Open Thread: How Do We Deal with Racist Materials?
by Latoya Peterson
Anna, over at Jezebel, sent a fascinating article about a library’s decision to pull the Tintin books out of regular circulation:
[I]f you go to the Brooklyn Public Library seeking a copy of “Tintin au Congo,” Hergé’s second book in a series, prepare to make an appointment and wait days to see the book.
“It’s not for the public,” a librarian in the children’s room said this month when a patron asked to see it.
The book, published 79 years ago, was moved in 2007 from the public area of the library to a back room where it is held under lock and key.
The move came after a patron objected, as others have, to the way Africans are depicted in the book. “The content is racially offensive to black people,’’ a librarian wrote on Form 286, also known as a Request for Reconsideration of Library Material [pdf].
I’ll add my thoughts a bit later in the thread – but readers, what do you think of this situation?
(Image Credit: NY Times)
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
cocolamala wrote:
well, my mom wouldn’t buy curious george books for me cause she didn’t like the colonialist perspective — so from that standpoint, i can see how some materials aimed at kids may not be appropriate for kids
maybe it’s not right for the children’s library, but i think it should still be in the general circulation so adults can browse for it on the shelf or check it out .
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 10:15 am ¶
atlasien wrote:
Putting ALL books containing racism in a special section is, well, logistically difficult… 90% of fiction written before 1960, and a smaller but still sizeable majority of fiction written afterwards would have to be in that section. There wouldn’t be much left.
On the other hand, as a mother of a black/biracial son, I would NOT want my son exposed to those caricatures in the Tintin book. There should be a different and stricter standard for children’s books.
I read a huge variety of children’s books when I was a kid, many of them totally out-of-bounds by today’s standards, including “Little Black Sambo”, and ran across plenty of books with embarrassing Asian caricatures as well. I don’t have much nostalgia for them. I think they led to me having a poorer self-image than if I had not read them.
Children are especially more affected by images, because they don’t understand all the codes adults use to contextualize the images. In that respect, I totally support the decision to take the Tintin book out of the children’s section. In fact, if I saw it in the children’s section I would probably complain myself.
I don’t know about having it under “lock and key” in a back room, but somewhere beyond the easy reach of browsing children — a special section on a high shelf perhaps, with a warning — would be great. Or perhaps in a locked glass cabinet. I just don’t see the point of keeping books locked away in back rooms… then why have the book in the first place?
Another European comic series I happened to love as a kid was the Asterix books. They also have some pretty horrific racialized caricatures, but they don’t stand out visually as much as in Tintin, because the white European characters are also drawn in a heavily caricatured style. In Tintin, the white characters are portrayed with fairly realistic body and face proportions, which makes the racial caricatures really obtrusive and the difference very offensive.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 10:21 am ¶
prvlgd cdn wrote:
Taking Tintin out of the Children’s section makes sense. Putting it behind the counter “under lock and key” seems unusually extreme. I’d think it would fit well enough with the mature readers graphic novels.
The Asterix books sprung to my mind, too, I gobbled them up for the jokes and the historical references, and because in grade 7 and 8 when I had half-day French classes, their French was accesible.
I would be reluctant to let my kids get their hands on them before they were able to get into a reasonable conversation about the problems with them.
Asterix is a peculiar case, though, because the stories and humour are founded on a kind of ethnic and cultural essentialism–contrasting Norsemen with Gauls with Goths with Romans with Germans etc.–from which the racism derives, and the stories are specifically about local ethnic cultural resistance to an invading, more “civilized” empire.
The whole thing is about race/ethnicity, so it’s a little easier to engage and challenge the portrayals and the problems.
But mostly I just liked the fighting, the puns and the cute doggie.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 10:52 am ¶
Rob wrote:
On one hand adults can see the books as behind the times and racist, but on the other, do the kids really recognize it as racist?
My adolescence was during the mid 80s when most of the more racist cartoons were finally driven off of television and I really can’t say that I recognized them for what they were until I was much older. If anything when I was 5 or 6 I wondered why some cartoons abruptly ended or had something blacked out when I knew they showed it complete a year or two earlier.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that the majority of the time when it comes to young kids much of the perspective and opinion they get on the world is from their parents. Unless someone told them it was bad, your 4-5 year old probably won’t know it but once they know, that’s when the self shame and awkwardness starts.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 10:52 am ¶
Deaf Indian Muslim Anarchist wrote:
I think it’s stupid to pull those books out of circulation. I am AGAINST censorship, I don’t care how many people are offended by these books.
If a child brings home a racist TinTin comic book, the parent should use this as an opportunity to talk to the chid about racism and history.
People need to be aware that such books exist, to be reminded that RACISM was real and alive back then– and unfortunately, still exists today.
By banning those books and pushing them out of existence, you are trying to deny the existence of racism in the past.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 10:54 am ¶
gail wrote:
I have a real problem with a library deciding which books are “safe” for regular circulation and which ones are “too dangerous” to roam freely on the shelves. Library collections are supposed to exemplify inclusivity of ideas, experiences, and perspectives first and if in fulfilling that mission they also build community for the people who use them, that’s great. Efforts to make a warmer friendlier community of library users should not impinge on the first, most important function the library serves. Yes, ideas and perspectives can be dangerous, offensive, and so on. That is why we need to protect the spaces where we gather and hold all that information. We all benefit from that inclusivity and it is on us to learn how to respond to or deal with ideas and perspectives we find abhorrent. I REFUSE to endorse any policy that let any other person or entity decide for me what ideas or perspectives my mind can or cannot handle!
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 10:57 am ¶
Sean wrote:
Admittedly, I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I’m glad the library recognizes the influential effect that various media can have on attiudes about race.
On the other, I worry that this can lead to a sort of Farenheit 451 situation. I see a parallel between those books and old cartoons when they were less PC:
Tom & Jerry would sometimes turn into virtual pickaninnies when firecrackers exploded in their faces….and who could forget Mammy Two Shoes? “THOMAS!!!!!”
Mister Magoo’s butler/sidekick, Charley the Chinese houseboy: “Herro Mr. Magroo, Bloss. It’s Charry.”
Speedy Gonzales…need I say more?
Many of us watched these shows and a lot of us -at least subconciously- formed racial assumptions partially because of them. Many of the studios who manufactured these cartoons today, at least accept that those depictions represented a less “enlightened” time in our history by either omitting the more offensive ones, or ironically, warning parents that “some material is not suitable for children.”
Perhaps moving these books to the adult section is a similar compromise, but I’d never advocate anything remotely similar to a Farenheit 451 situation. From that same book, however:
“What traitors books can be! You think they’re backing you up, and they turn on you.”
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 11:00 am ¶
Sarah wrote:
I like that the library seems to be trying to strike a balance between *very* racist material and free communication. As atlasien points out, many other older books are also problematic, but that particular one is an extreme case, so I think it’s fine to isolate it and not, say, Mansfield Park. I’d want the process for obtaining the book to be not onerous, but it is offensive to the extent that a decision to keep it off public display is a good one. It’s also a graphic novel, which makes the racist caricatures more obvious to a casual browser than a book perpetuating the same stereotypes. atlasien also makes the point that it is a book that younger readers will look at.
