I set up a book display for Black History Month at the thrift store yesterday.
I emailed my auntie about my display this morning, saying I really am in the right job, wanting and getting to take time to make displays:
"I'm a book pusher!"
"You should have a T-shirt that says that," she wrote back.
Of course they exist. But this one I like is unavailable, from a conference in Italy, and the others I saw are too custey.
I'd hesitated a little before going ahead with the display because some people point out that black history should be incorporated into EVERY month, so it's ridiculous/insulting/placating to set aside a month for it.
I agree it should be incorporated, but it's not. I decided it's a self-indulgent, purist fantasy to see Black History Month as a capitulation, as I've heard suggested.
You know, this is a leftist perspective I'm talking about. A fringe one, but I did take it into consideration.
On another fringe, some say we don't need to set aside a month to focus on black history because history is dead and gone, and we should get over it.
Ha!
If only it were that easy, that might be nice? Give everyone a fresh slate?
I didn't even take this into consideration.
Barring the singularity, when A.I. achieves self-consciousness (and memories can be wiped), I'm with Faulkner, "The past is never dead. It's not even past."*
I was influenced, too, by the new volunteer at work telling me that her high school didn't teach about the U.S. internment of Japanese-American citizens during WWII.
She only graduated from high school ten years ago.
They did teach about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and some of her classmates picked on her for it, she whose father came from Japan.
So, yeah. Let's be fair and balanced and mind the gap. And mend the gap––with books!
These are some I gathered together. Of course we only have what's been donated––and what remains unsold for long enough to get into a display (copies of Malcolm X sell fast)––
but it's a decent spread.
I did not know poet Rita Dove (blue book ^ Selected Poems). She was the US Poet Laureate 1993-1995, and last year the NYT Magazine named her their poetry editor. (That magazine's 2018 interview with her here.)
I was extra glad I'd put up this display when later I read a white person saying it's hard to understand black people because they've never known them.
Sigh.
Here's an idea to push for mutual understanding:
Read books!
________________
*
Recent genetic studies back up Faulkner saying the past isn't dead. An article in The Atlantic, October 2018:
"Inherited Trauma Shapes Your Health;
A new study on Civil War prisoners adds to the evidence suggesting that our parents’—and even grandparents’—experiences might affect our DNA."
I emailed my auntie about my display this morning, saying I really am in the right job, wanting and getting to take time to make displays:
"I'm a book pusher!"
"You should have a T-shirt that says that," she wrote back.
Of course they exist. But this one I like is unavailable, from a conference in Italy, and the others I saw are too custey.
I'd hesitated a little before going ahead with the display because some people point out that black history should be incorporated into EVERY month, so it's ridiculous/insulting/placating to set aside a month for it.
I agree it should be incorporated, but it's not. I decided it's a self-indulgent, purist fantasy to see Black History Month as a capitulation, as I've heard suggested.
You know, this is a leftist perspective I'm talking about. A fringe one, but I did take it into consideration.
On another fringe, some say we don't need to set aside a month to focus on black history because history is dead and gone, and we should get over it.
Ha!
If only it were that easy, that might be nice? Give everyone a fresh slate?
I didn't even take this into consideration.
Barring the singularity, when A.I. achieves self-consciousness (and memories can be wiped), I'm with Faulkner, "The past is never dead. It's not even past."*
I was influenced, too, by the new volunteer at work telling me that her high school didn't teach about the U.S. internment of Japanese-American citizens during WWII.
She only graduated from high school ten years ago.
They did teach about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and some of her classmates picked on her for it, she whose father came from Japan.
So, yeah. Let's be fair and balanced and mind the gap. And mend the gap––with books!
These are some I gathered together. Of course we only have what's been donated––and what remains unsold for long enough to get into a display (copies of Malcolm X sell fast)––
but it's a decent spread.
I was extra glad I'd put up this display when later I read a white person saying it's hard to understand black people because they've never known them.
Sigh.
Here's an idea to push for mutual understanding:
Read books!
________________
*
Recent genetic studies back up Faulkner saying the past isn't dead. An article in The Atlantic, October 2018:
"Inherited Trauma Shapes Your Health;
A new study on Civil War prisoners adds to the evidence suggesting that our parents’—and even grandparents’—experiences might affect our DNA."
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