“Dear Editors, You’re in luck that I’m at least writing this letter to you in my best handwriting because I am very angry at you. Why should it not be prohibited to write ‘Neger’ in children’s books? One has to be able to put oneself in somebody else’s shoes. Because my father is Senegalese, and he is a very dark shade of brown; I am café-au-lait brown. Just imagine if you were Afro-German and lived in Germany. You’re a newspaper reader and unsuspectingly buy the ZEIT of January 17th 2013. Suddenly, you note the article ‘The Little Witch Hunt.’ This is when you read that the word ‘Neger’ is supposed to be deleted from children’s books, and that this would allegedly spoil the children’s books. I find it totally shit that this word should remain in children’s books if it were up to you. You cannot imagine how I feel when I have to read or hear that word. It is simply very, very terrible. My father is not a ‘Neger’ [lightning bolt sign] nor am I. This is also true for all other Africans. Right. That was my opinion. This word should be deleted from children’s books. Yours, Ishema Kane, 9 1/2 years old P.S.: You’re welcome to send me a response. [more lightning bolt signs] <3”
—9 1/2-year-old Ishema Kane schooling the editors of the German newspaper ZEIT on their defense of the German equivalent of the n-word in children’s books. (via stoptalk)
“I think framing the discourse about transracial adoption as a “well do you think you’d better off if you weren’t adopted?!”… or “at least you got a home rather than living in poverty/the slums/an orphanage/foster care!”… type discussion is really fucked up, as it places the onus for reconciling children needing homes with the inherent problems of white people adopting POC kids on the adoptees. It completely lets the white people who actually make the choice to adopt POC kids off the hook and absolves them of any responsibility to do so in a way that causes the least amount of harm to the child. No discussion about transracial adoption should be centered on whether or not I’m sufficiently grateful for having been adopted. It’s completely irrelevant & parents who expect their adopted children to feel some sort of gratitude toward them shouldn’t be adopting in the first place. The discussion that we should be having is why are white folks allowed to adopt POC children regardless of whether they’re sufficiently educated/prepared to rear the child in a way that won’t do lasting harm. Why is it that when actual transracial adoptees and other POC attempt to highlight the problems with white people raising children of color, the first response of most people is to essential tell us to “shut up & be grateful for what you got!” I’m glad I was adopted because if I wasn’t I more than likely would have ended up in foster care going in and out of white peoples’ homes anyway. I would have been better off, though, if I’d had parents who didn’t ascribe to color-blind racist ideology (as do 90% of white people in the U.S.) but rather chose to educate themselves about the struggles inherent of brining up a child of color in a deeply white supremacist society. ”
—Dark Jez
Hi Tumblrverse
If anyone knows of some good resources for getting employment and or further education (college or vocation) for Autistic teens (specifically Autistic teens of color) please let me know.
My cousin is autistic he is 15 and just finished 9th grade today!
I am so proud of him, and I want to make sure he stays on the great path he is on.
He does some work in his school he as he is in the special needs program which helps with all kinds of things like getting summer jobs and what not while he is in school which is great.
However I want to be able to help prepare him for college or career training once he graduates high school. Information about scholarships and other programs would be great.
So if anyone has any info hit up my inbox with links that would be swell.
Thanks =)
like do people forget that children of color are conditioned and socialized the day they are born - especially if they live in white dominated spaces (so like almost all places) or those policed by white folks/institutions - to know how to behave in public?
like that’s not to say that kids of color don’t be acting wild and off the chain sometimes but for the most part they know how to behave in order to survive, not be arrested, shot, harassed by cops/white folks
it’s true
a quick thought on children of color + racism/adulthood
Supposed to be working on this application, nope.
Anyway, yesterday (two days ago?) I was talking to Sam (morethanlost) about this post and somehow it turned into a discussion about children of color and racism and how children of color pretty much are adults for most, if not all of their lives, because racism/prejudice are adult concepts.
I mean, I don’t know if every COC has ever had the “racism” talk, but I didn’t. Most of that had to do with my parents being immigrants (more on that later) and the sense of culture clash that came with that, but I still ended up knowing about racism anyway through experience. My parents didn’t have to sit me down and have the “sometimes people will treat you differently b/c of your skin” talk because I knew that by the time I was five. I knew so many things about racism when I was a kid, even if I couldn’t properly name it or articulate it to my parents/other adults.
