LibGuides: Racial Justice and Anti-racism Resources: Decolonize your reading list

Decolonize your reading list?

Evidence supports the importance of including diverse books and perspectives across the curriculum and throughout the life span. Seeing people who look, act, and experience life like ones self in media of all kinds leads to a sense of inclusion, reinforcing positive views of the self and supporting success. Members of other groups, especially majority groups, base their ideas of groups on what they see in the media, textbooks, and curricular materials.

If someone had taken that book out of my hand said, You’re too old for this, maybe
I’d never have believed that someone who looked like me could be in the pages of the book
that someone who looked like me had a story. -- Jacqueline Woodson, "stevie and me"

Scholarly Sources

Reclaiming the Multicultural Roots of U. S. Curriculum by Wayne Au; Anthony L. Brown; Dolores Calderón
Call Number: Ebook
Within curriculum studies, a "master narrative" has developed into a canon that is predominantly White, male, and associated with institutions of higher education. This canon has systematically neglected communities of color, all of which were engaged in their own critical conversations about the type of education that would best benefit their children. Building upon earlier work that reviewed curriculum texts, this book serves as a much-needed correction to the glaring gaps in U.S. curriculum history. Chapters focus on the curriculum discourses of African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, and Latinos during what has been construed as the "founding" period of curriculum studies, reclaiming their historical legacy and recovering the multicultural history of educational foundations in the United States. Book Features: Challenges the historical foundations of curriculum studies in the United States during the turn of and early decades of the 20th century. Illuminates the curriculum conversations, struggles, and contentions of communities of color. Highlights curriculum historically as a site at the intersection of colonization, White supremacy, and Americanization in the United States. Brings marginalized voices from the community into the conversation around curriculum, typically dominated by university voices.

Barrio, Brenda L., et al. "Representation Matters: Integrating Books With Characters With Autism in the Classroom." Intervention in School and Clinic (2020): 1053451220928954.
Increased awareness of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has come with an increase in books that depict individuals with ASD. However, media representation of disabilities could be misguided. To integrate literature in the classroom that helps students better understand the population of ASD, carefully choosing quality books (e.g., narrative fiction) with authentic depictions that do not perpetuate negative stereotypes is essential. The tools and criteria presented for educators help them evaluate and select books for their classrooms or as recommendations to others. The article includes a set of guidelines that help educators facilitate proper consideration for representations of characters with ASD, including the essential and more profound components of their strengths with a positive view of diversity in mind.
Bird, K. Schucan, and Lesley Pitman. "How diverse is your reading list?" Higher Education 79.5 (2020): 903-920.
There is a growing impetus, from university students and administrations, to decolonise the curriculum and develop diverse reading lists. Yet, there is limited theoretical or empirical analysis of the authorship of current reading lists to justify this imperative. The present study developed and applied a method for auditing the authorship on reading lists of two modules, one from science and one from social science. The analysis of reading lists found empirical basis for concerns that university curricula are dominated by white, male and Eurocentric authors, with some exceptions. The reading lists did not represent the diverse local student body but came closer to representing the demographic profile of academic staff. To interpret these findings, the paper argues that reading lists have a role to play in decolonising our universities, and offer opportunities to critique and deconstruct disciplinary boundaries.
Brannon, Tiffany N., and Andy Lin. "“Pride and prejudice” pathways to belonging: Implications for inclusive diversity practices within mainstream institutions." American Psychologist (2020).
Mainstream institutions have long been the site of social interventions to foster inclusion (e.g., Brown v. Board of Education, 1954). Drawing poetic insights from Hughes’ classic poem “I, Too” that inspired student-led movements on college campuses across the United States and internationally, we highlighted the potential of a pride and prejudice approach to foster institutional belonging, and in turn advantageous academic and health outcomes. Thus, we suggest that mainstream institutions can intervene to positively impact a number of persistent and pervasive social disparities by leveraging a pride and prejudice approach to inclusion.
García, Marilisa Jiménez. "The lens of Latinx literature." Children's Literature 47.1 (2019): 1-8.
The representation of people of color on the children’s bookshelf, both in terms of quality and circulation, has
always been a central concern to communities of color. The struggle for visibility in youth literature, and the right to tell our stories, connects with complicated notions of belonging, disenfranchisement, and citizenship.
Jenkins, Alexandra J. "Children See Race; Teachers Should Too: Challenging Bias, Stereotypes, and Prejudice Through Children's Literature." (2019).
Examines the impacts of antibias culturally responsive literature on kindergarten children and teachers through qualitative action research conducted in one classroom over the course of twelve weeks. It examines how young children in this kindergarten classroom use what they have learned from and about antibias culturally responsive literature in their daily play, writing, conversations, and interactions. I clarify the process through which kindergarteners transform in relation to the understanding of their and others’ cultures. In the research, two types of strategies were used: (1) critical research and (2) narrative inquiry. Data was collected from whole group discussions set in Socratic seminar style, interviews with a sample of students and teachers, observations with field notes, and instructional artifacts. This dissertation builds upon the argument that although young children develop biases, prejudices, and discriminatory behaviors early, using antibias culturally responsive literature, those things can be combated.

