Suriyan Panlay RACISM IN CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN AMERICAN CHILDREN’S AND YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE Critical Approaches to Children’s Literature Series Editors Kerry Mallan Faculty of Education Children and Youth Research Ctr Kelvin Grove, Queensland, Australia Clare Bradford School of Communication and Creative Art Deakin University Burwood, Victoria, Australia Aim of the series This timely new series brings innovative perspectives to research on children’s literature It offers accessible but sophisticated accounts of contemporary critical approaches and applies them to the study of a diverse range of children’s texts – literature, film and multimedia Critical Approaches to Children’s Literature includes monographs from both internationally recognised and emerging scholars It demonstrates how new voices, new combinations of theories, and new shifts in the scholarship of literary and cultural studies illuminate the study of children’s texts More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/14930 Suriyan Panlay Racism in Contemporary African American Children’s and Young Adult Literature Suriyan Panlay Thammasat University Bangkok, Thailand Critical Approaches to Children’s Literature ISBN 978-3-319-42892-5 ISBN 978-3-319-42893-2 DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-42893-2 (eBook) Library of Congress Control Number: 2016956116 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 This work is subject to copyright All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made Cover image © RooM the Agency / Alamy Stock Photo Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland For Mum and Dad ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There is a well-known, almost culturally untranslatable word in Thai called ‘namjai’, literally referring to ‘the pouring of the heart’, typically used to describe an act of kindness one generously extends to another Upon the completion of this book, I am forever grateful for the namjai of the following kind individuals: Dr Christine Wilkie-Stibbs from Centre for Education Studies, University of Warwick, for her words of encouragement and insightful criticisms; Professor John McRae of the University of Nottingham and Professor Jonothan Neelands of the University of Warwick for their comments on the final draft; Brigitte Shull and Paloma Yannakakis from Palgrave Macmillan New  York for their interest in the project and their kind assistance throughout the publication process; my best friend Gary Rutthaporn Malayaphun and the two girls—Culi and Kaopote—for being there every step of the way My Anthony—I am glad I have found you For Dad—thank you for instilling in all of us the importance of learning For Mum (3 June 1929—4 September 2014)—thank you for the stories, all those years ago, under the night skies of southern Thailand I will carry them with me Always vii CONTENTS Introduction Internalised Racism and Critical Race Theory 19 Wounded 57 Tongue-Tied 93 Displaced 125 Triumphed 157 Conclusion 187 Index 203 ix CHAPTER Introduction 1.1 “I CRYING FOR ME WHO NO ONE NEVER HOLD BEFORE” Claireece Precious Jones or “Precious”, as she is better known in the novel, is an illiterate, obese, dark-skinned protagonist of Sapphire’s Push (1996) Precious loathes herself for being “so stupid, so ugly, worth nuffin” (p. 34) and, having been made part of a racialised landscape where an image of the self is crooked, misrepresented, she is led to believe that her existence is nothing but a “vampire sucking the system’s blood Ugly black grease to be wiped away, punish, kilt, changed, finded a job for” (p.  31) In her mind’s eye, however, she is a “beautiful chile like white chile in magazines or on toilet paper wrappers a blue-eye skinny chile whose hair is long braids, long long braids” (p. 64) Upon encountering a stranger’s kindness, Precious cries—“I crying for me who no one never hold before” (p. 18) In Sharon G.  