All writing is political.
December 19, 2019 7:07 PM   Subscribe

David Bowles on Writing for Border Kids in the Age of Trump "Kids on the border, after all, are still kids even though they are confronted every day with hideous rhetoric about their community, even though their lives are put in danger by twisted policies and ethnic hatred, even though they wince at the barbed wire, checkpoints, and ICE raids.
...
If the very inclusion of a child of color’s daily reality is too “political” for you to share with white children, I have news for you.
You’re probably a racist."
posted by primalux (10 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: Poster's Request -- frimble



 
At this moment, with kids locked in cages and falling beneath a hail of bullets, your comfort has ceased to matter.

It’s time we focused on the children.


This is really good. It's kind of dusty in here...
posted by limeonaire at 7:41 PM on December 19, 2019 [5 favorites]


This is solid- thank you for sharing.
posted by pseudostrabismus at 8:24 PM on December 19, 2019


Reimagined favourites:
The Lawyers, the Guards, and the Guardtower
In which four children find a magic door that isn't locked.

Alicia's Adventures in Wonderland
A girl follows a white rabbit into a magical world where she doesn't need to carry identity papers

Mrs Frisby and the Children of I.C.E.
The guards don't know it, but their captives are human beings with emotional and physical needs

Javier Potter and the Human Rights
At the age of 11 Javier receives a letter identifying him as a US citizen. He is taken away from the abusive people raising him and can grow up in a place where he receives the same food, clothing, and education as other children.
posted by Joe in Australia at 9:52 PM on December 19, 2019 [23 favorites]


He is taken away from the abusive people raising him and can grow up in a place where he receives the same food, clothing, and education as other children.

More like, he is taken out of a literal cage and integrated into a society that views him with suspicion and disdain, at best a second-class citizen.
posted by axiom at 11:54 AM on December 20, 2019


You have just internalized the notion that your life and issues are the ones that truly matter, and anything else, anything that makes you uncomfortable, needs to be erased or silenced.

That’s racism, too.


...But what about parental curation of content that they feel is too 'adult' or traumatic for their children, regardless of their race?

I'm white, so I'm very open to the idea that I just don't get it. Or that this exception is covered in what he's talking about. I just didn't really see it in his article.

And I'm not talking about themes or characters that are non-white/male/cis/w/e...I'm saying that I don't know at what age I'd want to start discussing political violence or violence against children with my X year old.

...I know it happens to plenty of children <X years old all over the world, but that doesn't mean I need to bring it into the nightly reading, right?
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 9:33 PM on December 20, 2019


> But that doesn't mean I need to bring it into the nightly reading

It is something every parent is obligated to educate their child about. If you don't want to do it at night, teach them during the day. Childhood is when attitudes and empathy for others are developed, and it's not something schools can do for us.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 12:17 AM on December 21, 2019 [1 favorite]


If you don't want to do it at night, teach them during the day

I don't know if you're being obtuse or cheeky, but my question isn't about not teaching empathy, it's about the appropriateness of traumatic topics for certain ages.

Do you show what's going on at the border to a three year old? My impulse is no.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 5:49 AM on December 21, 2019


Mod note: Folks, we don't really need to get way off into the weeds here with taking things to an "all children of all ages all the time" place. The book is for ages 7-10; parents are still in charge of calling the shots for what their kids can deal with emotionally at various stages of their development. We can discuss the idea of introducing kids to scary topics regarding social realities without setting up a false "all or nothing" framing.
posted by taz (staff) at 6:05 AM on December 21, 2019 [1 favorite]


I have a lot of difficulty reading Holocaust accounts and other stories about Jewish persecution. Even the "good ending" ones don't have good endings, they're just ones where there are survivors. I haven't encouraged my kids to read them. But ... there's a meme about Black parents giving their kids "the talk" about racist police and self-protective strategies. Lots of Jewish kids, particularly those of my generation, got a similar one. I have to believe that this is a very common although largely unspoken thing among all sorts of groups. It's not that their parents haven't thought about the psychological harm this message may cause, but their kids need to know that they live in a dangerous world where people may suddenly turn on you.

Lots of kids in the USA are unlikely to encounter any substantial degree of racism or other structural oppression. They don't need that message, personally. But by the same token, they're less likely to be harmed by it. Protecting them from knowing that other people are vulnerable is protecting them from developing empathy. It's also protecting them from the knowledge that they can help, or hurt. Also, they're not going to be at home forever: there are places where pale skin and a good passport won't protect you today, let alone in a potentially dangerous future.

I sympathise with people who want to protect their kids and I wouldn't, personally, expose them to the deluge of horror that is and has been so many other children's lived reality. But we're not talking about that here; the author makes it clear that they're just talking about adding realistic elements to a story set on the US border. Surely the vicarious discomfort or even unhappiness this may cause non-vulnerable kids isn't so great that it's worth erasing other people's genuine experiences. And these experiences are things that Americans can actually do something about. Anyone who believes that even hearing about it will give children too much vicarious pain should probably be marching on Washington rather than giving authors a hard time.
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:17 PM on December 21, 2019 [3 favorites]


I think 3 is too young, but 7-10 isn't, and waiting until they're in high school is way too late. I feel like trying to push the framing to imply we're suggesting one start telling nightmare fuel bedtime stories to children too young to even understand the issues is a bit disingenuous.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 3:16 PM on December 23, 2019 [1 favorite]


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