I think gail is right that the free exchange of ideas has to be protected, but to me keeping that book behind the counter until requested is a good compromise.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 11:18 am ¶
blip wrote:
Wow. This is my library you’re talking about so I must defend it. What Latoya is not telling you MOST books at the main branch of the Brooklyn’s Public Library are in a vault, underground. The library is simply too big to stock them on the floor, no matter how controversial or uncontroversial the book may be. In the fiction section of the library, I guarantee you there are tons of books that would be considered racist today, on full display.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 11:18 am ¶
atlasien wrote:
I’m also anti-censorship for older children and adults. But we’re talking about the children’s section here. I find gail and DIMA’s perspective to be extremely naive and unrealistic. Sorry, it’s not you in particular, but people who don’t have children often give the same reflexive cry of “CENSORSHIP!”…. when they really need to think twice about this issue and try to put yourself in the place of people who do have children.
Parents have the right and responsibility to control what their children see. E.g. I am not going to take my 7-year-old to see a “Saw” movie. Society does NOT make it easy for parents to control what their children see… the more money you have, the richer you are, the easier is it. Or if you live in the country. But if you’re a single working mom who only gets to spend a few hours a day with your kid, and don’t have the resources or money for quality childcare, they might be off watching “Saw”…
Libraries are one of the only free options available for children. Parents need to be able to negotiate what their children can and can’t see there.
It’s especially hard trying to help children of color develop positive self-images. I don’t think children should be learning about slavery and colonization and genocide and race-linked ugliness BEFORE they can at least form a positive self-image. I imagine how much it would have sucked if the very first thing I learned about Japanese culture involved burn victim pictures from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Yes, it’s important to know about the bad stuff in history, but teach the good first stuff first… otherwise children get the impression that white history is normal and balanced but non-white history is all despair and tragedy.
@rob: I don’t understand your argument. Children in the 4-5 year old range are very thoughtful and can pick up messages in the media whether or not their parents interpret them. They might not understand the concept of race or racism fully, but pick up simpler messages, like “people who look ____ are DIFFERENT and BAD.”
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 12:16 pm ¶
Heather Leila wrote:
This is similar to problems with Babar the Elephant. How do we deal with colonialism in children’s literature? Through these stories Africa filled the imaginations of many people. But the authors and the first readers of these stories were living in a context of colonialism that our children should no longer be living in. These books are interesting for understanding colonial attitudes about Africa, but not for teaching children about an Africa that actually exists.
http://heatherleilamoz.blogspot.com/2009/08/tintin.html
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 12:20 pm ¶
gatamala wrote:
co-sign Sarah
and who could forget Mammy Two Shoes? “THOMAS!!!!!”
I woke up to that last Saturday. I know it’s wrong, but I laugh at her off-color stockings.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 12:23 pm ¶
Fiqah wrote:
@atlasien: What you said. All of it. Yup.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 12:39 pm ¶
nathan wrote:
I think blips comments about the library in question help clear things up in this particular case. I think it’s fair to shift books with obvious racist content out of the kids section and into the teen/adult sections.
But I also have to say I’m a little wary of “protect the children” arguments. Children need to learn about the real world – both the great things and the terrible things. How one does this in an age appropriate way is definitely going to differ from parent to parent, but trying to keep out the “bad” completely until a kid is older is a recipe for trouble if you ask me.
How, for example, can one teach about African Americans in the 19th century without talking about slavery?
From my experience, kids are pretty good at smelling sugar coating. If something doesn’t seem right, they peg you with question after question until you either give them an answer that feels more correct, or until you tell them to drop it. I definitely think there are ways to address the worst of the past without destroying a child’s self image.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 12:51 pm ¶
ktrujillo wrote:
I agree with Deaf Indian Muslim Anarchist with the added comment that sometimes declaring something verboten actually increases its desirability and its perceived power…especially with children and adolescents. Opening the door to this type of censorship empowers and validates those who wish to ban many other types of books and materials and as much as books like this disturb me personally, supporting any book removal puts me in cahoots with some of the scariest factions in this country. Not company I wish to keep.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 1:36 pm ¶
Persia wrote:
I think Tintin au Congo is something of a special case because the racism is so egregious– I’d shelve it in the adult comics/cartoons section if I were Librarian of the World. I agree with atlasien that it’s especially offensive because the white characters are not stereotyped at all (and IIRC, the Congolese characters are also written as stereotypes).
If I had a kid who loved the Tintin books (and I still do, Congo aside) and wanted to read them all, I’d probably sit down with him or her and talk about the offensive aspects of what s/he was about to read. I think moving the book to a different area than general kids’ circulation does that, on some level.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 1:37 pm ¶
inkst wrote:
I agree that it makes sense to remove certain, blatantly racist books from a children’s section. Kids should be able to wander around those low shelves and pull stuff off without images like those of Tintin being readily accessible.
Speaking in general (since this library apparently keeps a lot of stuff in storage), I do not think it’s a good idea for any library to go the way of completely removing anything in its collection, because that is a slippery slope.
Rearranging classification: yes. Removing from collection: no.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 1:43 pm ¶
n wrote:
My moms a librarian, somehow managed to get herself stuck as a children’s librarian for the past25 years or so. I suspect she is more concerned about the Snoop Dog book in her library than Tin Tin or Little Black Sambo. In fact, books like this give her an opportunity to discuss racism and beat it over the head a little.
It is something that could be moved from the kids section to Reference, for use in discussing race and sociology and so on.
I happened to be a fan of the black woman in the Tom and Jerry cartoons, though I thought she was the homeowner. I wish they still used the original voice, that seems less offensive to me than the slippers and stockings I seem to recall her wearing.
The voice? Sounded like everyone around me when I first encountered both Tom and Jerry and Georgia. It is mostly, IMO, the images that make the voice a problem. Along with Aunt Esther and the Milk of Magnesia woman who is married to Thomas and the Pine Sol Lady.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 1:55 pm ¶
Elton wrote:
This is problematic on so many levels:
1. Censorship (aka avoiding the problem so we don’t have to talk about it) actually has the effect of hiding, not confronting, racism.
2. Who is the librarian to decide what is and isn’t racist?
3. Nothing simply is or isn’t racist. Understanding that takes a certain amount of critical thinking and exposure to alleged racism, which the librarian is denying patrons. The result is what we have today, more than ever–stifled discussion, poor communication, and no common understanding, resulting in a “nation of cowards” because the subject of racism itself has been taboo for so long.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 1:57 pm ¶
Pickly wrote:
Maybe other people’s experiences with kids are different, but from what I remember of being a kid, I would not have picked up on a lot of the under the surface stuff that people are talking about, and the more obvious stuff was pretty much seen as an oddity of the story, and not a representative of anything wider.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 2:20 pm ¶
BSK wrote:
The National Association for the Education of Young Children’s (NAEYC) Anti-Bias Curriculum (ABC) gives a list of criteria for evaluating children’s literature. It looks not only at graphical representations of character, but also the perspective the story is being told from, and the roles that characters take (are whites always the heroes? is success culturally specific?). A majority of children’s literature (not to mention adult literature) is problematic, including most contemporary works. It’s just like any form of media: a few overtly bad things; a lot of subtly bad things, and a few really good things.
That being said, they are also careful to point out that you don’t want to throw out the baby with the bath water. There are some books with some problematic elements that are otherwise fantastic pieces of literature that we’d be remiss to discard. That doesn’t mean we must be silent on the problematic parts. As someone pointed out above, these books often allow for conversations around these issues, as we hopefully create readers who are critically aware of the messages they are taking in from the media.
