we shall overcome?

I’m thinking of changing this blog’s name from “Fledgling” to “Thoughts of an Uppity Negress.”

So there’s a lot of buzz about the new administration, and 2009 being the “year of hope and change.”  I’m not sure I feel that optimistic, though my friends used to call my Pollyanna…maybe I watch the news too much.  There’s not a lot that seems especially “new” about the new year.  Just now I was watching The Daily Show, and Jon Stewart did a segment on Roland Burris’ attempt to be seated in the US Senate (skip to part II of this episode).  He was appointed by a corrupt governor who has since been launched into the impeachment process, yet Burris feels perfectly justified in joining the senate despite the fact that the disgraced governor is clearly playing the race card.  When he was turned away from the senate, his colleague from Illinois, Rep. Bobby Rush, compared the incident to the student protestors of the Civil Rights Movement being attacked by vicious police dogs.  Uh–what?  I do feel reassured when I hear President-Elect Obama discussing the nation’s problems; he’s intelligent, confident, articulate, realistic–he’s got a lot of work ahead of him, but I think he’s assembling a strong team to tackle all the crises left behind by the Bush administration.  Then I think about those “old school” politicians like Burris and Rush, and I wonder what we’re going to do about them–how do we embrace a new era when they’re grasping at the past?  I was raised to respect my elders, and so my general inclination is to politely defer to their age and experience, even if I think they’re crazy.  But there are times when being old and out of touch shouldn’t earn you a free pass to act like an idiot.  Bill Cosby’s going to be on Meet the Press tomorrow morning, and I’m wondering whether or not I should watch.  I’m curious as to what he’ll say about the future of “the race,” but I’m half dreading his comments as well.  And to critique him, I’ll have to override my home training, which compels me to bite my tongue whenever an elder misspeaks.  If you didn’t notice, I was pretty worked up about those bloggers comments’ regarding racism in publishing (“Diversity in children’s literature is a good thing.  And in other news, water is wet“).  I guess it’s so obvious, it no longer needs to be stated–is that her point?  An artist friend of mine suggested for the second time that I try to put together a petition, have it signed by members of the literary community, and then publish it in The New York Times.  I did consider the idea the first time she mentioned it, but worried I couldn’t actually get enough signatures.  Aside from not knowing many people in the publishing industry, I know even fewer who actually give a damn about the racial disparities.  This time around, her suggestion still had potential, but I wondered if a petition was really the 21st century way of dealing with injustice.  I sign petitions all the time, but I don’t know that they actually DO anything.  Even a petition with thousands of signatures has to be followed up–with action, continued pressure–and it has to come with a set of demands.  What is it I really want?  Well, for starters, if people of color constitute 30% of the US population, then at least 30% of all books published for children should reflect that diversity.  Having 10% of books “about” people of color isn’t good enough (“about” as opposed to “authored by,” an important distinction I’ll address in another post).  And I suspect the publishing industry will need some sort of incentive–what could I propose?  If you, publishers, put out more books by authors of color, in return you will: sleep better at night knowing you’ve done the right thing?  What can I actually guarantee–that sales will go up?  They might.  That more awards will go their way?  They might.  Appealing to people’s morals, or sense of justice, doesn’t really get you that far.  You can’t just say, “Do the right thing,” b/c the right thing is often costly, and would require the group or individual to admit that all this time, they’ve been doing wrong.  What we learned from the Civil Rights Movement is that you have to advocate, educate, AND legislate–you can’t just hope that people with power will willingly share that power.  So I don’t know about the petition idea.  It does seem kind of old school.  I thought about posting something to the Child_Lit listserv I recently joined.  There are some passionate debates going on there, and instead of hurling accusations, I could ask those who claim to love children’s literature what they’re DOING to improve diversity.  One editor at a major press claimed she’d loved to publish more books with diverse protagonists, but they just don’t cross her desk.  I wish she understood just how wide and rough the sea is between a writer of color and an editor’s desk.  Maybe she needs to *leave* her desk and go looking for those writers–if it means that much to her.  Ok, I’m done for today.  If you’re reading this and have ideas for improving diversity in children’s lit, please let me know!

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