THE CONVERSATION
Brandon McGinley: You’ll be in Pittsburgh soon to talk about your picture-book retelling of the Zora Neale Hurston story, “The Making of Butterflies.” Why the turn to children’s books?
Ibram X. Kendi: Well, first, I have a six year old. As a parent I recognize the critical importance of books and resources that allow our young people to recognize racial equality, recognize that what’s bad is policies, not people. There is tremendous demand, particularly from teachers and parents and caregivers, for antiracist materials for their children. One of the things I’ve realized is that in many ways our children are the most vulnerable to racism, but they’re the group we’re least likely to engage about it with. I want that to change.
BM: In your other work you argue that there is no neutrality between racism and antiracism — that the choice is between being formed by a society that is steeped in racism, or being formed to combat that. That kind of education has to begin with young people.
IXK: Either our young people are going to learn that there are all these different skin colors, but no one who is lighter or darker is better or worse; or they’re going to learn that the lighter or darker you are, the better you are. They’re going to learn either one. And I think it’s important for our children to learn racial equality.
BM: When you put it that way, it’s so simple. I don’t mean that in a negative sense: You’re expressing the reality that there are two choices on the table and there’s no in between. I think a lot of people are frightened by that because they feel like they’re being forced to choose, but they aren’t yet comfortable with the language of antiracism. But anybody who wants to raise children who understand themselves to be different from the world they’re entering into faces the same issues.
IXK: What’s also difficult for teachers and caregivers and parents is talking to children about race and racism. People believe that if they never have those discussions, and if they never demean a particular racial group, then their child is going to be raised to be not racist. So there are people who do something and that’s bad, and there are people who don’t do anything, and that’s good. They think they’re colorblind, and that’s how we should be. And I think people don’t like what the actual research shows, which is that you and your child are not the only people in the world, which is to say there are other people telling them messages about race. Whether teachers or other students or the media, there are others sending them racist messages. So the question is, are they recognizing those as bad messages and deflecting them because they have learned that they are bad, or are they internalizing them? And so that’s why it’s important to actively teach children messages of racial equality because it not only allows them to see us all as equal, but it also protects them from the racist messages circling around them. And similarly, no parent is going to say, “I’m not going to teach my child to look both ways before crossing the street because that will make them uncomfortable.”
BM: So it becomes a question of what your priorities are, right?
IXK: Exactly. Part of it also that it’s difficult and uncomfortable for adults to talk about race and racism. It’s also something that most people have not studiedsystematically. And now they’re being asked to talk to their children about it. It’s already uncomfortable to talk to other adults. But I would rather you as a parent who loves this child, you as a teacher who loves this student, be theone who educates the child.
BM: There’s no way to raise a child who’s neutral about anything because, whether it’s in their school or in their smartphones or on television or whatever, they are getting messages that are leading them to believe whatever the people who are designing those messages want them to believe. So you have to act with that knowledge, and not as if the only two people in the world are you and your child.
IXK: It’s uncomfortable, but it’s the reality. Our job as caregivers is to protect our children, and part of the way in which we protect our children is realizing the dangers in society. And one of those dangers is messages that can cause children to think better or worse about themselves or others because of their skin color.
BM: From my previous understanding of your work, and especially seeing what you’re doing with the children’s books, I recognized almost immediately similarities with my own life. I’m a Catholic, and I take my faith seriously, and I want my children to take that faith seriously. Your perspective reminds me so much of my own family: We want our children to have books that will introduce them to the way the world is, but also books that will introduce them to the truths of the faith we think are essential for them to understand themselves and the world. I think there is an analogy between raising antiracist children in a racist world, raising Catholic children in a secular world. What do you think?
IXK: I think there are atheists who would say that parents who are religious and are actively teaching their kids about their religion are indoctrinating in their children. Similarly, there are propagandists and political operatives right now, who are saying that when we teach children about racial equality we’re indoctrinating them. So I think for that reason, I probably would not make that comparison. But I do think if a parent has a particular belief system that is indirect confrontation with ideas in society, then they’re going to view those general ideas in society as dangerous. I just think, trying to compare race and religion in this moment becomes pretty dicey.
BM: I totally understand that the comparison is fraught. What I would like to suggest is that anybody who wants to raise their children to be something different from what society is pressuring them to be is liable to be charged with indoctrination. That language is used to delegitimize anybody who is outside the norm.
IXK: I do think it is the case that when people raise their children to think critically in ways that society is not generally thinking, then those parents have historically been tagged with seeking to indoctrinate their kids, and teachers have been tagged with trying to indoctrinate their students, when that’s not the case. I wish we lived in a society where parents were free to raise their children on their culture and values, and that in our public squares — like our public schools — our students were not educated on one culture or one set of values, but were exposed to many different cultures and religions and values. And certainly those cultures and religions and values would be reflected in their public libraries so that they can go and learn and see about everyone. But of course that’s not happening right now. In certain states, books that are written by or about people of color, or about racism, are being taken off of bookshelves and banned.
BM: That goes to the idea that there’s no way to choose a middle course between right and wrong, between something that’s true and something that’s not true. And attempts to do so usually end up just reinforcing the status quo.
IXK: That’s the problem.
BM: And children’s books are a way of ensuring that by the time you’re an adult, you’ve been exposed not just to critical thinking, but to a way of thinking and a way of being in the world that you otherwise wouldn’t have been.
IXK: Exactly. The more you learn about other ways of being in the world, the more you learn about other cultures, the more you learn about other peoples, the more you learn about yourself. That’s one of the most devastating aspects of efforts to not expose children to difference, because that’s how you learn about yourself. You learn your skin is dark from seeing other people’s skin is lighter. No skin is beautiful or ugly, but that’s what’s beautiful about learning about others — and that’s why it’s so frustrating to see efforts to stop that.
BM: You’re now doing multiple books based on Zora Neale Hurston stories. What’s your motivation to bring those stories back to life?
IXK: I’m a huge admirer of Zora NealeHurston’s work and her literature and the folktales she collected. Being a father who’s also thinking about the literary appetite of children, I wanted them to have access to her work. I’m particularly excited about exposing young children to rural African American Southern culture. One of the most powerful manifestations of any culture is the tales and stories they tell each other — in private moments where no one else other than people raised in that culture are around. Zora Neale Hurston was able to collect some of those stories in very intimate settings. Now we’re able to make one of them, “The Making of Butterflies,” available to all of our children.
BM: What about that particular story drew you to it?
IXK: The idea of creation, particularly in the mind of a child, allows them to really open up their imagination and creativity. Maybe they’ll wonder how the creator created frogs, and how they can create things in their own lives? So I thought it was not only a beautiful folk tale, but a folktale that can unleash the imagination of children. And it’s just a fun story!
BM: It goes without saying that most Western depictions of creation involve Adam and Eve portrayed as white. And so a creation story that centers Black people places those with different appearances and different backgrounds at the center of the primeval story of the world.
IXK: I think that’s another aspect of it — for children to be exposed to difference, even different forms of language. The folktale is written in Ebonics, so even the sounds of words are from a different form of English. But it’s legible, and kids will still be able to pick up what’s happening.
BM: Why did you decide to preserve that dialect?
IXK: If the actual story is like the lyrics of a song, then the language is the way it’s sung. I didn’t feel there was a way to accurately convey this folktale if both the words and the way they were spoken were not included. Expressions of culture aren’t just the ideas, but also the way those ideas are expressed.
Ibram X. Kendi is the New York Times bestselling author of “How to be an Antiracist,” the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University and the director of the BU Center for Antiracist Research. He will appear with Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures at the Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland on Thursday, March 9, at 6:00 p.m.