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Earlier in the week, @nikeshshukla and I went down to visit @KnightsOf #popup on Coldharbour Lane. And we bought gorgeous books. They are there for another week.
Go support them. Go buy books from them. Tell all your friends about them and encourage them to support too.
Go support them. Go buy books from them. Tell all your friends about them and encourage them to support too.
I have tweeted and spoken about the crucial role of bookshops in fostering #inclusion, in getting more diverse books to readers.
And yet, it is entirely possible to walk in to bookshops in the UK even in places with huge diversity and see not a single book by a writer of colour
And yet, it is entirely possible to walk in to bookshops in the UK even in places with huge diversity and see not a single book by a writer of colour
Forget all white store fronts, I regularly walk into mostly all white bookshops who will have a few writers of colour on their ‘international fiction’ list and may be a few big name authors (Booker or bust is the bar for inclusion it appears).
This gets worse in the kids section. Read the Reflecting Realities report by the good folk at @clpe1 but here is a write up on how bad things are: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jul/17/only-1-of-uk-childrens-books-feature-main-characters-of-colour
Now BAME (hate that term) make up 14% of UK. Many projections suggest that will double in the next few decades.
32% of school kids in England are of BAME backgrounds.
Imagine what those kids are learning when only 1% of books feature them as protagonists?
32% of school kids in England are of BAME backgrounds.
Imagine what those kids are learning when only 1% of books feature them as protagonists?
Now I could re-make the business case here.
(Imagine being a publisher who blithely ignores the overwhelming majority of their target market!!
Imagine being a bookseller who decides not to sell to most of their target market!)
But my case is about something more than money
(Imagine being a publisher who blithely ignores the overwhelming majority of their target market!!
Imagine being a bookseller who decides not to sell to most of their target market!)
But my case is about something more than money
Imagine being one of that 32% of school kids who are learning to read. Imagine loving stories and not finding yourself in them.
The message you get is that you don’t deserve stories. You don’t deserve to be in them. That your story does not matter. That YOU DO NOT MATTER!
The message you get is that you don’t deserve stories. You don’t deserve to be in them. That your story does not matter. That YOU DO NOT MATTER!
Imagine being that kid and learning that you are not equal to the other 70% of your classmates who do deserve stories. Who matter enough to be included in stories.
Imagine being one that 70% and learning that your classmates are less than you. Less equal, less Human.
Imagine being one that 70% and learning that your classmates are less than you. Less equal, less Human.
If that is the message the adults - publishers, booksellers,teachers, school librarians - give you daily over years, why would you as a kid not learn that you are marginalised, discriminated against, oppressed?
And if you are one of the 70%, why would you not learn to look down upon, hate, mock, discriminate against the classmates that adults have TAUGHT you are less than you, who deserve contempt, silencing, erasure.
After all, they DO NOT MATTER!
After all, they DO NOT MATTER!
If you read ONE thing on why and how all this matters then make it this short 1990 essay by Rudine Sims Bishop https://scenicregional.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Mirrors-Windows-and-Sliding-Glass-Doors.pdf
Let us not reinvent the wheel. We HAVE research on this. Over decades!
#CiteASista
#RepresentationMatters
Let us not reinvent the wheel. We HAVE research on this. Over decades!
#CiteASista
#RepresentationMatters
Aside: look up #CiteASista and @CiteASista.
As a culture, we diminish the hard work black women scholars have done+do. Even when I looked up the Sims Bishop essay, the first results were mostly (white) men citing her instead of her own work.
Go to the source! #citationmatters
As a culture, we diminish the hard work black women scholars have done+do. Even when I looked up the Sims Bishop essay, the first results were mostly (white) men citing her instead of her own work.
Go to the source! #citationmatters
Which brings me back to the wonderful work @_KnightsOf are doing with the pop-up shop in Brixton, the crowdfund to organise more across the country, and much more. More here: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/readtheonepercent
#ReadtheOnePercent
#ReadtheOnePercent
I will leave you with a little story: our former neighbours are white with two small kids (under 6). One of the couple used to teach at the local primary school.
But their friends circle even while living in north London is mostly white. Their bookshelves are mostly white.
But their friends circle even while living in north London is mostly white. Their bookshelves are mostly white.
They TV and cinema they watch is mostly white. The most ‘colour’ they get is likely from music or when they go to a local eatery. Or in that good liberal white way, when they use a cookbook to make some random foerign/ethnic food as a treat.
Yet their kids go to a school that has probably 40 - 50% kids of colour. Then there is a fair number of other immigrants from white countries (this is north London after all).
But most of the teachers are white. Most of the syllabus is white AND very English.
But most of the teachers are white. Most of the syllabus is white AND very English.
They don’t notice any of this beyond platitudes of a ‘multicultural, international London.’ They don’t see their own complicity with maintaining exclusions.
But their little kids? They do notice. They can’t explain it but they see it.
But their little kids? They do notice. They can’t explain it but they see it.
So first year of judging the @jhalakprize the mum pops over for something with kids in tow. I have some of kids’ books that have just arrived on my desk. Not many. Just a couple picture books.
I see the kids eyeing them but they are too polite to ask.
So I hold them out
I see the kids eyeing them but they are too polite to ask.
So I hold them out
Their eyes go wide. After a fee minutes, the older one says something along the lines of ‘it’s a book about my friend’ (can’t remember the name. Am terrible at those).
I think about it for a moment. Then ask her if she’d like to take the book...for her friend.
I think about it for a moment. Then ask her if she’d like to take the book...for her friend.
She’s thrilled. Wants to take it to school so she can ‘read it with her friend.’
I hand over the book to her.
And then I go online and order another copy for the @jhalakprize judging process....because handing over submissions to little kids has consequences.
I hand over the book to her.
And then I go online and order another copy for the @jhalakprize judging process....because handing over submissions to little kids has consequences.
It became a bit of a ritual for us after that. I would pick books that I though would work well for the kids and order copies.
The kids would take them away to read, love and share with their friends. The mother would tell me how much they and their friends loved them.
The kids would take them away to read, love and share with their friends. The mother would tell me how much they and their friends loved them.
Makes me sad that those white kids living in north London needed to rely on their neighbour for culture to which they could have easy daily access.
And that the nonwhite classmates had to wait for a stranger to show their white friends that they too belong in stories.
And that the nonwhite classmates had to wait for a stranger to show their white friends that they too belong in stories.
It isn’t till I wrote this thread that I realised that the parents never bought those books by themselves or asked for recommendations.
They have moved away to the ‘country’ now where the kids will have whiter schools and lives. And no neighbour to give them different books...
They have moved away to the ‘country’ now where the kids will have whiter schools and lives. And no neighbour to give them different books...
Which is again why #ReadTheOnePercent is so important. Not only for kids of colour but for ALL kids. For all of us.
Finally, another recommendation of an organisation doing fab work getting kids to see themselves and their friends in stories: @PopUpFestival.
If you have kids in school look them up.
(Full disclosure: I am on their board of trustees)
If you have kids in school look them up.
(Full disclosure: I am on their board of trustees)
End thread! 
