Nice Is Not Enough: a Conversation with Laura Atkins

11 Nov 2017 news 2 Comments

11103173_730637387057233_2840119845858995391_oMy essay, “Nice Is Not Enough,” has been published as part of librarian/blogger Edith Campbell’s series “When Women Speak.” Author/editor Laura Atkins and I have been friends for close to twenty years. Since this is such a sensitive subject, we decided to keep the conversation going here on my blog.

In the first draft of my essay I quipped, “Some of my best friends are White women!” And, of course, half my family identifies as White. But just being related to or caring for a person of color doesn’t automatically make White people anti-racist. I grew up in a majority-White community outside of Toronto and when I moved to Brooklyn at age 21, I vowed I would never live like that again. I didn’t think I’d make White friends, either—it was just too much work for too little reward. But then we met when I submitted my stories to Lee & Low; I’d never gotten such a warm, encouraging response from an editor and I knew right away that you were different. Why? How do we clone you, Laura? How have you been able to move past the defensiveness and denial that comes with White fragility?

I noticed that quip too, and thought about our friendship. I hold you as one of my best friends, as well as someone I admire and aspire to be like in the world. You’ve pushed me to be more vulnerable and open, stepping aside and trying to listen more. But I don’t feel like I’ve got it down at all. In some ways it’s like taking the red pill in the film The Matrix. As a White person who has made an effort to listen to POC friends about their experiences, and also taken part in an equity circle at my daughter’s school, I’ve experienced a shift as I’ve just started to recognized what White privilege is, how my life is defined by it, and how differently POC move through, and are treated by, our society. Mostly, I’m indexaware of how much I DON’T know.

Here’s an example of how I’ve navigated a situation based around my Whiteness. I co-wrote a book with Stan Yogi called Fred Korematsu Speaks Up. At the end of that process, Stan decided he wanted to move onto other things, and our publisher Heyday asked if I would write the following books in the series by myself. The first one is a biography of Biddy Mason, an enslaved woman who won her freedom through the courts in Los Angeles, worked as a midwife and doctor’s assistant to save money, and eventually used her wealth made through property to be a community activist and philanthropist.

I felt unsure about doing this by myself, as I’m aware not just of the problems with cultural appropriation, but also that books about slavery have been particularly fraught in the children’s book world. I’m also aware that more White people have been writing books about Black people in particular, within a landscape where people are not being able to get published writing books about their own communities. As this infographic from Reflection Press show, for there to be accurate representation in our children’s book world, with 4711 total books published, we would need 1511 more by POC/Indigenous creators. I wondered how I would feel, out in the world, talking about and representing this book when it was done. When I asked you, you gave me your sign off, saying you thought I’d do it better than most.

powerpoint-slides-radical-act-presentation2-newI talked to other POC friends to get their thoughts, and had other responses that were not comfortable with the idea of writing this book on my own. And I felt my White fragility – some defensiveness. But I made the effort to sit with what I’d heard, which really reinforced what I was already feeling – that I didn’t WANT to write this book by myself. I knew that I would always be imagining myself into the experience, not just of an enslaved person in the 19th century (we’re all going to be imagining ourselves back into a distant past), but also of someone dealing with institutions of white supremacy, racism and oppression. While slavery has been abolished in the United States, those systems persist in different ways. And as a White woman, I’d be trying to put myself into those shoes. It just didn’t feel right – doesn’t feel right.

So I went back to Heyday and proposed the idea of finding a different author to co-write each book, finding someone whose lived experience connects to the story being told. Heyday, a small non-profit regional publisher, agreed (I’m not sure a more mainstream publishers would have). I am co-writing the next book with Arisa White, an Oakland-based poet. And I am SO grateful for this relationship and process. Arisa and I have partnered, talking through all parts of Biddy Mason’s story, including writing about her as an individual but also about slavery, for children. We’ve developed trust and friendship, and it’s been great, and also challenging, to collaborate on this tricky project. Arisa expands my world as a poet, and someone connected to the Bay Area writing community in many ways. We’ve also enlisted several outside readers, including a recent PhD graduate who spent four years leading research projects regarding the topic of slavery in children’s literature at the University of Pennsylvania, under the direction of Professor Ebony Thomas. We’ve asked author friends, teachers and experts to give us feedback on our draft(s). This is a takes-a-village book, as it should be.

