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mackenziencheez's review against another edition
4.0
4.5
Not perfect, but really great. Learned some new bits!
Not perfect, but really great. Learned some new bits!
erine's review against another edition
3.0
Many good points. Mostly accessible. Occasionally dry and bogs down in details.
Parts that stood out:
Learning that one of the most memorable songs of my childhood can be traced back to a minstrel song from the 1890s (The Cat Came Back). This revelation comes in the midst of a discussion about cultural influences surrounding The Cat in the Hat. (Page 46)
Tackling the conflicting emotions when we discover that some of our favorite childhood stories are rooted in racism. Can you love the humor in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and still be disgusted by the treatment of the Oompa Loompas? Yes. (Page 97)
Examining A Cake for George Washington. I get his point about why it’s problematic, and why it’s not necessary, but I find it somewhat ironic that this book created by people of color wasn’t woke enough. (Page 103)
Looking at why having accessible diverse stories is beneficial to everyone. Basically, it’s really important to see yourself in a book, but it’s equally as important to see yourself in someone else in a book. (Page 152)
Parts that stood out:
Learning that one of the most memorable songs of my childhood can be traced back to a minstrel song from the 1890s (The Cat Came Back). This revelation comes in the midst of a discussion about cultural influences surrounding The Cat in the Hat. (Page 46)
Tackling the conflicting emotions when we discover that some of our favorite childhood stories are rooted in racism. Can you love the humor in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and still be disgusted by the treatment of the Oompa Loompas? Yes. (Page 97)
Examining A Cake for George Washington. I get his point about why it’s problematic, and why it’s not necessary, but I find it somewhat ironic that this book created by people of color wasn’t woke enough. (Page 103)
Looking at why having accessible diverse stories is beneficial to everyone. Basically, it’s really important to see yourself in a book, but it’s equally as important to see yourself in someone else in a book. (Page 152)
janeleng's review against another edition
3.0
I have a lot of mixed feelings about this book. To start, let me say that the author was white. I went in assuming that he was a PoC considering the topic and the book's call for publishing to make room for authors of color. It's slipped in pretty early on that he is white, so it's not like I went the whole book thinking he was, but he doesn't address it directly until the end of the book. I personally would have preferred that this acknowledgement of this innate contradiction came at the beginning of the book--I think it would have been the harder, but better thing to do.
Due to his whiteness, there is unnecessary tension in the book that distracts from the actual content. It's unclear who Nel's intended audience is, except for a brief mention in the manifesto that 1/3 of the suggestions are specifically directed at white people. The result of this is that at some points you're left thinking "is he lecturing to people of color about...diversity?" Additionally, the points in which he acknowledges his privilege and whiteness are difficult to not read as self-aggrandizing. At times he situates his own personal stories of race within his academic arguments, which turns the attention away from diversity and on to himself, a white man. (There's also the uncomfortable tension that a lot of the central points of his argument comes from work already done by PoC, and yet he is the one profiting from it.)
My final problem with the execution of this book is the inaccessibility of the knowledge and recommendations he is giving. If he truly claims to want radical change, why isn't the manifesto, which contains a wealth of resources, online for free? (If it turns out that it is, please let me know. My googling yielded zero results.)
As for the actual content of the book, I found it unorganized at times. There are five different chapters, varying from the history of the Cat in the Hat to the current state of the publishing industry. And while I do understand the over-arching connection between the topics, I wasn't sold that every chapter was necessary in order for Nel to make his argument. And within the chapters themselves, the evidence given was meandering. It felt like Nel had too much evidence and, rather than using only what was absolutely essential, included all of it. I can see this being a difficult read for someone who isn't used to reading academic literature (which again, another issue with accessibility).
For me, the highlights of the book were the fourth chapter (about the white washing of children's book covers) and the manifesto. I would recommend this book as a starting point to learn about the issue of lack of diversity in children's literature and the publishing industry as a whole. It offers a number of excellent resources and book recommendations--many of which I jotted down. But don't go in expecting it to be the definitive guide on the topic.
