I will not be posting on diversity in MG & YA fiction again for awhile. I'm tired of everybody arguing about it. And I'm tired of the time I spend going from one place to another to explain what I meant, or explain what I think, or try to make a point via email and comments when really it's always hard to do that without having something sound wrong.
I'm going to review books with diverse characters, just as I always have. I'm going to review books written by People of Color, as I always have. And I'm going to keep on reviewing books about Caucasian kids and written by Caucasian authors just as I always have. But right now as I am struggling so much to find any books at all about Native American kids for the TBD wishlists, it is beyond frustrating to be arguing with fellow book people about who is saying something wrong about diversity or who's fault it is that there aren't enough diverse books or what some random White kid will read as opposed to some random Black kid.
It's all opinions. That's all. Unless we had definitive numbers of books sales and marketing budgets then it is all and will only ever be opinion. And we aren't going to get any answers beyond our own.
I'm just tired of arguing all the many points of something so important when really, our arguments mean nothing. We're griping at each other over who is more or less right and I don't care anymore about any of that. I'm just going to try and cover excellent books that might be lost in the shuffle otherwise.
Otherwise, quite frankly, I'm going to lose my fucking mind.
February 5
2010
03:57 PM
Yeah, I was figuring this out from the sidelines. Actually, I first realized it when the comments at Justine's Liar post turned into arguments about whether using the word "nappy" to describe the character's hair was offensive or not. I realized then that I am not cut out for these conversations.