SOMETIMES I FEEL LIKE A FOX by Danielle Daniel

I find Danielle Daniel's Sometimes I Feel Like a Fox unsettling.

In a 2013 article in The Sudbury Star, I read that she is Métis, but that she wasn't raised knowing anything about her Métis heritage. She didn't want her son to grow up without knowing something about that heritage, so she wrote and illustrated Sometimes I Feel Like a Fox as a self-published book that is out this year in hardcover from Groundwood Books (House of Anansi Press). Here's an excerpt from the article (from October 28):

For first-time author and local artist Danielle Daniel, her new children's book Sometimes I Feel Like a Fox was a way to help her 10-year-old son connect to his Metis roots. Daniel, who stopped working as a teacher full-time last year so she could pursue her art, said she was not encouraged to learn about her Metis heritage when she was growing up. "I didn't want that to be the same for my son," she said. "I wanted him to feel proud about it and to celebrate it. "She dedicated the book - which explores 12 different totem animals -to her son and all the Metis and Aboriginal children who never had a chance to know the totem animals because of the residential schools.

The article suggests that residential schools are the reason she didn't know her culture and that this book can help her son and others, but I'm not sure it can. Daniel says she started dreaming about bears and so feels that a bear is her totem animal. That lines up with what I see in new age writings, and not with what I understand about the ways that Anishinaabe people view any of this. 

In the Author's Note, Daniel writes:

The word totem, or doodem in Anishinaabe, means clan. 

From my reading of key writings, and conversations with Ojibwe friends, I know that clans hold tremendous significance. 

That significance is lost in Daniel's treatment of them in the book. The words on each page start with "Sometimes I feel like..." There are 12 different pages for 12 different "totem animals." On each page, is an illustration of a child whose head/face are modified to look like the animal. This is done with a paper mask tied onto the child's head, or a headpiece that fits entirely over the child's head, or with some aspect of the animal being shown as though the child were part it and part human (the page about a beaver has a child with beaver ears, nose, and teeth). 

That treatment of the clans trivializes the importance of the clan system. Someone who lives with that system doesn't shift from one to another in the way Sometimes I Feel Like a Fox suggests. Daniel's book feels more like playing at being Indian than something that her son or any child can actually learn from. 

That's one part of why I'm unsettled but the other is because I have so much empathy for Native people who lost culture because of the boarding schools in the US (and the residential schools in Canada). Those "educational" systems were--and are--devastating to Native people and our cultures and respective nations. I support efforts to learn, but it must come by way of being with the people one identifies with. Artistic efforts to reconnect will fail without the teachings that come from being with the people you're trying to connect with. 

Not recommended.  

 

Debbie Reese's Twitter Threads about Nora Raleigh Baskin's Ted Talk

Eds. Note on June 8, 2018: Please see updates at the bottom of this post. Today (June 8) I am adding a link to Mia Wenjen's "Own Voices Controversy" post. She does a marvelous job of connecting threads between White Fragility, Nora Raleigh Baskin's Ted Talk, my response to it, Laurie Halse Anderson's tweets in support of critical analysis of children's books, and David Bowles analysis of Latinx books on the 2017 CCBC website. 

_____

On May 21, 2018, writer Nora Raleigh Baskin did a Ted Talk. I was tagged by the person who loaded the talk to YouTube.

The text of the tweet is this:

"Please watch @noraraleighB's @Tedx talk given at my event. Powerful words about not censoring artistic voice. Discuss, contest, argue if you must but watch it! @ncte @aasl @debreese @triciaebarvia @ToriBachman @amandapalmer"

Baskin's talk is titled "Artists Mustn't Fear the Social Media Call-Out Culture." The description on Youtube is this:

When voices on the internet become so loud and so vitriolic that artists are afraid to experiment and make mistakes, something very dangerous is happening in our society. Award-winning author, Nora Raleigh Baskin, goes on a journey of self-discovery in order to illuminate a disturbing online trend that threatens the power and freedom of creative expression. Nora Raleigh Baskin is the author of thirteen novels for young readers and a contributor to two story collections. She has been published in WRITER MAGAZINE as well as the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine. Her books have won several awards, including the 2010 ALA Schneider Family Book Award for Anything But Typical and a 2016 ILA Notable Books for a Global Society for Ruby on the Outside. Nora has taught creative writing to both children and adults for over fifteen years with such organizations as SCBWI, Gotham Writers Workshop, the Highlights Foundation, and most recently in Westport at The Fairfield Co. Writer’s Studio. Her latest, Nine/Ten: A 9/11 Story was reviewed in the New York Times and has received starred reviews, from both Kirkus and Publishers Weekly. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.