That being said, some books are so bad, they should just be tossed. Without knowing the specifics of this book, I can’t say for sure what should ideally be done.
If people are interested, the ABC is available on the NAEYC website. A simple google search should turn it up.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 2:23 pm ¶
ashlynn wrote:
@blip I’m assuming this is Grand Army’s library, yes? Because that’s my library as well, and I can also cosign that despite the millions of dollars in renovations, the space STILL isn’t feasible to have every book on display.
The library closet to my home was established as one of the world’s first children’s libraries, I believe…even today, 85% of the space is youth oriented. Because children rely heavily on graphics in the early stages of reading development; I for one, can say that as a child I loved a few of the books mentioned here- Babar, Asterix, Curious George- and though I did not particularly see the racial and racist themes in a complex manner, I could definitely point out to my teacher that some of these characters definitely look funny.
The Tintin books are overtly racist, and I do commend the library for recognizing them as such, and trying to do right by the children while navigating the lines of censorship. But lock and key? Mmmmnotsomuch. Put them in the adult section, or even better, take them out for special group sessions to educate kids on books and the effect they can have on a lot of people.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 2:52 pm ¶
inkst wrote:
@ Pickly: like atlasien said, it’s not about understanding that something is bad when you’re a kid, it’s about the messages that you’re receiving. If you read Tintin as a small child, you see “normally drawn” white characters and caricatured black characters, which your 5-year-old self may not recognize as racist, but you certainly pick up on the inherent message of who is supposedly normal and who is not. Subtle messages like that do matter for young children.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 2:58 pm ¶
Seattle Slim wrote:
I disagree with removing the books. What the library is doing is doing the parents’ job for them.
“Make it go away!” The TinTin books are a great opportunity to talk to your child about race.
My oldest had his heart SET on seeing Transformers 2. I saw it first. Halfway through the movie I decided it was not appropriate (not just racially but the sexual nature). I didn’t hide the reason from him. With a heavy but resolved heart, I had to tell him that he could not see the Transformers because it was “making fun of black people.” That’s the simplest way I could put it. I then asked him how he would feel if people made fun of me and my side of the family for being black. He said he didn’t like it. And he kept it moving.
Books are a little different and they are easier to control and they can still be learning experiences.
Unfamiliar with African-American history, I started reading about Black Memorabilia and the stories behind them. That was the catalyst for me wanting to learn more, and by virtue, understanding race in today.
I think it is important for kids, as well as adults, to remember history so they are not doomed to repeat it.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 2:58 pm ¶
Seattle Slim wrote:
@19 Elton
So well put. I just need to co-sign.
Using Tintin au Congo would be an excellent way to help kids learn to recognize racist–aye, toxic–elements and help them deal with it.
We need to keep in mind that overt racism is a “blessing” compared to aversive racism. The most vile human beings I’ve had to deal with were those who wore “rose-colored” glasses and “saw no race”. They were not exposed to and taught about race (obviously) therefore when something, sometimes overtly racist popped up, if you identified it as such, YOU were the racist.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 3:04 pm ¶
Ali wrote:
I agree with this decision although, like many other posters, I am very hesitant about censorship, particularly in a library.
There are other books that have been subject to censorship that I think kids should have unlimited access to, like the gay-family book And Tango Makes Three.
But the difference here is that one could be harmful to children’s self-image and relationships with their peers, and as a result of its racist images, should be seen as something to study as an artifact of the colonial era. One is teaching about all types of families.
As a child I loved Tintin, and even 15 years ago, my school library did not stock this book. I didn’t regret it and I’m glad I didn’t encounter it then. There are already enough racist stereotypes in my childhood literature (the Hardy Boys’ frequent use of “swarthy” = “evil” for example) and my parents were completely unprepared or uninterested in discussing race in historical and present context.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 3:06 pm ¶
atlasien wrote:
@Seattle Slim: Whoah, I can’t disagree more with “We need to keep in mind that overt racism is a “blessing” compared to aversive racism.”
I never for a second thought of the overt racism that I experienced in childhood as a “blessing”. It was traumatizing and incredibly painful. I would have traded ANYTHING to get it to stop.
“Covert/colorblind racism is worse than overt racism” is a sophisticated judgment that can be debated on adult terms… but I can’t see asking any young, literal-minded child to think that way.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 3:15 pm ¶
Seattle Slim wrote:
atlasien,
I think it depends on the person and their background. I am not alone in my belief about covert/overt racism. I’ve encountered plenty of blacks, even those in my own family, who are not worried about overt racists. At least they’re honest. They are not going to “betray” you because they make it clear you cannot (who would want to anyway) get close enough to them for that to happen.
Aversive racists though… That’s a new breed right there. I’ve been called names to my face. Those people are irrelevant. The ones that are aversively racist are the most dangerous.
And from what I’ve seen, quite a few blacks feel this way.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 3:35 pm ¶
Adrienne wrote:
No way in hell can children not be traumatized by the images they see and by racist taunting by their peers when the taunting involves names that came from racist media…such as having White children circle you and pull your hair roughly to mess it up and calling you Buckwheat. (Unfortunately this happened to me)
Or going to school as a small child and being the only POC and a racist book about POC like you is read to you and your White classmates.
I think those books should simply be moved to a different category–maybe “Americana” as those images are a part of American history and imagery just as apple pie and baseball is associated with the widely embraced stereotype about America.
Then this way parents have the choice of being the ones to teach their child about racism when they feel their child is ready for the discussion, versus being slapped in the face by it when you’re a little kid.
Overt racism causes anxiety in small children, and low self esteem when they are the target in the books they are taught to love or enjoy being read to them.
And anxiety causes nightmares, stuttering in school, crying fits, depression, headaches, stomache aches, nail biting, and other nervous behavior.
I am anti-censorship but very much for child safety, health and children being raised in ways that align with their level of child development.
No way can an elementary school child understand fully racist imagery without internalizing it as somethings wrong with them.
It took us years to arrive at our resilience in the face of overtly racist images as adults.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 3:35 pm ¶
Seattle Slim wrote:
As for TinTin Au Congo, I googled it (was never one for TinTin) and, well… DAMN! It is soooooo racist. But just as I suspected it is rife with opportunities to discuss race and stereotypes with my eldest son (and youngest once he’s older). I’ve got the talking points ready to go just based on the little I’ve seen.
I also saw on Tintinologist that TinTin is very condescending and disdainful towards the natives, but the flora and fauna there.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 3:39 pm ¶
Jorge wrote:
I agree with DIMA @5.
Personally, perusing the library stacks is a pleasure, and often times, one finds books that otherwise one would not even think of looking for. Move it out to the young adult stacks, but put a place holder or something in its place. Out of mind…etc. It is ridiculous that they put these books in a vault, under lock and key, viewable only by appointment.
Also agree with Elton @19. I wonder what standards do the panels use to determine what goes into the Hunt Collection? Racially offensive books (with graphics) get sent to the vault, but sexually explicit ones don’t?
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 3:56 pm ¶
Seattle Slim wrote:
Adrienne,
Those things can be damaging, but they are going to happen regardless of anything we try. I got called Buckwheat by kids of color for my natural hair. They don’t have to be that way if we arm our kids with knowledge.
The day my mother gave me a book on Marcus Garvey was a turning point in my life. I was being picked on for my big lips, hair, all the things that made me black by other black kids. That book planted a seed, that while it took years to cultivate, at least it was there, and it helped me to fight against that negative imagery.
