written by Anti-Racist Parenting columnist Dawn Friedman
I’m a fan of the Little House books and have been since my mom gave me the yellow cardboard box set when I was seven so I was thrilled when my friend set up her Beyond Little House group blog. Amassing a team of Little House experts, the blog highlights tales from the real Laura Ingalls Wilder that give insight to the fictionalized stories of her life.
Recently one of the bloggers brought up the racism in Little Town on the Prairie when Pa dons blackface to play a “darky” to entertain the town. The chapter is accompanied by a Garth Williams illustration depicting Pa in his grease paint with his whiskers tucked into his collar.
Then up the center aisle came marching five black-faced men in raggedy-taggedy uniforms. White circles were around their eyes and their mouths were wide and red. Up onto the platform they marched, then facing forward in a row, suddenly they all advanced, singing.
…
The man in the middle was clog dancing. Back against the wall stood the four raggedy black-faced men.… The cheering started; it couldn’t be stopped. Feet could not be kept still. The whole crowd was carried away by the pounding music, the grinning white-eyed faces, the wild dancing.
There was no time to think. When the dancing stopped, the jokes began. The white-circled eyes rolled, the big red mouths blabbed questions and answers that were the funniest every heard. Then there was music again, and even wilder dancing.
So how’s a concerned parent to handle it? Well, in her post, the author tentatively ventures that maybe it’s best to ignore it:
But if I’m going to prepare her, what should I say? This is where I get stuck. Until now, whenever I’ve been faced with educating my daughter on various aspects of How The World Is, no matter how much hemming and hawing I do or how cleverly I try to craft words in my head, ultimately I’ve decided to do and say nothing until she does. Kids don’t know that injustice exists until it affects them or it’s pointed out to them. Kids who are different from her — the overweight kid in fourth grade, her African-American classmate, the two kids in her school on permanent crutches — are simply part of her life. If she asks questions, I answer. But basically she doesn’t notice or compare or judge. It’s simply How Things Are. There is going to be a time where she hears or sees something that doesn’t square with this ideal. And that’s when we’ll have a discussion. I’m willing to wait.
I figured I’d chime in with my thoughts over here and kick the trackback to the blog entry.
I’d venture to say that the classmates mentioned here – the classmates different from the poster’s apparently majority child – are having an entirely different experience and their experience is part of that school’s (and her child’s) collective experience and it’s worth exploring critically even at six. One wonders if the aforementioned African-American classmate would have the same no-reaction reaction to Pa’s minstrel show or if this is part of the poster’s daughter’s privilege.
Although her daughter is missing the racism, the racism is still there and it still matters and it needs to be part of what should be an ongoing family discussion. Ignoring racism doesn’t make it disappear – even from our favorite books and stories.
It’s not easy to see our heroes fall. It’s confusing and painful and I can see why parents might want to avoid it. But there’s a difference between stomping on Pa’s legend with both feet (damning him and the books) and opening up a discussion (where the books help foster vital dialogue).
My son isn’t really a fan of the Little House books but he’s had his own heroes fall. A couple of summers past he became a fan of Mickey Rooney after catching TCM showings of Little Lord Fauntleroy and Captains Courageous. Eventually his movie roaming led us to Babes in Arms, which includes a rollicking number featuring Rooney crooning in blackface. Well, heavy discussion ensued, (including mention of Rooney’s yellow face routine in Breakfast at Tiffany’s).
Was it fun? No. Was it easy to answer his questions and witness his dismay? No. Did we both learn a lot? Hell yeah.
I know it’s easy for us white people to pretend like this racism doesn’t matter in the context of the times. You know, the old “but that’s just what they DID back then” justification. But really what we need to do is confront the context and ask our children to think critically about our heroes so that they are able to denounce racism wherever they find it.
We can ask our kids:
1. Do you think this kind of racism was ok back then even if it isn’t now?
2. Is it ok to act racist if your intentions are good? (Pa was just entertaining the townfolk after all.)
3. Can someone still be a good person if they are a racist? (Should we judge Pa on his best actions or his worst?)
4. If we are not the targets of the historical racism, we can ask ourselves how we might feel if we were. (Do you think an Asian person might feel differently about Rooney’s portrayal? Do you think a black child might be more upset reading about Pa’s minstrel show?)
