And that matters, because black lives matter.
My boys aren’t actively cheering for black characters to win their story.
As woke as I want to believe that I am, I’ve listened enough to know that my scope as a white woman has been so limited, and I’m perpetuating that limit with my boys. This includes only posting about books by authors with dead white people that wrote about anthropomorphic animals or other white people. That’s part of the problem.
The reason I’ve been posting about them is because those were the books I was raised on, the books I was taught in school, the books I saw myself in. They evoke warmth and nostalgia and memories of reading by flashlight hours after I was told I had to be asleep. So what would happen if people of color were incorporated into my boy’s archive of nostalgic, magical characters? They will likely cultivate empathy, connection, admiration and love for their black neighbor.
Sure, reading books about the Civil Rights Movement once a year shows some incredible heroes. As a white liberal, of course I’m going to read about Rosa Parks in sheer awe. But if I want to start showing my privileged white boys that #blacklivesmatter, I’m going to have to start reading them more books with everyday black heroes being the protagonists, not just history book heroes. Their foundation of race can look different than mine.
Every black life matters, and my boys are young enough that a small change like this can be form the way they view the world. And, God willing, they will use their privilege to fight the systemic racism that is murdering our black men in the name of contrived safety for those that, let’s call it what it is, view themselves as more worthy of life.
Maybe reading them Kadir Nelson and Jacqueline Woodson and Kwame Alexander and Carole Boston Weatherford will contribute to them knowing that black lives do matter.
No comments
Post a Comment