You may wonder what Garvey had to do with that. It had everything to do with it. It instilled understanding of those attitudes, and pride. I only wish she had discussed these things with me more.
If the media (Transformers) doesn’t do it, their peers, regardless of race, will attack them. Forewarned is forearmed.
It is not a question of if my boys will be called the dreaded N word, but when. If we have frank, yet tailored for their age, discussions, they can see those insults and the people behind them for the uneducated, damaged and/or obscenely ignorant buffoons that they are.
I tell you, one of the most hurtful things I ever heard wasn’t when some Pana kid called me a “chomba.” That just made me rush him and choke him lol. It was when I signed up for band in the 7th grade, and the teacher said my lips were too big to play trumpet (did anyone say that to Louis Armstrong??). It is one thing when a child understands that idiocy is behind stupid statements. This not to say that they are any less important or cruel. However, it is something different to hear thinly veiled racist remarks by people they trust, that leave them questioning, “But I thought we were friends? I thought you didn’t see race.” It’s the perception of betrayal, the sowing of seeds of distrust that sticks the blade(s) in deeper.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 4:38 pm ¶
Pickly wrote:
@inkst (comment 23)
Unless that sort of stuff happens over and over in the same sort of way, the images (from how I’ve tended to respond to things) don’t get absorbed as a deeper message, they just get absorbed as images. For the message to be absorbed, it has to be applied over and over in a similar way, otherwise its just unusual.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 4:57 pm ¶
Sean wrote:
@ Pickly
I think kid’s minds are a lot more astute than we sometimes give them credit for, but I agree that repetition of the same images (messages) certainly exacerbates the problem. In this case, Tintin Au Congo is a SERIES of repeated “images” as it were.
I never read this series – as I was more of a Marvel superheroes fanboy back in the day- but I googled it, and yes, I can definetely see problems with it. I can only imagine how a single-digit Tintin fan getting a steady diet of these “images” processes it in his/her sub-concious mind.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 5:17 pm ¶
Agh wrote:
I’m sure the Library took this decision very seriously. I appreciate that they want to protect the psyches of little children, and that they respected the opinion of the patron enough to review the book and make the decision to remove it from the children’s section. Moving it to the adult section is less extreme than putting it under lock and key, however, but at least a patron can still request the book if she wants it. (According to the New York Public Library’s website you have to request the book in advance.)
Disney’s done the same thing- “The Song of the South” is not available for purchase in the US, but they could probably do away with “Peter Pan”, too- the misogyny and racism towards Native Americans is appalling (never saw it as a child, now I know why!)
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 5:32 pm ¶
Deaf Indian Muslim Anarchist wrote:
While we’re at it, what if Muslims demand that the library bans SATANIC VERSES because it’s “offensive” for Muslims and the library decides to listen?
What if a Jewish group asks the library to ban MEIN KAMPF?
The list can go on and on. I disagree with Atlasien– my assertion was NOT naive.
This is CENSORSHIP, plain and period. A group that decides and controls what kind of materials people can read– and then preventing public access to read these materials– that is CENSORSHIP.
Yes, parents can decide what their kids can read and can’t read– that’s not censorship. I was talking about the LIBRARY’S ACT OF REMOVING THESE BOOKS = CENSORSHIP.
I don’t give a shit what parents do at home. I care more about the LIBRARY and the fact that it’s a PUBLIC LIBRARY deciding that people can’t read this or that.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 5:52 pm ¶
jvansteppes wrote:
Sigh. Here in Quebec the majority of the white population isn’t even ready to admit that Tin Tin is racist, mainly because of it’s place in francophone culture. There’s even a popular poutine chain, Frite Alors, that has Tin Tin murals all over it’s walls.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 7:00 pm ¶
m. wrote:
The conversation going on here is very interesting, and I definitely can respect and appreciate a lot of the different viewpoints I’m seeing. I want to second what Jorge (@31) said about moving books like that – not to the young adult literature shelves, though, but perhaps to another section where a Tin Tin book wouldn’t be picked up by inquisitive children. It probably wouldn’t help much, because there are plenty of “advanced” children out there who don’t stick to the young adult/children’s section when it comes to books (I was definitely one of them when I reached 9), but a book like that does NOT belong anywhere near the Eric Carle or Louise Fitzhugh titles. Disgusting. Parents have enough to worry about.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 7:32 pm ¶
distance88 wrote:
I don’t think it’s a matter of if this book belongs in the library, but where–I tend to think anywhere except the children’s section.
Re: evilness of overt vs covert racism:
Doesn’t everyone get the feeling that overt racists are more likely to commit acts of violence against PoC, as compared to so-called ‘coverts’ who just harbor racist ideals?
I’m not sure if it’s a distinction of racism that has been studied…
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 7:57 pm ¶
meloukhia wrote:
This is a really fascinating discussion. I’m not a parent, so I can’t speak specifically about the concerns of parents dealing with the issue of what to expose their children to, but when I was a child, my father allowed me free run of any and all printed material I could get my hands on, and I think that some of it was actually pretty damaging.
When I internalized racist ideas and started repeating them (e.g. referring to someone Japanese as a “Jap” because I read it in a book), my father would *most definitely* turn it into a teachable moment where we talked about where I found the slur, the context of the time period in which the book was written, etc etc.
BUT, he couldn’t intervene when it came to internalizing more complex racist ideas which weren’t necessarily things that I would voice, like the idea that people who aren’t white are inherently other.
As a little blonde-haired, blue-eyed white girl, I definitely took away a lot of negative messages about people of colour and other cultures. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be a non-white child reading that kind of material, and the kind of damaging message about yourself and your body image you would be receiving from books where the people who look like you are consistently othered.
I don’t think that racist material should be erased from the library shelves, but I do agree with other folks: it’s not appropriate for the kid’s section. It needs to be in an area of the library which is targeted at older adults or teens, so the parents can choose whether or not they want to expose their children to that kind of material. And so that parents can control the discussion about reading it; I kind of wish that my father had chosen to talk with me about some of the books I was reading *before* I read them so that I understood why they were problematic.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 8:08 pm ¶
vh wrote:
this is what my cousin had to say and i thought it was worth sharing in that this is quite the slippery slope the library is embarking on:
Why aren’t these fcks locking up copies of 16 candles or even 300 because it made Asians look bad…
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 8:37 pm ¶
Lisa wrote:
As a parent of a biracial four year old (black and Jewish) who frequently comments on color, I have to side with those who are happy the books have been moved. Not removed, just moved. They’re still available, for ‘teaching moments’ and otherwise.
I’m not crazy about the idea of putting the books in a locked glass cabinet… some people think what’s (visibly) under lock and key means it must be special. It makes me think of jewelry displays.
About the idea that kids will just brush off the subtler implications: it reminded me of an incident in my 4th-grade class. (This was in the late 1970s.) We were being taught chess by a student teacher whom I adored. But I noticed he kept making the black pieces the “losing” pieces in each scenario. I took it to mean the black ones were bad, and I was too by extension.
Fortunately for me, the lead teacher noticed I was crying in my seat, drew me outside and asked what was wrong. He corrected the student teacher privately, who was more even-handed after that point.
I know that the example is a little off-topic, but the point is that kids do pick up on blatant, pointed racism as well as unconscious racism.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 8:54 pm ¶
bitchphd wrote:
It isn’t censorship to not put a book on the open shelf; they’re still letting people check it out, you just have to ask for it.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 10:08 pm ¶
little mixed girl wrote:
I used to work shelving books at a library, and I loved going to the library as a kid, so I’m torn a bit on this issue.