And here is the talk:

Because I was tagged, I thought that perhaps Baskin wanted me to see the video. I thought that maybe she mentioned my post about her book, The Summer Before Boys. So, I listened to her talk. She didn't mention my post. Instead, her talk struck me as one primarily about criticism, broadly speaking. After listening to it, I did a threaded Twitter reply on May 22. I am pasting that reply, here. (Note: The light gray highlight on all the pasted tweets is how tweets look when you copy them.)

First Twitter Thread:

You're right, @noraraleighB, writers need not "fear" being called out for misrepresentations of marginalized peoples in your books. They can view it as an opportunity to listen, to hear, to make different choices.

But--the way that you characterize those who speak up says a lot about how you view us.

What you did, speaking that way, works for some people. It gives them comfort. Is that what you meant to do?

When you were called out on American Indians in Children's Literature for having a character who imagined someone as an "Indian captive" whose family had been scalped... [Note: I added this photo to that tweet. ]

... being called out, you said, kept you "up all night" tossing and turning, and that you had your eyes opened.

Then on January 25, 2018, you said that you worked with your editor and that the reprint would have changes. I'd like to see the change. Can you do a screen cap, @noraraleighB, and send it to me?

I'm glad, honestly, that you were up all night tossing and turning. I know that Native children who were asked to read your book--or who chose to read it--had a hard time reading those words. They likely didn't sleep well, either.

With that in mind, can you see why people would speak up, sometimes with anger, about misrepresentations and their impact on their own children? Or, on children in their classrooms?

In a response to @sarahrhamburg, @noraraleighB sent this example of what she's referring to, and, I was... puzzled. (TW for contents of what she shared.) [Note: I included this screen cap of what Nora said to Sarah, which was "Not sure I completely understand all of your tweets to me...but yes, that is how exactly I describe them. I am attaching a very small sampling which I hope serves as an example of what I am referring to (it was directed to a female POC, if that matters)." The sample Nora sent to Sarah is "I wonder why this slut doesn't go back to India and let guys throw acid in her face...that must be as much fun as the wonderful life of rape, torture, bearings, hangings, blindings and erasure of religion, family history and dignity black Africans endured for over 400 years by their Jewish and Christian slave masters."

Puzzled, because that kind of horrendous comment is not what I see my colleagues saying when they are critiquing misrepresentations. Do you, Nora, really equate criticism with that kind of comment?

Second Twitter Thread:

Nora did not reply to anything I said. Later that day (the 22nd of May), I did another thread:

You know--Nora Raleigh Baskin's Ted talk is not 'new' at all. White people have been writing problematic books forever, and getting called out for doing so, forever.

They sound alarms as if their livelihood and freedoms are in peril.

A couple of years ago, another White writer, Deborah Wiles came to a dinner I was at, and expressed concerns about criticism of her book, REVOLUTION. …https://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/2015/09/deborah-wiles-debbie-reese-and-choosing.html …

Like Nora, she seemed to suggest that criticism of misrepresentations when an author is writing outside of their own experience, is new. It isn't! In 1996, Kathryn Lasky wrote an article titled "To Stingo with Love: An Author's Perspective on Writing outside One's Culture."

Lasky called critics "self styled militias of cultural diversity". Her essay is in Fox and Short's "Stories Matter: The Complexity of Cultural Authenticity in Children's Literature", published in 2003 by the National Council of Teachers of English.

In my work, I point to the history -- Native history in particular -- when Native people have said 'no' to misrepresentations. See, for example, this item written in 1829: …https://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/2016/03/william-appess-pequot-on-depictions-of.html …

You White Writers seem to think you and your work are at risk, and so, you do these Ted talks, and laments on social media, and articles, etc.... And your buddies and like-minded folks gather round and talk about how brave you are.

Frankly, I'm embarrassed for you. And frustrated, too. Your cycles of this... bullshit are why we keep having these problems of misrepresentation! Instead of telling each other 'DON'T SCREW THIS UP' you tell each other "you meant well" and so... there we go again.

The never-ending cycle of misrepresentation and the harm it does to children AND to other writers is on YOU, Nora Raleigh Baskin, and YOU, Deborah Wiles, and YOU, Kathryn Lasky and... I could name a few more, but the point is...

Rather than doing TED talks about how art and expression, own the fact that you can do BOTH. You can do art, and express yourself, and do it well! Do right by ALL your readers. Do right for ALL children.

