I have always enjoyed the summer classes offered both in undergrad and graduate school because they have always allowed for more interesting electives. One of my current classes is called "Valuing Diversity: International and Intercultural Resources for Youth" taught by Julie Winkelstein PhD.
Though I have only been to two classes so far, my mind has been spurred with what it is to have diversity within a children's library and the effects of these books upon the community as a whole. For instance: did you ever stop to look at the pictures in the children's books to see the small details? Are the girls playing with "girl toys" while the boys playing with "boy toys"? Is the mother the one sweeping in the background? These are all things she is teaching us to notice and understand that, while small, these pictures will affect the children's point of view because they are constantly taking in information.
After laying out the criteria for picking diverse and nonprejudicial books for the library, we discussed whether the same criteria should be given to adult literature and to past literature. The class divided a bit on the existence of overtly prejudicial material even being available to children and students given their easy mold-ability. I would like to note: the following is MY opinion only! Though I can find several people higher on the scholarship ladder who agree with me, I will limit the following opinions to my own. *I would also welcome any opinions and comments*
Prejudicial materials should remain in the library. They should be as easily found as other books and should be read just as often. In fact, I would love these prejudicial materials to be involved in classrooms, especially history. We all know the materials I am talking about: Little Black Sambo, Adventures of Tin Tin, Five Chinese Brothers, heck, even Dick and Jane is overtly sexist. One of my favorite childhood series was Babar which I understand now to be very, very racist, just like they were at the time.
But, that is the point, isn't it? These books, no matter how overtly racist, sexist, prejudicial they may be, have definitely taught us something about the time period they were written in. For those of you who do not know, I was a history major in undergrad, and we analyzed many, many photographs, paintings, and pictures to tell us about the time period. These were usually propaganda posters that we used to see how one culture viewed another, but aren't all children's books just small propaganda? They are used to teach children what the author wants taught. If the author, publisher, librarian, and parent agree with the propaganda, then it is read to the child in order to be digested and learned, no matter if we of the future disagree.
To take out such important historical learning tools would be detrimental to society as a whole.
On the one hand, children reading Huckleberry Finn do not have to read the N-word all the time; on the other hand, they will never know that it was common vernacular of the south at the time, nor will they ever understand how much that word can hurt. By deleting the word, they are diminishing its historical value, even if that value causes pain. Let me put it in a different way....
"The Nazi Propaganda may hurt the feelings of the Jews in which they are portraying. Because of this, we will delete any and all instances of historical Nazi propaganda and make it seem like it never happened." No. This cannot happen. Just because we are embarrassed about past prejudices does not mean we can just make them disappear. We need to remember them and we need to learn from them. Yes, society did harm to individuals by teaching their children that a group of people are less than, even if it is subtle. However, to delete that from history would be detrimental to societies growth.
As my teacher, Dr. Winklestein, said in class, the important thing to do is to balance out your library. Yes, have books that may need to be read with parents and have discussions after (which I understand is a no-go for a good amount of families in America) and also have the books that show little Johnny playing dolls with little Nancy. Have a picture book where it is near impossible to tell the race of the child. Because that is the way our society is. One day, people will be studying our children's books and telling our society's story. What do you want that story to be?
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