race and reviewing

[deborah]

Reading deepad's insightful thoughts on culture, literature, and Western/white monopolies in publishing raised, for me, many of the issues I've been pondering as a book reviewer.


Do we have an obligation to point it out?

First of all, I always feel like I'm the reviewer for Kirkus who points out icky race issues, to the extent that I feel self-conscious about it, like I have an obsession that I need to get over (I should note to my editor has never asked me to write less about race; the discomfort is all internal). I dedicated more words to my discomfort with Lauren McLaughlin's Cycler than the number of problematic words in the text itself. I second-guess myself constantly, often not mentioning issues I find very uncomfortable. (When you only have 175 words, every word carries so much weight that as a reviewer I need to decide "is this the takeaway I want from this book?")

Recently I chose not to mention race/colonialism issues in a standard boys' fantasy adventure -- white, American, baseball-playing boy goes to fictional Muslim country well stocked with exotic spices and carpets, where he meets plucky local boy and girl and helps save the country. Why didn't I mention colonialism in this story? Two reasons: the fictional Muslim country was well enough realized that I could tell which country it was meant to be, instead of just being generic hookahs- and turbans-land; and a fair amount of the country-saving comes from the locals instead of from the American boy. These two tiny things, in a genre well stocked with far more problematic (but highly praised) texts, were enough for me to let it go. I'm practically the only reviewer who would have mentioned the colonialist issues in the first place, so I had to let it go. As I told diceytillerman in my comment to her excellent recent post about fat acceptance, I give a lot of credit for baby steps. I give credit for trying, too. Sure, all of Tamora Pierce's heroines live in faux-European fantasylands[1]. But I give props to Trickster's Queen in my review for exploring the complexities of colonialism. I'd rather have given props for it not being a book about faux-Indonesians from a faux-European's perspective, but if anyone in fantasyland should get props for baby steps, it's Pierce. She really tries very hard to confront norms of race, gender, sexuality, class. She doesn't always succeed, but she tries. Baby steps.

Every time I mention race or colonialism, I feel like I am dragging down one book for exhibiting the failings of an entire genre. If I complain that this boys' adventure story featured a white boy hero, his white best friend, his Asian friend/martial arts expert sidekick, and a girl, am I just blaming a single book for being exactly like every other book in its genre? Every time I don't mention race, I feel like I'm failing readers. I have to keep reminding myself that it is only my job to help people make purchasing decisions. It's not my job to demand better books on their behalf. If I told librarians never to purchase any books with race or gender problems, there would be a whole lot of empty shelves and unspent acquisitions budgets. But I keep coming back to Herbert Kohl's Should We Burn Babar?, and answering the question, as he does, by saying No, absolutely not, but we do need to talk about it. I have no problem with thousands of tween girls reading and loving Twilight, but I wish we were talking about the icky race issues in that book. I wish we were putting Drew Hayden Taylor's The Night Wanderer on the shelves as well.

But you know what? Putting both books on the shelves isn't my job. Moreover, Twilight and the Night Wanderer are entirely different books, and Taylor's is not going to fill the same id vortex pleasure as Meyer's.

How do we talk about those books which are different but mediocre?

I'm thrilled that there have been a growing number of fantasy and science fiction books for young readers by authors of color and about characters of color, and characters not from the former or present British Commonwealth. But as a reviewer, I've been confronted with the hard truth that while some are fabulous, many of them aren't all that good. That's not at all surprising. First of all, Sturgeon's Law always applies. deepad's post has some other conjectures, which seem reasonable to me although I haven't thought them out or seen if anyone takes issue with them.

So how do I write reviews for these books? If I write wholly-positive reviews, then I am holding these books to a lower standard than I would books by white authors about white characters? Because that is patronizing and racist. If I write my review based entirely on literary quality, then these books won't get purchased and put in libraries, and they need to be there. They need to be there for the readers, they need to be there to counter deepad's half a tongue.