And as for calling us vitriolic or fervent —- Have you no grasp of history? What would you have said to women who burned their bras?! Who raised their voices? Who put pen to paper to fight for their rights? To vote?! Really, Nora, would you scold them, too?

By the way, I see you over on Facebook, talking about how you are taking a “beating” on Twitter. People are holding you accountable for your Ted talk. Should they not?

Third Twitter Thread:

On the 23rd of May, Nora shared (on Twitter and Facebook), a screen cap of an excerpt of her talk.

I took it to mean that she felt that my focus on criticism (and others, too, because other people responded to the Ted talk) was not fair. To make sure I didn't miss something, I listened to her talk again and tweeted as I did. It was a long thread. Here's that series:

Every word is read/heard by a reader/listener who may or may not think like you do, Nora. Maybe that is why you cannot understand what people are saying. You think that passage tells us that you support diversity, but...

... other things you said tell us a whole lot, too. Those other things make those passages about diversity feel empty. Disingenuous. They look and sound like a shield you're using to say those other things.

You started by talking about how you stumbled on a Twitter feed of another author. It sent you through a cycle of emotions: angry, sad, worried, and then afraid for yourself, and for art, and artists and for the power and freedom of creative expression.

That writer was describing her choice not to write a book she cared about because she didn't belong to the marginalized group imagined in her story. Then, people chimed in, praising her bravery. And someone said "it's time to cede the floor" and...

... then, you said that part about marginalized groups not having had opportunities to write their own stories, and "as a result their stories have often been littered with dangerous and pervasive stereotypes, their lives and histories misrepresented or erased."

It is "a huge issue" you said. Why, you wondered, was this response to that author bothering you? You figured it out when you looked at your own journey as a writer. When you wrote stories about your own experiences, you felt like you were cheating.

I'd like you to sit with that a while. It is cheating to write about ones own experiences? What does that say to Native writers who write about their own experiences? Do you mean to tell us they're cheating when they do that?

Using yourself as a main character, you said meant you weren't having to stretch your imagination. After six bks you secretly believed you couldn't call yourself a writer because you were the main character in those books.

So -- you decided it was time to take a risk to see if you could be a real writer, a real artist. It was 2007 and autism was all over the news. So you created a 12 year old boy with autism. It was things you yourself are not.

You went on to say you weren't trying to speak for autistic people, and you weren't trying to be a doctor or a teacher or policy maker or social worker. You were writing about one boy, one fictional character you had brought into the world.

You hoped his small story would speak to a larger universal truth: "accept me for who I am." It won the Schneider, and because it did, you thought that you "might be a real writer, a real artist" who wasn't creating you, again, as a character.

You said you had done what artists do: look deeply at themselves and the world around them and reflected something meaningful about humanity. Then, you jumped ahead to 2013 and your book, 9/10, a September 11 story.

For it, you wanted to create four characters, and "make them as different as I can so I can reveal how similar they actually are." That goal, Nora, makes me nervous because it seems to erase the real lives of people who have the identities of your four characters.

Yes, you created those four characters, and in some part of each of them you see reflections of you and your experiences. That's fine, but, it feels rather convenient and superficial.

There's a pervasive desire from white writers for a "let's all get along" world where under the skin, everyone is really the same. And because we're all the same in that world, you inadvertently take a swipe at #OwnVoices.

You then go on to say you had your books vetted by people who have some experience or are from the groups the characters are from. It is good to do that. But I think the industry has to do more than that.

I'm trying to put this thought into my head into some coherent words... You know how survey questions can be deliberately written in ways that lead people to answer in a certain way? That's what I'm thinking about re vetting/sensitivity readers.

Who they are, how they're chosen, and how they're asked "to read" are important.

I'm not saying you mislead your readers. I mean that, as an industry, we seem not to be getting anywhere in the current "sensitivity reader" moment.

One thought I have as I listen to your Ted talk is that you might inadvertently suggest that vetting and sensitivity readers are going to fix it all, for everyone. But, what gets fixed is highly dependent on many factors.

From there you talk about the work. Of being able to know what you don't know. And that you have to ask yourself if you would be brave enough, "in this heated, angry, bifurcated, social media call-out culture" to have written any of those books?

Your answer, you said, is "I don't know." As I noted yesterday, being criticized for misrepresentations is not a new thing. Social media does make criticism more visible than it ever was before. You see that as a bad thing.

