Big flap today in
an online listserv to which I belong but which I won’t name. It seems that the
American Library Association has voted to rename what was previously the Laura
Ingalls Wilder Award as the Children’s Literature Legacy Award, because the
Little House books contain racial stereotypes and slurs. Well, I never thought
about it before, but yes they do: most Indians are bad (and they’re never Natives)
and blacks are highly suspect. No, there’s no suggestion of censoring the books—except
that changing the name of the award is in itself a form of censorship.
Folks wrote in to
passionately attack of defend that decision. So I can’t resist chipping in with
my two cents. First of all, the new name is institutionally dull, while naming
the award for a beloved children’s writer gives it a certain vibrancy.
Beyond that, I
have watched with dismay as favorite books were removed from some school
library shelves—most of the Twain canon, To
Kill a Mockingbird, and others. I was once told that one of my young-adult
books would be removed if the superintendent of a certain school district knew
it contained the ethnic slur, “kike.” Which brings to mind what a historian and
beloved friend of mine, C. L. Sonnichsen, always claimed a book had to be—appropriate
to time and place. Writing in the late nineteenth century, I would never have
used the term kike in a contemporary book, but mine was a historical novel. The
term was common, if deplorable, in early nineteenth-century East Texas when
many Jewish immigrants landed at Galveston and made their way north into East
Texas. To disallow it is to change history—and we can’t do that.
There’s that old
saying, “He who doesn’t know history is doomed to repeat its mistakes.” By sanitizing
literature, we rob out children of the rich history that books provide. The
canon of literature has created the culture we enjoy today—you cannot understand
slavery or the American South today without reading Twain. You really cannot
understand the western settlement experience without reading Wilder—yes,
settlers were invading lands held by the Native Americans, but they didn’t know
better. The concept of manifest destiny was alive and well, and they thought
they were fulfilling the promise of the new land. Can we not let children read
that and help them through the difficult passages?
One story
circulated today was of a eight-year-old Native American girl who read Wilder
and burst into tears because of the attitude toward her people. Instead of damning
the books, could we not explain to that child that was the attitude of the day
and we have made much progress to overcome it, but we still have miles to go?
Put it in context. Ah, there’s the key—context.
And in this rush
to sanitize Wilder, critics overlook the positive values of the Little House
books—the emphasis on fortitude, self-reliance, persistence, all those values
American are supposed to cherish.
I am afraid in our
zeal for political correctness we will sanitize all of western civilization’s
literature and rob it of it richness and glory. No, I wouldn’t use such terminology
in a book set in today;s world, but neither will I condemn the writers who came
before me and on whose contributions to tradition I build my works.
A little common
sense, please.
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