Flake’s The Skin I’m In (1998), another young adult text explored in this book, 13-year-old Maleeka Madison is perpetually haunted by her own dark skin and African features: “Somebody said I had hair so nappy I needed a rake to comb it” (p. 13) This feeling of inferiority, unfortunately, has landed her at an inner-city school instead of a better school across town as she is threatened by “them girls [who] looked like they come out of a magazine Long, straight hair Skin the color of potato © The Author(s) 2016 S Panlay, Racism in Contemporary African American Children’s and Young Adult Literature, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-42893-2_1 S PANLAY chips and cashews and Mary Jane candies No Almond Joy-colored girls like me” (p.  39) Young Maleeka is also envious of her friend Malcolm at her school for having “a white dad and a black momma” (p. 17), with “long, straight hair [and] skin the color of a butterscotch milkshake” (p.  17) In her very own words, Malcolm is “lucky” simply because he “looks more like his dad than his mom” (p. 17) When their self-perceptions are constantly doubted and ultimately reduced to nothingness—ugly black grease to be wiped away, punish, kilt, changed, finded a job for, and when physically morphing themselves into ‘blue-eyed’ skinny children with ‘long, straight hair’ is apparently their only alternative available, Precious and Maleeka open up an old, hidden wound that, for centuries, has haunted American blacks, a wound that has often been treated, unfortunately, as their own individual psychological flaws, leaving them, as a result, in a perpetual state of self-condemnation It is the representation of this kind of experience of inferiority and its subsequent psychological devastation portrayed in both fictional and nonfictional works that has become the provenance and premise of this book Whether it is taken directly from lived reality as the one undergone by young Claudette Colvin in Phillip Hoose’s Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice (2009), a National Book Award winner for young people’s literature—“Though being smart was an asset, Claudette soon found that having light skin and straight hair was the surest key to popularity at Booker T.  Washington” (p.  22)—or channelled through fictional characters as portrayed by Precious and Maleeka, the paralleled experience is equally distressing This book is thus set up to explore, through its focus children’s and young adult (C&YA) texts, such racially silent/silenced experiences and to un-silence them Both fictional and nonfictional representations cited above have compellingly captured the life of young African American girls caught in a racial tide and harmed by self-inflicted psychological mutilations From a theoretical perspective, this type of racially and psychologically devastating experience is an example of what has been formally identified as internalised racism or internalised racial oppression or psychological slavery or a much-criticised term—racial self-hatred As a theme, internalised racism has always been explored or treated, though ‘peripherally’, by African American authors of both C&YA and adult literature Toni Morrison’s first novel, The Bluest Eye (1999), an adult book focalised through a child narrator, is arguably the first full-length novel that puts this racial issue at the centre, depicting how internalised white beauty standards or 196 S PANLAY of one’s complex identity However, based on my analysis in this book, it needs to take into its theoretical premises another equally integral element, for a more thorough analysis, and that is childhood or youth Being young and vulnerable, raced and gendered, African American children and young adults, as implied by the authors of the focus texts, are more likely and easily to be influenced and harmed by images, values and norms sanctioned by the dominant group, at the expense of their own obliteration And, as discussed in Chap 3, due to their ‘temporal immaturity and inexperience’ and their relative ‘absence of agency’ (Wilkie-Stibbs, 2008), together with the fact that these are individuals whose characters are being formed or who are in the process of becoming, children and young adults are often placed at a disadvantaged position By making childhood or youth part of its theoretical and analytical frame, this study has shown that CRT’s Intersectionality is even richer and more practical in approaching different groups of people without conflating, trivialising or oversimplifying their realities or experiences Thirdly, and most importantly, some of its major tenets, such as Voice of Colour and Counter-Storytelling, also take into consideration essential tools needed for psychic survival in a racialised landscape, ones