People sharing their emotional responses to misrepresentations, using social media to do that sharing... is not a bad thing, Nora. For sure, it is uncomfortable for the person whose work is being criticized.

And as we've all seen, some people really (to use your FB comment) take "a beating" for the things they say or write.

What you're doing, in characterizing criticism in the ways that you did, is telling people who speak up, HOW they should speak up.

And, might you be telling writers not to listen to "angry" criticism or criticism that makes them uncomfortable?

After that, you talk about how the industry needs to publish more books by minority writers, and if them getting published comes at the expense of your work, "that's how it needs to be." On the surface, that sounds heroic (and tragic), but...

... it is an odd thing to say. You suggest there's a finite number of books that will get published. Is that true? I know for sure that writers from marginalized groups hear "we already have our __ writer" (and don't need YOU, too). Has such a thing ever been said to you?

At the top of your talk you said you'd been rejected a lot before your first book got published, so, maybe it was said to you.

You went on to talk about how the decision of what gets published, what gets bought and what sells "never belonged to the writer."

That power, you said, belongs to the industry, to the publishers, to the editors, to the agents, to the sales and marketing departments, to the big chain booksellers, to the gatekeepers.

"Money and economic factors dictates that market and and it is going to take a united effort to combat those much larger, deeply rooted and complicated issues." I'm a bit lost in your comments at that point.

You follow that with "But when voices on the internet become so loud and so angry and so vitriolic that artists become afraid to experiment, to make mistakes, to be creative, to push boundaries, to do what writers do, to write what they feel passionately about..."

"... then we should all be afraid. Afraid of a world where writers are considered brave for not writing and angry at a society where artists are berated and at times punished for trying to tell a story that speaks to them from a very deep place that few of us can even..."

"...define, and saddened by the message that there is a limited number of spaces at the table and the only way for one story to be told is for another to be silenced." That's the dramatic part of your Ted talk. Some are moved by it, and many others are giving you a side eye.

You speak as if writers are in peril. But if you look at the CCBC stats, clearly that is not the case. More stories about Native/POC are written by people who are not of those groups than #OwnVoices--AND they are published by the Big Five. You're in that Big Five category.

As if often the case when something like you've said appears and is criticized, you invite hugs from those who like what you're saying, and pointed questions from those who think you're doing that white fragility thing that gets done, a lot.

Then, you say that one of the most meaningful and powerful things you discovered when you wrote that book about a boy with autism was "completely unexpected." You had "successfully created a character" that wasn't you, when you thought you had "finally become an artist..."

You said that you "took a step back" and saw how much of you is in that character and how much of him is in you. With these remarks, you're echoing what you said earlier about similarities. I didn't and do not like that sort of thing.

Then you said that you and that character know what it feels like to be unseen and unheard. Nora--that's a doozy right there because that is the reality of minority writers who can't get published, much less get in with the Big Five publishers.

Many are asked to rewrite their manuscripts, to make them more acceptable to a white reader. Their real lives aren't seen, and can't be seen, because they're asked to make the books less Native. Or less Black. Or less Latinx.... Less, less, less.

I assume you know that the term for that is "writing for the white gaze." You, Nora, are not unseen or unheard. Hearing you say that is part of why people on the internet are talking about your Ted talk.

Goodness... your next words are about how you and your character both dissociated when the world around you becomes too scary. I understand. Some things, by virtue of what they are, are not visible. But hearing you speak of a world that is too scary for you... gosh.

You and your character, you say, struggle to fit into this world, but neither of you really wants to. You are both human beings, you said, and what you learned "so profoundly" is that "we are all uniformly human in uniquely human ways."

With those words, you're doing that "more alike than not" thing, when it just is NOT the case. Pretty words, but not true. And astonishing in their pretense. A dangerous pretense, Nora.

Then, you backpedaled a bit, saying "of course I can't fully know what it is to be diagnosed autistic or to be African American or to be a white teenager from Shanksville, Pennsylvania."

And then, "I'm still trying to figure out what it means to be me but what I do know and what I can write about is the universal desire for identity and belonging and I need to be free to use as many paintbrushes as possible to try and create that picture..."

"...with the hope that one day I will get closer to the truth, to a truth, in one particular moment in time." Again--pretty words, but what is that truth? It seems to be one that rests on that "we're all the same" idea.

Then, Nora, you say "Artists cannot cede the floor because they do not stand on the floor. They look at themselves and at the world in which they are living and they speak in many voices." I see you're using some writerly metaphoric words there as you finish your talk.