To me, this collaborative model, which includes partnership and equality of voice and process – it’s a way forward. I feel like we are trying to walk the talk, to collaborate while wading through some treacherous but important waters. And I am learning ALL the time. I’m sure I’ll keep making mistakes as well. I just try to do the best I can, listen and be open, and get out of the way while also lending my skills and amplification when they seem to be useful.

In a recent interview with Sam Bloom over at RWW, Sarah Park Dahlen offered some critical advice for equity advocates: “Know that [your work is] important. Know that it’s hard. And know that you’re not alone. Find a community or communities that will work alongside you, that will support you, that will build you up and give you opportunities.” Finding community has been so important for me as an indie author/scholar, especially when most gatekeepers I encounter close the door over and over again. I think some people might be surprised by how many White women are part of my community; like you, they’re radical allies who aren’t afraid to speak out against White supremacy and White privilege. Historically, radical White women have always aligned themselves with Black women, but they are rare. What I find particularly demoralizing is the tendency of some people of color to rush to defend their White friends—even when they know the critique is structural and not personal. That said, I almost never read the comments section; it’s not a productive space for meaningful conversation, I don’t think, and some folks really let loose with hateful, hurtful remarks. You read the comments on Amy Cheney’s post. What did you find there?

Yeah, those comments sections can be intense. In the response to the Amy Cheney post, I saw… a continued shift towards protecting Whiteness, questions about whether the post was “calling in” versus “calling out.” Complex issues raised, such a Thi Bui’s feeling that the post was a “take down” and “utterly mean and unnecessary.” I have enormous respect for Thi, as an author, activist, educator, and her words felt particularly important.

For me, Yuyi Morales gave some deep and reflective thoughts, showing how much of a process this is, and giving ideas that she’s gained recently for how we might move forward. She raised the importance of having “taboo conversations” in the children’s book world. She asks, “How can we create the spaces for the often unheard voices to break up the silence, to open up their hearts and name the pain, and even cry when things hurt?” And she wrote, “We hardly transform ourselves by going alone to the mountain and asking for insight; instead we do it by moving and recreating ourselves from a place of individual power and into a place of connection with the many others. I want to think that what we need is a process in which, yes, we might learn to take care of our wounds in private first, but only to become strong enough to bring it to light so that we can make significant changes to our world.”

We’ve been at many conferences before, and I’ve heard how you and others feel like we keep having the same conversations, and that POC/Indigenous/LGBQTI people are looked to for support and education. I appreciate how Amy shifted this in her column, saying that White people need to do this work ourselves. It’s HARD work, and there aren’t roadmaps for changing behaviors. People like Robin diAngelo are great – I’d recommend her writing and videos to people who really want to learn more about White privilege and fragility.

I particularly liked this video from the BBC showing NFL players Jason Bell and Osi Umenyiora addressing the recent protests. Bell talks about how players in locker rooms are used to having uncomfortable conversations with “guys from all walks of life.” He says you start to get used to those kinds of conversations. “You’re not scared of being uncomfortable.” “If more people in the United States of America could have those uncomfortable conversations, there would be change.” Umenyiora then gives a powerful description of our nation’s history of dissent. He says that the founding fathers felt that “[t]he status quo for us is unacceptable, we’re going to do something,” and then made freedom of speech a pillar of our country. And, he says, we now have NFL players looking at racial inequalities in our country, and being criticized for speaking up. “The country was born out of protest.” What if White folks could be with these uncomfortable conversations, and recognize that dissent is a key part of our nation, as is racist oppression? It’s way past time to center the voices of people oppressed in our nation’s history.

I do wish White people, in particular, would stay with the discomfort and go deeper. That defensiveness shuts down the conversation, and as Amy said, usually many people gather around to support the White person who feels hurt or threatened rather than talking about the damage caused by the book in question. If we’re going to move forward, we need to create spaces where people can talk and listen, openly and with vulnerability, staying present through the discomfort to be part of a real conversation. There are many of us well-meaning White folks who want to create books for kids that include and speak to ALL kids in this country. So many good intentions. But without a willingness to really engage with the inequity and underlying racism that underpins our nation’s systems, including mainstream children’s publishing, change just isn’t going to happen. As my agent Tricia Lawrence said to me recently, “We have to do better.”