that can help victimised individuals, as represented by young fictional characters, to identify and define themselves as subjects, not objects—a crucial step towards mental decolonisation, as well as individual and group empowerment (Collins, 2013, 2009; Hunsu, 2013; hooks, 1994a; Lorde, 1984) Also, my arguments above regarding these two tenets, which insist on contextual and historical analysis (Mutua, 2010), should help establish these C&YA texts as part of a larger network of ‘composite stories’ and ‘counter-stories’, which is not only historically significant but also integral in creating a space for resistance and agency for both the fictional and outside child Not only have these texts, as suggested by Winnifred R. Brown-Glaude (2010) regarding the current black women scholarship, helped put “the experiences of black women at the center of analysis” (p. 801), but, to reiterate Morrison’s words (1998), they have also created “social space that is psychically and physically safe” (p.  5) so that, ultimately, America can convert itself from “a racist house into a race-specific yet nonracist home” (p. 5), where, as portrayed by these young characters, African Americans can be both black and American at the same time It is also worth emphasising at this point, particularly in line with my discussion and use of CRT’s Intersectionality as part of my theoretical and analytical tool, that this study is strictly an African American experience, CONCLUSION 197 as seen through fictional representations of African American C&YA literature It would be presumptuous or unjust to extend its results to other experiences, real or fictional, undergone by other non-black minorities, or to assume its universality by conflating or oversimplifying experiences of other groups For doing so would defeat CRT’s theoretical ground and result in this literary research being theoretically ill-founded I have stressed all through this book, particularly in relation to CRT’s Differential Racialisation and Intersectionality, that each non-black minority group has been racialised in the dominant discourse in its own way, encompassing, as discussed above and elsewhere, various intersectional factors Historically, socio-politically and economically, each experience of racial injustice that each group has endured or been subjected to cannot be substituted by any other, be it physical or psychological What these characters have gone through as young African Americans is dictated or informed by an African American experience, which is distinctly different from that of other minority groups Combining their experiences as one by, as suggested by Patricia Hill Collins (2012), being tempted to “prematurely synthesize things into a tidy story” (p. 15), or by putting whites at the centre would only lead to binary thinking, not only causing members of these margninalised groups to go against each other but also diminishing their group solidarity (Delgado and Stefancic, 2012) Research from other experiences or groups, whether literary or empirical, therefore, needs to be carried out, using CRT as its theoretical frame, before any conclusion or comparison can be drawn, to avoid such pitfalls, as well as to contribute, assess or even challenge CRT’s theoretical foundation Previously in this chapter, as well as at the outset of this book, I have stated that my study is both personal and theoretically driven Whilst the personal side is what has made me vocal and seen me through, however mentally difficult the journey might be at times, it is the theoretical side that has substantiated my passion, giving this piece of literary research meaning, enriching both race and literary scholarships I have also argued earlier that my focus texts have defamiliarised the issue that has been normalised in the American racial discourse, therefore, another outcome that this book has achieved is systematically scrutinise such normalisation and offer to the reader a more balanced and fairer discourse In Telling Tales: The Pedagogy and Promise of African American Literature for Youth (1990), Professor Dianne Johnson Feeling encourages more scholarly studies on various issues surrounding African American children’s literature, one of which is its relation to African American adult 198 S PANLAY literature Like Rountree’s Just Us Girls (2008), this book is part of that