don't do that

Ain’t nobody writing about this

harrietsdaughter — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 03:48:34 +0000

Ain’t nobody writing about this

… maybe the words don’t come. I’ve been thinking of not much else since I first heard about it on Tuesday. But I don’t have many words. Just a heavy heavy weight … all over. No words.

I grew up about 4 miles from this house. I don’t live there anymore.

All those women. All those dead women… in the articles I read they are bodies. Dead bodies. Corpses.

All those women. Somebody’s somebody, every one of them.

And I’ve been reading the articles… as much as I can stand. The article in the link is the first I’ve seen of mainstream media news reports that say anything about missing women.

All those women. Somebody’s somebody.

Somebody noticed they were missing.

Somebody told somebody.

But nobody looked around and said – damn, that’s an awful lot of women missing.

An awful lot of black women, from the looks of it.

All those women.

Somebody was looking for them. Looking for their mother, their sister, their daughter… their somebody.

But nobody listened to them.

Or at least, nobody saw a pattern.

Greeting Card Emergency – Coming Out Day Edition

harrietsdaughter — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 02:51:53 +0000

Watch till the end.

“There’s nothing ambiguous about that….”

harrietsdaughter — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 11:59:17 +0000

Fortunately I don’t go to movies anyway.

I. Love. This.

harrietsdaughter — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 19:40:47 +0000

You Need To Comb Your Hair

via Renee

OMG the president totally just told my kids to stay in school

harrietsdaughter — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 20:54:31 +0000

and to take responsibility for their actions.

Look – a shiny new school year

harrietsdaughter — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 03:33:42 +0000

Tomorrow is September 1st and I will be back in the classroom.

And this makes me happy.

That is all.

Update – New Cover for Liar

harrietsdaughter — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 01:23:04 +0000

A New Look for Liar

Bloomsbury Children’s Books has told Publishers Weekly exclusively that it will change the controversial cover of Justine Larbalestier’s Liar, which is coming out this October. Bloggers, commentors and the author herself had criticized the publisher’s choice of a white girl with long, straight tresses for a novel about an African-American girl with “nappy” hair.

The new cover:

On the appearance of breaking into houses that one lives in

harrietsdaughter — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 01:42:44 +0000

Interesting discussions going on all over the internets spinning off of the whole Gatesgate thing. I won’t say anything here that hasn’t been said by now (which is not to say there is nothing new to say, maybe, but – I got nothing new).

But I think of this. I am the mother of 4 black children, 3 of them sons, two of them raised to adulthood but still…

The comment thread to this post made me remember – years ago when living in another state with all 4 kids still at home. The kids were not good at keeping up with keys. On one occasion one of the boys – a teenager at the time, bigger than me by then, did not have a key and didn’t want to wait until someone with a key got home so…. he busted out a window and essentially broke in. Fortunately no one saw him or if they did, didn’t call the police.

I’m glad about that.

ETA: More

Whitewashed

harrietsdaughter — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 15:31:50 +0000

For much of my childhood, I remember my mother writing. She had scads of notebooks around, filled with her handwriting that I still could identify anywhere. She had a fascinating electric typewriter (yes, I said typewriter – remember those?) that I learned the qwerty keyboard on and played with at any available opportunity. I remember when she got a new typewriter and the old one became mine – oh joy! Mom wrote short stories and articles and submitted them to various magazines and other places. For a while she worked on a novel, and by then I was old enough to be her proofreader and we’d talk about the story as it grew. By then I was trying my hand at writing some of my own stuff. Mom is surely the number one reason I love words and why I idolize women of color who dare to write.

Mom did get a children’s book published. It was a sweet little story about my brother and I and our (my) pet bird. The things that happened in the story really happened, and she used our real names. I remember how very very exciting it was when a box with some of the published books came to our home. I was over the moon thrilled and so very proud. Some of my pride was misplaced, though – I think I was more jazzed about seeing my very own name in a real live book than I was by the fact that my mom had written it and gotten it published. Sorry about that, mom – I was ten.

The thing about the book, though. It were illustrated, simple line drawings, kids, parents and a parakeet. The parakeet, for whom the book was named (and the protagonist of the story, if you must know – yes, I was a secondary character BUT a character nonetheless) was on the cover of the book. But the people in the story were clearly white people. That was the first time I learned that authors have little or no control over what the book cover or illustrations look like. And of course that was one of my first lessons about the assumption of whiteness, whiteness as the “norm” for humanity, and then the more nuanced lessons about whiteness as “what people really want” or “what people really prefer” as in books with black people on the cover don’t sell, which is not to be confused with “black people don’t read” and/or “black people don’t buy books.”

Well.

All that to bring this to your attention. (h/t ABW and others)

Justine Larbalestier is a young adult fiction writer, and her newest publication, Liar, is about a dark skinned, nappy headed mixed race girl.

This is the U.S. cover of Liar.

You can read Justine’s take in full here.

Here’s a snippet:

Covers change how people read books

Liar is a book about a compulsive (possibly pathological) liar who is determined to stop lying but finds it much harder than she supposed. I worked very hard to make sure that the fundamentals of who Micah is were believable: that she’s a girl, that she’s a teenager, that she’s black, that she’s USian. One of the most upsetting impacts of the cover is that it’s led readers to question everything about Micah: If she doesn’t look anything like the girl on the cover maybe nothing she says is true. At which point the entire book, and all my hard work, crumbles.

No one in Australia has written to ask me if Micah is really black.

I get that publishers want writers to write, and they most, if not all of the time, writers take a back seat to cover design and other illustrations. But to change the visual representation of the way the author describes characters, especially when, as Justine says, it is important to the way the book is read – well, who does that serve, really? The Australian cover, by the way, does not give a visual representation of Micah, the main character.

I’m gonna see if I can get the Australian version of the book.

Best thing I’ve read today

harrietsdaughter — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 16:14:58 +0000

From here – go read the whole post.

I care about what racism is doing to little girls with Afro puffs sitting at the mirror and wishing for straight hair. I care about little boys that can’t quite imagine their dreams coming true because of the color of their skin. In these discussions about race and representation? It’s not about the dominant culture finding us worthwhile. It’s about making sure that our children can find themselves worthwhile. It’s about being able to see our reality instead of the ugly lies that pass as the stereotype of the week. So yes, while it is a TV show, it isn’t *just* a TV show. They say money is the root of all evil, and I suppose that’s technically true. But racism is the toxin in the water flowing over those roots and unless and until we manage to purify the stream, evil has more than a toe hold in this world. It will make sure the Tree of Life continues to bear a bitter fruit that poisons us all. Combating it will require more than laws, pretty words, and the occasional step forward in the recognition of racism. It’s hard internal work that we all have to do, even if we’re not all doing the same kind of work.

And… coming soon – a post about why I haven’t been posting. Well, maybe I’ll get that post done.