Due to his whiteness, there is unnecessary tension in the book that distracts from the actual content. It's unclear who Nel's intended audience is, except for a brief mention in the manifesto that 1/3 of the suggestions are specifically directed at white people. The result of this is that at some points you're left thinking "is he lecturing to people of color about...diversity?" Additionally, the points in which he acknowledges his privilege and whiteness are difficult to not read as self-aggrandizing. At times he situates his own personal stories of race within his academic arguments, which turns the attention away from diversity and on to himself, a white man. (There's also the uncomfortable tension that a lot of the central points of his argument comes from work already done by PoC, and yet he is the one profiting from it.)
My final problem with the execution of this book is the inaccessibility of the knowledge and recommendations he is giving. If he truly claims to want radical change, why isn't the manifesto, which contains a wealth of resources, online for free? (If it turns out that it is, please let me know. My googling yielded zero results.)
As for the actual content of the book, I found it unorganized at times. There are five different chapters, varying from the history of the Cat in the Hat to the current state of the publishing industry. And while I do understand the over-arching connection between the topics, I wasn't sold that every chapter was necessary in order for Nel to make his argument. And within the chapters themselves, the evidence given was meandering. It felt like Nel had too much evidence and, rather than using only what was absolutely essential, included all of it. I can see this being a difficult read for someone who isn't used to reading academic literature (which again, another issue with accessibility).
For me, the highlights of the book were the fourth chapter (about the white washing of children's book covers) and the manifesto. I would recommend this book as a starting point to learn about the issue of lack of diversity in children's literature and the publishing industry as a whole. It offers a number of excellent resources and book recommendations--many of which I jotted down. But don't go in expecting it to be the definitive guide on the topic.
jackiehorne's review against another edition
4.0
An odd book for a bedtime read-aloud, but I wanted to see how a non-children's lit person would think about the issues Phil raises in this provocative book. My husband kindly agreed to take a month and read this one aloud to us both. He was and is a big Dr. Seuss fan, but found Phil's arguments persuasive and compelling. For me, the arguments were familiar from previous scholars' work in the field, as well as Phil's own original conference presentations on the topic, but still a powerful reminder of the major work the field still has to do to confront systemic and institutional racism. Especially valuable is the book's final chapter, which presents a list of suggestions for ways everyone, but primarily white people, can work to create and support anti-racist children's literature. Most helpful lines for me: "I aspire to be an ally, but I would never call myself an ally. A member of a dominant group cannot confer allyhood on himself or herself. Nor, of course, does the power to confer allyhood reside in any one member of a group facing institutional oppression. Howeve, that individual has a better ability to evaluate allyhood than I do" (211).
lattelibrarian's review against another edition
5.0
I was so glad to see this book in my university's library. This is something widely discussed in children's literature and adult literature academic journals and blog posts, but I've rarely seen these topics discussed in academic books. So, was the Cat in the Hat black? Yes, and no.
The premise of this book is to discover and discuss the ways in which unintentional and intentional racism has made its way into children's literature--beginning with the Cat in the Hat. Theodore Geisel was pretty dang racist until he made some realizations that had him rethinking his opinions. From then on, he created children's picture books about oppression, the problems with anti-semitism, respect, and other topics. But that doesn't change the fact that even though he overtly changed his opinions and tried to do his best to illuminate that, his internalized preconceived notions didn't change as much. And as a result, the Cat in the Hat looks rather like a minstrel-show character in blackface, and represents a character who creates an upheaval in a "traditional" white home. Not intentionally racist, but racist nonetheless.
Nel uses this example to propel his argument forward, to show how some editors and publishing houses have tried to retcon publications such as Huck Finn and Doctor DooLittle--the overt racism in these were changed for less overt, and more PC scenes. But what does this do to the integrity of the book, and how does this affect readers? And furthermore, what happens when even covers are changed to show symbols instead of the lead characters of color? And even the publishing houses themselves--why are there so few people of color in this industry?
He discusses these problems with plenty of examples, and illuminates his points eloquently and sufficiently. This is definitely a must read for those interested in the discussions surrounding children's literature today and how racism still pervades the literature we provide for our children.
