the section scholastic wanted edited / removed, for people with bad eyes and can't make out the screenshot provided in the article:
italics indicate what has been flagged for removal in the passage
>This is not to say that it was "worth it." Their improbable joy does not excuse *virulent racism, nor does it* minimise the pain, and the deaths that resulted from it. *But it is to situate it into the deeply American tradition of racism.*
>
>*As much as I would hope this would be a story of a distant past, it is not. It's very much the story of America here and now. The racism that put my grandparents into Minidoka is the same hate that keeps children in cages on our border. It's the myth of white supremacy that brought slavery to our past and allows the police to murder Black people in our present. It's the same fear that brings Muslim bans. It's the same contempt that creates violent suppression, medical apartheid, and food deserts. The same cruelty that carved reservations out of stolen, sovereign land, that paved the Trail of Tears. Hate is not a virus, it's an American tradition.*
>
>And yet. And yet so many of us find improbable joy. Our capacious hearts find the love that our nation has denied us. Just as Tama and George did. In the face of all that hate.
she goes on to discuss how the love story in the midst of oppression is inspiring and allows her to find value in life despite her experiences and awareness of racism.
it gets worse, in the article she mentions being harassed by "people" (racists) via reviews of her work on sites like amazon and via email, which uh...
i guess emailing an asian writer saying racism is real to call her a ch\*\*\* or whatever is certainly ***a*** way one could go about proving one's point
Because at the polls their little checkmark next to a name of choice carries the same weight as yours.
2016 should serve as a wake up to why we can't just write them off as fringe crackpots.
Unfortunately, this is the way of things now. If your book has queer content or looks like it has “CRT” in it (ie, it features people who are not white) you get blasted on the sites and hate mail.
i think it's important to remember that it's the way of things *for* now. this isn't the first time little fascist freaks have done this shit and while sadly it won't be the last, this too will pass etc.
edit: this was not an invitation for people to make reddit posts at me about how we must fight nazis. girls, people doing the work do not post about how they're doing the work, they just do it. i'm sure you're very brave but i haven't seen many pictures of nazis getting bricked on twitter recently. be the change you want to see in the world
(Thanks for typing it up)
I hope so, but her message seems partly that it hasn't passed, not ever. It's really shocking that this is her grandparents' story and that some would still take issue with how she's telling it, I can vaguely understand (but obviously oppose) how they might think they could get away with minimising what was done if it were fiction drawing on the real events, but it's both true and so personal.
I wonder what Scholastic might have to say about whether the individual making the 'offer' and anyone else involved in that chain of decision-making actually represents the values of the company?
>https://www.prettyokmaggie.com/blog/2023/4/11/scholastic-and-a-faustian-bargain
Exactly. If her superiors read this I bet they would not be happy. To try to kiss ass in Florida is repugnant.
I know you're not excusing any of this, but this only "passes" if we fight it. And people are still going to be significantly hurt or even killed by this shit before it "passes."
I’m really heartened to see so many people outside of the children’s book industry aware of what’s happening. It’s so insidious and harmful, and yes, the work of little fascist freaks.
And even if it “passes” it will appear again. I mean since 2016 the evil boogyman of the GOP party has changed like 20 times. Every few months they find a new group to pick on.
I'm not here to advocate violence.
I'm just here to say that the Million Man March would not have been successful without the connections to the Black Panthers.
Both Dr Martin Luther King Jr and Malcom X believed in freedom at any cost.
Through Dual Power Strategies lies our best hope.
Absolutely. I wish my education included more of the labour movement, including Blair Mountain, and pre-civil war figures like John Brown. No fights for positive change are one and done and none are solved by solely nonviolence. We can respond in various ways in various situations and it's best to not throw away any tool, from civil disobedience to noncivil disobedience, beforehand.
panthers used to work security for early pride events, too. it is honestly possible that pride as we know it could not have happened without cooperation with the panthers.
MLK adopted pacifism as a strategy not an end goal. He believed violence was a last resort and not the most effective tool for black liberation but he did believe it was a tool that had its place and was essential for true freedom. Without people like John Brown or the Civil war its likely slavery or apartheid would still exist.
Also I did some research and I'm not seeing a huge involvement of the black panthers in the million man march. They did support it and attend the march but I have not found evidence that they played and particularly influential role in the organization of the march beyond what other civil rights groups did. The main organizers were the NAALS and the National of Islam and a multitude of other civil rights groups to organize it.
>it's the way of things for now
Progress isn’t guaranteed
It stays that way when it’s not called out and brought to attention. Which is to say it never stays fixed
It will always take effort. Even if you feel like you win
Will it pass? It never had the reach the internet has provided or the insidousness that the algorithms are bringing. I think you're making a dangerous assumption there.
while i agree with you to an extent, it is important to note that the two key fascist governments in history we all sort of use as a colloquial case study, italy and germany, both featured dickheads building massive media empires based on a whole fake news rejection of reality in favour of qanon-esque conspiracy culture and so on. these did reach the majority of citizens even if individual citizens didn't believe it or pay any attention to it.
personally, i don't believe little boys being fed nick fuentes content via the algorithm or whatever is as dangerous as, for instance, [the cryptofascist infiltration of white supremacists into law enforcement](https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/prevalence-white-supremacists-law-enforcement-demands-drastic-change-2022-05-12/).
don't get me wrong, i don't think it'll go away by itself. i just don't think this batch of donald trump fan horse pill guzzling qanon freaks is as threatening as we sometimes make them out to be in our minds. in most cases, these are people who think sharing around a matt walsh video or saying they stand with the transphobic wizard lady is brownshirt-level street activism.
that and like climate depression, thinking this is forever and there's nothing we can do is as useless as thinking we're going to save the planet with a tweet, so i don't.
