in November of 2014 about Native identity because she was forming an award committee and wanted me to sit on it to help the committee understand the nuances of Native identity. She never mentioned her book. When I learned about it in January, I asked for an ARC. She told me about the Navajo character, and that Serise (the character) would have a greater role in the next book. I provided her with my mailing address and cautioned her that the people she asks to vet it cannot be the teens she met when she was on the Navajo reservation for two weeks doing missionary work.

Christine Taylor-Butler's THE LOST TRIBES

Christine Taylor-Butler's The Lost Tribes was released on March 25th. Published by Move Books, I read an advanced copy. Here's the synopsis from Amazon:

In The Lost Tribes, five friends could never imagine their ordinary parents are scientists on a secret mission. When their parents go missing, they are forced into unfathomable circumstances and learn of a history that's best left unknown. Now they must race against time in the search for tribal artifacts that are thousands of years old. Artifacts that hold the fate of the universe in the balance. But unbeknownst to them, they are catalysts in an ancient score that must be settled. The Lost Tribes is a challenge from beginning to end. As the chaos unfolds so do opportunities to solve codes and figure out where the characters will end up next (and the illustration and design give the reader a visual unfolding as well). Written by a former engineer, this book provides a sturdy and accurate science and history foundation, where readers will surely become participants in the facts, fun, and adventure.

Among those five friends and their parents is Serise Hightower and her parents, Dr. David Hightower and Dr. Cheryl Hightower. The kids (Serise, Carlos, Grace, and Ben and his little sister, April) all live in the same cul-de-sac in California. Until later in the book when we learn that all these characters are "scientific observers from another galaxy" we think of Serise as being Navajo. We first learn about her on page 52 (reading the ARC, so page numbers may differ in final copy) when two characters, Ben and Grace, are trying to break a coded message in a game that Ben's uncle has given to him. Serise, Grace tells Ben, is good at breaking codes.

Ben doesn't like Serise. He thinks of her as the "self-titled Queen of the Universe" (p. 60) who can barely move in her tight jeans and wedge-heeled shoes. When she appears in the story, she's showing off a watch that her mom got in New Mexico. It has turquoise in it. That Serise paints matching flowers on her nails tells me the watch is something similar to what I show to the right.

More obnoxious to Ben, however, are the "maroon and purple highlights and feathers in her jet black hair" (p. 60). Another character, Carlos, doesn't like Serise either. He praises the watch but smirks at Ben as he does it. Serise's mom is the Curator of the Sunnyslope Museum of Natural History. She travels a lot. The expensive gifts she brings back to Serise mean that she is spoiled.

Ben doesn't think much of the watch. Serise asks if he wants to see "something cool" (p. 61). Ben, Grace, and Carlos follow her to her backyard (p. 61):

A domed structure sat in the corner. Covered with blankets, canvas tarps and leather, it looked like a cross between a hut and a tent. A single opening was visible on the west side.

It, she tells them, is a "new sweat lodge" built by her dad. He is "getting ready for a vision quest." His hobby is mystic religions and he's "always trying to conjure up the spirit of an ancient ancestor."  In this vision quest, he'll "cleanse himself of toxic impurities and restore his soul" (p. 61). He's been meditating and fasting and wants to do a ceremony on Sunday to get guidance for a journey he's going to go on.

Ben asks if he always does these ceremonies before a trip, and Serise tells him this one is different. After "the big storm" that happened when the book begins, her dad is going to "ask the Tribal Council for permission to conduct an Enemyway ceremony" (p. 61). From inside, the kids can hear her dad chanting. Grace thinks the whole thing sounds cool till Serise tells her "You have to be naked."

Serise goes to the sweat lodge and shows them a walkie talkie she has put there with the intent of playing a joke on her dad while he does the ceremony. While she's doing that, Grace, Ben, and Carlos whisper to each other about how awful it is to be around her.

That evening, Ben's dad tells him that they're invited to the sweat lodge on Sunday. Of course, Ben is unhappy about it. When he gets there, he sees Dr. Hightower and Grace's dad, Dr. Choedon, standing by "an intricate painting at the entrance to the lodge." Dr. Choedon calls it a mandala that is part of the ritual. Inside, Dr. Hightower tells them that if they're sick, they shouldn't participate, because being in a sweat lodge "is a grueling test of endurance." He starts to chant and pour water over huge "red-hot boulders" that Dr. Hightower tells them were heated outside the lodge and brought inside with "a little ingenuity" that he doesn't describe.