"Writers stare out the window" you say. "They push open the door. They look up at a ceiling poked so full of holes you cannot tell where the earth ends and where the sky begins." Some echoes of Sims Bishop's windows/mirrors/sliding glass doors, and I guess that glass ceiling?!

"And when it's done well, when it's honest and true and done without fear, what we are forced to see is ourselves and we may see something we like but better yet, something we don't." That's it. End of your Ted talk.

I hoped this would be helpful to you, Nora, so shared the thread link to your ongoing FB post. But now you blocked me.


David Lubar's Facebook Post

On May 25, a Newbery medalist did a thread on twitter, about the importance of criticism. She ended her thread with some words supporting my work. She tagged me. I appreciate her thread and thanked her.

Then on May 26, another writer did a thread on twitter, and she ended with a statement of support for me, too (and tagged me). I wondered what was up. Then, this morning (May 29), a friend sent me a link to David Lubar's Facebook page, where (on May 24) he said this (he said a lot more; this is just the first sentence):

Once again, a writer has been the subject of an over-the-top assault by Debbie Reese. 

There, I read that many people felt that my tweets were an attack on Nora. Some mentioned that I had tagged her on every tweet. I went back to twitter to see, and saw that she was, indeed, tagged on every tweet of the third thread. But--that thread started as a reply to Nora. So, Twitter was doing auto-tag and I didn't notice it. If I had, I would have untagged her after the first tweet-reply. I apologize for not having untagged her, but I did not apologize for what I said.

Many people on David Lubar's page are saying that they agree with my criticisms, but not with how I say them. Jordan Sonnenblick said I was "nasty." I've asked him to give me examples of the "nasty" things I've said. He said he'll look for them.

The point of this particular post is to pull my threads into a single place, for my own needs, but for those who might be commenting but haven't seen what I said. I am confident that some will read them and come away thinking "Jordan is right, she's nasty."

Where one stands shapes how they respond to someone else's words. I responded to Nora's words, honestly, because I believe she spoke, honestly, in her Ted talk. She has not contacted me privately or on social media. As noted above, she blocked me on Twitter (and on Facebook, too).

Nora--I'll say again, that I hope you will read and think about what I said. I listened to your talk, twice. I take your words (all words all writers write) seriously because you are creating books for children who will be shaped by your words.



Update on Wednesday, May 30, 2018

David Lubar deleted his Facebook post.


UPDATE, May 31, 2018

On David Lubar's page, on Tuesday, May 29th (before he deleted it), Jordan Sonnenblick gave an example of how I had been "nasty." It was in this tweet, which I am copying from above:

Goodness... your next words are about how you and your character both dissociated when the world around you becomes too scary. I understand. Some things, by virtue of what they are, are not visible. But hearing you speak of a world that is too scary for you... gosh.

Jordan said that that tweet is an example of how I am "nasty" because at that point in the talk (at the 12:31 minute mark), he thinks Nora was referring to things she had said ten minutes earlier (at about the 2:35 minute mark of the video). Early in the video, she talked about her mother's suicide and being kicked and punched by her stepfather.

I didn't make that connection when I listened to the video.

As I listened to her talk about being in a world that "is too scary", my own thoughts went to being racially profiled by a sheriff in Oklahoma, afraid for my daughter's safety (she was in the car; the sheriff had asked me to get out of our car and took me several feet away from the roadside to ask me a series of questions that indicated he thought I was not in this country, legally). I thought about Native and People of Color whose experiences with police have ended with jail and too often, death. I can see why Jordan thought I was insensitive in saying "gosh" to Nora's expression of fear. On David's post, I apologized to Nora (I assumed she was reading or being told about the conversation). Later, Jordan said that I had apologized for mistreating Nora. I did not "mistreat" her and said that I did not want my apology for that part to be construed or interpreted as an apology for "mistreating" her. I was, honestly, acknowledging what I had missed as I listened to Nora's talk.

As far as I know, she has not said anything publicly about it. As for characterizing me as "nasty" -- Many people know "nasty woman" entered public conversations during the presidential campaign when trump said that Hilary Clinton is "a nasty woman." He meant it in a denigrating way but some people claimed it as a badge of honor. I think Jordan used it like trump did and hope that his friends mention it to him.


Update: May 31 at 7:47 PM

Friend and colleague, Mike Jung, pulled together a list of the words/phrases some writers used to describe me on David Lubar's Facebook post. Mike wrote:

In a since-deleted FB post, people used the following words to criticize a diversity advocate for being "unkind": 

Nasty 

Toxic 

Passive-aggressive 

"Off the rails" 

"A wonderful antagonist" 

Bully 

Racist 

Ass 

Asshole

I repeat: these are people demanding kindness.