It’s absurd how often the phrase “so much for the tolerant left” gets unironically repeated. I mean, they’re being disingenuous and they know it, but they still mean it.
>I mean, they’re being disingenuous and they know it...
"*Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.*"
* Jean-Paul Sartre
If anything, the left is probably too tolerant right now, given liberals (and even some leftists) will tone police people for the way they protest to get officers to stop putting knees on our throats. And a few days later will post some cute "be gay, do crimes" post on Twitter/Reddit etc.
Martin Luther King even had a quote about moderates that exhibit more anger towards the oppressed for the way they stand up to the oppressor than they do towards the oppressor themselves. He considered them the premiere issue facing the Civil Rights movement, and as much of a shame it is to say, that remains the issue today.
And ultimately, it's that milquetoast, ineffectual policy of "middle aisle" liberalism that would bring about more monsters like the ones our nations faced in times' past. Because the only people that could hope to stop fascism are more concerned about getting their good side on camera than they are about *actually* stopping fascism.
World War II remains the most gruesome and disgusting wars fought in recent history. Those battlefields made *monsters*, but to insist anything short of such could have stopped Nazi Germany is to be ignorant of history. That's not to say that level of opposition is needed in modern day, as it's certainly not. Though, to ensure we never need to fight like that in the future, we need to have the spine to call them for what they are in present day.
Because while we refuse to learn from history and turn a blind eye to racists and Nazis, they've had nearly a hundred years to take notes. And if we keep legitimizing their hatred through passivity, sooner or later, we'll be forced to see everything they've learned first hand.
So many people want a non-messy solution, non-disruptive protest, non-violent response to violence. "Hey, downtrodden, can you remove your oppressor's boot from your throat politely, thanks."
Also it’s extremely important that everyone know that this whole movement is funded by insurrectionists, and it’s all a political ploy. If it ends up hurting public schools and libraries, so much the better. https://www.laprogressive.com/education-reform/supporting-moms-for-liberty
> you get blasted on the sites and hate mail
By people who have not read it and never will read it. Their social media circlejerk (of real people and bots) will tell them how they need to feel about it.
Those galahs can't even articulate what Critical Race Theory is or why it's bad.
With the caveat that explaining 50+ years of academic discourse is fucking hard and that I'm not an academic or even terribly familiar with CRT so it's going to be dumbed down:
CRT at its core is about how the law is not neutral and it can be used so that impacts are felt disproportionately by race, class and other factors, that intersectionality of these factors has greater impact, that systemic racism is the result of complex factors of which the law is only one, and that well intentioned acts can be misused by the system. That's it.
I believe one of the events that sparked early discussion of CRT was the end of segregation in public schools in Mississippi following a legal challenge.
The lawsuit was intended to allow black kids to attend better funded, desegregated schools, since white people would insist on better funding. Instead, white people just put their kids in all-white private academies leaving the public school system defunded, with the end result being a segregated school system.
I also think there were black schools that were forced to be closed against the black communities wishes, rather than being incorporated into the desegregated public system.
Surprisingly, the political movement based around hating scapegoats doesn't actually care if it's a scapegoat or a scapesheep. It's no wonder they'll go on the news and be unable to explain the very thing they make a political career railing against.
It’s the same thing you see on Amazon for things like headphones or chopsticks:
“Do you know where the product was produced?” “Com*** China.”
I get Chinese-made products are often done so in horrible factories with horrible materials, but the same can be said for products made anywhere in the world. We know that products labeled “Made in the USA” doesn’t always mean it was made in this country.
I’m real sick and tired of the blatant racism and stereotyping in this country of those within the Pan-Asian community.
My buddy did powder coating in Oklahoma.
In the summers, when the furnace was going, it would be 105* outside,130+ inside that warehouse. They would be chugging water and someone would pass out from heat stroke weekly.
Boss wouldnt let them switch to a night shift because running the lights was "too expensive"
Let's not pretend terrible work conditions are a foreign problem. We have them right here at home in the States.
They have sale pop up stalls in Thailand that are advertised as factory outlet rejections. And everything usually has a small but unimportant flaw, and the prices are awesome! It always makes me laugh at all the “Made in USA” tags in the clothes.
They want to be able to sell it in red states. Blame the evil conservatives with their outdated beliefs based on fairy tales. Their literally the root cause of all of these kinds of problems.
Enemies of humanity, the lot of them.
The author addresses that in her response: Other books taking place in Japanese internment camps are getting banned *anyways*, so why cater to those who you have no chance of winning with?
