Okay, today must be blog-a-thon day. I was just sent this link. I went over, excited to see who the must-reads were, according to the Cooperative Children's Book Center (via the National Education Association). They have an impressive array of multicultural voices there including some of my favorite authors of color -- for this, let me state emphatically that I am thrilled beyond measure.
However, how is it possible that from 1990 through 2009 there is not ONE SINGLE South Asian author whose book could be listed as "one that every child should read"? How is it possible to overlook an entire demographic? One that is the second largest (quite possibly the first now) population on the planet?
I think of my fellow South Asian authors whose books I've held close because they reflected me back to myself and showed me the beauty in who I was . . . authors like Mitali Perkins, Tanuja Desai Hidier, Uma Krishnaswami, Marina Budhos, Anjali Banerjee, and a whole host of others. And I think of all the teens and children out there who are desperate to see their own reality reflected within the pages of a book that they will cherish throughout their lives, and pass along to their own children.
I am saddened and, quite frankly, stunned. Obviously, the discussion around diversity needs to continue.
Update: Yayy!! Just received a warm and wonderful email from Kathleen Horning, Director of the Cooperative Children's Book Center--the organization that compiled the original list--and she said they would update the list to include South Asian authors, and maybe make it "75 Multicultural Books Every Child Should Know"!!! It's a GREAT day. *beaming*
Friday, August 14, 2009
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Response to Comments on Justine's Blog
If you are here to express at length, your views on how not all men and White/straight/rich people are the same, you are wasting your time and ours. We know this. We are referring to systems of oppression. To read responses to your concerns and others you may not have thought up yet, the following sites have done a FAR better job addressing them than I ever could.
The first link is from Tim Wise's blog. He is a white man who says many of the same things I do about race, gender, class, and other forms of systemic oppression. Of particular interest might be his essays on color-blindness and the inconvenience of white privilege.
Peggy McIntosh's essay, as well as Laura Atkins' Reflections on White Privilege in the Publication of Children's Books are also important reads; comments for the latter are here.
Tim Wise
Peggy McIntosh's Essay on White Privilege
Anger Does Not Equal Hate
How Not to Be Insane When Accused of Racism (a guide for White people)
How To Suppress Discussions of Racism (read this before weighing in).
White Privilege
Racism 101
There are many, many others, but we'll start with those. I'm glad you are taking the time to read my essays and posts. It shows one of two things: 1) you are truly interested in dialogue and changing the world for the better; or 2) you simply want to prove yourself right. If it is the former, I welcome your insights and support. If it is the latter, I suggest you find forums better suited to your efforts.
The first link is from Tim Wise's blog. He is a white man who says many of the same things I do about race, gender, class, and other forms of systemic oppression. Of particular interest might be his essays on color-blindness and the inconvenience of white privilege.
Peggy McIntosh's essay, as well as Laura Atkins' Reflections on White Privilege in the Publication of Children's Books are also important reads; comments for the latter are here.
Tim Wise
Peggy McIntosh's Essay on White Privilege
Anger Does Not Equal Hate
How Not to Be Insane When Accused of Racism (a guide for White people)
How To Suppress Discussions of Racism (read this before weighing in).
White Privilege
Racism 101
There are many, many others, but we'll start with those. I'm glad you are taking the time to read my essays and posts. It shows one of two things: 1) you are truly interested in dialogue and changing the world for the better; or 2) you simply want to prove yourself right. If it is the former, I welcome your insights and support. If it is the latter, I suggest you find forums better suited to your efforts.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Writers On Writing: Sherman Alexie
So this will be my final Writers On Writing entry. And I'll be winding this blog down for the next few weeks so that I can enjoy what remains of the summer of 2009. I will pick it back up mid-September-ish.
This one is pretty long, but fascinating all the way through. Sherman Alexie on winning the National Book Award, being diagnosed as "brain damaged" as a child, leaving the rez to go to an all-white high school, wanting to be a pediatrician, and being in love with a lesbian. He also talks about being seen by other kids as an apple--red on the outside, white on the inside. Obviously, there are other versions of this analogy: coconuts, bananas, oreos . . .
Enjoy, and have a great summer, everyone!
