Monday 1 June 2020

Black Lives Matter -let's get reading by Juliet Clare Bell



Montecruz Foto/Flickr. Taken from The Princetonian article Black Lives Matter: it must be said


We must do more than just rage about the brutal murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Corey Jones, Oscar Grant, Botham Jean, Sandra Bland, Jordan Davis, Michael Brown, John Crawford, Freddie Gray, Alton Sterling, Terrence Crutcher, Aiyana Jones, Philando Castile, Walter Scott, Sean Bell, Tamir Rice, Renisha McBride, Amadou Diallo, Stephon Clark, Jordan Edwards, Jonathan Ferrell, Atatiana Jefferson, Keith Scott, Trayvon Martin.

For any white people (including writers) who would also like to be the best ally they can be to black people, there are some extremely good posts on how to get better educated. Please read their articles if they apply to you.

Here’s a blogpost by Courtney Ariel who talks about what white people need to be doing, and not doing, in order to be a proper ally: 



Here’s a list of 31 picture books for young readers up to the end of primary school to support conversations about race, racism and resistance. It was curated by critical literacy organisations, The Conscious Kid, an education, research and policy organisation dedicated to reducing bias and promoting positive identity development in youth, and American Indians in Children's Literature:


(c) Malcolm Little by Ilysah Shabazz (Malcolm X's daughter) and A G Ford (2014), one of the recommended books



And here's Brea Baker’s blog with her anti-racist adult reading list:




And finally, here's a link to support diverse publishing in the UK, which is in crisis:

CRISIS FUNDING FOR INCLUSIVE PUBLISHERS 


As Courtney Ariel says:
“You’re going to make mistakes –expect this. But keep showing up”.

We must keep showing up -and (as someone who talks a lot) do less talking and really listen.

If you have any other links to posts with links to book recommendations for children, please leave them in the comments section below.
Thank you.

2 comments:

Camilla Chester said...

This was fantastically helpful, thank you for posting. I especially benefitted from the post that you linked to giving advice to wannabe white allies. In in the interest of that I will now shut up as I've been holding the microphone for too long.

Juliet Clare Bell said...

Thanks, Camilla. Courtney Ariel's post is very powerful.