Thus far, Taylor-Butler (the author) has not named a specific tribal nation.

The "Enemyway ceremony" and the language that Serise's dad uses, however, indicate that we are meant to think they are Navajo. But because they aren't really Navajo (remember, they're not of Earth at all), I'm not sure what to do with this.

Where did these observers from another galaxy get the information they needed to behave in what they think of as Navajo?

What they do is troubling and misrepresentative. Generally speaking, Navajo ceremonies take place in hogans, not sweat lodges, and sandpaintings are done inside of hogans. Healers don't need to seek permission from a tribal council to do ceremonies. Fasting isn't part of the preparation. Though the ceremony in The Lost Tribes is called an "Enemyway" ceremony (usually written as Enemy Way), the language that Hightower uses is that of the Beauty Way ceremony.

The description of the sweat lodge in The Lost Tribes is more like the sweats done by other Native nations. With this vision quest/sweat lodge/Enemyway ceremony, the author has collapsed the ways of several distinct Native Nations and Tibetan Monks into... the ways of who?!

On page 286, we get an explanation. The kids learn their parents are not from Earth. They were sent to Earth from their homes in the Sonecian galaxy to find out what happened to a previous group. Henry (Ben's uncle), explains (p. 289):

"We call this place Safe Harbor because that is what it represented to our ancestors--a sanctuary from the impending collapse of a star near our galaxy.

"Our ancestors wanted to preserve something of their cultures. Earth was the nearest planet capable of sustaining the many species found in our solar system, making it perfect for colonization. They placed eight tribes on a land mass similar to the environment on their home planet. In time, the tribes blended with the indigenous populations and became part of their genetic pool."

For some unknown reason, they didn't survive and there's no records as to what happened. The kids parents are supposed to investigate what went wrong, but they've done other things, too--like having children. Medie (Ben's mom, who is a chemist) created a way for the kids to behave like human children. For Ben, it was a drink. Parents of the other kids gave it to them, too, in other forms. For Carlos, it was a green tamale. For Grace, it was sushi rolls. For Serise, it was smoothies and mud masks she used at night.

Because Earth's core is unstable, a decision is made to evacuate. Plans are being made to leave, but those plans are interrupted by the arrival of a transport ship, accompanied by military escorts.

"Fierce-looking warriors" in heavy body armor arrive. They are the Royal Guard of Casmir, which is Carlos's tribe. They carry spears, and show no mercy when provoked. Their leader has a "macho swagger" (p. 307-308).

Another group of warriors materializes. These wear no armor and carry no weapons. They are Serise's tribe, the "Hayookaal." Their long black hair "blew in an invisible breeze" -- which signals their ability to control weather and climate on Earth (p. 308). They are very muscular.

Hmmm... the Latino and Native characters are from tribes known as exceptional warriors, even in another galaxy.

Grace's tribe arrives next. They look a lot like Serise's. They're "one of the oldest tribes in the known universe" and are the best linguists in this alliance. They've got a power, too, but do not speak of it publicly. Three other tribes materialize. As Ben wonders when his tribe will materialize, an explosion takes place, but it is the means by which his tribe arrives. They're the Xenobian Warrior caste, an "elite squad" who are "brilliant strategists."

As is clear, the kids in The Lost Tribes are from various tribes, which means the book qualifies as a "diverse" one. For me, however, the diversity must ring true.

The Native characters and their attributes are a mish-mash of several nations, and they're stereotypical, too. The use and misrepresentation of ceremonies that are sacred to the Navajo Nation is especially troubling. Also troubling is that the Kirkus review says there is a "lack of stereotyping" in the book.

These problems could be attributed to stereotypical material that the inhabitants from the other planets read---we all know there's plenty of that right now---but elsewhere in the story, they talk of how superior they are to humans. They've been watching and living amongst humans on earth for thousands of years, so it seems to me they'd know a lot about all the humans on earth and how they were treated by each other. That would include misrepresentations.

The problems in The Lost Tribes are such that I cannot recommend it.