This one is pretty long, but fascinating all the way through. Sherman Alexie on winning the National Book Award, being diagnosed as "brain damaged" as a child, leaving the rez to go to an all-white high school, wanting to be a pediatrician, and being in love with a lesbian. He also talks about being seen by other kids as an apple--red on the outside, white on the inside. Obviously, there are other versions of this analogy: coconuts, bananas, oreos . . .
Enjoy, and have a great summer, everyone!
Monday, August 3, 2009
Writers On Writing: Jeanette Winterson
I found the video for this quite annoying, but the audio--OMG. Jeanette Winterson is amazing. She talks about the importance of art in the midst of what might be considered more "urgent" matters, like terrorism and war...
Sunday, August 2, 2009
On Women, the "Other," Sci-Fi, and Spirituality
Speaking of Octavia Butler . . .
I was thrilled to be asked to guest post on Alma Alexander's blog. I decided, in honor of her genre of writing, to do a post on something I've been wanting to explore for some time--my passion for certain types of fantasy/paranormal/sci-fi writing. And here is the post I came up with (cross-posting from her site):
Octavia Butler once said “Every story I read practically had, as its main character, a white man who drank and smoked too much and who was about thirty. So I began writing, for my submission, about white men who drank and smoked too much and were about thirty. It’s not surprising that these were rejected.” If you want to see the video where she says this, it is here. In the same clip, Robert Silverberg says that Star Trek, with its portrayal of women characters and people of color, caused a giant leap in the readership of science fiction. In other words, people who normally were on the margins, saw a reflection of ourselves in the center.
I was first introduced to the works of women authors of science fiction in my early twenties. Octavia Butler, Marion Zimmer Bradley, and Diane Duane were among the first I read. They were presented to me as “feminist science fiction authors” at the time and, at first, they hardly registered on my radar.
I’d been writing for pretty much my whole life, but until then, I had never really thought I could write a book. And when I finally ventured to read the first book—Marion Zimmer Bradley’s THE FREE RENUNCIATES trilogy, I was enthralled. I inhaled the rest of the titles and went out in search for more. Reading the works of these women showed me that the kinds of things that moved me—stories featuring strong women and people of color, living lives they created according to their own definitions—were valuable. Books about these characters were important, and people wanted to read them. It suddenly struck me that there was a huge market for these kinds of novels. And that these novels were more than just stories . . . they were doors.
I absolutely walked through a door the first time I read WILD SEED by Octavia Butler. I fell so utterly and hopelessly in love that I changed course one hundred and eighty degrees, and have never looked back. Part of the reason her book left such a deep imprint on me is that the themes in her books, and those of the women I’ve mentioned above (as well as Marge Piercy (WOMAN ON THE EDGE OF TIME), and the relatively newer voice of Nalo Hopkinson), is that they not only portrayed the “other” as complex, fully realized characters, but also because they explore themes of rebellion, resistance, challenge to systemic oppression . . . and spirituality.
The use of magic (as discussed on this blog in previous posts), the age-old battle of life and creativity versus death and destruction, shape-shifting, time travel, eternal life, a journey of searching, visiting other worlds . . . all of these are allegories of transcendance, re-birth, the life-death-life cycle, that colossal battle within us all for inner balance, and faith. Where else do we most commonly see these themes, other than in religious texts?
The books I read by women authors of science fiction and fantasy incorporated a spirituality that included and exalted women, honored the ancestors, and implied a reverent relationship between the self, others, the earth, and the cosmos.
Octavia Butler and Nalo Hopkinson explicitly use spiritual imagery and reference in their works. In WILD SEED, the protagonist Anyanwu/Emma clearly adheres to her old, African ways and beliefs, even as she enters and spends centuries in slave-era America. In KINDRED, the setting of the American antebellum South depicts a different kind of spirituality: one of holding on to humanity and dignity, believing in the unknown . . . and clutching faith close. Nalo Hopkinson also uses elements of her Caribbean upbringing in her novels—BROWN GIRL IN THE RING incorporates many Caribbean Voudun rituals and beliefs into its text, and THE NEW MOON’S ARMS seamlessly threads a Caribbean spirituality into its text.
Marion Zimmer Bradley, Marge Piercy, and Diane Duane focus on the most immediate site of devotion: the Self. Their stories all involve discovery of the Self—the age old journey of moving away from the Self, wandering lost and alone and in the (symbolic) woods, then seeing the light and making one’s way back to the Self: life, death, resurrection—all using stories told with masterfully written allegory.