In the past I've found myself writing reviews that say, more or less, flawed but necessary. Which is still incredibly problematic. And of course, I constantly second-guess myself about why I think these books aren't as good. Are they actually flawed, or are they just using tropes and writing styles which aren't as comfortable to me, because I know Eurocentric literature and its genre patterns? This was easiest for me to pick out when I reviewed a manga adaptation, where I could ask manga-literate friends to help me figure out which parts of the text that made me uncomfortable were tropes from another genre, and which were just native to this text. (Answer: a little of each.)

---

[1]: Semi-exceptions: one faux-European raised by faux-Europeans in faux-Japan before she comes back to faux-Europe at series start; the black gypsy lesbian (whose culture rejects her unfairly) and the faux-Jew, both raised in faux-Europe at series start; and the faux-Chinese girl. Which is, collectively, a fair amount for fantasyland -- a disturbing thought in and of itself.

Comments

[quietgrrrl.livejournal.com]

I haven't read the Twilight series and don't plan to. But all the commentary I've read focused on the icky gender issues - this is the first I've read of icky race issues, as well. Can I ask what the issues are? Although you'll just be giving more reason to not read the books. :)

[zvi-likes-tv.livejournal.com]

I haven't read the books, either, so I'm going off the mocking summaries I have read of them, but I suspect that the Indian werewolves are deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeply problematic. I mean, to start, we've got people of color = animals, just in having the Indian/werewolf connection. And considering her deep research into the normal lives of teenage girls, I would be astonished if Meyers had decided to write about a particular American Indian tribe and its traditions or its national history with the United States (what treaty guarantees were broken and how, was there a lost generation type thing or were people given an inferior education on a reservation, or some other thing that was done to tribes in the Northwest, of which I know nothing. Was this tribe originally from the Northwest, and, if they weren't, do they have relationships with tribes that were, etc ad infinitum.)

And when you mix faily sexual politics w/ issues of race, you typically wind up with some superspecial fail, so the whole thing with Jacob's unrequited love for Bella and then his destined love for her infant daughter, they're probably all sorts of special in a very bad way.

[deborah]

you have it pretty much on the nose. People of color are animals, sexual aggressors, sexual, animalistic in its sexuality, raw. Vampires are pure white, rich, monied, and aggressors but non-sexually. The white vampire tortures himself by refusing to touch his lily white pure human girlfriend, while the Indian werewolf consistently uses sexuality and physical force to attempt to coerce the white girl to be with him -- and though she is attracted to his raw sexuality she knows he is the wrong choice for her, and he refuses to take no for an answer. Actually, the more I talk about it, the more sketchy it feels. Ick.

[quietgrrrl.livejournal.com]

Thanks to everyone who responded to my question. I'm happy to know what is wrong with these books without having to actually read them. (Life's too short to spend time reading bad books just to verify they're bad.) I actually had no idea there even were any people of color in the series.

[onelittlesleep.livejournal.com]

you have it pretty much on the nose. People of color are animals, sexual aggressors, sexual, animalistic in its sexuality, raw. Vampires are pure white, rich, monied, and aggressors but non-sexually

Ooooooh. Uuuugh.

[badgerbag.livejournal.com]

I posted on it briefly here (having read only books 1 and 2)

http://badgerbag.livejournal.com/192344.html

With a mildly spoilery list of characteristics of Edward and Jacob.

the gist of it, without spoilers: "there is a race and class dichotomy set up where the ultimate white man is all about control (as well as control of Bella) and the man of color (boy of color...) is about permission and lack of control (including sort of giving Bella permission and a means to be "out of control")."

there are some good comments and links in the comments to other discussions of race & racism in Twilight.

[deborah]

Nice summary. It gets sketchier in book 3, when Jacob becomes a sexual aggressor -- unlike Edward, who is only an icky aggressor in non-sexual ways.

[deborah]

zvi_likes_tvpretty much gets it. Vampires are incredibly rich, have pure white skin and unearthly beauty. Werewolves are all Quileute Indians, big musclebound bruisers, who spend a lot of time half naked and animalistic, with raw sex appeal. Edward forces himself on Bella in ways that are about controlling her nonsexually, Jacob forces himself on her sexually. It's not a Racist Tome ™, but it's wicked sketchy.