Personally, I was never interested in TinTin(?) and only discovered it when I started working at the library…and even then I didn’t even bother to open it.
I loved (and still do) Curious George. I read it in pre-school and kindergarten in the mid-late 80s, so maybe that Curious George was different from earlier versions?
Anyways, I understand that parents want to “protect” their kids from racist imigary, but I also understand that the average parent drops their kid off at the children’s section and assumes that it’s the responsibilty of the library to keep their kid safe and out of trouble.
Instead of giving your kid free range of the area while you use that time to take a break, maybe you should be going WITH your kid and watch them as they make book selections?
If the books really are that offensive, then maybe moving them from the children’s section to the adult section would be best.
That way a parent knows that the library things that the content is mature and that the parent should put more effort into deciding whether or not to check out the book.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 10:34 pm ¶
BSK wrote:
It seems the conversation has primarily focused on PoC’s, or kids of color, specifically. This is clearly a huge part of the conversation. But what about the flip side? What does the unsuspecting white kid, who’s parents are tapped into such issues, get out of this book? There is just as much impact there, in many ways, that is then perpetuated down the road in very bad ways.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 10:49 pm ¶
Will Wright wrote:
Hello Latoya,
You’re a hard woman to get a hold of.
This reminds me of the extreme conservatives who want to have a program or a book banned. I have yet to hear a compelling, well-reasoned argument for removing the parent’s authority to to decide what their child may read. It could be a teachable moment: “such and such title offends this group because of ‘x,y, or z’. We don’t believe in it, because of ‘b, c, or d,’ but this is their view.” I find it deeply disturbing and morose.
WrightsWords.wordpress.com
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 11:33 pm ¶
Dinger wrote:
I’m a huge fan of Tintin so I’m gonna chime in. Herge deals with racial stereotypes of the Chinese in Blue Lotus. He actually points out how Westerners unfairly stereotype Chinese and subjugated them to opium addiction. He also covers Aztecs, Native Americans, Egyptians, Italian and South American gangsters, witch doctors, etc. in the various stories – most of the characters are hilarious caricatures like the foul mouthed brandy loving captain or the absent minded professor or the bumbling twin English policemen. I believe at least a few of his books covers the slave trade and human trafficking, and Tintin – always the hero – helps free the oppressed – e.g. Prisoners of the Sun. The books are a study in history and an absolute joy for me (like James Bond for kids), even though Asians and Africans and other foreigners are exoticized. I’m also not a fan of banning/hiding books, even ones that are inflammatory — and I think Tintin, with its literary merit, is particularly not deserving of it.
Posted 21 Aug 2009 at 1:55 am ¶
TN wrote:
Hmmm… I admit to being a bit torn about Tintin au Congo and even golliwogs. To dig a deeper hole for myself, Tintin au Congo is not the only Tintin book with such characters. I’d read these books as a child and of course I knew that the cartoons weren’t real because most humans don’t have dots for eyes (there is a condition where the eyes can be underdeveloped and tiny but this is quite rare) and I loved them especially Snowy the dog. I’d also loved golliwogs as a child because they were cheeky and I thought they were adorable. But now as an adult I do understand and see that such imagery can and have hurt certain groups of people and that they have a loaded history of racism behind them. The racist histories revolts me… but I still have that same thought of enjoying these characters as a child at the back of my mind. Censorship is totally wrong in my view but young children should be guided in their readings and the graphics that they are allowed to view by adults who understand how such imagery can impact a young mind. Texts such as the Malleus Maleficarum and Mein Kampf are beyond nasty, but they are important parts of history and shouldn’t be buried, restricted perhaps but not made to disappear, as though nothing bad in history ever happened.
Posted 21 Aug 2009 at 5:21 am ¶
BSK wrote:
Will Wright-
I don’t know that we are all calling for it to be strictly banned. But to have it freely available on the children’s shelf means a child may pick it out, read it alone, and never get to experience that teachable moment. Let’s be honset: how many parents read every page and every word of the books their kid’s bring home from the reality? Perhaps they SHOULD, but this just isn’t reality. Hell, a kid may read it in the library and never actually bring it home.
Some books with racist/offensive material can serve as teaching tools for children. Some books can’t though. I say this as a teacher, who has studied children’s literature and helped develop library standards for what should be included. Have the book available, but ensure that it is in an area where kids can’t get to it themselves.
We do this in other areas. Parents are free to let their children watch PG-13 movies even if they aren’t 13, but they must accompany them. The kids can’t go on their own. To give kids unfettered access to materials that may be damaging to them is irresponsible. I’m generally against censorship, but the fact is children don’t have the same rights as adults, nor should they. They are not in a position to make critical decisions about what information they take in and what they do with it once taken in. That is why we need thoughtful adults to guide them and help them make sense of the world.
Posted 21 Aug 2009 at 7:18 am ¶
dejamorgana wrote:
This is a tricky one. I’d like to agree with DIMA, because I despise censorship and can’t help remembering other children’s books that have been censored or removed from view (thinking of “In The Night Kitchen” right now, one of the best picture books ever that a lot of busybodies like to censor because it shows a naked preschooler – BAH!).
But as a parent (two biracial girls), I’m also agreeing quite a bit with atlasien’s argument. I spend the entire day trying to filter bad things from my girls and really help them prepare for the world. I’d like to think the children’s section of the library would be a place where I could lower my guard and let the kids roam freely, picking out whatever books they might fancy (I have only one rule on this – no books based on toys or TV shows, i.e. Barbie, Disney, all that garbage).
In the end, I have to say that while I don’t like this slippery slope, I’m glad this book isn’t on display in the open kids’ section.
Posted 21 Aug 2009 at 8:28 am ¶
Frowner wrote:
Hey all! Very thought-provoking.
I’m from a family of librarians (no, really!) and volunteer at a bookstore, so I got started thinking about what the library wants to legitimate. Even in a huge library (or bookstore) shelf space is limited; you’ve got to pick and choose. And libraries have terribly, terribly limited budgets right now.
Then there’s another question–libraries are always culling books–books get old, books get unpopular, books don’t seem relevant anymore or the library just runs out of space. Some of those books get replaced, some don’t. What is the library’s obligation in the case of a clearly racist children’s book? In order to avoid “censorship”, should the library replace this book when it gets worn out? If there’s limited room on the shelves and they have to cull something, can they cull the racist book or are they obligated to keep it there as an object lesson? I guarantee you that this is a living question for libraries.
When we talk about this at the bookstore, we talk about what our goals as a store are–to provide specifically anti-racist and radical books first, with “archival” or “historical interest” books coming in second as they’ll fit. We talk about what projects we want to support and what books we want to be known for shelving. In a world of infinite books, we have to pick. This isn’t the same thing as censorship. If not carrying a book were equal to censorship, we would have to stock every book in the world!
De facto, limiting access to a book works almost like censorship. As a result, countless awesome books by writers of color, queer writers, women writers (and queer writers of color, etc!) are “censored” by not being bought or shelved. They fall out of print and get lost or forgotten. Where is most of the queer literature of the eighties, for example? Lots of books I bought when I was first coming out in the very early nineties are totally out of print and appeared in small press runs anyway. Sometimes I feel really sad when I think of all the lost books I’ll never even know about and never get to read.