I mean, try to explain to concept of racism to fucking adults sometimes, and they don’t even get it (granted they may be white or internalizing!) But racism is still an adult concept because the ugliness and injustice of it all that comes with it isn’t really associated with childhood. We’d like to pretend that we can and do shield our children from horror and mess, but it doesn’t happen, because children of color can still feel (and will cite feeling) that sense of Otherness, that feeling of being different. Racism doesn’t always happen when parents are around. Children can find it in schools, on playgrounds, at birthday parties, sleepovers, at Sunday school, at Toys R’ Us—anywhere our children may be, Otherness is there, waiting to introduce them to the world at large.
The racism works is: once you know about it, you can see it everywhere. Once I had my eyes open to my Otherness when I was five, I saw it everywhere. I never told my mother about it, or even about all of the other instances of racism I experienced, but I could point it out. It took me a while to label it (I didn’t learn about the word “racism” until I was in middle school), but I knew what it was. I knew how it could hurt me. And like my parents and other adults that I knew, I learned to do my best to avoid it, or how to tone down my Blackness in white spaces (such as a sleepover or in my Gifted and Talented classes where the class was majority white) to prevent calling attention to it.
Sam mentioned that because racism forces POC at a young age into the world, we’re inadvertently forced into politics in a way at that age too. I have to agree. My views on race/class, etc are heavily linked to my experience as a POC. They’re more defined, maybe not always correct (but I’m always willing to learn), but they’re concrete. I am able to compare what I think to what I know/have experienced, and find that it all links up. And I do agree with Sam when she said that being a person of color is such a damn task sometimes, because it is. Sometimes being a adult doesn’t really feel like being an adult; it just feels like my life. I’ve been an adult for a while.
(In the case of immigrants: my parents were also immigrants, so America’s immigrant ideals and I are good friends. I remember soydulcedeleche mentioning some really grown up things she had to do as a child of an immigrant, and I felt that shit so strong. My parents can speak English, so I never had to translate, but I still knew what deportation was, what a greencard was and the several (illegal) ways you could get it, why we had to avoid police at all cost. I knew that, despite my depression and anger at my home life, I could never run away because that meant involving the police (and having my parents’ information dug up.) I knew why my mom sometimes had to quit her job prematurely when her job was doing background checks; I also knew what it meant if I came home from school one day and she was crying in her room. These are the concerns and fears I carry into my adulthood today. I don’t think I’ll ever stop being an immigrant’s daughter, to be honest, no matter my parents’ status. These are just things I know to fear, to be cautious of.)
“Rilya is an innocent young girl who is missing, you would never have heard of her if she hadn't been a child of the state. Rilya's media coverage was based on DCF. NOT based on a beautiful child being missing. Rilya Alert Criteria -- The abduction is of a child age 17 years or younger -- The parent must have contacted law enforcement to report child missing. -- A RILYA Alert may also be issued if the child is classified as a runaway by the police. If the parent has reported missing child and has convincing evidence that child does not have a history of running away, an alert will be initiated within the 1st hour. We recognize that at times, not all information is readily available (ie. license plate numbers, name of abductor, or witness to abduction. In such cases, the available information will be reviewed and verified prior to RILYA Alert. -- The law-enforcement agency believes the child is in imminent danger of serious bodily injury or death. -- All children of color meeting the criteria for the Amber Alert will also receive the RILYA Alert If these criteria are met, alert information is assembled for public distribution. This information may include descriptions and pictures of the missing child, the suspected abductor, and a suspected vehicle along with any other information available and valuable to identifying the child and suspect. *The staff at Peas In Their Pods respectfully requests that once a child is found that any organization posting information remove their pictures from their sites.”
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ugh jeopardy kids week makes me feel so sentimental. so many brilliantly amazing poc kids on there, all doing amazingly and having tons of ambitions.
there’s a cute little brown girl with glasses on there who wants to be president and donates to charity and i’m like ughhhh so much love.
you go, amazing kids of color who are gonna run the world one day, you GO.
Ezra Jack Keats has some wonderful books featuring POC. I enjoyed reading them when I was younger because of all the illustrations and people who looked like me.
Santoine:
Real Kids Good Books is a tumblr dedicated to posting children’s books that prominently feature and are about children of color. Y’all should check it out. So, there’s no need for a list right now.
Lost: If you want to still send books feel free to do some. I’m still talking a list anyways. That way people don’t have to reblog a bunch of posts and can have one long list.
