This is part two in a series on “anti-CRT” book bans. Read part one.
Allaying concerns that Duncan Tonatiuh’s Separate Is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family’s Fight for Desegregation is “anti-Mexican” and would thus inflict pain on second-graders was the focus of part 1 of this series on how “anti-CRT” book bans aim to deprive readers of diverse representation in the books they can access through schools and libraries. Now it’s time to examine whether the other two clusters of complaints, that the picture book is “anti-White” and that it is “anti-American,” are supported by reasonable close reading of the text and illustrations.
Spoiler alert: The complaints make sense ONLY if one operates under the warrant that ANY depiction of bigoted behavior by white individuals is anti-white or that ANY acknowledgement of the existence of racism in the country, past or present, however well documented, is divisive and anti-American. Unfortunately, too many people who don’t feel the effects of racism in their daily lives deny the experiences of those who do and try to suppress their stories.
But, back to Separate Is Never Equal. The banning attempts from Williamson County, Tennessee, provide detailed information about why the complainants object to the book. The Williamson County School’s ELA Reconsideration Committee’s report quotes multiple people as stating that the book “characterizes white children and adults as mean.” One complainant, repeating the exact wording found in Robin Steenman’s letter of complaint, on behalf of the Williamson County chapter of Moms for Liberty, to the Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Education, states that “the white people are portrayed as evil, superior oppressors.” Certainly, this picture book that examines a historical case of discrimination shows some white people being mean and oppressive and public institutions favoring white people over those with darker skin. The hurtful incident that begins the story’s flashback to the events of the Mendez family’s fight against desegregation was a white boy yelling at Sylvia Mendez, on her first day at the neighborhood school her family had fought so hard for their children to attend, “Go back to the Mexican school! You don’t belong here!” Sylvia then tells her mother that she doesn’t want to return because the kids at this school were mean. The superintendent who testified to the inferiority of the Mexicans (or, as with the Mendez family, American citizens of Mexican and Puerto Rican heritage) as justification for school segregation was white and definitely comes across negatively.
However, the book never states that the actions of those who behaved badly represent all white people; nor does it state, or even suggest, that white people today should feel shame over the historical actions of others sharing their ethnicity. Instead, child readers of all races and ethnicities are given opportunities to see white people who did not fit the negative categories described by the complainants, as well as those who did. Based on the illustrations, the judge and the “education specialists” called to the witness stand during the trial were white. Instead of being “mean” or “oppressive,” the judge ultimately ruled in favor of desegregation and the education specialists explained why having integrated public schools promoted understanding among the people of the nation. Similarly, while some white schoolmates were rude and unwelcoming to the Mendez siblings, other white children were friendly to Silvia and her brothers. White children are, thus, offered a choice of role models and ways of being rather than being positioned as inherently guilty based on race.
Similarly, complainants argue that the book is “hyper-focused on racial differences,” is “full of division and hate,” and thus is “against the CRT law” (see p. 47), and that we need to focus on progress as a society rather than dwelling on “very dark and divisive slivers of American History.” These objections seem willfully to overlook the main point of Separate Is Never Equal—that the events of the book contributed to and demonstrate the progress of the nation. In fact, the book provides an ideal opportunity to acknowledge both past errors—which are too well documented to be denied with any legitimacy, and which probably felt much more substantial than “slivers” to those negatively affected—and how these errors were addressed and, in this instance at least, corrected. While the beginning of the picture book shows a classmate’s racist, unkind remark, its conclusion shows Sylvia taking her mother’s wise advice to heart and returning to the desired school determined to make the best of the “good school” and “equal opportunities” for which her family had fought. After doing so, she sees that “other children were smiling at her” and makes “many friends of different backgrounds.” The conclusion’s positive note of multicultural unity and progress is epitomized by the final spread showing one of her brother’s playing marbles with a white boy while Sylvia swings next to a blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl.
In the Williamson, Tennessee, example that seems emblematic of the opposition to Separate Is Never Equal, a small, but vocal, group of people, a majority of whom had no children in the Williamson elementary schools where the book was taught [see p. 8)] worked to get this and other books removed from the curriculum and succeeded in censoring passages of this book. These citizens’ concerns might reflect a genuine belief that young readers are incapable of learning the reading skills and critical thinking necessary to understand the book and a desire to protect these vulnerable readers (even at the expense of a good opportunity to learn). Another motive could be a color-blind ideology that rejects any acknowledgement of race or ethnicity as having an influence on life in America as divisive, while ignoring the divisiveness of suppressing other people’s stories and experiences. Whatever the motive(s), censorship of this book would block children of all ethnicities from the benefits it offers.
Image: Illustration from Separate is Never Equal (Source).