Review cross-listed here!
The premise of this book is to discover and discuss the ways in which unintentional and intentional racism has made its way into children's literature--beginning with the Cat in the Hat. Theodore Geisel was pretty dang racist until he made some realizations that had him rethinking his opinions. From then on, he created children's picture books about oppression, the problems with anti-semitism, respect, and other topics. But that doesn't change the fact that even though he overtly changed his opinions and tried to do his best to illuminate that, his internalized preconceived notions didn't change as much. And as a result, the Cat in the Hat looks rather like a minstrel-show character in blackface, and represents a character who creates an upheaval in a "traditional" white home. Not intentionally racist, but racist nonetheless.
Nel uses this example to propel his argument forward, to show how some editors and publishing houses have tried to retcon publications such as Huck Finn and Doctor DooLittle--the overt racism in these were changed for less overt, and more PC scenes. But what does this do to the integrity of the book, and how does this affect readers? And furthermore, what happens when even covers are changed to show symbols instead of the lead characters of color? And even the publishing houses themselves--why are there so few people of color in this industry?
He discusses these problems with plenty of examples, and illuminates his points eloquently and sufficiently. This is definitely a must read for those interested in the discussions surrounding children's literature today and how racism still pervades the literature we provide for our children.
Review cross-listed here!
paperbacksandpines's review against another edition
4.0
America is again entering a period of civil rights activism because racism is resilient, sneaky, and endlessly adaptable. In other words, racism endures because racism is structural: it’s embedded in culture, and in institutions.
I took my time in getting to this book because one of my favorite childhood authors, Dr. Seuss, was mentioned in the title and I knew he wouldn't come off well in the book and how could I defend an author who introduced me to my love of reading?
Nel had some harsh truths to deliver.
Whites have not had to build tolerance for racial discomfort and thus when racial discomfort arises, whites typically respond as if something is ‘wrong,’ and blame the person or event that triggered the discomfort (usually a person of color).
Nel focused on five areas of structural racism in the world of children’s books: the subtle persistence of racial caricature, how anti-racist revisionism sustains racist ideas, racial invisibility as a form of racism, racial erasures via whitewashed young adult book covers, and genre-coding in the children's publishing industry.
Authors like Seuss are "what happens when race gets displaced, re-coded, hidden. It is about how racist ideologies persist in the literature and culture of childhood, frequently in ways that we fail to notice on a conscious level. It is about how race is present especially when it seems to be absent."
Some authors' work has been bowdlerized in recent years, such as Twain, with the exchanging of the n-word for slave, completely changing the meaning of the text and the work itself. My understanding of Nel's take on racists texts are that it would be a toss up of banning them from libraries or teaching students to look critically at these books, and continuing to cause damage readers of color.
Nel exposes the publishing industry's argument that books by people of color in a certain genre or with a POC on the cover won't sell. They don't admit that they're using hiring via nepotism, filling quotas for writers of color within genres, or that they are driven by the economic bottom line.
As the primary beneficiaries of structural racism, White people have the strongest moral obligation to work toward dismantling it. As John Metta writes, “White people are in a position of power in this country because of racism. The question is: Are they brave enough to use that power to speak against the system that gave it to them?.
One of my favorite things about this book is that he gave multiple examples of children's books in recently history with examples of racism but that he also gave examples of books written by POC which were overlooked by the publishing industry and were self published or who don't fit the mold of one of the three genres they've been pigeonholed into by the publishing industry.
Nel encourages white writers, publishers, teachers, and librarians to do better and even better, he gives a list of places to go to accomplish this. This book is going to remind me that I need to look at my read alouds I share with my class and look at the ratio of books written by white writers versus everyone else. I'll now be looking at books I choose with a closer eye for structural racism.
My only critique is that the book became repetitive at times. I remember reading specific phrases and asking myself hadn't I just read that phrase word for word a few pages ago? Other than that, this book was entirely worthwhile.