scholarship By putting the two bodies of literature side by side, as I have done in each chapter, analysing and comparing their treatments of the issue of race, particularly internalised racism, this book has shown that both mirror each other, reflecting common issues affecting black lives and identities, from past to present As for their presentations, children’s literature might be presented in a more ‘distilled’ form (Anatol, 2011) only to help young readers make better sense of larger and more complex issues around them Through Gates’s (1988) Signifyin(g), it is apparent that these authors share, read, repeat, imitate, critique and revise each other’s texts, whether as a parody or pastiche, often with the distinct use of black English From Bishop’s (2012) standpoint, these socially and culturally conscious books also put cultural and historical traits at the centre, making use of African American cultural traditions to explore the relationship between fictional child characters and larger social and cultural structures in all dimensions All this is to prove that, as I have mentioned in the introduction, the great body of African American literature is made up of both C&YA and adult literature, therefore it should be treated as part of the whole, not as a distinctly separate body At the end of her Pulitzer Prize-winning Beloved (2005), an historical novel portraying the horror of slavery, as well as attempting to redefine history from the voice of everyday people who have been historically denied, Toni Morrison repeatedly injects the following sentence into her epilogue, “This is not a story to pass on” (unpaged) As her book is intended to capture the forgotten voices of those who have been “disremembered and unaccounted for” (unpaged), the reading of the words ‘to pass on’, therefore, yields only one meaning, namely ‘to avoid’, unambiguously making Beloved a story that needs to be read Like Morrison’s Beloved (2005), these C&YA novels are also not the ones to pass on As a representation of contemporary America and seen through the eye of a fictional child, these small voices or narratives matter and, as suggested by Morrison (2005) through her fictional representation and Amoko (2009), should be acknowledged and accounted for—to help America redefine and reconstruct its plural history, as well as to secure and offer its alternative future As her narrative of Celie’s triumph is drawn to a close, Alice Walker, as an author and medium, leaves her readers of The Color Purple (2004) with the following last words—“I thank everybody in this book for coming” (p. 262) I would like to thank Precious, Maleeka, Erika, Frannie, Marie, Sarah, Cathy, Tanisha, Judianne and Mare—for coming, for sharing and, CONCLUSION 199 above all, for surviving It is perhaps fitting to end this book with the following words of insight offered by Collins (2013) in her attempt to secure a place for black women and their scholarships in the twenty-first century: Individual Black Women resisted their place as objectified props and aimed to tell their stories In doing so, they crafted the dynamic, collective voice of Black feminist thought I encourage each of you to write, edit, and rewrite your own stories until they ring true to you Armed with thoughtful interpretations of our lived experiences we can collectively craft new interpretations of shared realities Imagine the possibilities for our world if we (p. 16, my italics) REFERENCES Achebe, C (2003) Home and Exile Edinburgh: Canongate Amoko, A (2009) Autobiography and Bildungsroman in African Literature In F. A Irele (ed) The Cambridge Companion to the African Novel Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 195–207 Anatol, G. L (2011) Children’s and Young Adult Literatures 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New York: Routledge INDEX A acculturation, 10, 117 Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi, 118, 160, 187, 188 Africanist idiom, 108 See also Africanist presence Africanist presence, 7, 10, 35, 44, 71, 108, 193 See also American Africanism agency, 9, 11, 14, 77, 78, 113, 116, 118, 160, 177, 183, 191, 196 See also resistance alienation, 48, 68, 101, 190 colonial, 101 America contemporary, 8, 13, 36, 41, 44, 45, 50, 58, 61, 72, 74, 96, 103, 104, 113, 118, 120, 131, 133, 135–7, 146, 148, 150, 161, 174, 176, 178, 179, 181, 183, 188–90, 192, 194, 