5. What do you think about banning these kinds of images? There are some people who think people shouldn’t read the Little House books because of the racism. Is this a good idea or not?
There isn’t one right answer to these questions and where a family takes them will depend on the family’s perspective and values. But they’re important questions to ask and the dialogue is one that should happen sooner instead of waiting for the child to initiate it.
Ignoring the racism in Pa’s behavior (and in Laura’s pleasure in the performance) means missing a valuable opportunity to educate our children about our history and the complexity of our country’s continuing racial struggles (note that blackface isn’t just a part of our past). Our kids need our help as they learn how to critically examine their heroes; avoiding the issue doesn’t serve them as well as they deserve.
Other resources for parents:
- Here’s a short (very short) film about blackface from over at TCM.
- Wikipedia page on blackface
- The Legacy of Blackface from Tavis Smiley on NPR
- History of Minstrel Shows
Dawn Friedman is a writer and mother to two children. Her articles have appeared in Salon.com, Yoga Journal, Brain Child and the Greater Good and she is the op-ed editor at Literary Mama. She is also the founder of OpenAdoptionSupport.com and since the adoption of her daughter in 2004 has become passionate about the need for adoption reform. She blogs at this woman’s work.
Hm. Once, I would have agreed with leave and let be until the child notices, but not anymore. Racism has to be noticed, not taken for granted. So much of racism today is subtle and made from ignorance (not actual hate but from the things we take for granted) but it is still that same thing called racism.
The only way out of this is education, and that starts with noticing it, pointing it out, making it bare its ugly face.
Priveledge is all about leave and let be.
But no, don’t condemn Pa and don’t cut out Little House like its an emblem of racism, call it what it is, a dated story written in a time of great racial ignorance, and continue reading.
I’d be very interested in pointing this out to my kid and asking her what she thinks of Pa’s actions. I’m sure that if Pa knew what he was doing then, he would be an honorable man and recant his actions.
Nice post.
I entirely disagree with the original post that she should ignore the blackface, unless her daughter mentions it. There’s a funny impulse among many people who consider themselves to be not racist- that is, by pointing out/discussing injustice or racism to their children they are somehow ruining the chances that the children can be color-blind. There’s this pervasive wish, among white folks, that if we ignore race, it (racism and/or race itself) will go away. Yup, not gonna happen.
In the end, I think it’s a difference between being not racist and being anti-racist. Which is why I appreciate posts like this, because they parse the difference.
One other thought I had. And not to put too fine a point on it. But not using this scene in the Little House books as a really great time to discuss blackface, what it meant then and what it means now, is missing a good teaching moment. By not saying anything about blackface, discussing how it’s wrong, we, as parents are silently condoning it, I think. And then we wonder why college kids don blackface and we ask in horror, “Don’t they know that’s WRONG?!” Well, if no one talked with them about it when it came up naturally, then how are they supposed to know? I’m overstating the case to make my argument, but really. Essentially I believe that by ignoring such moments, by “waiting” until our kids have questions, we are morally responsible when those kids grow up and act in racist and offensive ways. Even if they don’t “mean” to be offensive.
I believe most any lesson can be taught in an age appropriate way, and, if a child is reading/being read “Little House” books, then he/she can most certainly be taught the lesson re: blackface in an age appropriate way. To be, it would be irresponsible parenting to ignore it.
I presented the book To Kill a Mockingbird to my 9 year old niece with a brief historical introduction. I generally would not let a child that young read that book, but we were in a bind for entertainment during a week long, ice storm induced power outage.
I said this book was written when your Grandmother was your age, it tells a story that took place when GranGran was a young woman. The setting was a small town in Alabama, which was similar to Kentucky and Tennessee where we live. Back then many people were rude to other people just because they were African American. People then also used words that you may have heard before, like the n word, and we do not use them now because we know they are rude and hurtful. I mentioned the Civil War, reminded her of where these rude ways were rooted.