I took my time in getting to this book because one of my favorite childhood authors, Dr. Seuss, was mentioned in the title and I knew he wouldn't come off well in the book and how could I defend an author who introduced me to my love of reading?
Nel had some harsh truths to deliver.
Whites have not had to build tolerance for racial discomfort and thus when racial discomfort arises, whites typically respond as if something is ‘wrong,’ and blame the person or event that triggered the discomfort (usually a person of color).
Nel focused on five areas of structural racism in the world of children’s books: the subtle persistence of racial caricature, how anti-racist revisionism sustains racist ideas, racial invisibility as a form of racism, racial erasures via whitewashed young adult book covers, and genre-coding in the children's publishing industry.
Authors like Seuss are "what happens when race gets displaced, re-coded, hidden. It is about how racist ideologies persist in the literature and culture of childhood, frequently in ways that we fail to notice on a conscious level. It is about how race is present especially when it seems to be absent."
Some authors' work has been bowdlerized in recent years, such as Twain, with the exchanging of the n-word for slave, completely changing the meaning of the text and the work itself. My understanding of Nel's take on racists texts are that it would be a toss up of banning them from libraries or teaching students to look critically at these books, and continuing to cause damage readers of color.
Nel exposes the publishing industry's argument that books by people of color in a certain genre or with a POC on the cover won't sell. They don't admit that they're using hiring via nepotism, filling quotas for writers of color within genres, or that they are driven by the economic bottom line.
As the primary beneficiaries of structural racism, White people have the strongest moral obligation to work toward dismantling it. As John Metta writes, “White people are in a position of power in this country because of racism. The question is: Are they brave enough to use that power to speak against the system that gave it to them?.
One of my favorite things about this book is that he gave multiple examples of children's books in recently history with examples of racism but that he also gave examples of books written by POC which were overlooked by the publishing industry and were self published or who don't fit the mold of one of the three genres they've been pigeonholed into by the publishing industry.
Nel encourages white writers, publishers, teachers, and librarians to do better and even better, he gives a list of places to go to accomplish this. This book is going to remind me that I need to look at my read alouds I share with my class and look at the ratio of books written by white writers versus everyone else. I'll now be looking at books I choose with a closer eye for structural racism.
My only critique is that the book became repetitive at times. I remember reading specific phrases and asking myself hadn't I just read that phrase word for word a few pages ago? Other than that, this book was entirely worthwhile.
harriyanna's review against another edition
5.0
i think all white writers, illustrators, and cartoonists should read this.
neilrcoulter's review against another edition
3.0
The five chapters (and conclusion) of Philip Nel’s Was the Cat in the Hat Black? don’t connect into one book very well, and sometimes something in one chapter contradicts something in an earlier chapter. So I find it a difficult book to rate as-a-book. I enjoyed some of it and really didn’t enjoy some of it. As a reader and parent who is very enthusiastic about good, honest, meaningful communication across cultures and subcultures, I am completely interested in Nel’s topic of bringing more diversity into children’s literature, and I opened the book eager to learn. Reading with that attitude, I found much to ponder in the book. However, it takes a long time to get to the best parts.
The first three chapters are where Nel is on the shakiest ground. The first chapter looks at the works of Dr. Seuss, and especially The Cat in the Hat. The reader wants to know: Was the Cat in the Hat black? Nel’s answer: Yes! No. Maybe? It depends... Every bold assertion Nel makes is followed by a paragraph or two of hedging and backtracking, which results in weak, ambiguous conclusions. There is, as Nel points out, definitely evidence of racially insensitive artwork throughout Seuss’s corpus (even while Seuss was at the same time promoting anti-racism in other works)—and Random House has recently taken several titles with that questionable imagery out of print, which is fine—but The Cat in the Hat ...I just don’t see it as a racist text, even after Nel’s chapter. He writes:
In Chapter 2, Nel explores ways in which obviously racial content in some books was altered in later editions of the books—in particular, Doctor Dolittle, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Mary Poppins. The content in this chapter gets somewhat repetitive. The only one of those three books I have any connection to is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a book which I love and which I’ve always been comfortable regarding as a very unsettling story. I think changing the Oompa-Loompas from African pygmies to a fictional people was a good revision, because it leaves intact the disturbing idea that Willy Wonka uses people so flippantly, but it allows the Oompa-Loompas to stand in for any and all oppressed people. Wonka is not a normative, be-more-like-him kind of character. He’s only sentimental and cuddly in the end of the original film version, and that was a completely wrong characterization. Johnny Depp’s version of the character is more correct in emphasizing the strangeness and inappropriateness; in the conclusion of that film, Wonka is awkwardly domesticated—with emphasis more on “awkward” than “domesticated.”