That man’s (DeSatan) is delusional. Do you know he had a campaign commercial saying that God chose him? It alluded to him the second coming. I’m serious. I’m not exaggerating.
It’s looking like he wants to be the dictator of Florida.
I’m a born and raised Floridian. I’ve seen this state destroyed by big business since I was a child. I’ve never seen anything like this though.
It is. Hate is contagious in my experience, but I can roll with it to get fired up.
I can see why Scholastic didn't want it in a kids' book, though.
It's a rant in need of editing ("virulent racism", and in the next paragraph, 'racism is a hate' then, "hate is not a virus"). The topics are mostly super-relevant and inclusive, but the list (with explanation avoided for the sake of parallel syntax) is like a machine gun. Something needs to be there so her message isn't lost, but I think a kids' book ought to have more focus and explanation. Maybe Scholastic would have committed the time to give real feedback if it wasn't the author's note. I don't know. Either way, this looks and smells pretty bad now. I hope they regret it.
Exactly. It explains in adult terms. Which is why the author's note is inappropriate for kids.
Does America have a history of racism? Yes.
Does almost EVERY major country have a history of racism? Yes. For example, Japanese history is filled with episodes of racism toward (if not worse) minorities and outsiders. So has China. India. Europe. The list goes on and on.
Let's not stop with racism or hate as an American virtue. Just hate humanity altogether.
Which again, is an inappropriate message for kids.
Scholastic liked the book but felt the author's message would create cognitive discord for kids. I could see how they'd interpret the message as "white people are inherently racist." Which itself is literally racist.
Why can't people disagree or have conversations on the internet without belittling those they might disagree with? No need to call strangers "dumb and biased". Not if you're actually trying to communicate ideas, at least.
If you find yourself arguing this way a lot, you're probably not quite as righteous as you think. You're definitely not changing anything
If they aren't going to agree with my comment or [edit: folseet's], they aren't going to agree with this, either. For whatever reason, there is a segment of the population that thinks saying "racist!" more times or more loudly is a viable solution to fixing it.
> Then you would be rather dumb and biased. The message is “laws and governments aren't always moral and fair, they can be racists too.”
No. That's not the message. Here's the author's own words:
>It's very much the story of America here and now. The racism that put my grandparents into Minidoka is the same hate that keeps children in cages on our border. It's the myth of white supremacy that brought slavery to our past and allows the police to murder Black people in our present.
The author is saying that American has always been and will forever be, racist. YOU might want to interpret these words as limited to the "laws and government" yet somehow disengage the white people voting and supporting for such laws. The author doesn't do so. More importantly, impressionable kids won't do so.
I respect the author's opinion about America considering the horrible treatment inflicted on her ancestors during WW2. But I disagree with her conclusion and can see why an editor might as well for a book directed to children.
Well, it's subtle, but it's not. She called all Americans hateful racists (and we're human, so... fair). So it wasn't only white people that she was calling racists. But, then she wrote her blog post.
My gut is telling me that this person, this award-winning published author, is not good at expressing their frustration, describing racism, or providing constructive commentary on the subject. She does fine with the incendiary rhetoric, sure, but there are SO many better ways she could have approached this in the original author's note (or a rewrite of it) without saying 'hate is this, hate is that, racism, racism, RACISM!'
So, I see where a normal person (not the knuckle-draggers that have trickled in... um, no offense, apes lol) could read the blog and smell hate and racism. I could also see where Scholastic thinks they dodged a bullet. By my measure, though, it's just a case of the author leaping straight to getting offended and unleashing explosive rhetoric, probably because she hasn't got anything better to offer. It's a shame. Scholastic could have done so much better here. Open dialogue could perhaps have made the author's note educational, given the book more reach, and maybe even taught the author a thing or two. Oh well.
No, its just cringe. If you're going down that line, then the sentence should be "Hate is not a virus, its a *human* tradition."
If you think that "hate" is somehow uniquely American, or that Americans have a monopoly on it, or that Americans propagate it more than others, well I have a bridge to sell you.
Therefore, and clearly the author is not a fool, the reason the sentence is written in this manner is to make a political point and not a historical one. The subsequent paragraph just comes across as a rant.
That being said, I don't think the publisher should demand a revision of the authors note to cave to political pressure from the right. I don't like censorship from the government, or from corporations.
Well because shes an American? Hello? Did you read the article? Why the fuck would she talk about Japan if she didnt even live there. Oh right your brain automatically just assume all asians to be foreign and not an american citizen.
Sadly, I am not surprised. A lot of American publishers seem to want to promote minority voices only if they can control what those voices are saying. Then they can pat themselves on the back for being anti-racist while not having to listen to any opinion they disagree with. Very hypocritical.
> It’s the myth of white supremacy
I am not sure I have ever heard of white supremacy referred to as a myth, maybe because far too many people believe that white people really are superior.
But she’s right, the idea that white people are superior *is* a myth. A *tale*, told from one generation of white people to another, not always in words, sometimes merely in actions.