198 desegregated, 11, 13, 19, 33, 47, 48, 126, 128, 130, 138, 141, 144, 151, 172, 179 post-civil rights, 11, 13, 15, 126, 127, 129, 144, 150, 151, 179 post-racial, 74, 103, 151 raceless, 28, 103, 117, 118, 131 racialised, 3, 5, 6, 28, 29, 38, 41, 69, 72, 97, 103, 113, 120, 134, 148, 179, 188, 192 segregated, 47, 48, 95, 126, 128, 141 American Africanism, 35, 36, 44, 58, 71, 108, 193 See also Africanist presence Anatol, Giselle Liza, 3, 6, 10, 49, 198 Angelou, Maya, 22, 27, 135, 143 antennae collapse of, 108 Anzaldúa, Gloria, 98, 104–6, 108 Ashcroft, Bill, 33, 42, 71, 72, 99–101, 120 Note: Page number followed by n denote notes © The Author(s) 2016 S Panlay, Racism in Contemporary African American Children’s and Young Adult Literature, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-42893-2 203 204 INDEX B Bakhtin, Makhail, 166, 167, 175 Bang, 8, 13, 44, 47, 126, 136 Barthes, Roland, 71, 102, 166, 182 beauty queue, 66 Bildungsroman, 44, 45 binary opposition, 26, 34, 35, 102 Bishop, Rudine Sims, 3, 6, 10, 11, 49, 198 See also Rudine Sims black English vernacular, 14, 167 See also black tongue blackness, 26, 35, 46, 64, 65, 83–5, 87, 99, 105, 108, 114, 130, 137 black tongue, 14, 27, 96, 100, 101, 103, 105, 106, 108, 114, 170, 173, 183, 191 See also black English vernacular body gendered, 77 genderised, 71 raced, 77 racialised, 139 Bradford, Clare, 7, 23, 39, 42, 58, 71, 72, 77, 163, 164, 178, 181, 183, 192 Bronx Masquerade, 3, 8, 12, 14, 37, 44, 47, 48, 58, 65, 66, 85, 158, 172, 190 Brown Girl Dreaming, 8, 13, 14, 33, 44, 47, 48, 126, 128, 132, 145, 159, 178 Brown v Board of Education, 32, 125, 130, 131, 135, 136, 145, 147 C character(s) See also child fictional, 2, 6, 11–13, 27, 58, 59, 72, 75, 76, 79, 88, 95, 126, 128, 148, 161, 191, 193 ontological, 27, 43, 126 child See also character(s) fictional, 3, 4, 8, 9, 13, 21, 23, 43, 45, 49, 50, 151, 188, 198 ontological, 43, 77, 126 childhood, 8, 38, 43, 76–8, 109, 137, 150, 180, 195, 196 See also youth child-outsiderness, See also WilkieStibbs, Christine Chinua, Achebe, 134, 160 civil rights, 5, 8, 29, 39, 44, 104, 125–7, 129, 130, 144–8, 162, 177, 194 class, 6, 23, 25, 30, 37, 45, 64, 68, 70, 81, 83, 85, 97, 109, 110, 148, 159, 165, 171–3, 195 Collins, Patricia Hill, 7, 8, 21, 25, 30, 32, 33, 36, 37, 40, 43, 58, 60, 62–5, 67, 68, 72, 75, 76, 78, 81, 82, 84, 88, 148, 164, 195–7, 199 colonialism, 24, 33, 34, 36, 39, 82, 88, 99, 163, 173 colonisation, 24, 27, 37, 58, 68, 120, 144 mental, 24, 120 color-fetish, 21 (See also internalised racism) colourblindness, 131 colour caste system, 12, 21, 81, 89 (see also internalised racism) colourism, 12, 21, 26, 46, 47, 81, 84, 89 See also internalised racism composite stories, 9, 48, 158, 161, 176, 177, 183, 189, 191, 196 Conrad, Joseph, 24 cosmopolitanism, 111, 112 counter-stories, 9, 40, 174, 176, 177, 181, 191, 192, 196 See also composite stories; re-authoring counter-storytelling, 6, 14, 30, 39–41, 148, 158, 161, 162, 176, 183, 191–3, 196 See also tenets INDEX Critical Race Theory (CRT), 4–7, 12, 19–50, 58–68, 74, 88, 94, 95, 99, 113, 114, 127, 130–8, 148, 151, 158, 161–78, 188, 191, 193–5, 197 criticism, 30, 41, 46, 114, 146, 165, 178 race-based, 30 CRT See Critical Race Theory (CRT) culture dominant, 21, 39, 58, 75, 80, 105, 163, 164 postmodern, 97, 112, 121 C&YA See literature D Davis, Kiri, 66, 72 Davis, Tanita S., 8, 9, 13, 14, 19, 22, 44, 47, 94, 95, 100, 105, 113, 117–19, 135, 145, 158, 173, 178, 179 decolonisation, 6, 144, 146, 148, 196 See also psychic conversion mental, 6, 148, 196 defensive othering, 22, 86, 87, 89, 106 dehistoricisation, 70, 108 Delgado, Richard, 5, 8, 9, 29–32, 36–41, 58, 63, 64, 67–9, 75, 76, 78, 82, 84, 88, 127, 131, 148, 161–4, 174–6, 181, 183, 188, 193, 195, 197 devaluation, 15, 144 Differential Racialisation, 5, 6, 12, 29, 30, 36–7, 58, 61, 63, 95, 99, 120, 193, 195, 197 See also tenets discourse critical, 4, 23, 45, 50 dominant, 23, 46, 57, 63, 67, 72, 75, 82, 84–6, 111, 114, 144, 161, 170, 174–6, 183, 191, 192, 197 hegemonic, 177 205 social, 9, 23 discrimination, 12, 27, 41, 46, 60, 61, 63, 65, 68, 81, 89, 133, 136, 190 dislocation, 11, 33, 69, 127, 138, 140, 141, 148, 151, 179, 194 See also displacement displacement, 11, 33, 76, 82, 127, 138–51, 177, 179, 194, 195 See also dislocation diversity, 49, 72, 114, 160, 166, 175, 182 docu-novels, 42, 189 doll tests, 133, 134 double