Ban Silent, Unexamined Censorship, too

The Rejectionist shared a disturbing statistic today.

Of the 3,000 YA books that were published this year (as estimated by the American Library Association), only  60 or so were written by black authors.  Zetta Elliot has provided a list of publishers who have released more than one title written by a black author in the past year.

That list is too damn short.

As there isn’t any racial data about the number of people who identify as writers (and many of us use our day jobs on the official forms), I’m going to make the assumption that the breakdown mirrors the general population.  According to the US Census Bureau, about 14% of US residents identify as black . . . and about 35% identify as being other than “white, not of Hispanic descent.”

I don’t see how the publishing industry can plead ignorance on this one.  Because even if it was true that the ethnic identity of an author is never, ever, la-la-la-la-I-can’t-hear-you known before the book is chosen for publication, then the percentages would still be closer to the general stats. 

It also can’t claim that authors of any ethnic identity are adequately published by specialty imprints —and if one needs specialty imprints to publish the work of a significant percentage of writers, then something is wrong.

Let me tell you about my friend—yeah, I know  a white woman, not of Hispanic descent, talking about her black friend is a trope and a cliché and what the hell do I know, but damn it, I know she’s my friend and I know she’s a writer. 

My First Reader—she is way too awesome to be called a beta—is an incredible writer.  I’m lucky enough to be her beta, and let me tell you: her urban fantasy is kick-ass, her science fiction rocks, and her steampunk is sheer genius.

She and her agent are starting to shopping around her urban fantasy.

And it pisses me off that her work may not be given the consideration it deserves simply because a publishing house has already accepted their single black-authored title for the year.  Or because they already have a book with a strong African-American female main character.

Yeah, there’s this obvious glut of strong, black, female main characters on the urban fantasy market . . .  must be hiding behind all the vampires  <headdesk>.

I don’t pretend to know what calculations go into forming a publication list—it appears to be both subjective and objective, a combination of commercial speculation and sheer excitement over a good story. 

But if the ethnic make-up of the main character is the only similarity between two novels, then choosing only one is a questionable arbitrary limit and someone needs to take a good look at the unwritten policies.

To be honest, I don’t know what the reason is for the disparity—I want to believe that the individuals I personally know in the industry would be appalled, and perhaps they are.  We haven’t talked about it.

I think we should.

I think we all should.

Banned Book Review: And Tango Makes Three

Once again the Rejectionist has challenged her devoted readership—in honor of Banned Book Week, she’s asked us to read and review a banned book.

The only problem I had was  choosing a title.  Looking at the lists—and there are many, many lists—it turns out that mostly without knowing it,  I’ve read a lot of books over the years that someone somewhere wanted to keep me from reading.*

But as much as I love and\or respect  The Color Purple , Huckleberry Finn, George Orwell, and so on  (and on and on),  I thought I’d choose something I hadn’t read before.  And since I’ve spent the last few days  jumping up and down on my “spare the children, spoil the future” soapbox, I decided to find a banned children’s book I hadn’t read before.

The book I chose** has been attacked almost every year since it was released.***  Our library system owns several  copies, all but one of which were checked out, which shows how popular it is.^

And Tango Makes Three  is based on the true story of Roy and Silo, two male chinstrap penguins in the Central Park Zoo in New York, who choose each other as partners.  They do everything the other penguin couples do,  which includes building a nest together.  Unable to lay eggs, they take turns sitting on a rock, until the penguin keeper gives them a fertilized egg.

Roy and Silo take care of the egg and it hatches into a female penguin that the keeper names Tango, because “it takes two to make a Tango.”  The two penguins successfully raise Tango together as a family.

Full confession:  I actually teared up.  The illustrations are so expressive and cute and Tango is so bright-eyed and fuzzy-wuzzy .  . . ahem.  Henry Cole did a fantastic job.

So did Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell.  This story makes its point through simple facts and clear sentences—no hammer necessary.  Ray and Silo aren’t anthropomorphic— these are real penguins whose behavior is interpreted, in part, through their keeper.  They are exactly like every other penguin couple, except they can’t produce an egg on their own.

And let the terrified rest assured:  while Roy and Silo are affectionate partners, those condemning  (or hoping  for^^) graphic penguin lust must look elsewhere.

A child reading this book will take away at least four  gentle ideas:  Homosexuality naturally occurs in the animal kingdom.  Families of all gender combinations occur in the animal kingdom.  Roy, Silo, and Tango are liked by zoo visitors and loved by each other.  No animal was harmed during the original events of this story.

No wonder every homophobe who encounters this book is threatened by it.

My children loved it.

___

* I’d also like to thank and give kudos to my public school system for requiring me to read so many of these books, although I certainly didn’t thank you at the time.   Sort of kicks that “inappropriate for age group” grievance in the teeth, doesn’t it?

**With the help of yet more lists and a friend—thanks, Grace!

***Not in our library system, though.  We blessedly get few complaints about items in our collections—The only one I can remember was an illustrated juvenile picture book of the human body that someone’s toddler was dragging around by a single page.  I think we gave the mother a copy of our Unattended Children Policy and everyone agreed to call it a draw.

^ And it’s short with lots of pictures— a bonus, since I left this review until the very last minute.

^^Or both—I always wonder about people who protest too much.

Banned Book Week, with Puppets!

Just doing my part.