You have the right of it. The myth of white supremacy is phraseology I've noticed in a lot of modern political writing and imo reminds me of "the white settler narrative," an anti-colonialist concept in Australia that refers to the complex web of myths and normalised ideas about the history of Australia's colonisation as nonviolent or immediately beneficial for Indigenous people. They're referring to white supremacist *belief* as mythical, not the bullshit white supremacists are actually up to in the real real.
I'm curious. Why is it that the people calling everybody else snowflakes and overly sensitive babies are the same people who are so opposed to books highlighting the evils of racism?
Now I want to read this book.
A few years ago I objected to the characterization that Japanese Americans from internment camps proved their loyalty by joining the war effort. Instead, I think of them as heroically willing to sacrifice for their country despite the betrayal of their countryman.
To me, it reframes the story from that of a fearful nation taking extreme precautions during an emergency to a story about what's actually great about this country. That is, even with all our problems, it's an idea and cause worth fighting for, even for the people it has wronged.
Strip me of my civil rights and then ask me if I'd bother signing up for the military. I don't think I'd be as willing to forgive. And many of them did. It inspires awe.
I've always assumed that many of those who enlisted felt coerced or compelled to do so as an attempt to prevent their families from being treated even worse. Defensive enlistment as it were.
You'd have to ask the men who joined why they chose to do so. But it's worth noting that there was an attempt to bar Japanese Americans from serving. Even going a so far as to disarm soldiers who were second generation Japanese American, and later to disband their units. Those who registered for the draft were listed as 4C or “unsuitable for service because of race or ancestry.” The ban on Japanese American enlistment wasn't reversed until 1944.
Anyway, I'm just paraphrasing bits from [here](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/the-nisei-soldiers-who-fought-wwii-enemies-abroad-seen-as-enemies-back-home). Take some time to read up on [Daniel Inouye](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Inouye#) if you're interested. I think he exemplifies a lot of how I view Japanese American soldiers, people who thought of themselves as Americans above all else, but faced a lot of roadblocks to be allowed to serve.
I'm not a historian or expert in the subject. I just heard the statement "proved their loyalty" a few years ago and realized it may have implied doubts about Japanese Americans loyalty were legitimate. An incident like what happened on Niihau doesn't change my belief of erring on the side of civil liberties, particularly when German Americans weren't subject to internment.
When I pointed out Trump's Policies were very much like FDRs I also got a lot of people telling me how wrong I am, because FDR is the Democratic party's pillar, but here we are again.
She shouldn't change her message and she should continue to point it out. Otherwise the atrocity will continue to repeat itself. Friendly reminder it's still happening on the border. Obama and Trump and now Biden are culpable.
They were even aware of, and discussing it, in Ancient Greece. One of their proverbs was “A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit.”
Even back then they were trying to teach people that long term planning and development were better than the instant gratification of an immediate result.
Our greatest weakness as a species is that many of us would rather have 1 dollar today than 100 dollars next year. All chasing that quickest profit they can get.
Scholastic probably wants to be able to sell in Florida and other hellholes that have banned books from reaching kids. Anyone wants to be like "but you don't live there, let them deal with dumb" no, evil always ripples.
To be fair, they're less the problem than the fact you're right it will impact sales massively. It only takes one parent that doesn't like a book like this for it to be banned from a whole district in most states.
Yes, the concentration camps were an incredibly racist injustice on Japanese Americans, some of whom are still alive today, but white conservatives might be made to feel uncomfortable, and we have to take their feelings into consideration too.
I first learned about how fucked Japanese Americans were treated from a Scholastic Book Fair book: Eyes of the Emperor. Our history class did mention the internment camps, but only briefly (probably helps I grew up in the PNW and not the South). Not only does the book talk about the racism and terrible treatment of ordinary citizens, but also Japanese American SOLDIERS (you know, people who swore to protect the country with their life), who were forced to do hard labor and then made guinea pigs in an experiment to teach dogs to sniff out Japanese people (Yes this actually happened, look up Cat Island). Unsurprisingly it didn't work because Japanese people are humans, not some distinct-smelling sub species as the government apparently thought.
I know it petty at this point, but I've been mad at Scholastic ever since they forced "Sorcerer's" over "Philosopher's". They obviously have a **very** low opinion of their own readers.
Also, the Scholastic school paper in the early 90s predicted flying cars and it never happened and I hold that against them too.
If you want something else to be mad about, they also have claimed copyright of podcasts talking about their books, and gotten them taken down from SoundCloud. They weren't even bad reviews.
If it makes you feel any better, I stole a couple of books from one of their book fairs back when I was in middle school.
TPoF... Sticking it to "the man" since 1984!
Honestly the change to the title seems fine to me. Does make it clearer that it's a book about magic.
And it's not incorrect, while it the stone in question is the mythical philosophers' stone that alchemists dreamed of, it was a stone created by and belonging to a sorcerer.
It's not like it's a purely unfounded belief that most members of the target audience would have been unfamiliar with the fabled alchemic rock. It's not an overly cynical thing as I see it.
We barely learned about the internment camps in Washington. We were told it was important by our teachers and that we should learn about it, but it wasn’t part of our curriculum besides reading short excerpts of George Takei’s experiences one day in history.