Was the Cat in the Hat Black?: the hidden racism of children's literature, and the need for diverse books by Philip Nel
Call Number: PN1009.5.R32 N47 2017
Racism is resilient, duplicitous, and endlessly adaptable, so it is no surprise that America is again in a period of civil rights activism. A significant reason racism endures is because it is structural: it's embedded in culture and in institutions. One of the places that racism hides - and thus perhaps the best place to oppose it - is books for young people. Was the Cat in the Hat Black? presents five serious critiques of the history and current state of children's literature's tempestuous relationship with both implicit and explicit forms of racism. The book fearlessly examines topics both vivid - such as The Cat in the Hat's roots in blackface minstrelsy - and more opaque, like how the children's book industry can perpetuate structural racism via whitewashed covers even while making efforts to increase diversity. Rooted in research yet written with a lively, crackling touch, Nel's book delves into years of literary criticism and recent sociological data in order to show a better way forward. Though much of what is proposed here could be endlessly argued, the knowledge that what we learn in childhood imparts both subtle and explicit lessons about whose lives matter is not debatable. The text concludes with a short and stark proposal of actions everyone - reader, author, publisher, scholar, citizen - can take to fight the biases and prejudices that infect children's literature. While Was the Cat in the Hat Black? does not assume it has all the answers to such a deeply systemic problem, its audacity should stimulate discussion and activism.

Thomas, Ebony Elizabeth. "Stories still matter: Rethinking the role of diverse children's literature today." Language Arts 94.2 (2016): 112.
Although stories matter, not all stories are equally present in today's literary landscape. Over the past decade, much has been made of the persistence of racial and ethnic achievement gaps in literacy and educational attainment. These conversations have extended from classrooms and communities to the White House, prompting inquiry about other gaps, such as in empathy, opportunities, resources, and technology. Building on their work, I have begun to theorize a corresponding imagination gap in children's literature and media. This imagination gap is caused in part by the lack of diversity in childhood and teen life depicted in children's books and media. When children grow up without seeing diverse images in the mirrors, windows, and doors of children's literature, it limits them to single stories about the world around them and ultimately affects the development of their imaginations.
Welch, Brynn F. "The Pervasive whiteness of children's literature: collective harms and consumer obligations." Social Theory and Practice (2016): 367-388.
The pervasive whiteness of children's literature contributes to the cultivation of racial biases and stereotypes while impeding the cultivation of compassion toward others. Furthermore, it makes many of the valuable goods associated with literature less accessible to children of color than to white children. Therefore, when possible, consumers have a moral obligation to purchase books (or sets of books) that include multidimensional characters of color, and act wrongly when they purchase only books that do not.

Other Resources

As I discovered who I was, a black teenager in a white-dominated world, I saw that these characters, these lives, were not mine. What I wanted, needed really, was to become an integral and valued part of the mosaic that I saw around me. -- Walter Dean Myers

Frankie Reddin. 2020. "Why we need to engage with Black literature beyond racial politics." Harper's Bazaar
It's time to stop solely viewing blackness through the prism of racism and slavery. We must engage in the fullness of Black experience - and that includes joy.
Juan Vidal: Decolonize Your Bookshelf
Books, when people come to them early enough or at the right time, have the power to be transformative. And for a lot of readers, this is the right time — witness the many anti-racist book lists circulating on social media. We must recognize the inherent value that good literature has, and the ability of language to strike an emotional chord. But someone, at some point, has to get down to the business of reading. Simply handing someone a book cannot automatically make them care.
Nicole A. Cooke. 2020. "Reading Is Only a Step on the Path to Anti-Racism." Publishers Weekly
Walter Dean Myers. 2014. “Where Are the People of Color in Children’s Books?” New York Times, Mar. 15.
We Need Diverse Books
A grassroots organization of children’s book lovers that advocates essential changes in the publishing industry, aiming to help produce and promote literature that reflects and honors the lives of all young people.