What to Do If You Encounter Racism in Your Children’s Books
As parents become more aware of racism in the media, they are left with difficult choices – decisions that sometimes have to be made in a split second. One of the most important points: What do you do when you read a story out loud to a child and encounter something racist?
Lindsay Perez Huber faced this situation one night while reading to her eight-year-old daughter. This is about the book ” Don’t Lie, Lucy!” – a story about a boy who cried and a wolf, about a little girl who had a problem with falsification. In one scene, Lucy takes a bike from a friend and smashes it. When she tells her friend Paul about what happened, she claims that a bandit jumped in front of her and broke her. There is an illustration of her lies and the imaginary bandit is shown with brown skin (compared to Lucy’s yellow skin) and wearing a serap, sombrero and sandals.
“This is not what you would expect reading a book to your child one night in the bedroom,” says Perez Huber, an assistant professor at California State University, Long Beach, who studies racial microaggression and co-authored Racial Microaggression: The Use of Critical Race. Response theory to everyday racism . “I stopped reading. (My daughter) felt that something was wrong. “
So how do you deal with this racism in children’s books, especially now? First, you must identify it.
What is microaggression?
Oftentimes, racist depictions in children’s books are subtle and even deliberate. The book will not use a word with the letter N and will not show that the police are racially profiling suspects. Instead, images are usually microaggression, an everyday form of mostly latent racism that happens automatically and unconsciously, says Perez Huber. It might even be so subtle that it might be accidental, but that doesn’t mean microaggression isn’t dangerous.
Microaggression can include using the wrong pronoun for a person. Or portray a bandit in traditional Mexican clothing. Perez Huber says that to identify microaggression, look for flaws: do people say “less than”? For example, are low-income people or immigrants portrayed as living in a poor neighborhood?
“It’s all coded, racial proxies,” she says. “We understand that this is all about people of color.”
Check out the images in the book: Are people of color only portrayed in a negative light? Black characters only in books from low-income families? Is the book on immigration portrayed with cultural stereotypes?
Perez Huber points to 10 Quick Ways to Analyze Children’s Books for Racism and Sexism , a list from the University of Arizona compiled by the Council on Interracial Books for Children, which also includes tips such as weighing relationships between people: do white characters have power and decisions over everything. ? Are women and women taking on minor roles? It is also suggested to check the biography of the author and illustrator – if neither of them is a member of the specified minority group, why are they allowed to write or illustrate this topic?
So you have defined racism. Now what? According to Perez Huber, it is easiest to completely abandon racist books, but it can also lead to a wasted opportunity. Here are some ways to prepare for your next story.
Review the book first
Before reading the book to his children, Perez Huber tries to first look at it. If a parent is faced with something problematic, there may be enough good things in the book to read it anyway. If so, pre-screening can help parents plan ahead of time what to say to them when faced with racist content.
And one of the best things parents can do when they encounter something racist during a story is to ask their children what they think about it and start a discussion. When Perez Huber stumbled upon a picture of a Mexican mobster, she thought of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire and his teaching method called problem-setting learning – a strategy that involves asking questions to see if students can solve a problem on their own.
So Perez Huber asked her daughter what she saw. The girl, who was a member of a traditional Mexican dance group who wears a sombrero and large, colorful dresses, recognized the thug’s “costume” as she called it.
“I said, ‘If this image suggests that the bandit looks like this, what is he talking about? “She immediately says:“ They say Latin Americans are bandits, ”says Perez Huber. “She herself was able to decipher the image. As parents, we think that our children are too young to participate in these discussions, or too young to be aware of the differences. They watch movies. They see things on the Internet. They are always exposed to racist images and reports of racism. “
Adapt the answer to the child and then talk to him
The best way to combat racism in children’s books is with a child. Can they answer your questions? What can they handle? What upsets them? Over the years, Perez Huber has talked to her children on this topic on numerous occasions, so she knows they have a foundation to discuss. However, some topics may not be developmentally appropriate for a young child.
Likewise, if your child cannot answer your question about a problem with the book, explain the problem. Even if they don’t get it right away, an explanation can help the next time they encounter something racist.
After discussing the bandit Perez, Huber continued reading to his daughter, and she noticed that she was crying. Perez Huber asked what was the matter, and her daughter replied: “I am Hispanic, and they say that I am a bandit.”
“When racial microaggression occurs, we can see it,” she says. “My daughter is very emotional when this happened. I needed to take a minute and help her comprehend this. This is what microaggression does. ” Children may not need microaggression terminology, but they do need time and space to process their emotions.
Select books to lay the foundation
One way to help kids understand racism in a book is to start with less complex books, suggests Kat, a member of the parent community of Offspring on Facebook .
“I think the difficulty is that children’s literature is often written to help children think through very difficult situations and sort them out,” says Kat. “Then you add serious problematic questions about racism, sexism, and phobias, and that’s a recipe for worrying during the story.”
Kat suggests age-appropriate books on topics such as racism, such as Duncan Tonatiu’s “ Divide Never Equals ”. A book on school segregation in California can be a conversation starter on racism and help prepare children for chapter books that may have more problematic content.
It can be difficult to figure out what needs to be done or said at the moment, but deciding that problem will go a long way towards teaching a child about racism.