For those who don't follow children's/young adult literature, some writers periodically use "kind" or "kindness" to push back on criticism. Mike's post shows their kindness in action.

Update, June 8, 2018:
Mia Wenjen (Pragmatic Mom) did a blog post that situates Baskin's talk within DiAngelo's writing on White Fragility: Own Voices Controversy

Deborah Wiles, Debbie Reese, and Choosing a Revolution

Eds. note: A couple of people wrote directly to tell me they're having trouble submitting a comment. If you've had trouble, too, please write to me directly and I'll post on your behalf. If you wish to be anonymous, I will respect your request. My apologies! 

I spent the first three days of this week at Georgia State University. I gave a lecture in their Distinguished Speaker series and several guest lectures to classes in GSU's Department of Early Childhood and Elementary Education. All meals were with students and faculty. It was a full schedule, but I enjoyed and learned from all of it and am sharing one part of it here.

Just before I got on my plane for Atlanta on Monday morning (August 31, 2015), I learned (via Facebook) that the author, Deborah Wiles, wished she'd known I was going to be there, because she wanted to meet me. I didn't know her work at that point.

Deborah was able to get an invitation to dinner on Tuesday evening. There were five of us (three professors, Deborah, and myself). I've had meals with writers before, but don't recall one like that one. I was, in short, rather stunned by most of it.

Deborah's experience of it is different from mine. Early Wednesday, she provided a recap on her Facebook page (note: sometimes that page is viewable, sometimes it isn't; no idea why!):

Last night's dinner at Niramish in Little Five Points, ATL. I got excited when I saw that Debbie Reese was speaking to students in the School of Education at Georgia State and I... um... invited myself to dinner. No I didn't. But I did squee a liitle (a lot) about the fact that she was coming. I was invited to dinner and was ecstatic about the invite, so much so that I brought everyone a book and foisted it into their hands. They were so gracious. I loved talking about children's literature and who gets to tell the story about careful, close reading, and about thoughtful critical discourse (for starters). I have long admired Debbie's work and have been getting to know my teaching friends at the College of Education & Human Development, Georgia State University this year, whom I admire more with each encounter... Thank you the invitation and generosity! Rhina Williams, Cathy Amanti, Debbie Reese, and Thomas Crisp.

I replied to her on Friday afternoon (September 4):

Deborah, you read my blog and my work, so you know I'm pretty forthcoming. I'll be that way here, too. When you brought up the who-can-write topic at dinner, there was an edge in your words as you spoke, at length, about it and criticisms of REVOLUTION. Since then, I've spent hours thinking about that dinner. I don't think we had a discussion, but I am willing to have that discussion with you. You indicate that white writers feel they can't get their books published if their books are about someone outside the writers identity. With regard to non-Native writers writing books about Native people, I don't see what you're describing. What do you think... do you want to talk more about this? On my blog, perhaps?

And she responded:

Sure, we can talk more about that. I want to make sure I am clear about what I said (or tried to say). I don't think white writers can't get their books published if they write outside their culture, not at all... these books are published all the time. I've published them. We were bouncing around quite a bit at that dinner, topic to topic. Part of what I said was that I got push-back in certain circles for writing in Ray's (black) voice in REVOLUTION, but I know that voice is authentic to 1960s Mississippi because I lived there and heard it all my life and wrote it that way. Sometimes in our (collective) zeal to "get it right" we point at a problem that isn't there. I'm happy to talk more on your blog! Thanks for thinking about it with me.

So, here's my post about that dinner. Obviously I wasn't taking notes. Deborah's comment above ("what I said (or tried to say)") demonstrates that neither of us is sure of what was said. This is my recollection and reflections on the evening.

On arriving, Deborah immediately began by talking to me about my work, saying that writers read what I say. She specifically mentioned my work on Ann Rinaldi's My Heart is on the Ground and how that made an impact on writers.

I was, of course, glad to hear that, but then she turned the conversation to current discussions in children's literature, saying that this is a dangerous time for writers, because they are being told that they can't write outside their cultural group and that if they do write outside their culture, their books won't get published. Note that in her Facebook comment above, she said these books are getting published and uses her book as an example. I recall saying that I think these are exciting times, because we need diverse voices. It was that exchange--with her characterizing these times as dangerous and me describing them as exciting--that set the tone for the rest of the evening.