Chapter 3 returns to picture books (one of the odd things about this book is that it shifts from picture books to children’s chapter books to young adult literature, of all eras), this time focusing on William Joyce, and especially the racial erasure evident in his book/app/film The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore. I’m not familiar with this story in any of its incarnations, but I know some of Joyce’s other books. If Morris Lessmore really is meant to be about New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina, then I agree that it’s weird to show only white people, and also a bit distasteful to suggest that the answer to everyone’s problems is just to read from a narrow selection of books.
However, Nel’s research approach in this chapter bothered me. He (repeatedly) affirms how terrible it is that the library Joyce presents in the story includes only books by dead White people. But it’s not the “dead” part that’s an issue, it seems, because William Joyce is, in fact, a live White person, and yet Nel made no attempt to actually call, write, or interview him about the accusations he makes in this chapter. Joyce lives less than a ten-hour drive away from Nel—what’s Nel’s reason for leaving him out of a highly critical chapter that’s all about him? Instead, Nel snipes at him from the safe distance of tenured academia. It’s at least lazy, if not immature and cowardly.
Chapter 4 was my favorite of the book. I love book cover illustrations, and in this chapter Nel looks at the ways book covers have tended to be “whitewashed”—that is, even when the novel’s protagonist is non-White, the book cover is likely to show either a White model, a person in silhouette, or more abstract imagery with no person at all. In this chapter, the evidence presented is so much clearer and more reasonable. By dealing with things that are happening in publishing right now, rather than a picture book from the 1950s, Nel is able to address real problems in publishing that can be fixed. I hope that in the years since this book, the amount of book cover whitewashing has been reduced (and I think that’s the case, but I don’t have numbers to supplement the data Nel provides from 2014). It seemed a little odd to me that Nel criticized the process of “White authentication”—where a work by a non-White author is introduced by a White author, as if to reassure the reader that it’s all right, you can trust me, this really is worth reading. Ok, I don’t disagree with the criticism, but...I’m reading a book by a White author assuring me that it’s all right, I can trust him, it’s good to read more diverse books. Can we acknowledge the irony, at least? Nel doesn’t.
The final chapter and the conclusion make a compelling case for more racial diversity in children’s literature. It definitely made me want to seek out more books that take me outside of my own subculture and experiences. Nel offers a number of suggestions for improving the situation of diversity in publishing, but I often felt helpless—like, so I care about this, but what can I do, really? I’d love to work in publishing, but I’ve found no open doors no matter how much I’ve knocked; and I buy almost no new fiction of any kind, so my dollars aren’t casting votes one way or the other. I have some influence within my family, a minuscule influence among friends, and even smaller influence among the four people who ever notice what I do on Goodreads. So the prospect of affecting decisions made by top-tier publishers in NYC seems laughably remote to me. I do resonate, therefore, with Nel’s assertion that one of the most important aspects of reading well is being guided by wise parents and teachers:
While I affirm most of Nel’s suggestions for improving diversity in publishing, he sometimes proposes something that strikes me as nearly humorous. For instance, when he writes,
My overall impression of Was the Cat in the Hat Black? is that it presents a confused concept of racism. Nel says on page 1 that “racism endures because racism is structural: it’s embedded in culture, and in institutions.” I disagree—and interestingly, so does Nel later in the book, when he cites a 2015 Pew Research study that found that three-fourths of all people demonstrate racial bias. As the study reported,
