(These links are by no means exhaustive, but each of them is worth reading, so I wanted to share. Thanks to Becca, Malinda, Sarah, Sarah, Anne, Nancy, and all my friends who keep me in the loop!) Here’s a link to the announcement at Scholastic. An excerpt: “Scholastic is announcing today that we are stopping… Read more »
race
Rainy Tuesday Randutiae
Apologies for the broken link in my dresses post from May 5… the link was working for a while, then it broke, and I can’t for the life of me find that page anymore. Agh! Here’s a slideshow of dresses from the Met Gala, from another source entirely. From NPR, Here’s What People Are Saying… Read more »
In Baltimore
The (familiar and simple) story the mainstream media is telling us about what’s happening in Baltimore doesn’t match the on-the-street stories of the regular people who are describing what they’re seeing and experiencing. Why? Here are a few tweets of people describing their experiences in Baltimore today: https://twitter.com/tchopstl/status/592868784077156353 https://twitter.com/amaditalks/status/592870570494205953 https://twitter.com/Nettaaaaaaaa/status/592895284688134144 And here’s an interesting article… Read more »
Jacqueline Woodson’s Response
Jacqueline Woodson, divinely wonderful writer and winner of the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature for Brown Girl Dreaming, has responded to Daniel Handler’s watermelon joke in the New York Times. Here’s a link to her piece, called “The Pain of the Watermelon Joke.” It’s in the printed paper today, too. (Thanks, Sarah, for… Read more »
In the Wake of the National Book Award Ceremony…
I’m getting a lot out of the discussion in the comments of Roger Sutton’s blog post in response to Daniel Handler’s racist watermelon joke at the National Book Award ceremony last week. I haven’t read every comment yet, but there’s a lot here, a lot of people making astute observations and criticisms and explaining muddy… Read more »
Jay Smooth on What Isn’t a Double Standard
I love what Jay Smooth has to say about language, communication, the “N-word,” our society’s rules about the use of that word, what a double standard is, and what a double standard isn’t. Thanks to Jay Smooth for seeing the complications and expressing them well — as he always does.
A Few Tour Questions
Before I get to the questions, I love Justine Larbalestier’s recent blog post, written to her friends and extended family: “You don’t have to read my books.” Now seems like an appropriate time for me to link to it, since I have a new book that’s just come out. Friends and family who might be… Read more »
Something Racist Stuck in our Teeth
If you’ve got 12 minutes today, consider watching Jay Smooth’s TEDx Talk, called “How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Discussing Race,” presented at Hampshire College (yay Hampshire! My sister, codename: Apocalyptica the Flimflammer, went there). Transcript and related links coming soon to Jay Smooth’s website.
Race, Poems, and Knitted Cuppycakes
How happy am I that Mitali Perkins has blogged about the question of whether authors should describe a character’s race? And that Roger Sutton and The Longstockings are joining in? This is an issue I think about a lot, generally coming to no useful conclusions, so it’s nice to see what other people think. Check… Read more »