Science Fiction and Fantasy will never die as a genre. It speaks to everyone because it is so often about the journey we are all on: discovery. It is universal in its specificity. It is a door. And it is one that more and more women, people of color, and other “others” are walking through because, as a result of women authors and women of color authors, it is now part of the great Possible.
I was thrilled to be asked to guest post on Alma Alexander's blog. I decided, in honor of her genre of writing, to do a post on something I've been wanting to explore for some time--my passion for certain types of fantasy/paranormal/sci-fi writing. And here is the post I came up with (cross-posting from her site):
Octavia Butler once said “Every story I read practically had, as its main character, a white man who drank and smoked too much and who was about thirty. So I began writing, for my submission, about white men who drank and smoked too much and were about thirty. It’s not surprising that these were rejected.” If you want to see the video where she says this, it is here. In the same clip, Robert Silverberg says that Star Trek, with its portrayal of women characters and people of color, caused a giant leap in the readership of science fiction. In other words, people who normally were on the margins, saw a reflection of ourselves in the center.
I was first introduced to the works of women authors of science fiction in my early twenties. Octavia Butler, Marion Zimmer Bradley, and Diane Duane were among the first I read. They were presented to me as “feminist science fiction authors” at the time and, at first, they hardly registered on my radar.
I’d been writing for pretty much my whole life, but until then, I had never really thought I could write a book. And when I finally ventured to read the first book—Marion Zimmer Bradley’s THE FREE RENUNCIATES trilogy, I was enthralled. I inhaled the rest of the titles and went out in search for more. Reading the works of these women showed me that the kinds of things that moved me—stories featuring strong women and people of color, living lives they created according to their own definitions—were valuable. Books about these characters were important, and people wanted to read them. It suddenly struck me that there was a huge market for these kinds of novels. And that these novels were more than just stories . . . they were doors.
I absolutely walked through a door the first time I read WILD SEED by Octavia Butler. I fell so utterly and hopelessly in love that I changed course one hundred and eighty degrees, and have never looked back. Part of the reason her book left such a deep imprint on me is that the themes in her books, and those of the women I’ve mentioned above (as well as Marge Piercy (WOMAN ON THE EDGE OF TIME), and the relatively newer voice of Nalo Hopkinson), is that they not only portrayed the “other” as complex, fully realized characters, but also because they explore themes of rebellion, resistance, challenge to systemic oppression . . . and spirituality.
The use of magic (as discussed on this blog in previous posts), the age-old battle of life and creativity versus death and destruction, shape-shifting, time travel, eternal life, a journey of searching, visiting other worlds . . . all of these are allegories of transcendance, re-birth, the life-death-life cycle, that colossal battle within us all for inner balance, and faith. Where else do we most commonly see these themes, other than in religious texts?
The books I read by women authors of science fiction and fantasy incorporated a spirituality that included and exalted women, honored the ancestors, and implied a reverent relationship between the self, others, the earth, and the cosmos.
Octavia Butler and Nalo Hopkinson explicitly use spiritual imagery and reference in their works. In WILD SEED, the protagonist Anyanwu/Emma clearly adheres to her old, African ways and beliefs, even as she enters and spends centuries in slave-era America. In KINDRED, the setting of the American antebellum South depicts a different kind of spirituality: one of holding on to humanity and dignity, believing in the unknown . . . and clutching faith close. Nalo Hopkinson also uses elements of her Caribbean upbringing in her novels—BROWN GIRL IN THE RING incorporates many Caribbean Voudun rituals and beliefs into its text, and THE NEW MOON’S ARMS seamlessly threads a Caribbean spirituality into its text.
Marion Zimmer Bradley, Marge Piercy, and Diane Duane focus on the most immediate site of devotion: the Self. Their stories all involve discovery of the Self—the age old journey of moving away from the Self, wandering lost and alone and in the (symbolic) woods, then seeing the light and making one’s way back to the Self: life, death, resurrection—all using stories told with masterfully written allegory.
Science Fiction and Fantasy will never die as a genre. It speaks to everyone because it is so often about the journey we are all on: discovery. It is universal in its specificity. It is a door. And it is one that more and more women, people of color, and other “others” are walking through because, as a result of women authors and women of color authors, it is now part of the great Possible.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