The first three chapters are where Nel is on the shakiest ground. The first chapter looks at the works of Dr. Seuss, and especially The Cat in the Hat. The reader wants to know: Was the Cat in the Hat black? Nel’s answer: Yes! No. Maybe? It depends... Every bold assertion Nel makes is followed by a paragraph or two of hedging and backtracking, which results in weak, ambiguous conclusions. There is, as Nel points out, definitely evidence of racially insensitive artwork throughout Seuss’s corpus (even while Seuss was at the same time promoting anti-racism in other works)—and Random House has recently taken several titles with that questionable imagery out of print, which is fine—but The Cat in the Hat ...I just don’t see it as a racist text, even after Nel’s chapter. He writes:
However, read a second way, the Cat’s performance fails to conceal the threat of violence. Not just a smiling song-and-dance man (or cat), the Cat in the Hat embodies unrest: he unsettles the social order, bending the rake, scaring the fish, and unleashing two Things who both knock the wind out of Sally and knock over a vase, lamp, books, and dishes. In his subversive aspect, the Cat evokes media images of violence associated with the civil rights movement. Though he is initiating the violence (rather than practicing nonviolent civil disobedience and receiving a violent response from Whites), his disruptive presence serves as a reminder of African Americans’ struggle for human rights. He is entertainer, warning, and provocateur. (44)I’m willing (probably more than most people) to read a lot into a text, and I don’t disagree at all that the Cat is a potentially dangerous agent of chaos. But really—does anyone read The Cat in the Hat and think about the civil rights movement? As Nel says, “there is no record of readers in 1957 interpreting the Cat in racial terms,” and I’ve never heard that interpretation in my lifetime, so maybe in addition to investigating the possible historically race-related influences on the character, we also need to consider the ways that the relationship between a sign and the signified changes over time, to the point that any connection to an earlier signified is nullified. That certainly seems to me to be the case for The Cat in the Hat.
In Chapter 2, Nel explores ways in which obviously racial content in some books was altered in later editions of the books—in particular, Doctor Dolittle, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Mary Poppins. The content in this chapter gets somewhat repetitive. The only one of those three books I have any connection to is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a book which I love and which I’ve always been comfortable regarding as a very unsettling story. I think changing the Oompa-Loompas from African pygmies to a fictional people was a good revision, because it leaves intact the disturbing idea that Willy Wonka uses people so flippantly, but it allows the Oompa-Loompas to stand in for any and all oppressed people. Wonka is not a normative, be-more-like-him kind of character. He’s only sentimental and cuddly in the end of the original film version, and that was a completely wrong characterization. Johnny Depp’s version of the character is more correct in emphasizing the strangeness and inappropriateness; in the conclusion of that film, Wonka is awkwardly domesticated—with emphasis more on “awkward” than “domesticated.”
Chapter 3 returns to picture books (one of the odd things about this book is that it shifts from picture books to children’s chapter books to young adult literature, of all eras), this time focusing on William Joyce, and especially the racial erasure evident in his book/app/film The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore. I’m not familiar with this story in any of its incarnations, but I know some of Joyce’s other books. If Morris Lessmore really is meant to be about New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina, then I agree that it’s weird to show only white people, and also a bit distasteful to suggest that the answer to everyone’s problems is just to read from a narrow selection of books.
However, Nel’s research approach in this chapter bothered me. He (repeatedly) affirms how terrible it is that the library Joyce presents in the story includes only books by dead White people. But it’s not the “dead” part that’s an issue, it seems, because William Joyce is, in fact, a live White person, and yet Nel made no attempt to actually call, write, or interview him about the accusations he makes in this chapter. Joyce lives less than a ten-hour drive away from Nel—what’s Nel’s reason for leaving him out of a highly critical chapter that’s all about him? Instead, Nel snipes at him from the safe distance of tenured academia. It’s at least lazy, if not immature and cowardly.