Oh man, have you looked at the Barbar book lately? Where Barbar and Celeste are trapped on an island full of “cannibals”? Or the D’aulaire book about Abe Lincoln. Towards the end, there’s a drawing of black folk fawning over Abe like . . . well, like Spaniels. It’s painful.
It’s easy to see the racism and blackface of the past — harder to see it in the present.
Emily, I appreciate the lesson you gave your neice re: To Kill a Mockinbird. Not an easy read, even for much older folks. However, the treatment of Black Americans went beyond “rude.” It was mean, unjust, unfair, and hateful, and a nine-year-old can understand mean and unfair. I would also think that a nine-year-old could understand “prejuduced.” Moreover, racism towards Blacks actually wasn’t rooted in the South; it was a shared sentiment amongst White Americans in virtually every part of the United States, even before the United States was the United States. The North, however, has been historically pegged as “the good guys” because the preponderance of abolitionists resided in the North, and the preponderance of slaveholders and plantations were in the South. So, we have to be careful about how we talk about the South.
I remember reading that scene as a child and just being completely baffled as to why Pa was wearing black makeup, why that was so entertaining. I wish I had been able to talk to someone about what blackface was and why people did it.
On another note, in one of the Little House series sequels about Laura’s daughter Rose, there is a chapter where the town gets together to have debates for entertainment. One of them was “Who has it worse, Indians or Negroes.” and I remember being disgusted with that chapter because of how demeaning and casually they could discuss the mistreatment of both groups. (Laura wins the debate by arguing that she knew a black doctor so obviously black people were better off than Indians.)
I know this site is about anti-racism activism. But the Little House books are far more sexist than racist. So how is it that we, as parents, choose to prioritize WHICH lessons we give on books that reflect the reality of their time? You can hardly wade through all those stories of hunting and butter churning while saying “Actually, Pa COULD have been making the dinner, but he didn’t chose to take responsibility in that way because the society had rigid sex roles, similar to today’s. Also, all the land they were farming was stolen from people whose immediate family members were dying a couple of counties over. It’s a classic book.”
When we choose to present material to our children, we’ve picked ALL the content, not just the part we thought was cool. Distancing ourselves from Pa’s activities (and I personally think he’d believe we were ‘tetched if we suggested Blackface was offensive) is to say that Laura’s response was different than your response as a child. The “time when blackface was considered entertainment” is, as you’ve pointed out, now. Robert Downey Jr.? Hardly old news.
So. The complexity is just beginning, isn’t it.
I forgot about this scene in the books. For me the cringe-worthy scenes that I have wanted to avoid have been on the prairie with Ma’s attitude about the Indians. But I do think it is important to realize that even though a comparison of the two attitudes has one as being outwardly horrible so that you HAVE to talk about it and the other being subtle enough to be able to avoid the conversations – If We Choose. And that I think is what is important, just because it can be avoided doesn’t mean it should be.
I remember last year showing Holiday Inn to my kids for the first time. To see Fred Astair and Co. in blackface through the eyes of a child was horrifying. I admit that I probably wouldn’t have discussed it but my kids started asking questions about it. It makes me sad that so many of my childhood favorites (books, movies) need to re-evaluted for my children to watch them.
I knew blackface was offensive when I was in elementary school. As a Black child I would have been angry about it because I remember knowing that it was a way to dehumanize Black people, and I remember being taught that there was nothing wrong with my complexion and being Black and that unfortunately some White people think there is. I think that not knowing about racism in childhood is a luxury that I had, but not for long if I knew what blackface was in elementary school. Some children have that luxury longer than others.
Classic books for kids in the U.S. are almost always written from a white point of view. There aren’t many from a Black point of view, or Asian, or Native American, or Hispanic……
It would be interesting to find a book where whites are made fun of or discriminated against, and read it to a child (especially a white child), and see if that provokes the same reaction and discussion that making fun of Black people provokes…..
