YA Literature as Protest
The country is in upheaval and people everywhere are trying to figure out what they can do. This is no more evident than in conversations with teachers. In a time when we’ve faced a pandemic and the whiplash of switching to some perverted version of online learning, teachers are now having to question how to address the current issues in their classroom. You have the tools at your fingertips. If you’re reading this saying “I don’t want to be political” or “The classroom isn’t the right place to be political” you are being political. Your silence is political!
The books you select, and don’t select, are political. Reading is not a passive activity. From the moment you choose a text you are making a statement. If you’re teaching To Kill a Mockingbird as a coming of age tale, but are afraid to use The Hate U Give. You’ve made a political statement. Both stories center on young girls who learn a harsh truth about their respective environments. Both stories center a Black males’ death at the hand of a white law enforcement officer. So, why is one canon and the other “controversial”? Do one of these men deserve to die? Is only one of these girls permitted to “come of age”? If Scout’s journey is worthy of the classroom, then honor Starr’s or acknowledge that your discomfort is hypocritical and based on race.
Think about what pushes you away from certain stories and how those issues appear in books you wouldn’t think twice about assigning. Consider The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. White character, Black character. Do you think twice about reading it because of its prolific use of the n-word? Do you think about the discomfort of Black students in your room who will be reading it? Is it inappropriate because of how it characterizes Black people. Chances are the answer to all of the above is “No”. Maybe you even argued that it is historically accurate and reflects the society at the time. So why then aren’t you incorporating Dear Martin into your classroom. Let me guess? It might make some students or parents uncomfortable. Maybe it’s because of the language or how cops and some white are characterized. If you’re teaching culturally insensitive texts because they’re historically correct I’ve got news for you, so are a plethora of books headlined by Black characters and written by Black authors.
Let’s take this even further. Maybe you have those two books because let’s be honest they are brilliant and written by two incredibly talented Black women. What else do you have? And if all you can say to that is that you “love Jason Reynolds” you aren’t doing enough. That’s tantamount to “I have a Black friend.” We all know Jason is a magician when it comes to telling a story. Where are your Black joy books? Black people experience trauma, but they also experience love and anxiety. They solve mysteries and go on adventures. Have you made room for those stories? We must acknowledge the responsibility to be purposeful, active, and honest in our protests. It might mean fighting a department chair or an administrator or a conversation with a parent.
Let your curriculum choices and your in-class library say “I see you. I hear you. I stand with you” to do anything else says “I don’t want to see” or “You’re welcome here, but not anything related to who you are”. Let your text selections be part of your protest, but please don’t let that be where you stop. Consider adding Tochi Onyebuchi’s War Girls. If we’re still reading Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World there’s room for a futuristic science fiction book that takes place in Nigeria in 2172. Tomi Adeyemi’s Children of Blood and Bone and its sequel Children of Virtue and Vengeance are excellent fantasy stories with deep roots. Get to know L.L. McKinney, Dohnielle Clayton, and Justina Ireland and then get to know who they read and read those people. Try Roseanne A. Brown’s A Song of Wraiths and Ruin, a fantasy story steeped in West African folklore or Bethany C. Morrow’s A Song Below Water which includes Black mermaids. Lamar Giles writes plenty of stories that are mysteries. Spin, Endangered, Fake ID, Overturned. All of them involve a main, Black character, trying to solve a mystery that is close and personal to them. Brown Girl Ghosted by Mintie Das is both fantasy and mystery. Leah Johnson’s debut You Should See Me in a Crown is straight rom-com. Justin A. Reynolds’s Opposite of Always is a romantic story in the same vein as John Green.
Our Black Lives Matter protest must include our LGBTQ students, as well. Not just those who are LGB, but also those who are trans students, non-binary, or gender non-conforming students. They are not an afterthought. They are not a separate movement. There is no monolith of the Black life. It cannot fit into one story or type of story. Your protest must include their lived experiences. For Black lives to matter and be valued in your classroom you must show them in every form. George M. Johnson’s All Boys Aren’t Blue, Kacen Callendar’s Felix Ever After, and NoNieqa Ramos’s the truth is tell very different stories, but what they have in common is the honest story of a person who is lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, trans, or questioning.
Now is the time to say something. Say it with your words when you can, but also say it with your actions, with your purchases. Buy books that tell Black experiences, the multitudes and myriads of those experiences, from a Black author. We’ve taught problematic white guys for decades with little concern for push back, and often without even thinking about. Choose now to stop making excuses and start making choices.
If you’ve asked what you can do? This is the bare minimum. Pick books that make you uncomfortable. That discomfort is the cost of being anti-racist. It is the cost of saying you do this for the kids. It is the cost of having the impressionable minds of young people in your hands. If you can’t pay that cost consider what your silence costs your students.