Deborah started talking about her book, Revolution. She said that she'd shown Jackie Woodson some of the work she was doing on that book, or that she'd talked with her about the African American character, Ray, in Revolution, or maybe it was that she'd talked with Jackie about white writers giving voice to black characters. Whatever it was, the outcome was that Deborah had a green light (my words, not hers) from Jackie. I don't doubt any of it, but I am uneasy with that sort of report. It implies an endorsement from someone who isn't there to confirm it. I'm very attentive to this because, knowingly or not, writers who do that are, in my view, appropriating that person in a way that I find inappropriate. If Deborah could point to a statement Jackie made about Revolution, that would be different.

Deborah went on to to tell us that she had lived in Mississippi and that the voice she gave to Ray is based on what she heard when she lived there. But, she said, "fervent" people didn't like what she did. Someone (me or one of the professors at the table) asked her who the "fervent" people are, and she said that she wasn't going to say if I was going to tell them.

I was taken aback by that and responded immediately with "well don't say then, because I will tell them." She went on to say that it is SLJ's Heavy Medal blog, and that Heavy Medal discussions are dangerous, that they have too much power in terms of influencing what people think.

Deborah seemed angry. She was talking at me, not with me. I don't recall saying anything at all in response to what she said about Heavy Medal and fervent people.

I share my recollection of the dinner--not to solicit sympathy from anyone or to embarrass Deborah--but to convey my frustration with the incredible resistance Deborah's words and emotion represent within the larger context of children's literature.

The who-can-write conversation is not new. In 1996, Kathryn Lasky wrote an article titled "To Stingo with Love: An Author's Perspective on Writing outside One's Culture." In it, she wrote that "self-styled militias of cultural diversity are beginning to deliver dictates and guidelines about the creation and publishing of literature for a multicultural population of readers" (p. 85 in Fox and Short's Stories Matter: The Complexity of Cultural Authenticity in Children's Literature, published in 2003 by the National Council of Teachers of English).

I count myself in that "self styled militia." One need only look at the numbers the Cooperative Children's Book Center at the University of Wisconsin puts out each year to see that we've made little progress:

CCBCs data shows some small gains here and there, but overall, things haven't changed much. One reason, I think, is the lack of diversity within the major publishing houses. I think there's a savior mentality in the big publishing houses and a tendency to view other as less-than. For some it is conscious; for others it is unconscious. All of it can--and should be--characterized as well-intentioned, but it is also unexamined and as such, reflects institutional racism. The history of this country is one that bestows privilege on some and not on others. That history privileges dominant voices over minority ones, from the people at the table in those publishing houses to the voices in the books they publish. That--I believe--is why there's been no progress. Part of what contributes to that lack of progress is that too many people feel sympathy for white writers rather than stepping away from the facts on who gets published.

At the end of the meal, Deborah brought out copies of her books to give to us. I got the picture book, Freedom Summer but it felt odd accepting the gift, given the tensions of the evening. I think she was not aware of that tension. She ended the evening by praising my blog but the delivery of that praise had a distinct edge. She banged the table with her fist as she voiced that praise.

I hope that my being at that dinner with Deborah that evening and in the photograph she posted on Facebook aren't construed by anyone as an endorsement of her work. Yesterday, I went to the library to get a copy of Revolution, because, Deborah said she is working on a book that will be set in Sacramento, and, she said, it will include the Native occupation of Alcatraz. I want to see what her writing is like so that I can be an informed reader when her third book comes out.

Before going to the library, I looked online to see if there was a trailer for it. In doing that, I found a video of Deborah reading aloud at the National Book Award Finalists Reading event. Watching it, I was, again, stunned. She read aloud from chapter two. Before her reading, she told the audience what happened in chapter one. The white character, Sunny, is swimming in a public pool, at night. She touches something soft and warm, which turns out to be a black boy. She screams, he runs away. Then she and Gillette (another white character) take off too, but by then, the deputy is there. She tells him what happened. The last lines of that chapter are these (page 52):

There was a colored boy in our pool. A colored boy. And I touched him, my skin on his skin. I touched a colored boy. And then he ran away, like he was on fire.

As readers of AICL know, I keep children foremost in my mind when I analyze a book. In this case, how will a black child read and respond to those lines? And, what will Deborah think of my focus--right now--on that part of her book? I haven't read the whole book. No doubt, people who read AICL will be influenced by my pointing out that part of the book. Will Deborah think I am, like the people at Heavy Medal, "dangerous"?