[sanguinity]

Roundup of BluceCornComics posts on Quileute Werewolves in Twilight.

Careful with the comments on some of those; many full-of-fail Twilight fans accusing the host of being mean and petty.

[quietgrrrl.livejournal.com]

careful with the comments on some of those; many full-of-fail Twilight fans accusing the host of being mean and petty.

Actually, that kind of sounds like fun. It was a defining moment in my life when at age 15 I opened up that week's Parade and read a host of letters from New Kids on the Block fans who were unhappy with a not-fawning feature on the boy band published the week before. One letter-writer insisted the news shouldn't be allowed to print anything lots of people will disagree with. Ever since, I've had lots of fun laughing at anyone who takes any fandom THAT seriously. And laughing at stupid people, too.

[sanguinity]

YMMV. I'm part Native, and some of the crap in the comments can be hard for me to laugh about.

I suppose I should have said that the Twilight fans were praising Meyer for her "generosity" toward the Quileute, etc. Because that's the kind of thing that was getting to me; not the "you're so meeeeeean" comments.

[deborah]

Why, after your excellent warning, did I spend sanity watchers points on those comments?

"with that said even if stephenie meyer twisted the true legends it was quite generous of her to use a true tribe in her fictional story and bring forth its legends, bringing some of the true legends alive and letting the legends live through her story as long as it will be remembered."

*boggles* I... wow.

[sanguinity]

That one is conspicuously horrible, isn't it? There's other stuff, too, but that's the one that made me get myself out of the comments section as fast as I could click.

[quietgrrrl.livejournal.com]

Sorry. I can see where that might cause teeth-grinding.

[deborah]

This list is great; I hadn't seen all of those. Thanks!

[delux-vivens.livejournal.com]

Jacob Black: Could Have Been More than Metaphor (http://community.livejournal.com/deadbrowalking/305218.html).

[diceytillerman.livejournal.com]

I always feel like I'm the reviewer for Kirkus who points out icky race issues, to the extent that I feel self-conscious about it, like I have an obsession that I need to get over (I should note to my editor has never asked me to write less about race; the discomfort is all internal).

Me too, for every word of that sentence except that I know you're doing it too! And maybe other reviewers are too, but I'm never sure; it's harder for me to tell when I haven't read the books they're reviewing. It's easy to see when something gets mentioned but impossible to see if something doesn't get mentioned that I might have mentioned.

Mentioning fatphobia makes me feel even more like a sore thumb, because fewer people in our field have heard of the concept of FA than the concept of anti-racism. (Note: I am not saying fatphobia is worse than racism -- I would never say that.) I worry that fatpol looks like my personal hang-up. Our editor's never said that and continues to send me some books about fat characters, but still I worry.

Every time I mention race or colonialism, I feel like I am dragging down one book for exhibiting the failings of an entire genre.

Yes. Plus I worry about the lack of parallelism that results from any journal with multiple reviewers: why should a book that I call out for racism or fatphobia get a worse review than a book with the same amount of racism or fatphobia but that's reviewed by someone else? I feel guilty towards my book if I like it artistically or in other aspects of content, in a way that I wouldn't if I were reviewing with a pool of other reviewers using the same ideological criteria. But I don't see any way around this, and of course having multiple reviewers is a good thing in most ways. Also, the opposite must be happening too: I miss things (both ideological and artistic) that other reviewers catch, just because I know less or nothing about them.

As usual, there's no formula. I generally decide whether or not to mention ideological problems based on proportion and based on whether or not I'd feel comfortable handing it to a reader in a non-discussion context. But that's no hard formula either, really.

[deborah]

I'm glad to know it's not just me, because if it's not just me, but it's probably not just me and you. I mention fatphobia when I see it, but I don't think I see it as early as you do. Princess Ben is the only review book I can think of where I particularly noticed it.

Yes, lack of parallelism is exactly a problem I worry about. But you are right that the opposite is happening as well, and we just need to live with it.

via, um, rydra_wong, maybe?