My husband was reading The Secret Garden aloud to our 4 year old and came to a part where the little girl, Mary Lennox, manages to say cruel things about Indian natives & those of African descent in one fell swoop. He skipped that part… If she were older, even a little bit older – say 5-6 y/o, we would have probably read it and discussed it. Right now we try to read more positive stories of respecting and enjoying the many differences among us.
In a similar vein, I did read a story in an old book of birthday stories about “Indian Indian”. “Indian Indian” had a “Father Indian” and a “Sister Indian”. It was pretty absurd – with bright red skin, a feather headress, etc. I refused to read it to my daughter, saying that I didn’t like how the author was representing people with stereotypes, etc.
I don’t remember the black face scene, but I think I’d matter-of-factly point it out and say it’s something people did back in the 1800s that is considered wrong now and that people had different attitudes about race and what is considered appropriate than we do now. You can’t change or paint over the attitudes that were prevalent at the time. People in the future will undoubtedly cringe at many of the things we consider natural and normal and don’t give a thought to today. I don’t believe in censorship and I think the Little House books are still well worth reading and good books for kids.
Marcy Webb I completely agree with you. She does understand prejudice and and aspects of historical and current racism. She knows it extends beyond the southern states, and that racisn still exist, although usually more subtle than in the past.
I brought up the setting to say although this is fiction, this is really the way things were then, in a place just like here.
My explanation was more to tell her that the book would illustrate those topics and give her the choice of reading To Kill a Mockingbird or a few other books that I also quickly summarized.
Also my family has always used “rude” in a very broad sense. Rude to push your sister, rude to name call, rude to whine and beg for a toy, rude that gay people can’t marry,… To her rude means unfair, mean, wrong, and inappropriate… way beyond bring rude to interrupt.
Once I read the quotes, I now remember reading that in Little House, but like Jess I think I was basically vaguely baffled as to what they were doing and why it was supposed to be funny, then I sort of blew it off. I think I’m leaning toward Rachel’s approach about simply not exposing my kid to really problematic stuff while he’s still at an age where I have a decent amount of control over the materials he encounters, and then helping him to think critically about more troubling materials in an age-appropriate way as he begins to encounter them.
@S’s mom: Isn’t the problem that there *aren’t* books or films where white people as a group are caricatured or discriminated against? Or if there are individual instances of them (the only ones I can think of are recent, intentionally satirical, and targeted toward adults), it doesn’t evoke the same reactions because there is not the weight of historical and institution discrimination behind them?
@Brooke: I’m not sure if I agree that the representation of Ma and Pa’s historically gendered division of labor is particularly sexist. One of the things I remember most vividly about those books is how vividly and compellingly all the material processes of life-sustaining labor are depicted–sowing, harvesting, butchering and smoking, preserving, fighting off the locusts, making butter and soap. Certainly Ma’s work never seemed any less important than Pa’s; if anything, I think the books give a helpful perspective on the way in which the whole notion of male breadwinners and female homemakers makes no sense in a subsistence economy in which there are no strict divides between work, home, play, and learning.
I remember reading that scene in the book as a young child and feeling completely baffled as to why Pa would do this and why it was supposed to be funny. I wish someone had talked to me about it.
Trying to change the pattern, I recently read to my five-year-old the book “The Skin I’m In.” That was a challenge for me… but one I’m glad I tackled.
It is our responsibility as parents to educate our kids. This goes beyond responding to what they ask about. We naturally do and should have an agenda about what and how they learn. With a commitment to raise our kids with an anti-oppression and anti-racist mission, we need to bring up hard stuff, rather than wait to see if they notice it. The key is, how to do it. I do believe in offering just enough information and not more than they can take in. We remind our kids who are lucky enough to have sufficient food that much of the world is hungry. If our kids are sheltered from this, then this is particularly why we consciously try to instill in them gratitude for their food and engage them in donating to food pantries. Similarly, I tell my kids, simply, that in the past and also today, people treat others in cruel ways because of race and this is hurtful and intolerable.
I also think kids internalize racist messages on an unconscious level, so, without the opportunity to critically explore it, it will remain more insidiously ingrained.
I’m not in favor of traumatizing young kids about how scary the world is and I think we need to assure them that we will do everything in our power to keep them safe. At the same time, I tell them that together, we all try to make the world a better, more just place for everyone.