So you know, I feel like libraries have to choose what they want to support. It’s not just a matter of “censorship”–it’s a matter of positively choosing whether they want to foreground critical, anti-racist books by buying them and giving them shelf space. For a library to make sense, it needs a social vision. This is risky and intense because it involves choosing, not just having a rubric to apply to everything.
Seriously, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to remove the directly racist kids’ books from the picture book section. In a crowded library, it’s perfectly reasonable to keep them–with thousands of other books, many not particularly racist–in the stacks, to be requested by patrons who are interested. Parents who would like to use directly racist materials with their children in order to teach about racism can certainly be pro-active and find the book; it’s not going anywhere.
Honestly, in my volunteer work at the bookstore, I don’t like having to shelve and dust racist garbage; I don’t like having to explain it to patrons by saying “we have this anti-Muslim fanzine here because the writer is an important small-press guy”. (An actual case–I lobbied for us to stop ordering and we did.)
Posted 21 Aug 2009 at 9:26 am ¶
AS wrote:
As a black woman who summered in France since as soon as I was old enough to hop on a plane (which my parents thought was 3 months old, but that’s another story), Tintin books hold a special place in my heart. I loved the book because of the dog Milou and because there was a little kid (he looked little to me) involved in scary adventures. Further, it was the gateway to my becoming fluent in French. Obviously, at the age of one or two , I was unaware of the racial implications and I do not think they permeated my mind.
I think that in this day and age, the images of the “savages” are viewed more as caricatures to your average French reader and no one views them as being remotely linked to reality. I do not think that they were deliberately racists in that they sought to further oppress people of color. They were written as action adventure “thrillers” for little French kids with images of places and people who were supposed to be scary because of their looks and constructed cultures. Seeing as they were children’s books, I cannot imagine that those who read them as kids took them seriously as adults.
Tintin is sort of like Ian Flemming’s James Bond series which advanced such gems as “Negro women are beautiful but have little concept of birth control.” Soviets, people of Caribbean nations were stereotyped in movies in ways that were throw backs to the turn of the 20th century (remember Quarrel from “Dr. No” with his superstitions and bulging eyes? Or the Bahamians in “Thunderball?”), Harlem gangsters and voodoo, the Japanese in “You Only Live Twice,” etc. were all vicious stereotypes. Despite that, I have to admit I love those movies because Sean Connery was smooth and the gadgets were cool. I accept those books as products of their ignorant times.
It is wrong to try to cram French racism into the box of American racism. It is made of a rather toxic cocktail. France has high unemployment, so the influx of people of former colonies triggers resentment automatically. Further, those African immigrants who are already unwelcome are often cordoned off into Les cités or Les Peripheriques (ghettos for North Africans who are often Muslim or African immigrants from places like the Ivory Coast; les Periphs being mini-cities specially situated outside cities like Paris). Religion, culture, and economics are what really fuel the fires of what we see as racism in America. The US is much more diverse in societies considered more liberal, like France or the Netherlands. Seeing men wearing kufis, women in burqas (the current controversy in the whole of Europe being the burqtini in swimming pools), and seeing Islamic culture in their fairly secular society is a huge affront to the French. The nation is identified as Catholic, but the French as a whole are not a church going people. They do not like what they see as the injection of a religion that is not even their own religion they reject, being so clearly displayed on their streets.
As an example of how the US media and Americans in general cannot conceive of race relations beyond our own vile brand, one need look to the coverage of the riots in Paris. It was not a race riot. It was a multiracial riot of unemployed young people who were responding to the stranglehold the elite have on the economy, lack of opportunity (in no other nation do people go to colleges/universities like the US), and the spark was the beating of a young man by the police. All the media here could deduce was a bunch of brown people making trouble. It was dubbed “The French Muslim Uprising” or “The French Intifada.” Most of those young men of parents who are Muslims are not religious and they were not protesting for more Shar’ia, and they were not all people of color.
This was kind of off topic, but it does go back to Tintin, race in France, and how it is not the same as it was then when Africans were written in comic books. Now we have then French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy calling the rioters “racaille” (roughly translated as scum or dirtbag) and “sub-human” because he sees them as budding terrorists whose “crazy” religion has no place in France. This sentiment is divorced from Tintin and the images in the books. This is about the French feeling they might have to live among Muslims in their country. They have remarkable amnesia seeing as those same people had to live under oppressive and vicious French rule and customs for a very long time.
Finally, we should never ban books. As poorly written, dumb, filthy, and crazy as “Mein Kampf” is, we should all have access to its lunacy. If it can stay on the shelves, Tintin can too.
Posted 21 Aug 2009 at 9:55 am ¶
coloredhoney wrote:
i am thrilled that the grand army plaza library made the racialicious headlines. i gave my son a birthday party not too long ago further downtown in Brooklyn Heights where on the big screens are casually shown racist cartoons. and not the tom & jerry ones. straight blackface shucking and jiving. the kids were having a good time in this lovely liberal joint with healthy food and foozball when my best friend noticed the screen and said hey what the heck is that?! the kiddie helpers were deeply embarrassed and turned it off right away. and we partied on. however, in small supposedly innocuous recreational spaces this happens all the time. i’m not for censorship either but i am for filtering racial indecency where children are concerned. the library is not responsible for how a child learns about race. a child’s awareness and education certainly doesn’t have to occur through racist literature. tintin’s time is not up as it can still be borrowed by request, now there’s more room for more twilight copies. cuz those are really children’s books. yippee!!!!
Posted 21 Aug 2009 at 10:33 am ¶
Persia wrote:
A clarification: Tintin was written in French, but Hergé and the character are Belgian.
Posted 21 Aug 2009 at 10:38 am ¶
JL wrote:
I’m leaning in the direction of DIMA and gail here.
The library should not be expected to do the parent’s job.
If the book was just being moved to another freely accessible shelf, like the young adult section, I would mind less. But I don’t think it should be under special lock and key.
Posted 21 Aug 2009 at 2:05 pm ¶
Ain't I an African? wrote:
I’m not for censorship or hiding the books away. It’s a way of pretending that authors were other than what they really were.
I grew up on Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie. I now know that some of their books originally had racist references that were edited out. This changes my opinion of them somewhat.
On the other hand I think that many of us Africans and African-descended people have low self esteem and are ashamed when we are depicted as having large lips, extremely dark skin or very tightly coiled hair. Why is Alek Wek’s supermodel-ness met with such opposition from black people? We want so much to control what is seen as black beauty or black virtue. I know that there is a broad spectrum of blackness, particularly with the one drop rule, but there is often shame about the blackest part of that spectrum.
As Marcus Garvey before me said, we need to get rid of the kinks in our mind, not the ones in our hair.
Posted 21 Aug 2009 at 2:26 pm ¶
Travis Hedge Coke wrote:
I actually think growing up seeing racist material embedded in cartoons, in sitcoms and novels, was good for me. Because hiding it away (from kids or from everyone) does not mean it’s being hidden from anyone culturally or socially.
What is important is contextualizing for kids. A racist or suspect element is present in something that otherwise has value (even if it’s only historic)? Make sure they understand that, yes, that element is bigoted and wrong and that there are bigoted and wrong things in the world, even in what might otherwise be entirely well-meaning.
Posted 21 Aug 2009 at 6:02 pm ¶
Msday wrote:
My son and I were just talking about this issue the other day. We were watching Tom and Jerry together, and noticed “toms’ owner had been at first updated to a modern accent and now replaced with the legs of a southern white woman.