[zvi-likes-tv.livejournal.com]

I will confess that I don't read Kirkus, but, in reviews in other publications, I treasure reviewers who will mention the racial, colonial, and other sorts of fail that a novel brings, especially if they make some effort to distinguish between ethical fail and artistic quality.

[deborah]

That's very good to hear, thank you. I get so paranoid that my readers just want me to shut up and tell me whether or not reluctant readers will enjoy the book, while I'm sitting there thinking "what a wonderful book, but with so much colonial fail I want people to be aware of."

[sanguinity]

:: I get so paranoid that my readers just want me to shut up and tell me whether or not reluctant readers will enjoy the book... ::

And how can that even be done, exactly, without realizing that for some reluctant readers, "enjoying the book" will be conditional on whether or not it's full of colonial/racist fail?

But seconding zvi-likes-tv: I appreciate finding big-reviewer reviews that point out ethical fail. And I've even read some that pointed out that I should real some OTHER book because it's less full of ethical fail, and I love those reviews all over the place.

Where can I find what you had to say about Cycler? Early on, I was wanting to throw the book across the room, but I haven't done well with expressing that, or even resolving the throwing-urge with the love for the messy bi-poly-genderfuck end.

[diceytillerman.livejournal.com]

Thank you, zvi_likes_tv and sanguinity, for appreciating reviews with ideological fail notations. Also thank you for saying so. It's good to hear; one odd thing about reviewing is that we never, never hear back from the audience we write for, so it can feel a bit like a vacuum sometimes.

[deborah]

"And how can that even be done, exactly, without realizing that for some reluctant readers, "enjoying the book" will be conditional on whether or not it's full of colonial/racist fail?"

This is actually exactly why I had issues with Cycler; my mental group of readers is my housemate's seventh grade classroom of mostly Latino kids, and I realised I refused to give the galley to her for her classroom because I didn't want her kids to read the book. Which means teachers of other classrooms need the same information.

What were the roots of your throwing-urge? I loved the messy bi-poly-genderfuck end way more than I expected to -- it was messier than I expected.

I suspect it's fair use to quote a single Kirkus review here, especially since Barnes and Noble uses it:

Jill has truly terrible PMS: every month, for four days, she turns into a boy. When she wakes up female from her monthly male interlude, Jill meditates to remove all memories of the previous four days -- a feat she accomplishes so successfully as to create Jack, an entirely independent personality for her male self. With the militant help of her fervently anti-Jack mother, Jill tries to lead a normal life. But prom is coming, Jill has a crush, and Jack is getting restless. In this dark comedy of sex, gender, and sexuality, Jill must come to terms with Jack before her mother's hostility destroys them both. A yoga-addicted father, a bisexual hottie and a best friend who invents wildly bizarre fashions fill out a cast of quirky, entertaining, well-drawn secondary characters. Despite some unfortunate racial stereotypes, Jill and Jack's story, touched with intrigue, humor and fascinating questions, ends with a conclusion both satisfactory and open-ended.

My editor changed that ending to A yoga-addicted father, a bisexual hottie and a best friend who invents wildly bizarre fashions fill out a cast of quirky, entertaining, well-drawn secondary characters-with the exception of the unfortunate stereotyping of a kitchen worker as the only Hispanic character. in the final version, which is much more explicit and clear.

[sanguinity]

I missed the stereotyping of the kitchen worker. Thank you for pointing that out.

(Note: editing my original response, because only after publishing the first try did I start putting the words together semi-clearly.)

My throwing-urge arose from where McLaughlin seemed to be going in her construction of gender and sexuality. There is a trope that there is no such thing as same-sex attraction, that lesbians are "contaminated" with some essential inner maleness, and that their attraction to women is actually heterosexual attraction which is being expressed by their "inner man." It's a skanky construction. Not merely heteronormative, but going past that to assert that there's nothing but heterosexuality. Also, there's an implication that lesbians aren't "really" women.

There's a version of it for gay men, too -- refer to the way "sissy" is used as a synonym for "faggot." If you're attracted to men, the "logic" goes, it must because you're really a woman, somewhere on the inside.