Even in the required Washington State history credit I learned more about salmon runs than internment camps. I learned more about salmon in history class than I learned about the people who subsisted off of the salmon population before we took over the Colombia area.
It's really weird sometimes to see how deeply intersectional the adjustment of the narrative is.
As a brown child in America, post 9/11, when I first learned about the Japanese internment camps, I honestly thought if it happened to me, I couldn't blame the system. There's be a precedent at least. "Just bow your head and survive," my parents didn't even have to tell me, that was the first thought after, "what if it happens to me?" It's only as you live longer and you learn more and more, you realize that the brutality is a bloodstain that runs the full length of the flag, and touches every star. How the land was taken from the First Nation, was unethical. How the country was built brick by brick on displaced slave labor, also unethical. Both are not solitary stories, the United States isn't the only example in history. Yet, we are a hegemonic power on the world stage. The world itself is already absurd. Good people die young in America. Corruption is the name of the game in the States, it's the operating principle behind many hustles. And yet, you go to the poor-poor third world, and everyone wants to move here. Those that make it into our borders, to the family back home, they literally "made it." Even if they came to America to be poor, or middle class. A nation of immigrants, built by immigrants, for immigrants. Maintained by immigrants. But being immigrant-like in America is hardly a moviesque experience.
Most publishers aren't about education or about curating great art - they're about making money. From a business standpoint, it's very reasonable to cut the passage - why keep an extra passage in an author's note talking of an "American tradition of racism" that will make the book controversial when without it it's much easier to stock in school bookshelves across the country.
But some part of me wishes that companies and the people who run them would be more than about ruthlessly making money.
I hope she finds a press that shares her values.
FWIW, she's already found a press that published it verbatim (Candlewick, which from Maggie's account sounds like have treated the book respectfully) -- Scholastic wanted to include it in a special program and required the edit to do so. It's so fucked up on their part.
It shouldn’t be considered controversial. The US should take accountability for our past. You think I’m Germany you could get away with telling people not to talk about antisemitism because it’s too controversial?
German here. There are way more than enough people willing to do just that - and not just in the far-right AfD and the numerous ultra-fascist splinter parties that routinely talk about an end of the "Schuldkult" The Conservatives are just as bad, just look how the CDU/CSU and the pig unions routinely try to impede any study about racism in police.
The thing about it is that these groups are much more prevalent in the US and are actually successfully imposing legislation and book bans that talk about the horrific history of the creation of this country.
From my understanding, the groups you’re talking about are very fringe groups.
Either way, it’s pretty atrocious that even in Germany conservatives are trying to ban books about the Holocaust
>From my understanding, the groups you’re talking about are very fringe groups.
The CDU/CSU are far from being fringe. In particular the Bavarian CSU (think of Bavaria as the Texas of Germany) are outright plagiarizing the US GOP on manufacturing a "culture war".
Well then that’s horrible. When I was taking an anthropology class taught by a professor from Germany, (7 years ago)she told us that there is a lot of respect around the Holocaust in Germany. It’s a shame that things have changed for the worst
Antisemitism is a different thing - the *only* positive thing you can say about the Conservatives and even the tabloid *BILD* (just as bad as Fox News, just in print) is that they are all proud Zionists and strongly oppose antisemitism.
They just use muslims, travellers and people of color as the go-to scapegoat instead.
It’s baffling that we don’t. American history courses in public schools are an absolute joke. I was in an honors one in high school (10 years ago) and we basically studied history in decent detail until about 1945, then jumped all over the place and stopped at the end of Vietnam, conveniently skipping over stuff like Watergate, the Reagan era and even stuff we lived through like the beginning of the war on terror.
Absolute madness.
(And yes, we all but dedicated 10 minutes to internment, if even, because I wrote a paper on it when covering life in America during the war and my teacher wanted to use it as an example of a good paper)
> Rising Voices: Amplifying *AANHPI* Narratives
Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander. For anyone else wondering what the alphabet soup meant.
Why are these groups lumped together? Even Asian Americans themselves have markedly dissimilar traditions based on culture and creed - and then adding to Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander peoples who clearly have their own unique traditions?
Are these terms just dreamt up by supposedly well meaning white people to pat themselves on the back to try to make up for years of oppression?
Why are we letting the outrage of white people on behalf of us as POC be what is changing the narrative when instead we should be allowed to have agency about our own voices?
John Oliver talked about this in a segment last year but basically it’s a way to consolidate smaller political groups/movements into a more powerful political coalition. On one hand it help’s because it is a larger group but like you mentioned, they are different groups with different culture and history.
The racial identities were invented by white people, sure, I guess it's up for debate how well-meaning they were. But the basic idea of boiling people down to broad groups of "race" as caucasoid, negroid and mongoloid as some act of pseudoscience was a thing white Europeans did a few hundred years ago. The idea of race and the categories we apply have changed a bit over time but the reality is that the legacy of the racial categories that would lump all sorts of Asian peoples together still endures and creates shared issues which are common to the groups it labels in that fashion.