I am going to be very honest and hopefully, I don’t offend anyone. As a child, when I saw the legs, the house shoes and heard the voice, she reminded me of my grandmother. So seeing this new version of the same cartoon, which was actually hilarious is now bland. I realize the black singer/actress whose voice was the original presentation of Toms owner, worked during a time of severe exploitation. However, I have mixed feelings seeing her legacy buried. In the case of this cartoon, these people were pioneers, and real actresses, despite their parts.
The Tintin series is a different story. It falls under the same category of a book I ran into in an antique store in Paducah Kentucky. There was a book called, “3 little N” I was offended by it despite the price tag of $1000. attached to it. I also questioned whether it was authentic.
Perhaps instead of keeping it under lock and key, they can create a museum of retired stereotypes and images? Everyone doesn’t talk to their child about such things. My son is multiracial and we often speak about racist innuendo and images, we come across. I take the opportunity to educate him on that time period, not create a spirit of hostility.
I think it is good because despite our claims of being “post racial”, there are still crazies out there. When we lived in Rhode island, my son was best friends with two little neighborhood boys. I remember going over to pick him up, and on the back porch, there was one of those “caricatures with the watermelon”. My son walked past it every day and thought nothing of it, while I was furious. He continued being friends with them, and as time went on, I got to know the parents. I dealt with them, just as I would have everyone else and treated their kids just like my kid. Eventually, the statue disappeared. Unfortunately, because of that image, I never completely trusted them.
Posted 21 Aug 2009 at 7:03 pm ¶
Rexdale_RBG wrote:
Idk about this we got self-hate issues and a lot of those books form sub-concious influences in you esp from a young age. Even if it aint overt or ppl dont associate it with reality it still affects you sub-conciously which is a bigger affect then conciously IMO.
Im still against cencorship though but this one is ok but at the same time think about who probably on that board to decide which books are good or not? You think it us?
On top of that a lot of kids aint got parents who can spend time with them and shit like that I know my momz never could. So you have to consider that too.
Another side of it is that any books that are pro-POC (doenst have to be anti-white) are usually not availible either. Im in Tdot and most of the books that are like that either have 1 or 2 copies and are on hold hard or they aint in the system at all to be taken out or even there period. I have a problem with that too. You want a book that reinforces shit in your mind dam we got too many copies take on you want one that will help you become a better human being and help kids along. O sorry budget cuts.
Until we are able to control how we portray ourselves, and actually love ourselves none of this will really help a lot its a step but we need self-determination 1st and foremost.
Person above me broke down the rest of the self-hate thing.
RBG cuz
Posted 21 Aug 2009 at 7:24 pm ¶
Msday wrote:
Oh, I am so sorry racialicious for posting twice but I picked up on something that AS wrote about the difference between racism in France versus the US. Well, I don’t want to come off as smug but I really think spending a summer in France is not enough to see the entire dynamics of race in any European country. I live in Italy and yes they are having the same problems with integration here. Yes, there are some legitimate problems with criminal activity but you cannot tell me, that it is all due to religion/cultural takeover.
There is something really wrong when you notice that the only other women of color are either maids, prostitutes, or kitchen help. There is something wrong when they want to segregate schools and when 80 percent of inmates are male immigrants of color.
Humanity is one thing and culture is another. If it is possible to treat a German, White American, French tourist with dignity and respect, than one can do the same with Asians and African immigrants. I understand that we must look at these countries with a fresh pair of eyes. However, when I can walk downtown and look at a statue of a white marble man, standing on top of a 4 dark mori, it sends a message in any language. They are no different than Americans and all seem to have this expectation of “white privilege.”
Posted 21 Aug 2009 at 7:24 pm ¶
denise wrote:
i think parents should determine what books they feel are appropriate, or not, for their children.
no book should be banned. there are books out there that depict all groups negatively. there are books that depict women negatively. where do we stop. we won;t. so we shouldnt start.
Posted 21 Aug 2009 at 9:20 pm ¶
parry wrote:
I’d add the following to the discussion…
1.Choosing to remove an overtly racist book from a children’s collection does not necessarily mean you are trying to sheild your young readers from racism or pretend it doesn’t exist. There are books for young people that deal with racism and raise questions about race that are not racist in themselves.
2. If this book was published today, and the library did not purchase it because reviewers said it had racist images, would it seem as much like censorship?
3. For those interested, I would recommend reading Herbert Kohl’s book Should We Burn Babar? Essays on Children’s Literature and the Power of Stories. I’m reminded of the book by this discussion, and feel compelled to go back and reread it.
Posted 21 Aug 2009 at 10:28 pm ¶
B. wrote:
I would advocate for a separate section for racist books, and one that clearly labels them as racist and (usually) the product of a different time. I agree that we have to avoid censoring or banning these books, and also agree that we must be careful not to keep them behind locked doors or give them “special” status by placing them behind glass. They should be available to the public for educational purposes, but I think that there could be a fair system in which racist books with historical content (pamphlets or books that explain history in racist or ethnocentric way) and fiction (like Tin Tin or other comics, literature, etc. that contain racist stereotypes or images) would have their own space and would be defined as racist. Certain groups of people or eras in history have their own section in the library where books on a specific culture, lifestyle, religion, historical time period, etc. are categorized. Maybe it’s time to start categorizing older books with racist imagery/text as a way of recognizing racism’s place in our country’s development and around the world, its continuing role in society, and how we can change things for future generations.
Posted 22 Aug 2009 at 1:53 am ¶
ktrujillo wrote:
Isn’t tolerating offensive speech part of democracy? If you demand a book removed then who will stop others from demanding that a book they find offensive be removed, as well? Like many kids I was raised in a pretty dysfunctional home and the library was a place I went to find peace, quiet and povs NOT shared or supported by my family. I understand not wanting certain books shelved with Goodnight Moon level picture books, but for older kids (where Tintin is shelved in my library) and teens there should be a variety of opinions available. I don’t think that the Tintin book in question is at all a good book, sheesh, but if you push for its ban, then books with glbtq characters/issues, or divergent religious povs, or even issues with puberty etc, will soon follow since there are people clamoring to ban those as well and once you’ve joined their ranks you can no longer stand against their tyranny. I am a parent and I think that kids are way smarter than many give them credit for.
One last thing. When I was in school a certain Judy Blume book was taken out of the library (guess that’s why she’s a anti-censorship crusader)and within days someone had a dogeared copy complete with underlines that was passed around the whole school. More kids read it after it was banned than before.
Posted 22 Aug 2009 at 1:11 pm ¶
Jess wrote:
I’m a little late to this, sorry, but I have to add a couple of things:
First, Herge was sort of interesting in that he actually changed books as he got older and they were republished — and usually as a result of concerns about stereotyping and racism. To give one example, “Red Sea Sharks” (Titled in French “Coke En Stock”) had a black man speaking pidgin French in one sequence, and he changed it on later editions because he saw that it was at best a bit racist. In one sense, he is a bit of a living example of the changes in attitudes over time.
Second, Tintin Au Congo is the one book of his that hasn’t been reissued in the US (I am not sure about Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, as that book is pretty much an anachronism now). It wasn’t reissued for the very reason that it was racist in so many ways. But it was originally written in the 1930s.
