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Picture books that call slaves "servants" and show them smiling?
If more African American people had jobs in the industry, would this kind of mistake (or deliberate action) have happened?
On edit: Scholastic has apologized and taken the book off the market.
http://www.salon.com/2016/01/18/smiling_slaves_at_story_time_these_picture_books_show_why_we_need_more_diversity_in_publishing_too/
Having seen an advance copy of “A Birthday Cake for George Washington,” the children and teen book editor at Kirkus Reviews, Vicky Smith, was moved to write a preemptive apologia which nonetheless failed to notice that the illustrator, Vanessa Brantley-Newton, called the slaves “servants,” as if they just happened to be at the low end of a social hierarchy, and were “happy” to have a great job working for such a powerful man. And yet, Smith pointed out, the book’s author, Ramin Ganeshram, inadvertently gave “the lie to this statement” in an author’s note telling readers that the main historical character featured in the book, a slave named Hercules, left behind his young daughter Delia when he escaped. Smith concludes: “It’s easy to understand why Ganeshram opted to leave those details out of her primary narrative: they’re a serious downer for readers, and they don’t have anything to do with the cake. But the story that remains nevertheless shares much of what ‘A Fine Dessert’’s critics found so objectionable: it’s an incomplete, even dishonest treatment of slavery.”
Yesterday, Scholastic announced it was stopping the distribution of “A Birthday Cake for George Washington” and would accept all returns. “While we have great respect for the integrity and scholarship of the author, illustrator, and editor, we believe that, without more historical background on the evils of slavery than this book for younger children can provide, the book may give a false impression of the reality of the lives of slaves and therefore should be withdrawn,” the publisher’s statement said.
How, then, should children’s book authors and illustrators approach the subject of slavery in early American kitchens? Is it better to simply avoid the topic altogether as being inherently unsuitable for picture books? African-American culinary historian Michael W. Twitty blogs at Afroculinaria and is the author of the forthcoming book “The Cooking Gene.” He’s an expert in the history of race, slavery and American food. In an email to me, Twitty explained: “Children must learn about slavery in the United States and in the Western world in general, because, to quote the last Republican campaign, ‘We built this.'” He adds: “I think the illustrator of ‘A Fine Dessert’ meant well in depicting the role of enslaved people as part of the plantation household, but it’s the smile that confuses us. We smiled to hide our feelings. ‘We wear the mask that grins and lies.’”
The trouble is that readers who have never considered slavery from the slave’s point of view will tend to interpret those smiles as benign, irrespective of whether the illustrator intended them as smiles of mother-daughter love, or smiles of pleasure at a job well done. But “our people weren’t eating that dessert,” Twitty asserts. “Being enslaved wasn’t a job or a joy, it was being a non-citizen and a non-human. I think for those who have worn the period clothing and done period cooking on plantations, it’s easy to see how such a rosy depiction can later translate at best to ignorance and at worst indignant surprise at the sensitivity Black Americans express at the depiction of their past as a mercy.”
Yesterday, Scholastic announced it was stopping the distribution of “A Birthday Cake for George Washington” and would accept all returns. “While we have great respect for the integrity and scholarship of the author, illustrator, and editor, we believe that, without more historical background on the evils of slavery than this book for younger children can provide, the book may give a false impression of the reality of the lives of slaves and therefore should be withdrawn,” the publisher’s statement said.
How, then, should children’s book authors and illustrators approach the subject of slavery in early American kitchens? Is it better to simply avoid the topic altogether as being inherently unsuitable for picture books? African-American culinary historian Michael W. Twitty blogs at Afroculinaria and is the author of the forthcoming book “The Cooking Gene.” He’s an expert in the history of race, slavery and American food. In an email to me, Twitty explained: “Children must learn about slavery in the United States and in the Western world in general, because, to quote the last Republican campaign, ‘We built this.'” He adds: “I think the illustrator of ‘A Fine Dessert’ meant well in depicting the role of enslaved people as part of the plantation household, but it’s the smile that confuses us. We smiled to hide our feelings. ‘We wear the mask that grins and lies.’”
The trouble is that readers who have never considered slavery from the slave’s point of view will tend to interpret those smiles as benign, irrespective of whether the illustrator intended them as smiles of mother-daughter love, or smiles of pleasure at a job well done. But “our people weren’t eating that dessert,” Twitty asserts. “Being enslaved wasn’t a job or a joy, it was being a non-citizen and a non-human. I think for those who have worn the period clothing and done period cooking on plantations, it’s easy to see how such a rosy depiction can later translate at best to ignorance and at worst indignant surprise at the sensitivity Black Americans express at the depiction of their past as a mercy.”
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