Chapter 4 was my favorite of the book. I love book cover illustrations, and in this chapter Nel looks at the ways book covers have tended to be “whitewashed”—that is, even when the novel’s protagonist is non-White, the book cover is likely to show either a White model, a person in silhouette, or more abstract imagery with no person at all. In this chapter, the evidence presented is so much clearer and more reasonable. By dealing with things that are happening in publishing right now, rather than a picture book from the 1950s, Nel is able to address real problems in publishing that can be fixed. I hope that in the years since this book, the amount of book cover whitewashing has been reduced (and I think that’s the case, but I don’t have numbers to supplement the data Nel provides from 2014). It seemed a little odd to me that Nel criticized the process of “White authentication”—where a work by a non-White author is introduced by a White author, as if to reassure the reader that it’s all right, you can trust me, this really is worth reading. Ok, I don’t disagree with the criticism, but...I’m reading a book by a White author assuring me that it’s all right, I can trust him, it’s good to read more diverse books. Can we acknowledge the irony, at least? Nel doesn’t.
The final chapter and the conclusion make a compelling case for more racial diversity in children’s literature. It definitely made me want to seek out more books that take me outside of my own subculture and experiences. Nel offers a number of suggestions for improving the situation of diversity in publishing, but I often felt helpless—like, so I care about this, but what can I do, really? I’d love to work in publishing, but I’ve found no open doors no matter how much I’ve knocked; and I buy almost no new fiction of any kind, so my dollars aren’t casting votes one way or the other. I have some influence within my family, a minuscule influence among friends, and even smaller influence among the four people who ever notice what I do on Goodreads. So the prospect of affecting decisions made by top-tier publishers in NYC seems laughably remote to me. I do resonate, therefore, with Nel’s assertion that one of the most important aspects of reading well is being guided by wise parents and teachers:
That said, books offering a critical examination of racism’s cruelty are (obviously) quite different from those that passively perpetuate racism. The intervention of a thoughtful adult will be vital in reading the latter type of book. Un-bowdlerized versions of these books require guidance, critical questions, and emotional support for the strong feelings that they may elicit. They must also be read in the context of other books that (a) offer affirmative images of racial group members, and (b) supply some of the necessary history that will help young readers make sense of the structures of racism. (99–100)That’s what I’ve always tried to provide for my kids (despite Adam Swift’s delightfully ridiculous assertion that I should occasionally feel bad about reading to my kids, because of the unfair advantage this gives them over kids who weren’t read to).
While I affirm most of Nel’s suggestions for improving diversity in publishing, he sometimes proposes something that strikes me as nearly humorous. For instance, when he writes,
There are few novels or picture books about Ferguson and the Black Lives Matter movement. Likewise, there are few about the prison industrial complex, or racist profiling (192).Wait a minute. You’re telling me that when you think back to snuggling on the sofa with your three-year-old as you read a big stack of books together, that’s the moment when you’d like to have a discussion about the prison industrial complex, via a picture book? Come on.
My overall impression of Was the Cat in the Hat Black? is that it presents a confused concept of racism. Nel says on page 1 that “racism endures because racism is structural: it’s embedded in culture, and in institutions.” I disagree—and interestingly, so does Nel later in the book, when he cites a 2015 Pew Research study that found that three-fourths of all people demonstrate racial bias. As the study reported,
Roughly equal levels of implicit racial bias were found among men and women, old and young, and college educated and those with a high school diploma or less formal schooling. Republicans and Democrats with the same racial background also had similar levels of underlying racial bias.“If there are racial biases in your work,” Nel writes, “then you are statistically normal” (133). This I agree with. Looking back through history, you easily find that all people across all eras and regions of the world seem to want to draw lines between “insider” and “outsider,” “us” and “them.” So racism doesn’t come from social and cultural structures; it comes from something deep within all of us, something that has to be addressed, fixed, forgiven, in every generation. Changing the structures to be fairer and more equal is an excellent endeavor, but it can’t end racism. It’s addressing the effects, not the root problem. Beyond the tenets of “white fragility” (which I don’t wholeheartedly endorse) and the good work for fairness and justice in society, we have to look deeper, at the darkness in our hearts that can so quickly motivate any of us to unloving actions. A fellow who spent time walking around Israel some years ago has answers to those deeper issues.