consciousness, 74, 98, 175 See also two dimensions Du Bois, W E B., 8, 65, 74, 75, 88, 98, 101, 160, 175, 176 E Ellison, Ralph, 26, 35, 36, 72, 88, 104, 180, 181, 183 empowerment group, 6, 40, 148, 196 individual, 6, 40, 148, 150, 161, 188, 194, 196 essentialism, 38, 39, 163, 164 racial, 38, 163 ethnicity, 39, 109, 110, 163 ethnocentrism, 175, 176, 183, 191 everyday racism, 6, 12, 30, 31–2, 58, 67–9, 74, 95, 106, 120, 193 See also tenets exile, 7, 13, 106, 127, 134, 138–40, 142, 146, 151, 160 F Fanon, Frantz, 6, 26, 33, 34, 36, 57, 58, 74, 75, 93, 99, 101, 108, 130, 174, 175 Feathers, 3, 8, 13, 14, 19, 33, 44, 47, 48, 126–9, 136, 138, 140–3, 145–7, 149–51, 158, 172, 177, 179 206 INDEX feminism, 7, 62, 112 fiction, 4, 11, 15, 23, 33, 35, 47–9, 72, 97, 104, 120, 135, 150, 189, 192 Flake, Sharon G., 1, 3, 8, 11–14, 19, 22, 27, 32, 37, 39, 44, 46, 47, 58, 66, 69, 73, 74, 79, 83, 87, 94, 96, 98, 100, 101, 105, 115, 117, 126, 132, 135–7, 158, 159, 165, 169–71, 173 flaws psychological, 2, 4, 20, 68, 83, 89, 126, 147 structural, 13, 76, 151, 195 fluidity, 111, 135, 193 foreignisation, 7, 144, 151 Foucault, Michel, 7, 110, 170, 176, 183, 192 G Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., 7, 9, 10, 44, 47, 144, 157, 158, 165–71, 178, 183, 188–90, 198 gaze black, 59, 75, 85 oppositional, 85, 147 white, 15, 24, 27, 46, 64, 69, 74, 75, 85, 87, 115, 144, 173, 191 gender, 5, 6, 8, 9, 23, 30, 37, 38, 43, 45, 47, 59, 64, 76, 78, 109, 110, 133, 148, 159, 195 Gramsci, Antonio, Grimes, Nikki, 3, 8, 14, 22, 37, 44, 47, 48, 58, 65, 66, 85, 158, 171, 172, 190 group dominant, 3, 5, 21, 22, 29, 32, 36, 37, 42, 61, 63, 68, 69, 76, 82, 86–8, 114, 136, 158, 163, 173, 174, 177, 181, 183, 191, 196 subordinate, 22, 88 Guy, Rosa, 3, 8, 12, 14, 22, 32, 37, 44, 47, 58, 65–7, 79, 84–6, 88, 114, 119, 132, 135, 146, 158 H hegemony cultural, 100, 102, 109 ideological, 102 linguistic, 93, 95, 96, 100, 109, 159 hierarchy colour, 25, 58, 81 cultural, 33 race-based, 24, 60 history African American, 116, 119, 145, 177, 183, 189 American, 9, 23, 43, 44, 48, 116–19, 125, 145, 148, 171, 177, 183, 189 monumental, 9, 116, 118, 119, 177 new collective, 14, 158, 178, 183, 188, 190, 192, 194 hooks, bell, 4, 7, 8, 19–22, 24–7, 31, 36, 37, 40, 41, 43, 46, 58, 60–2, 64–6, 74, 81–4, 89, 101, 104, 119, 133, 135, 137, 144–8, 177, 196 Hoose, Phillip, Hypodescent, 25 See also one drop rule Rule of, 25 I identity black, 26, 45, 49 cultural, 10, 114, 140 identity politics, 64, 94, 110, 112, 113, 120, 134 See also postmodernism ideology(ies) INDEX hegemonic, 26, 62, 63, 67, 74, 76 linguistic, 95, 96, 98, 101, 117 racist, 20, 24–7, 58, 61–3, 65, 67, 69, 71, 73, 76, 79, 80, 98, 101, 129, 158, 160, 178 I Hadn’t Meant to Tell You This, 3, 8, 13, 14, 33, 44, 47, 48, 126–8, 138, 140, 141, 146, 149–51, 158, 177, 179 image controlling, 12, 23, 36, 37, 58–68, 75, 88, 111, 193 disparaging, 60, 61, 88 image maker(s), 11 imagination collective, 15, 24, 46, 62, 63, 75, 82, 84, 87, 89 white, 23, 65 imperialism, 34, 57, 58, 82, 101, 120 indoctrination, 21 inferiority, 1–3, 24, 26, 34, 62, 68, 69, 73, 74, 78, 86, 99, 107, 115, 142, 188 institutionalized dehumanization, 26, 36 See also Ellison, Ralph integration, 28, 33, 110, 121, 129, 134, 140 Interest Convergence, 6, 13, 30, 32–3, 114, 127, 130, 134, 136, 137, 151, 193–5 See also tenets internalisation, 34, 39, 60, 64, 74, 132, 163 internalised racism, 2–4, 6–9, 11–15, 19–50, 58, 59, 64, 66, 67–82, 84, 86–9, 94, 97, 98, 105, 120, 127, 133, 135, 137, 146–8, 150, 151, 164, 174, 179, 180, 183, 188–93, 198 See also racism Intersectionality, 6, 8, 12, 30, 37–8, 43, 58, 64, 67, 76, 78, 148, 193, 195–7 (see also tenets) intertextuality, 14, 46, 47, 69, 84, 158, 166, 167, 171, 172, 182 See also Signifyin(g) 207 intra-racial racism, 12, 21, 26, 46, 47, 58, 80–9, 95, 190 See also internalised racism invisibility, 3, 45, 70, 73, 113, 149, 168, 170, 182, 188 J Jameson, Fredric, 94, 110–12, 116–18, 121, 134 Johnson-Feelings, Dianne, 3, 5, 10, 70 K King, Martin Luther, Jr., 8, 125, 130, 149, 178 Kristeva, Julia, 7, 13, 127, 138–40, 144, 151, 166 L landscape literary, 6, 30, 41, 71, 102, 171, 193 mental, 35 racialised, 1, 6, 28, 45, 84, 88, 146, 148, 158, 180, 196 language, 60, 70–2, 81, 87, 93, 94, 98–109, 113–15, 117, 119–21, 140, 149, 160, 166, 167, 174, 182 See also Ashcroft, Bill; Barthes, Roland; Bradford, Clare dominant, 99, 100 law, 4, 