Deborah said, above, that "Sometimes in our (collective) zeal to "get it right" we point at a problem that isn't there." She means the people who criticized her for Ray's voice in Revolution. The dinner and Deborah's remarks are the latest in a string of events in which people in positions of power object to "fervent" people. Jane Resh Thomas did it in a lecture at Hamline and Kate Gale did it in an article at Huffington Post.

I'll wind down by saying (again), that I've spent hours thinking about that dinner. It seemed--seems--important that I write about it for AICL. This essay is the outcome of those hours of thinking. I was uncomfortable then, and I'm uncomfortable now. I wanted to say more, then, but chose to be gracious, instead. I'm disappointed in my reluctance then, and now. I don't know where it emanates from. Why did I choose not to make a white writer uncomfortable? Is Deborah uncomfortable now, as she reads this? Are you (reader) uncomfortable? If so, why? Was Deborah worried about my comfort, then, or now? Does it matter?!

I can get lost in those questions, but must remember this: I do the work I do, not for a writer, but for the youth who will read the work of any given writer. For the ways it will help--or harm--a reader's self esteem or knowledge base.

The imagined audience for Revolution isn't an African American boy or girl. It is primarily a white reader, and, while the othering of "the colored boy" in chapter two may get dealt with later in the book, all readers have to wait. Recall the words of Anonymous, submitted to AICL as a comment about Martina Boone's Compulsion. They have broad application:

I find the idea of a reader -- particularly a child -- having to wait to see herself humanized an inherently problematic one. Yes, it might accurately reflect the inner journey many white people take, but isn't the point that our dehumanizing views were always wrong? And therefore, why go back and re-live them? Such ruminations could definitely be appropriate in an all-white anti-racist group, in which the point is for white people to educate each other, but any child can pick up a book, and be hurt--or validated--by what's inside. Asking marginalized readers to "wait" to be validated is an example of white dominance as perpetuated by well-intentioned white folks.

It is long past time for the industry to move past concerns over what--if anything--dominant voices lose when publishers actually choose to publish and promote minority voices over dominant ones. It is long past time to move past that old debate of who-can-write. Moving past that debate means I want to see publishers actually doing what Lasky feared so that more books by minority writers are actually published.  

In 1986, Walter Dean Myers wrote that he thought we (people of color) would "revolutionize" the publishing industry. We need a revolution, today, more than ever. Some, obviously, won't join this revolution. Some will see it as discriminatory against dominant voices but I choose to see it as responsive to children and the millions of mirrors that they need so that we reach a reality where the publishing houses and the books they publish look more like society. In this revolution, where will you be?

To close,  I'll do two things. First is a heartfelt thank you to Dr. Thomas Crisp at Georgia State University, for years of conversation about the state of children's literature, and, for assistance in writing and thinking through this essay. He was at that dinner in Atlanta. Second is a question for Deborah. Why did you want to meet me? Usually, when people want to meet me, there's a quality to the meeting that was missing from our dinner in Atlanta. There's usually a meaningful discussion of something I've said, or, about the issues in children's literature. That didn't happen in Atlanta. In the end, I am left wondering why you wanted to meet me.


Update, September 6, 2015

Several readers submitted comments. Please read them. They are quite thoughtful. Deborah Wiles submitted a comment, too. I am inserting it here, in the body of the original post, for your convenience.

Debbie Wiles said...

Hi, Debbie, I just want to say that I enjoyed meeting you on Tuesday evening, and was looking forward to it all day. I don't believe these are dangerous times to be publishing for young people, I don't believe writers are being censored by publishers in what they write (that's not my experience), and I do believe writers are getting published when they write outside their cultures. I did say that wielding power for personal gain can be dangerous, and that thoughtful, critical, informed discourse is important. My experience of the conversation was different from yours. We bounced around all over the place with different topics, weaving in and out. Everyone laughed a lot. I had a good time. I was glad to be included. I agreed with you that these are exciting times to be publishing! They are. I still think you should write the book about the Occupation of Alcatraz. My best, Debbie WilesSaturday, September 5, 2015 at 4:57:00 PM CDT

A similar conversation regarding this topic took place on Twitter yesterday. B. R. Sanders responded to it. Please read A Response to Colten Hibbs and Maggie Stiefvater on Writing the Other

And--if you're having trouble submitting a comment, you can send it directly to me and I'll post it on your behalf.


Update, September 6, 2015 - evening

Maggie Stiefvater wrote a response to the pushback she got on her post on writing the other. I highly recommend it.