“Isn’t the problem that there *aren’t* books or films where white people as a group are caricatured or discriminated against?”
I was saying that books that are old classics (not modern classics) are written from a white point of view. Can anyone think of any that aren’t?
I think if you are going to read a Little House book in which a character makes fun of Black people and have a discussion about it, it would be good to read a book that has a minority point of view of white people and discuss it, too.
It doesn’t seem fair to discuss “Blackfacing” and how that’s the way it was back then and move on to your next book, when a white child won’t feel the sting of discrimination caused by a classic book. It is extremely unbalanced.
Wait S’s mom, I’m confused. You said, “It doesn’t seem fair to discuss “Blackfacing” and how that’s the way it was back then and move on to your next book, when a white child won’t feel the sting of discrimination caused by a classic book. It is extremely unbalanced.”
You’re right — it IS unbalanced. That’s kind of the point of this site. Our books reflect the reality of our lives, which is that white people generally carry a lot of unearned privilege. I can’t if you’re a troll or if I’m not understanding what you’re trying to say.
It is unbalanced, is what I was saying, for kids to read classic literature, ranging from Dr. Dolittle to the Little House Series and discuss the discrimination in the books. But then not turn it on the other side: Read a classic book by a Black (or Hispanic or Native American) author where White people are made fun of, so white kids can feel what it is like to not be in the top group.
I think it would be easy in a white family to discuss Dr. Dolittle (which I am using as an example because I haven’t read the Little House Series in years) and discuss it and say “That’s wrong for them to make fun of the Black Prince.” And talk about how that was the norm back then. But if the white family doesn’t read a book where a white family is treated unfairly then does it really sink in to the white children? Do they REALLY feel the sting of the prejudice of the books?
On a homeschooling board, it was mentioned that a poem of Robert Louis Stevenson is extremely racist. (From his uneditted “A Children’s Garden of Verses”) The response was “That’s okay, we can discuss it.” Then I mentioned that all of these old classic were written from a White point of view and the response, ” That’s what some homeschoolers want, an Anglo-Saxon point of view. That’s the beauty of homeschooling.”
I don’t get where you think I am a troll. I haven’t said anything inflammatory.
The Little House books were my all time favorite books when I was a kid. I probably read them over 10 – 15 times after I was no longer being read to by my parents. They read them to us first. The racism bothered me as a young adult but not enough to give up the parts of the story I loved. Funny how the sexism never really bothered me that much. I think I kept a very romantic view of the women’s lives, not realizing the gritty brutality of how it must have really been to live in a sod house or covered wagon. Pa always seemed wise and just and clever so I forgave him his mementary lapses.
However, now that I have black kids in my family, I can’t do that anymore. I just can’t see myself reading those books and calmly explaining to their wide eyes, Yes that’s how it was back then boys. Putting myself in their place encountering that is too much to bare. I am going to throw out my old copies of the whole series. It makes me very sad but I just can’t stomach them anymore.
We could read them and have those teachable moment discussions, maybe when the boys are a little older… but there are so many other opportunities for those discussions, and so many other great books where black kids and adults have courageous, exciting, powerful lives… I chose to read the great stories that will inspire and build pride & confidence.
Oh, and in case anyone wonders what I am talking about in the case of racism in Doctor Dolittle books: “The books have been accused of racism, due to their usage of derogatory terms for and depiction of certain ethnic groups, in both the text and illustrations. Editions in the United States sometimes had alterations made from the 1960s, but the books went out-of-print in the 1970s. In the United Kingdom, the unexpurgated books went out of print in 1981.”
S’s mom, I wondered (re., troll) because I don’t see where searching for a book where a white kid gets made fun of would do my kid much good in starting to think critically about his privilege. That just seems odd. I mean, I think men are capable of being appalled and offended by male-on-female rape without reading stories where men get raped. I also think that that given how often white people say, “Hey, black people are sometimes mean to white people, too!” as a way to justify racism that purposefully looking for a book like that seems kinda silly. I do have some young adult books somewhere downstairs (targeted to teens) that talk about the more complex experience of racism among communities of color but I think that my son needs to have racism 101 down and an understanding about how power plays into racist behavior first.
