Malorie Blackman continues to whine about racism.
I recently gave a couple of interviews where I talked about the cultural world in general, and how UK children’s/young adult literature in particular needs to be more diverse and therefore more inclusive. I spoke of a desire to see more stories featuring protagonists with disabilities, protagonists who are LGBT, protagonists of colour, travellers, and British protagonists of different cultural heritages and diverse religions. These books may feature characters whose actions, thoughts and feelings are perhaps informed by their experiences and background, but which are not the focus of the story. I talked about wishing to see a more diverse range of literature available to all our children.
I’m sure…
However…
Minorities are just that; minorities. They do not reflect the majority and children’s literature will, likely as not, reflect the majority. This country is still majority Caucasian, so therefore, I would expect literature and other forms of entertainment to reflect that. Although when I watch a Shakespeare play and see a black noble fighting alongside Henry V at Azincourt I wonder…
No, I don’t have a problem with this and no it didn’t spoil my enjoyment of the play because the actor is damned fine at what he does. His skin colour was irrelevant. And that’s the point. Children’s stories should be good entertainment – they should not be vehicles for peddling race-mongering propaganda. If they are good they will sell. If not, they won’t. And if Blackman wants more black protagonists in children’s stories, then she had better get writing, not telling other people what they should write. I don’t write for children, but when I do write, I generally have Caucasian protagonists. No one will tell me that I should do otherwise and expect a polite answer.
in order to identify that the protagonist is LGBT, ‘of colour’ or ‘of different cultural heritages and diverse religions’, that fact must be stated or implied by the narrative; it is ironic that many of the books criticised for perpetuating the caucasian stereotype actually contain no such specific descriptions.
To take one example of the latter, though it would admittedly be unlikely in the chronological context of the story, ‘Swallows and Amazons’ gives no reason why the Walker children, whose father is a Naval officer posted abroad, should not have been of mixed race like several of the armed forces children I knew at school. However, I suspect that, as with many other such books, it is the children’s middle-class sailing-and-private-school lifestyle that provides the real grounds for hostility.
As is all too often the case, the prejudice seems to be working the wrong way round.
Blackman (sic) is an arsehole. Has she not noticed that children don’t notice the colour of the other kid’s skin until adults make them aware of it? Just another example of a politically correct fool mouthing off to get herself noticed. Idiot!
As a 64yr old employed white heterosexual married non-claimant non-socialist male, I demand special treatment for the minority group composed of me & others like myself.
PS
“…UK children’s/young adult literature in particular needs to be more diverse…”
No it doesn’t.
Only in her unsolicited, unwanted, unappreciated and unvalued opinion.
“…UK children’s/young adult literature in particular needs to be more diverse…”
Only if you don’t want it to sell…….. 😈