Kids of Color and the New American Whitewashing

browncanada:

Kids of Color and the New American Whitewashing

“Because I so rarely saw black characters in books when I was a child, I learned to relate to protagonists who didn’t look like me — but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t identify with their struggles, triumphs, etc. It did mean, however, that I started to erase aspects of myself when I read — I couldn’t consciously be black and read a lot of those books because then I’d realize there was no place for me in that imaginary realm. I didn’t pretend to be white, I just didn’t acknowledge my own erasure from the scenes that delighted me so much.”- Zetta Elliott

“All throughout my childhood and teen years, I can honestly say that I did not read a single book with characters of colour. At least not one that stands out in my memory… Every book I read depicted white protagonists. Every movie and television show I watched (with the exception of Bollywood) portrayed whiteness in its myriad of expressions. I saw white children and teens being and doing just about everything. I grew up believing that to be South Asian in a world where you were either black or white meant being invisible.” - Neesha Meminger

Source: jongdaes

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    This article is kind of long but worth a read. I’ve been thinking about this issue a lot lately. stopwhitewashing:
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    Santoine: this is the link to the full article in reference in the previous post
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