It’s dismaying to me to hear an argument that empathy can only be learned if we’ve suffered through the exact same thing; I just don’t buy it.
I am going to respond just one more time and then I am giving up. I don’t like being called a troll.
A family four choices:
1. Not read Little House books
2. Read them and edit out racist parts
3. Read only classic books by white authors in which minorities are made fun of.
4. Read a variety of classic books in which various people, including whites, are made fun of. (Although this is not an actual choice, because virtually no classic books were published in which whites were made fun of.)
If you want to choose #3 and feel it is acceptable for your family, then go ahead. I am just pointing that theoretically #3 may still instill a sense of privilege upon white kids.
There is no good choice here. Even if a family were to choose options #1 and #2, inevitably a child will happen on the Little House books on his or her own.
I NEVER said, “Hey, blacks are mean to white people, too!” What I am saying is that IDEALLY white kids will also read books where whites are also stung by prejudices so they can be on the receiving end. However, these books don’t exist. So this is all theoretical.
This reminds me of the Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes experiment by the teacher. No, blue eyed kids are not usually the victims of discrimination. But evidentally at least one person (in this case, the school teacher) thought it was good for the blue eyed children to feel the sting of discrimination, and be on the receiving end.
Oh, one more interesting point: Option #2 was chosen by publishers for both Dr. Dolittle and A Children’s Garden of Verses. The racist parts were editted out.
The result is that parents read these as beloved classics to their children, without being aware they were originally very racist. Is this good or bad???? Hmmmm………
S’s mom, I’m very sorry I misunderstood what you were saying. I didn’t realize you were arguing theoretically.
I do think your four choices aren’t valid. Our choice is to read a lot, read widely, read a variety of books including some (like Little House) that are quality literature that also include racist themes and then use them as a learning experience based on my children’s developmental reality at that time.
I’ve written twice about race & racism in kids’ books here:
http://www.loveisntenough.com/2007/07/27/book-censorship-whats-an-anti-racist-parent-to-do/
and
http://www.loveisntenough.com/2007/02/09/books-featuring-children-of-color-where-race-is-not-the-point-of-the-story/
Thanks for your discussion questions at the end. That’s a great way to frame the whole issue.
I’ve read the Little House books many times over the years, and that blackface scene definitely stood out when I was old enough to understand it. On the other hand, in one of the earlier books when the family all came down with malaria (fever and ague) they are treated by a black doctor.
Not to say that the latter incident some how makes up for the former incident, but rather to say that the issue of race is a bit more nuanced than we might at first think. Like Ma’s infamous attitude that “the only good Indian is a dead Indian” is somewhat countered by Pa’s more friendly attitude.
In other words, I don’t think we have to reject all the books as being irredeemably racist, but there is plenty of opportunity for discussion of how these issues are presented in the books. And they certainly must be discussed.
I want to add one more comment here. My daughter – white – received the books from her grandmother. They were a favorite of mine as a child and I hadn’t read them since. Before reading them, I talked with my six year old about settler culture, about what it meant that white people were moving onto land that indigenous people lived on. We talked a lot about contradictions – the way you can love someone, think they are kind and sweet and then find out they are doing something horrific that they don’t realize is horrific. We used lots of different examples – how friends talk to each other all the way through to colonialism. As we were reading the books, we would often pause and talk about the multiple layers in what we were reading, what Laura’s family was doing, how they were responsible even though, in their worldview, there was nothing wrong. We talked about the differences between Ma and Pa. When we got to the Blackface piece, there was already a large conversation happening about race, whiteness, power, culture and the Little House books. This ended up being just another example. By the way, we talk this way about every book we read, even those that aren’t so obviously over the top racist.
The hate and racism toward First Nations people was jaw dropping, something I somewhat picked up on as an 8 year old, but really hit me as adult.
Stomach turning, esp. since so much of it was done in name of Christianity, one of the worst religions in the world imho.