5, 27, 28, 30, 61, 68, 84, 106, 130, 131 legal studies, See also studies Lester, Julius, 3, 8, 12, 22–4, 37, 44, 57, 61 life stories, 14, 159, 190, 191 See also life writing life writing, 14, 45, 190 See also life stories 208 INDEX literacy, 45, 46, 48, 70, 71, 73, 76, 159, 163, 164, 168, 170, 171, 195 literature adult, 2, 3, 7, 10, 45, 67, 158, 172, 182, 183, 193, 198 African American, 3–5, 7, 10, 11, 20, 166, 167, 170, 197, 198 African American C&YA, 3, 6, 11, 30, 31, 45, 49, 50, 175, 194, 197 children’s, 7, 10–12, 26, 41, 42, 49, 71, 127, 149, 172, 179–82, 197, 198 children’s and young adult, 45, 158 contemporary, 55, 155, Lorde, Audre, 22, 33, 39, 41, 73, 80–2, 87, 104, 106, 108, 135, 148, 164, 196 M MacCann, Donnarae, 7, 12, 26, 41, 42 majoritarian story, 40, 162, 163, 170, 191 mammy, 62, 63, 71 manifestations linguistic, 11, 12, 95, 98 psychological, 11, 88, 188 Mare’s War, 8, 9, 13, 14, 19, 44, 47, 48, 94, 95, 100, 117–19, 145, 158, 173, 178, 179 massification, 110, 111, 121 Michelle, Alexander, 28, 126 miscegenation, 25, 81 Morrison, Toni, 2, 7, 10, 19, 21, 22, 26, 28, 31, 34–6, 38, 44, 45, 47, 58–61, 64, 66–8, 71, 78, 82–4, 94, 95, 97, 98, 100–3, 108, 113, 115–20, 125, 126, 129, 134–7, 142, 145–51, 157–9, 165–7, 169–71, 176, 177, 183, 189, 190, 192, 193, 196, 198, Mosley, Walter, 8, 12, 22–4, 43, 44, 61 movement(s) black power, 132, 133, 144, 146, 174 civil rights, 8, 29, 39, 125–7, 129, 144, 147, 162, 177 English-only, 109, 111, 133 multiculturalism, 33, 49, 113, 131, 133–5 Music of Summer, The, 3, 8, 12, 14, 22, 32, 37, 44, 47, 58, 66, 67, 84–6, 88, 114, 132, 158 N narrative grand, 9, 116, 118, 126, 163, 189 master, 116, 163, 165, 173, 174, 177 testimonial, 159 narrative strategies, 4, 11 narrator(s) authoritative, 9, 13, 23, 96, 120, 161, 176, 192 O Obama, Barack, 125, 130, 131, 151, 152, 187 One Drop Rule, 25 See also hypodescent oppression multiple forms of, 37, 38, 76, 112, 195 optimism paradigmatic, 14, 149–51, 158, 178–83 othering linguistic, 105, 107, 108 racial, 101, 102, 120 INDEX 209 P patriarchy, 60, 109, 145 See also white supremacy perspectives literary, 7, 158, 178 political, racial, 2, social, perspectivism, 78 Plessy v Ferguson, 131 politics, 4, 9, 13, 28, 32, 37, 44, 45, 64, 85, 86, 94, 95, 110, 112–14, 120, 126, 131, 132, 134, 136, 137, 146, 147, 151, 174–6, 182 postmodernism, 10, 95, 109, 112, 114, 116, 120, 134, 176, 190 postracialism, 28 See also racelessness power See also language hegemonic, 42 institutionalised, privilege(s), 8, 21, 25, 43, 61, 78, 81, 87, 106, 109, 112, 119, 168, 177, 195 white(s), 20 property, 5, 106 psychic conversion, 6, 86, 144, 173 See also psychic survival psychic survival, 6, 148, 196 psychological slavery, 2, 20 (see also internalised racism) psychology, 4, 13, 22, 33, 131, 137, 144, 148, 151 Push, 1, 8, 12–15, 19, 22, 27, 32, 37, 44–8, 58, 63, 64, 66, 69–74, 78, 79, 89, 94, 102, 105, 106, 111–13, 132, 158, 159, 162, 164, 165, 167–9, 171, 172, 179, 190 100, 103, 104, 106, 109, 110, 115, 118, 120, 126, 129, 133, 135–7, 143–8, 151, 159, 160, 162, 163, 174, 176, 188, 192–8, See also racialisation; racism racelessness, 28, 103, 117, 118, 131 See also race; racism racialisation, 5, 6, 12, 15, 29, 30, 36, 37, 58, 63, 67, 76, 95, 99, 120, 126, 135, 144, 187, 188, 193, 195, 197 racism, 2, 19–50, 58, 94, 126, 162, 188, See also internalised racism trauma of, 98, 113 reality borrowed, 105 historical, 23 social, 9, 71, 102, 193 re-authoring, 191 See also composite stories; counter-stories; self-authorisation representation(s) fictional, 4, 20, 21, 38, 58, 84, 95, 97, 114, 127, 178, 197, 198 nonfictional, 2, 27 research, 4–6, 9, 11, 20, 22, 30, 43, 47, 49, 66, 97, 132–5, 176, 188, 192, 193, 197 See also studies literary, 4–6, 22, 30, 188, 193, 197 resistance, 9, 11, 116, 118, 173, 177, 191, 196 See also agency Rich, Adrienne, 98, 109, 115, 119 Rountree, Wendy, 3, 5, 10, 22, 44, 45, 47, 85, 198 Rudine Sims, 3, 7, 11, 49 R race, 3–6, 8, 9, 12, 15, 19–50, 58, 60, 61, 63–5, 67, 72, 75–8, 80, 81, 83–7, 95, 97, 99, S Said, Edward, 7, 13, 23, 30, 34–6, 41, 42, 58, 77, 82, 118, 127, 138–40, 146, 151, 182, 190 210 INDEX Sapphire, 1, 3, 8, 12–14, 19, 22, 27, 32, 37, 44, 45, 47, 48, 58, 63, 66, 69, 74, 75, 78, 79, 81, 83, 89, 94, 102, 105–8, 111, 113, 114, 132, 135, 158, 159, 162, 164, 165, 167–74, 190 self, 1, 19, 58, 94, 129, 158, 188, See also postmodernism dialogical, 