You were the first to read my essay—aside from all the White women editors who rejected it—and you suggested I reconsider my conclusion. In my original essay—in the notes, really—I shared a conversation I had with my radical Black feminist performance artist/poet/scholar friend Gabrielle Civil. I told her I was looking for a way to reframe White women as victimizers and not just victims. “We could just say, ‘WBM’ and it would operate as a kind of shorthand,” I proposed (the same way my Black women friends on Facebook caption Trump catastrophe articles with “53%”). But when I told Gabrielle what WBM stood for—White Bitch Mafia—she balked. “Absolutely not,” she said without even cracking a smile. I rarely use the “b-word” and that’s why it’s so powerful and provocative to me; I don’t use it as a term of endearment so it only comes out of my mouth when I’m referring to a woman who’s deliberately acting with malice and/or selfish disregard for others. The OED defines the mafia as “a group regarded as exerting a hidden sinister influence.” And, of course, the members of that group share in the rewards of their unethical enterprise. The problem isn’t that White women are inherently evil. The real problem is dominance and denial—their refusal to see themselves operating as a group to harm other groups, and their insistence that intention matters more than impact. We hear the word “collusion” so often these days; we could also talk about complicity. But mostly I want accountability. How do we achieve that?

Wow, I wish there was an answer to that. Or that I had one. First, people would have to be willing to listen. That happens so rarely. With the A Fine Dessert controversy, author Emily Jenkins seemed able to hear the criticisms, apologized and ended up donating her royalties to We Need Diverse Books (WNDB). It’s funny how just those actions seem so radical, since it’s rare for people to publicly reflect and respond to criticism. Daniel Handler apologized in a tweet for the racist jokes he made during the National Book Awards, and he donated money to WNDB. Though at the time I thought, why isn’t he having a bigger conversation about this. It’s fine to donate money, but that’s not so hard when you’re a hugely successful author. What I’d really like to see at moments like that is for people to talk openly – about the publishing process, about how decisions get made, what gets acquired and what doesn’t, how books are vetted.

It seems crazy to me that publishers don’t do more to be transparent, and to get responses as books are in process. Due diligence. I know from our conversations that both of us check with multiple people when working on a book that’s got historical/cultural content outside of our knowledge base. And frankly, even if someone is writing from an insider’s perspective, there are so many different points of view and experiences in this world. It just makes sense to check things out.

I started my publishing career at Children’s Book Press, where there was a grassroots engagement with community, and books came out of a collaborative process. In my later experience working in publishing – at Orchard Books and Lee & Low where I was an editor, but also being part of the larger New York publishing scene – I just didn’t see much transparency. Big publishers can seem so ossified and slow to move and change. They also serve particular markets and goals.

I don’t know if I see accountability happening in publishing. As my sister said she learned when she took an anti-racism class at social work school, most people who say they are anti-racist activists stop when it means they have to give something up themselves. The only way inequities in the publishing industry are going to shift is for White people to give up power and positions to make room for other people. It’s hard to imagine that happening.

As you say in your essay, “If social justice isn’t at the center of the children’s literature community, why would anyone assume that kid lit creators would preside over a more just world?” Children’s books are mostly produced in a Capitalist system that’s oriented around profit and maintaining the status quo. My hope lies in the grassroots indie publishing efforts that are creating so many fantastic children’s books, and not centering corporate interests, profit or the individualism our nation so fetishizes. A few of the awesome Bay Area children’s book creators that I know of include Ann Berlak, Aya de Leon, Maya Gonzalez and Matthew Smith, Janine Macbeth, Laurin Mayeno, Innosanto Nagara, Robert Trujillo, Justine Villanueva and so many more (lots are part of the Activist children’s book Facebook group) – all producing their own books, empowering themselves and their young readers. And of course your books are out there in the forefront, giving me the ultimate hope for our children’s book world.