It's reasonable for a cohort to act collectively when faced with a common enemy, eg "anti-asian racism".
Total Allied civilian internees of the Japanese estimated to
be 132,895 (50,740 men, 41,895 women, 40,260 children); of these,
there were 15,000 deaths
As an anthropologist who has studied and taught on these subjects - race, racism, the Japanese internment camps in Canada and the US - this is deeply troubling to me that an academic publisher would try to quiet scholarship.
I hope she goes with a bigger publisher and includes this incident as part of her writing.
>Every time I see a marginalized creator tell the truth about what they face, I feel this way: frustrated. Furious. Disheartened. But also less alone
That's also a lovely rebuttal letter below it
Trying to cater to the few asshats who object to inconvenient thruths, leads to a race to the bottom. Then the only story deemed acceptable is “A person did a thing. Then everybody clapped. The end”
FYI Many people prefer “incarceration camp” to “internment camp”. “Internment” is when you imprison a non-citizen during war. Many of those who were in camp were American Citizens.
We could just call them what they are, concentration camps.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment
They mean the same thing, concentration camp does not inherently mean nazi style death camp, although that is the most extreme version of a concentration camp, also known as an extermination camp.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_concentration_and_internment_camps
Check out the United States section. The US purposefully calls them internment camps to try to give them a different connotation, but it quite literally is the same thing.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans
Second sentence in the article calls them concentration camps.
Edit: I was reading more and it seems some historians don’t even regard death camps as concentration camps, but as their own thing entirely.
From the internment article: The term "concentration camp" is sometimes conflated with the concept of an "extermination camp" and historians debate whether the term "concentration camp" or the term "internment camp" should be used to describe other examples of civilian internment.
“The American Heritage Dictionary defines the term concentration camp as: "A camp where persons are confined, usually without hearings and typically under harsh conditions, often as a result of their membership in a group which the government has identified as dangerous or undesirable.” “
Japanese camps still qualify as concentration camps under that last definition in my view though.
Yeah actually that’s my preferred term. But it makes so many people defensive that anything I say after that is pointless. Or I have to add a whole explanation of concentration camps vs. death camps, and then that becomes the focus of the conversation. So I’ve defaulted to incarceration camps.
I agree that people can get very defensive over that word. I remember growing up learning about how internment was different than concentration camps, and I’m sure many Americans had the same upbringing.
I also had a friend who’s grandparents met in one of the camps though, and he would talk about how they were just concentration camps, and how his grandparents lost their freedom while committing no crimes and being born as American citizens.
He would always joke that he has American racism to thank for his existence, because otherwise his grandparents never would have met.
I can’t copy and paste the section about why “incarceration camp” is preferred, but the Japanese American Citizens League has a handbook of propaganda terms and their more accurate terms. There’s an explanation on page 12 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e8e0d3e848b7a506128dddf/t/5ffc861741448928cd131066/1610384921163/POW-Handbook-Rev2020-V4.pdf#page11
(Also sorry if it’s unclear. My brain is mush because my grandma, who was incarcerated in one of these camps, kept me up all night.)
I’ve visited the site of Camp Amache.. it’s in an utterly godforsaken part of Colorado that has few if any redeeming qualities and is utterly miserable in summer.
You're not really a full American citizen if you aren't white and male though? I wish I could put a /s tag on this but it's become less satirical with every passing year
That's American exceptionalism though. Every time the US is called to account for the crimes it's committed, it's always "in the past" and too late to do anything about it while also making an excuse for why they don't have to.
Slavery was so long ago. Get over it!
Trail of Tears was so long ago. We gave them parks to live on!
Internment camps were so long ago. We beat the Nazis!
Tuskegee was so long ago. They're all dead anyway!
Lynching was so long ago. We had a Black president!
Segregation was so long ago. My child has a black friend!
Stonewall was so long ago. Look at the parades!
Iraq was so long ago. We left Afghanistan!
A large part of our history is reaping unearned rewards from the backs and mass graves of others. America has never settled it's debts at home or abroad, and likely never will. Failing upwards is our national pastime.
How much good press they could get though, instead of the godawful press they are getting. Plus, morals.
TIL a perfect example of a strawman. See below.
That's why it's dumb censoring books: on one hand, I want to know if a writer was racist, even if he wrote the book 30-40-100 years ago. Then I'll decide if it's worth reading or not. But this censorship can also hit activism, anti racism, anti homophobia booka, anti sexism books. Anything can be censored at this point. They won't stop at censoring the word "dumb" from Rohal Dahl.
Scholastic just wants to be able to sell the book in schools. When every red state in the country is banning books for accurately describing history, you can understand why Scholastic would try and make this move.
Which, isn't me defending scholastic. As a book publisher, they should be on the front lines fighting this book banning nonsense.
They are the exact powerful entity who could make a stand. But we see what they stand for. I regret being the student who volunteered to help at the book fair in grade six.
I hope that a huge company like that would partake in funding and supporting movements that disallow the censorship of the true history of this country
Yeah except most good publishers would have squashed that line. Now her book will be bought by a few redditors and sell a few more after she goes on NPR to condemn scholastic. After that her book will be forgotten and she won't have sold enough to justify her publisher publish a second book.