So when Jill started experiencing sexual desire for her female friend, and then that sexual desire was explained by the text as arising directly from Jill being literally one-seventh male...? Very. Not. Cool. McLaughlin had to work very hard to get me back after that.

[debreese-nambe.livejournal.com]

Hello! I started getting hits to my website from livejournal and started reading, following links here and there.

This discussion of reviewing is of particular interest. I reviewed for Horn Book for awhile but quit because Roger objected to my "sociocultural" and "sociopolitical" critiques. I wrote about why I quit that work. Writing on my blog gives me the freedom to say what I want.

I wrote an article about reviewing, who wants what... it is here (scroll down to get to it):
http://oncampus.richmond.edu/faculty/ASAIL/SAIL2/121.html

[deborah]

Debbie, I'm so pleased to see you here on livejournal. Your blog has been linked from here and from my colleague diceytillerman's LJ many, many times, and we both get a lot out of both your blog and your post on childlit.

Good to see you here!

[deborah]

*nod*

I was definitely aggravated, too, at the overwhelming straightness of Jack. Because there is another heteronormative trope that a little bit of girl on girl is totally fine, but male queerness is much too transgressive. I have been interested in seeing the same book with a primarily male protagonist.

[sanguinity]

:: at the overwhelming straightness of Jack. ::

Yeah. That got on my nerves, too.

I like to pretend that in the sequel, we will discover that Jack's "overwhelming straightness" is teenage overcompensation and denialism, as McLaughlin messes over Jack's hyper-masculine constructions of himself.

(Hey, I can hope!)

[badgerbag.livejournal.com]

I agree with you about Pierce - both problems and props. and have been thinking out how to talk about Trickster's Queen. And the faux Japan where Keladry grew up.

[deborah]

I would love to hear your thoughts about Trickster's Queen. So much better at presenting the complexities than almost anything else I've ever read for children -- but it is STILL written from the outsider point of view in some very problematic ways, and still deals with both sex and gender intersections with race in a really worrying way. I count it a net win, though.

[badgerbag.livejournal.com]

Doesn't she have sex with the raven guy who is not only part animal but who is also four years old? I have to go back and read it again...

[deborah]

yes. And he bosses her around and is usually right, and when she doesn't listen to him, when she says that she would rather flirt and play the field instead of having one true love, the text and all of her friends clearly condemn her for that. Which is the opposite of most Pierce relationships, where the girl's sexuality and relationship choices are affirmed is correct even when her society condemns her for them (Alanna and Daine, especially).

[deepad]

Just wanted to point out, I LOVE it when a review points out problematic race (and gender/class/sexuality etc) issues, even while discussing the literary merits of a book. It's the lack of such criticism in mainstream media that has me doing most of my review reading from blogs of people I trust will be able to tell me when a book is fun enough to ignore the problems of, and when I will want to throw it across the room.

[deborah]

This assurance is very important to me, thank you so very much. As long as I know readers find it helpful, I'm going to keep doing it.

[badgerbag.livejournal.com]

I find it helpful and I usually assume it means that reviewer has a complicated 50-page-long opinion on it.

[deborah]

Ha! diceytillerman usually has to hear my complicated 50-page-long opinion, and the number of times I said "I don't want to write a review, I want to write a paper" is uncountable.

Cycler

[(Anonymous)]

Hi. I read your review of Cycler and I couldn't figure out what you found problematic with the fact that she described a character as Hispanic. Is that racist? What am I missing?

Re: Cycler

[deborah]

I didn't find it racist, I find it racially problematic. It's a very important difference which I'll get to in a minute.

Basically, it's a context issue. Nobody else in the book has race described, but to the extent that they have any racial markers, they definitely seem to be white. Not only do they have stereotypically "on ethnic" names, for what that's worth, but there are frequent to run a site descriptions of pale, creamy skin. (Not to mention that this story takes place in an extremely well-off suburb of Boston, which also places it pretty firmly in the "overwhelmingly white" spectrum.) So there are plenty of markers for this being a story full of white people, which I was fine with, as long as race went unmentioned.

