Let's remember that Black people, indigenous people and people of colour were represented in many of the 'classic' British children's books. This is important. Why? A few thoughts to follow...
First, it means that when we frame our calls for better representation as an issue of 'inclusion' we risk erasing the long history of representations of BIPOC, the legacy of which is still felt in children's publishing.
Last year at Hay, I went to the second hand bookshops looking for kids' books. Pre-1950, my estimate would be that getting on for half of the books there were about Brits in Africa, India etc. And yes they were mostly racist.
So the lack of BIPOC characters needs to be understood in this context. When overtly racist depictions became less popular, BIPOC disappeared from many books. In other words, to imagine us as fully human was just too great a stretch of the imagination for many writers.
The absence of BIPOC is not then an oversight, or a failure to get with the times - it is a later development in British children's publishing and writers struggled to imagine BIPOC without the political and moral framing of Empire.
Of course - this raises the question of who is writing these stories. I see #OwnVoices debates broadly as two issues - 1) epistemoligcal. Can white writers know enough about non-white people in order to write them as characters?
My answer is that yes this is possible and indeed desirable. However, empirically, they have often failed to do this. Toni Morrison's 'Playing in the Dark' argues this superbly. NK Jemisin makes this point also.
So white writers are going to need to do a lot of research (all writers need to do research mind). And that research will need to extend beyond the books read at school and uni - it will need a genuine investment of time and effort.
But as well as the epistemological - there is the economic /political - Why not allow more BIPOC the opportunity to develop and sustain careers as writers? (And not merely as sensitivity readers & advisers to white writers - this is VERY common).
So with this history in mind - we need to be clear that better representation is not just to keep the Black or brown kids in our classrooms happy. It is reparative action after a long tradition of BIPOC representation distorted by colonial ideology.
And recognising this prompts us to consider HOW we teach the classic books shaped to differing extents by colonial ideology - by deeply held convictions of British / European / White superiority.
One of the lazy criticisms of my work and the work of #ReflectingRealities is that it is part of a present-day narcissism where children demand to see themselves. BUT...
Let's not forget that Narcissus was not only obsessed with his own reflection but was regarded by all around as the standard of beauty. Too self-regarding, he couldn't bring himself to look upon others directly. Kinda like British colonial literature no?
(I'm gonna have to live with the typos).
So white children too deserve better than to be offered racist classics without any context for understanding their creation and reception. They deserve to be afforded the chance to develop the skills of reading literature that is radically different from their own lives.
But there's not getting way from the fact that there is a political dimension to this work. Racism, Empire, Colonialism are political. But there is KNOWLEDGE about them that we educators have a role in teaching.
Reducing antiracism to rules about conduct and what may or may not be said misses the chance to teach history and to recognise how literature, history and culture intertwine.
I’ve been reminded to share a link to the @BooksForKeeps column I write with @ksandsoconnor on all this - Beyond the Secret Garden: booksforkeeps.co.uk/member/darren-…
