thereby making whiteness transhistorical
CAN there be historical fiction that features characters of color where they are able to move freely? Given our histories...Maybe this is my imagination gap talking...
6 Matching Annotations
- Jun 2020
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muse-jhu-edu.proxy.library.upenn.edu muse-jhu-edu.proxy.library.upenn.edu
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“the predominant WASP paradigm,” the resulting story is likely to be “devoid of any transformative effect on the culture of dominance”
I totally agree with this statement, but it also frustrates me because when literature doesn't cater to the dominant culture, it gets pigeonholed as a certain type of fiction.
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deliberate decision to have the children in my stories stay within the city instead of being “whisked away” to an alternate location: “it’s important to me that children believe their community has intrinsic value and equal potential for magic, mystery, and healing. . . . [C]ity kids should know that they, too, can have fantastic adventures without having to escape into a book that denies their existence, or that figures the city only as the site from which ‘good people’ try to escape. . . .
I think that part of the imagination gap that results from lack of diverse stories is that we cannot imagine the magic existing in our own communities
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white paradigm of land ownership or even their conceptualization of wilderness
There is definitely a kind of white rugged individualism narrative based in settler colonial legacies... like wilderness is owned or is pursued to be owned by whiteness
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white author’s use of portal fantasies
The problematic nature of these portal fantasies is something I've just started to realize. I was thinking about all these Magic Schoolbus episodes where they are transported into a different land, or even how National Geographic has depicted the stories of others. I wonder what instances there might be of authors of color engaging in portal fantasies into a world where whiteness is "otherized"?
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I “develop the capacity to dream myself into existence,”
This really resonated with me as a kind of "skill" I developed as a child as well. I was able to imagine myself as different white characters in stories, suspend my disbelief, and engage with windows as though they were doors in a temporary way. In retrospect, I'm not sure how healthy this practice is in the long term.
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