175 self-authorisation, 164 self-definition(s), 39, 64, 71, 72 self-hatred, self-loath, 2, 8, 15, 20, 27, 36, 43, 69, 74–6, 78, 80, 83, 84, 101, 102, 108, 132, 135, 195 See also internalised racism racial, 2, 20, 36, 74, 84, 101, 102, 132, 135, 195 self-translation, 173, 174 sexism, 37, 45, 48, 60, 64 sexual orientation, 6, 10, 30, 37, 64, 76, 109, 148, 195 signifyin(g), 7, 10, 14, 44, 46, 47, 84, 158, 165–7, 169, 171, 182, 183, 198 See also intertextuality Sims, Rudine, 3, 7, 11, 49 See also Bishop, Rudine Sims skin I’m in, The, 1, 3, 8, 12–14, 19, 32, 37, 39, 44, 46, 47, 58, 66, 69, 73, 78, 94, 96, 100, 115, 132, 158–60, 165, 169, 171, 179, 187–99 slavery, 2, 8, 20, 23–7, 44, 57, 58, 61–3, 65, 81, 82, 96, 101, 115, 133, 160, 198 Smith, Katharine Capshaw, 3, 6, 10, 138 social construction of race, 6, 12, 33–6, 58, 63, 67, 84, 86, 95, 99, 120, 135, 193 See also tenets Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty, 112, 176 Stefancic, Jean, 5, 8, 9, 25, 27–32, 36–41, 58, 63, 64, 67–9, 75, 76, 78, 82, 84, 88, 127, 131, 148, 161–4, 175, 188, 193, 195, 197 stereotypes, 10, 20, 22, 37, 39, 60, 64, 86–8, 163 stories See also counter-stories; re-authoring balance of, 160, 161, 192 composite, 9, 48, 158, 161, 176, 177, 183, 189, 191, 196 people’s, 176 personal, 176, 189 studies African American, 7, 62 cultural, 7, 22 legal, postcolonial, 7, 173 superiority, 3, 20, 60, 99, 102, 107, 108, 188 symbolic inclusion, 32, 33 T tenets, 6, 7, 12, 14, 30–2, 36, 41, 58, 67, 95, 99, 120, 135, 148, 158, 161, 183, 191, 193, 194, 196 texts, 2–5, 7–15, 20, 23, 27, 32, 36, 39, 41–50, 58, 61, 66, 71, 72, 76, 77, 85, 89, 94–8, 102, 108, 109, 111, 120, 126, 127, 131, 132, 148, 150, 151, 158, 161, 163, 165–7, 170, 171, 177–83, 188–98 literary, 5, 9, 11, 14, 23, 36, 43–5, 49, 50, 77, 94, 95, 108, 126, 158, 161, 167, 171, 178, 179, 181–3, 192, 194 theories cultural, 110 literary, 10, 44 postcolonial, 7, 173 three categories of books See also Rudine Sims culturally conscious, 7, 11, 49, 167, 198 melting pot, 49 social conscience, 7, 49 INDEX translation, 174 See also studies; theories cultural, 173 two dimensions, 74, 99, 175 U un-silencing, V value(s), 10, 20, 21, 42, 64, 72, 76, 88, 99, 143, 144, 146, 167, 180, 196 violence, 25, 27, 37, 46–8, 63, 97, 126, 136, 137, 142, 144, 170 See also hegemony; language linguistic, 32, 70, 76, 94, 95, 114, 120, 174, 194 voice(s), 6, 11, 14, 22, 30, 38–40, 48, 67, 85, 100, 102, 110, 142, 143, 148, 158–68, 170, 174–6, 179, 181–3, 189–94, 196, 198, 199 authorial, 9, 13, 23, 96, 120, 161, 176, 192 Voice of Colour, 6, 14, 30, 38, 39, 148, 158, 161, 164, 183, 191, 193, 194, 196 (see also tenets) W Walker, Alice, 10, 22, 24, 27, 44, 57–9, 61, 63, 64, 135, 158, 165, 168, 169, 172, 198 wa Thiong’o, Ngugi, 58, 99, 101, 120, 175 welfare mother(s), 36, 62, 66, 68, 75, 76 West, Cornel, 65, 66, 75, 77, 97, 110, 112, 118, 121, 144 white imagination, 23, 65 211 whiteness idealised, 3, 19, 85, 103, 127, 129, 147, 150, 158, 160, 179 linguistic, 105 (see also (Anzaldúa, Gloria)) white superiority, 20, 60 See also white supremacy white supremacist aesthetics, 19, 65, 85 white supremacist thinking, 7, 20, 24, 26, 37, 46, 60, 61, 77, 83, 84, 86, 132, 135, 146–8 white supremacy, 4, 7, 12, 26, 41, 60, 146 See also white superiority Who Am I Without Him?, Wilkie-Stibbs, Christine, 7, 42, 43, 76, 77, 97, 118, 126, 149, 166, 171, 172, 178, 179, 182, 189, 190, 196 Woodson, Jacqueline, 3, 8, 11, 13, 14, 19, 22, 33, 44, 47, 48, 126–30, 132, 135–8, 140–51, 158, 159, 172, 177–9 worldliness, 41, 42, 77 wounds linguistic, 13, 97, 120 psychological, 12, 32, 88, 102, 105, 164, 174, 190 X X, Malcolm, 6, 125, 144 Y Yancy, George, 3, 22, 103, 115, 137 young readers, 6, 42, 47, 145, 150, 172, 179, 180, 198 youth, 8, 38, 43, 76, 78, 136, 195–7 ... Johnson-Feelings (1990), encouraging more scholars to study the relationship between African American children’s literature and adult literature As a scholar of both African American children’s and adult. .. other” (p. 325) The INTRODUCTION law, as Suggs suggests, is central and omnipresent in African American literature, dictating and determining “the creation of African American racial and personal identity”... study of children’s texts More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/14930 Suriyan Panlay Racism in Contemporary African American Children’s and Young Adult Literature