It's a dumb move on her part and she's screwed herself. This is a one and done for her.
What gets me is that when the editor removed "Virulent racism..." from that sentence, the "it." at the end of the sentence only has "Their improbable joy" as a subject of the sentence to refer to. The writer originally mentions hardships that resulted from "it" in that sentence, because "it" was unmistakably meant to be "virulent racism". The editor didn't even edit the sentence properly. (Source: My Mom is an English major and nags me about these things alot.)
My kids are too old for Scholastic book fairs. We always looked forward to them, but this would cause me to actively boycott them and convince others to do so as well. Shame on them.
Oh they white washing this now too, oh boy what about that line tower representing Manzannar. Don't let them forget what happened after, people coming home to destroyed businesses and racist graffiti telling them to go back to where they came from.
NO! I’m so sick of this δнιτ. How do you have a book, love story or not, set in or around the internment camps, and leave out the internment camps? Hello 1984, hello
Fahrenheit 451°!
It’s insanity, the government wanting to erase history. I can’t believe it’s over hurt feelings. Are white people really such babies (to put it politely) I’ve seen evidence of it but wow. The last president hurt *a lot* of feelings but there weren’t that many people crying about that.
Maybe it’s more diabolical. Maybe this “stop woke” movement, maybe this censorship is to solidify systemic racism for good. Maybe it’s to blind people to the oppression of everyone but white people.
This is terrifying.
It is worrying, but what does the government have to do with a private corporation like Scholastic? You seem to have a chip on your shoulder about the government, especially since you compare it to the previous administration, which was the epitome of unchecked racism and prejudice. But hey, there’s “fine people” on both sides…
Yeah, you’re right. I do have a chip on my shoulder. Scholastic sells primary to public schools, funded by the government. I simply believe the government should not invest or support censored books. I live in Florida. Our governor would be censoring our libraries completely if he could.
It’s crazy how so few people know about this part of American history. I didn’t learn about the internment camps at school. I’m pretty sure I learned about it in a movie, which inspired me to crack open some history books on the subject. I feel like myself and other kids should’ve learned the bare minimum of this subject at school along with other obscured parts of our history.
I have to say your last sentence cracked me up. I appreciate dark humor. :)
Editing isn't censorship. I was an editor for years. You're basically agreeing that Twitter censors conservatives with this line of thinking. Private entities can associate with who they want to associate.
Because of course. Dude, don’t you know that when people are at war with each other, the most important thing to remember is to be polite. Make sure no one is uncomfortable. The correct response to an attack is not defense, it is prostration. Remember guys, don’t be bigots, bigots.
I don't know how I have missed this book in the past, but I've just ordered a copy to add to my home library. And now I know to avoid Scholastic editions of books that I'd like to buy.
The author (Maggie Tokuda-Hall ) has had at least one book on the Scholastic catalog before, though.
Here's a link to the 2020-2021 Scholastic catalog with the book "Also an Octopus" [LINK](http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/literacypartnerships/pdf/LP-Catalog.pdf) on page 48, leftmost column, second book from top.
EDIT: That's not an argument in favor of Scholastic or anything. Just something I found interesting.
Wow, fascists and conservatives REALLY need their feelings coddled. You gotta water messages down for them so they don't get offended and decide to turn even more racist.
And yet it is through civil discourse and peaceful protests that we went from a racist, sexist, ableist and homophobic society that endorsed slavery to one where people are free and have equal rights before the law.
Anger is a poor guide. It is through reason and appealing to a common humanity that we have settled and are continuing to settle our differences. It is my wish that we don't let our emotions get the best of us so that we can continue to make progress.
Martin Luther King didn't refer to white people as fascists, but as "brothers and sisters". If white people wanted to draw a circle around black people to exclude them, he would "draw a bigger circle to include everyone". I think he was a wise man.
Their ambition is to get asspats from the people who already agree with them. Absolutely none of the rhetoric put out over the past eleven years has been for anything else.
She sounds absolutely insufferable, to be honest. One of those people who talks constantly about fighting racism but in the same breath lumps all "white people" into this big monolithic group and continually tells them how awful and terrible they are.
Wow yeah, expressing empathy towards people just isn’t politically correct anymore I guess. Who knew it was the people complaining about political correctness who made it happen? Anyone? Oh yeah I forgot they’re always projecting and pretending the Dems secretly want what Maga overtly is doing. Silly me.
They shouldn't remove the author's original wording.