Third, even that book was changed later on, Herge altered one part of the text– famously, the panels in which Tintin refers a group of schoolchildren to their country — Belgium. He canged it to a math lesson. So the guy had some sense of what was going on here. Yeah, he stereotypes (and my dad always would call Herge a fascist ‘cuz he kept working for Le Soir, a right-wing Belgian daily, during the war). He’s also a Belgian born in 1907.
Also, while racism is ugly wherever it is, the specifics of how it plays out are very different from country to country. A summer in France may not make you an expert on the topic, but it is (assuming you spoke to actual French people about it) enough to tell you things are a little different, assuming you aren’t deaf or blind to it. The issues just aren’t the same because the history isn’t the same.
Herge was writing from the perspective of a colonialist, and that’s a rather different animal from the kind of stuff that shaped racism in the US. Remember, people in Belgium were once going to war with other people who looked just like them because they were Catholic or Protestant or Walloon/French/Flemish. Issues of difference in Europe are a bit removed from what they are here.
All that said, I have mixed feelings about the books now, though I loved them as a child and have to say some of the stereotyping likely went right by me. It is pretty blatant in Congo, but less so in other books. Sticking it in the adult section I don’t see as terribly problematic in and of itself.
But I do see as problematic when people say they have to make sure a kid doesn’t casually run across it. I mean, think about it, if you tell a kid they can’t read something or try to hide it what will they do? What did you all do as a kid? I bet you made a beeline straight for anything your parents told you was bad.
You can’t filter most things, it seems to me, unless you home-school your kid and keep them in a locked room with a blindfold and earplugs on most of the day. That doesn’t mean you go out and buy 100 copies of Little Black Sambo and paper the house with it, or leave the porn channels on all day.
But I do have a problem with deciding what is and isn’t racist as a blanket condemnation. And I feel that way because I realized that there is nothing that can’t be construed as (evil)ist in some fashion or other. I mean, it’s easy.
Which, conversely, means deciding what is or isn’t (evil)-ist isn’t as easy — for me anyway. I used to think it was. Now I am not sure anymore. Or rather, I tend to see things as a spectrum along which you can (maybe) place things, but it isn’t so cut and dried.
So I think it’s important to think carefully about how we approach access and all that stuff, especially when dealing with the kid’s section of a library. Do we cut out Grimm? Andersen’s tales? They are way sexist (and pretty, well, grim, a lot of the time). Do we drop out Huck Finn? Harry Potter? What would be left? Is there anything that isn’t (insert your favorite vice here) – ist?
I think kids are, honestly, a lot smarter than we give them credit for sometimes. Why? Think about this: most of us would acknowledge that the culture has changed pretty radically in many ways over the last 40 years w/r/t race.
Open racism is certainly no longer acceptable in polite company, for instance. (I mean that in most places, a guy who says “I think we should keep segregation” or some equivalent is not going to get a bunch of “Right on!” from most people — even white people). A politician who gets caught saying the n-word is not getting elected, even in the South. Did a lot of people vote for David Duke? Yes. But a lot of people didn’t and that would not have been the case 20 years prior.
This is not to say racism is gone, just that there have been a rather large set of victories won, even if it doesn’t feel that way all the time. Think of how little time has passed between the days when Barack Obama would have been kicked out of a restaurant and now, when that would invite lawsuits at best. Ask your parents what a typical workplace looked like in terms of dress, for example. The changes in a single generation have been profound in so many areas, but we don’t notice because they are background noise.
Or, anecdotally, something my father said: he noted that the group of friends he saw me hanging with (my age, and I am 40) was much more diverse than when he was young, even among progressive people. I hadn’t noticed, because it was just the way things were. The idea of a black middle class family in our neighborhood seemed normal to me. It wasn’t so to my father — he had to fight people to allow a black family to move into his neighborhood, or to get them to desegregate the university dorms — in the Midwest.
Or my uncle, who noted that the biggest change for him is that the reaction to “I am from (insert country) and speak (insert language) at home is usually “Wow, that’s interesting,” rather than “make sure you learn English and keep your kids from speaking X.” That is a huge change.
Anyhow, the point is, we all read those fairy tales, we all got exposed to the bad stuff in cartoons and books. Media isn’t all that progressive a lot of the time (it’s actually often a lagging indicator).
But things changed. We’re here. There are even white people out there who want to change it more (they exist! really!
) There are PoC who are conscious about it, more all the time.
If the influence of media was so one-way, how the heck did that happen?
I’d offer that social change, getting kids to think, and building positive self-images isn’t a one-way process, or a single factored one. We all turned out OK despite all the evilness that we were exposed to. you know?
I can say that when I was a kid, there was all kinds of stuff in the local library. Not all of it was “good” and I am sure I absorbed all kinds of things that weren’t. But I didn’t go and join the Klan, and didn’t grow to hate my grandmother. And I would say it’s because my parents had a good strong influence on me. If you are confident you have that influence, then it seems to me one book- or many books– aren’t going to matter much.
Posted 22 Aug 2009 at 3:21 pm ¶
MelMel wrote:
The best thing that can happen to an author is the censorship of his/her work. It increases its power and notoriety. Also, you cannot erase the past by burying it. It’s the same thing as people trying to deny the holocaust or say that slavery is “in the past,” and therefore does not affect society today.
Posted 22 Aug 2009 at 5:11 pm ¶
9jah wrote:
Sigh. Unfortunately, white bigotry in the media, particularly the anti-African brand (which exists largely unchecked), will not be curbed merely by the absence of TinTin books on the shelves. Removing books from a public library is an all or nothing proposition – either all books that are deemed to be reasonably offensive to people should be removed or none should be.
I am a firm believer in free speech and I think that we should be very careful drawing lines in the sand. Thankfully, we have made at least some progress in the U.S. raising awareness of the harms of racist caricatures of black people. I don’t know about Europe.
On a side note, I don’t fully understand the idea in some comments that removing the book is akin to hiding a painful racial history. The TinTin comic in question does not discuss the plight of colonized Congolese etc. it simply portrays them as naked, ungroomed, monkey-lipped people incidental to the story. At most, it suggests Herge harbored racist views at the time of illustration, which would have made him one of – how many million? This is in no way compelling information to me as a black person.
Posted 22 Aug 2009 at 8:16 pm ¶
ashlynn wrote:
You guys, regarding AS, I’m pretty sure she meant that she’s spent the summer in France since she was child- which I would say means that she has a fair bit of perspective. This is not to agree with her perspective, but to at least clear up that it’s not like she was there for two months one time and that’s it.
Posted 22 Aug 2009 at 8:38 pm ¶
Hunter wrote:
This story is disgusting. The idea that someone can have a book restricted from the public just because they don’t like the ideas in the book is completely un-American.
We don’t ban books in America.
Posted 23 Aug 2009 at 9:07 pm ¶
ACW wrote:
I’m conflicted. On the one hand, yes – children’s books should be separated from general circulation when the content is vile. On the other hand, my fear is that removing all books with questionable content will encourage ‘memory loss’ in our society, leading to future generations that minimize or don’t realize the extent of racism in our past. I don’t agree with locking books away from adult patrons.
Posted 24 Aug 2009 at 10:14 am ¶
sandeep wrote:
i read something similar recently. the passage that caught my attention in the similar thing was roughly as follows,
“we need those things that are different, perhaps worse, than us, for they remind us to be better. without a mirror to see ourselves in, without some sort of thing to compare oruselves too, we slip.”
Posted 24 Aug 2009 at 2:38 pm ¶