Tag Archives: African/African American Interest

Diversity, Race, and Representation

This Week in Diversity: Culture Clashes

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Another Friday, another batch of links relating to diversity and race.

The Horn Book has been host to a debate on risk-taking, trouble-making, and realism in YA novels with black protagonists. Teacher Lelac Almagor starts us out with an essay on books for black kids teaching them to stay out of trouble and author Sharon G. Flake follows it up with an essay on the value of those books . It’s interesting reading, and both essays reinforce the idea that we need more books for and about African American youth.

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Awards, Book News

Happy 100th Birthday, Bank Street Children’s Book Committee!

This morning, we went up to the Bank Street College of Education for the announcement of their Best Children’s Books of the year list—and to celebrate, with cake, the centennial of the Children’s Book Committee.

Every year for the last one hundred years, The Children’s Book Committee—then of Child Study Association of America, now of the Bank Street College of Education—has recommended books that are good for children. They read thousands of books, they share books with children and ask for their opinions, and then they make recommendations to cakeandpresentsteachers, librarians, and parents. They have good taste—they included Alicia Afterimage, Bird, Honda, Horse Song, No Mush Today, and Seven Miles to Freedom on their list of the best books published in 2008—and they love books.

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Diversity, Race, and Representation

More than just a punchline

Riding on the subway over the past few weeks, I kept coming across ads for ABC’s new “Comedy Wednesday” sitcom lineup: Hank, The Middle, Modern Family, and Cougartown. Now, aside from my personal feelings about some of these shows (Courtney Cox, what happened to you?) what struck me was how white–and I mean WHITE–the lineup looked, at least from the ads.

The lack of diversity in network programming isn’t anything new, but this fall it really bothered me, especially after reading this great article over at Movieline called “Who Is Killing the African American Sitcom?” Why is a comedy labeled as an “African American sitcom” as soon as it includes more than one black person in the cast? And why don’t sitcoms about people of color make the lineups of major networks anymore?

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Diversity, Race, and Representation

This Week in Diversity

Every week, we’re going to be bringing you a roundup of interesting articles, commentary, and projects dealing with diversity—race, gender, immigration issues, discrimination, and people bridging cultural barriers.

Drumroll, please!

From the New York Times, a California hospital is working with Hmong shamans to improve care—body and soul—of the town’s Hmong immigrant population.

From Genreville, Josh Jasper discusses the problem of lazy sexism and racism, when women and minorities are excluded not due to conscious bias, but due to a lack of awareness and thought. “Oh, it just happens that all the good stories we found were written by men/white people/middle-class people.” That sort of thing. Also see a follow-up post and this bingo card of excuses for racism. It’s talking specifically about fantasy, but the same excuses get used in many other genres.

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General

Stuff That Steams My Clams

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I was reading an article about women’s roles in the United States military and was surprised to learn that regulations still prohibit women from serving in combat. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have blurred the lines of warfare to such a degree that women have found themselves, despite the rules that forbid it, fighting alongside men for the first time. The women have proven themselves to be tenacious soldiers and they have earned many medals of valor.

Ad spotted on Madison Avenue
Ad spotted on Madison Avenue

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General

New Beginnings with Augusta Savage

We’re starting up a new feature on the blog: A Book a Day. The third week of every month, we’ll pick a theme, and each day (Monday-Friday) one of us will talk about one of our books that fits into the theme.

So, to inaugurate the feature, I bring you the first book of our Back to School theme: In Her Hands: The Story of Sculptor Augusta Savage.

It seems fitting that we should start a brand-new feature on a brand-new blog by talking about the beginning of the school year. Each new year, new school, new class is a new beginning, building on where you’ve been but taking you someplace different. Take, for instance, Augusta Savage. Ceramics and sculpture were always a part of her life; from a very young age, she made little clay figures out of the clay she found in her back yard. Her father didn’t approve and money was tight, so she practiced her art quietly as she grew up, got married, had a daughter, and was widowed. It wasn’t until she was twenty-seven that she went to art school and became a professional artist.

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General

Ten Wills and Won’ts that Make Lee & Low a Special Place to Publish

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What We Will Do:

1. Edit:
Our books are pondered, nurtured, and meticulously edited. Call us old school, but we take the time to really edit books. Several people’s opinions are solicited. We have found this collaborative effort results in books that stand the test of time and are appreciated by readers for many years after publication.

2. Celebrate Unsung Heroes:
While we certainly recognize the contributions of legends like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Gandhi, we also think it is important to acknowledge the contributions of lesser-known heroes. We have published books about Anna May Wong, Paul Robeson, Peg Leg Bates, and John Lewis, to name just a few, and we will continue to tell the stories of courageous people whose lives and actions deserve recognition.

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