And then the book mentions the race of one character: a kitchen worker. Moreover, in one page, her race is mentioned three times, and the mention is completely irrelevant, acting as nothing other than a identifying descriptor of the kitchen worker in question. First of all, mentioning the race of only one person reinforces the normative whiteness of everyone else in the book. But more importantly, it sets up the two permissible kinds of people: characters, who are well-to-do and white, and laborers, who are Hispanic.

Now, this actually happens to be a fairly accurate description of a lot of the well-to-do suburbs of Boston. There are plenty of places fitting that description where you will not see a Latino who isn't cleaning houses or taking out trash. That's a reality that totally, utterly sucks. And if the book were even in a tiny way critiquing that reality, I actually wouldn't have a problem with it. But the book isn't critiquing that reality, or even particularly calling attention to the reality's problems (nor should it, necessarily; it's a book about gender, not about race). It's just set in that particularly problematic reality, calling attention to it by the triple-namecheck of one individual's race in an otherwise raceless story.

Which is why I come down to the difference between racially problematic and racist. Racist implies, and a lot of people's minds, an assumption of malice or intent. What's going on here is nothing like that (I assume, anyway). Instead, I'm seeing a book that reflects the realities of the systemically racist society in which it was created. But by reflecting that reality without even the smallest amount of commentary, even a space in the text letter by one word or three to encourage the reader to question that reality, the text reinforces a perception in the minds of its readers about who white people are and Hispanics are.

Now, in this case, I admit I'm extremely sensitive to this particular text. A lot of my galley copies, after the reviews are written, go to a Boston school with an almost-entirely Latino student population, and reading this book I realized I wouldn't give it to them. I didn't want the students in the school to see a world in which characters -- the teenagers, families, and teachers -- are all coded as white, and "Hispanic" means "kitchen worker". I don't particularly want white students to see a book that normativizes that world, either.

Do you see what I mean about the difference between racist and racially problematic? Yes, the book just mirrors reality, but if the sun hits a mirror it gets brighter and brighter. This isn't a problem I particularly want to amplify.

So in the end, I recommended the book, with the caveat so that those who purchased it could make their own decisions about whether or not they found the race issue problematic.

Re: Cycler

[deborah]

Ugh, a lot of my comment got eaten by me not proofreading for dictation errors. "On ethnic" should be "unethnic" and the descriptions of "pale, creamy skin" are "eroticized" not "to run a site". Sorry, usually I don't worry too much about dictation errors but this set made that sentence completely unreadable.

Re: Cycler

[(Anonymous)]

This opens up the issue of the role of the artist, whether he or she should show the world itself as it is, which is what I believe their role should be, or whether they should show the world as they wished it were.

Re: Cycler

[deborah]

As a reviewer I can't think about the role of the artist, but of the role of the work. And this work reflected an unpleasant truth without any awareness that the what it was reflecting was unpleasant (or not at all universal), and I find that stifling to readers.

It's not standalone art subject only to the muse and to aesthetic purity, but a cultural object that exists in the world, and my job is to judge it for potential consumers.

(I also don't think there is one "role of the artist", to show the world as it is or as they wish it would be.)

Re: Cycler

[diceytillerman.livejournal.com]

As a reviewer and critic, I don't believe there is any way to neutrally "show the world as it is." There is no neutral.

[bookshop.livejournal.com]

thank you for this.

As a reviewer and as a reader, I often, often feel like I am reading books too critically, like I have been so drilled in critique that I can't just switch off and enjoy a story. But I read books and I can't un-feel that jolt when the lesbians die, when the one gay character is prevented from speaking for themselves about their own sexuality, when the first thing the dark-skinned heroine does in Hunger Games is trade places with a shiny blue-eyed blonde sister so the sister can live. I hate being the voice going "yeah, but," and then choosing not to review books at all (on my LJ for myself, since I no longer review professionally) because of the problematic element of wanting to always support writers and a community of writers, and not being able to do it in a way that's both comfortable and honest. Thank you for thinking through this, because it makes me feel a little more educated (on top of all of this massive ongoing debate) about why we need to discuss (not burn), and makes me think a little more about how I want to proceed when I review books on my own.