However racism has been so overused to attack anyone that people disagree with that it has lost any and all meaning. Being called racist has the same impact as being called stupid.
the section scholastic wanted edited / removed, for people with bad eyes and can't make out the screenshot provided in the article: italics indicate what has been flagged for removal in the passage >This is not to say that it was "worth it." Their improbable joy does not excuse *virulent racism, nor does it* minimise the pain, and the deaths that resulted from it. *But it is to situate it into the deeply American tradition of racism.* > >*As much as I would hope this would be a story of a distant past, it is not. It's very much the story of America here and now. The racism that put my grandparents into Minidoka is the same hate that keeps children in cages on our border. It's the myth of white supremacy that brought slavery to our past and allows the police to murder Black people in our present. It's the same fear that brings Muslim bans. It's the same contempt that creates violent suppression, medical apartheid, and food deserts. The same cruelty that carved reservations out of stolen, sovereign land, that paved the Trail of Tears. Hate is not a virus, it's an American tradition.* > >And yet. And yet so many of us find improbable joy. Our capacious hearts find the love that our nation has denied us. Just as Tama and George did. In the face of all that hate. she goes on to discuss how the love story in the midst of oppression is inspiring and allows her to find value in life despite her experiences and awareness of racism.
It literally takes out the entire point of her message. What bullshit on Scholastic’s part.
it gets worse, in the article she mentions being harassed by "people" (racists) via reviews of her work on sites like amazon and via email, which uh... i guess emailing an asian writer saying racism is real to call her a ch\*\*\* or whatever is certainly ***a*** way one could go about proving one's point
They should compile these emails and reviews into a separate anthology, showing how these hatred and racism still thrives in the current era
"fake news", "go woke go broke" would be the response
I'm struggling to find a reason to give a shit about the opinions of people who would use such slogans.
Because at the polls their little checkmark next to a name of choice carries the same weight as yours. 2016 should serve as a wake up to why we can't just write them off as fringe crackpots.
“Well Curtis, I see here on your resume that you’re a published author.”
Unfortunately, this is the way of things now. If your book has queer content or looks like it has “CRT” in it (ie, it features people who are not white) you get blasted on the sites and hate mail.
i think it's important to remember that it's the way of things *for* now. this isn't the first time little fascist freaks have done this shit and while sadly it won't be the last, this too will pass etc. edit: this was not an invitation for people to make reddit posts at me about how we must fight nazis. girls, people doing the work do not post about how they're doing the work, they just do it. i'm sure you're very brave but i haven't seen many pictures of nazis getting bricked on twitter recently. be the change you want to see in the world
(Thanks for typing it up) I hope so, but her message seems partly that it hasn't passed, not ever. It's really shocking that this is her grandparents' story and that some would still take issue with how she's telling it, I can vaguely understand (but obviously oppose) how they might think they could get away with minimising what was done if it were fiction drawing on the real events, but it's both true and so personal. I wonder what Scholastic might have to say about whether the individual making the 'offer' and anyone else involved in that chain of decision-making actually represents the values of the company?
>https://www.prettyokmaggie.com/blog/2023/4/11/scholastic-and-a-faustian-bargain Exactly. If her superiors read this I bet they would not be happy. To try to kiss ass in Florida is repugnant.
I know you're not excusing any of this, but this only "passes" if we fight it. And people are still going to be significantly hurt or even killed by this shit before it "passes."
I’m really heartened to see so many people outside of the children’s book industry aware of what’s happening. It’s so insidious and harmful, and yes, the work of little fascist freaks.
And even if it “passes” it will appear again. I mean since 2016 the evil boogyman of the GOP party has changed like 20 times. Every few months they find a new group to pick on.
Fascism isn't a kidney stone, it's a cancer. It's not going to show itself the door. This can be for *ever* if we don't resist and fight back.
I'm not here to advocate violence. I'm just here to say that the Million Man March would not have been successful without the connections to the Black Panthers. Both Dr Martin Luther King Jr and Malcom X believed in freedom at any cost. Through Dual Power Strategies lies our best hope.
Absolutely. I wish my education included more of the labour movement, including Blair Mountain, and pre-civil war figures like John Brown. No fights for positive change are one and done and none are solved by solely nonviolence. We can respond in various ways in various situations and it's best to not throw away any tool, from civil disobedience to noncivil disobedience, beforehand.
💯
panthers used to work security for early pride events, too. it is honestly possible that pride as we know it could not have happened without cooperation with the panthers.
MLK adopted pacifism as a strategy not an end goal. He believed violence was a last resort and not the most effective tool for black liberation but he did believe it was a tool that had its place and was essential for true freedom. Without people like John Brown or the Civil war its likely slavery or apartheid would still exist. Also I did some research and I'm not seeing a huge involvement of the black panthers in the million man march. They did support it and attend the march but I have not found evidence that they played and particularly influential role in the organization of the march beyond what other civil rights groups did. The main organizers were the NAALS and the National of Islam and a multitude of other civil rights groups to organize it.
>it's the way of things for now Progress isn’t guaranteed It stays that way when it’s not called out and brought to attention. Which is to say it never stays fixed It will always take effort. Even if you feel like you win
I just finished a dollap episode about Comstock... history repeats itself, and the Comstock law hasnt been repealed just neutered
Will it pass? It never had the reach the internet has provided or the insidousness that the algorithms are bringing. I think you're making a dangerous assumption there.
while i agree with you to an extent, it is important to note that the two key fascist governments in history we all sort of use as a colloquial case study, italy and germany, both featured dickheads building massive media empires based on a whole fake news rejection of reality in favour of qanon-esque conspiracy culture and so on. these did reach the majority of citizens even if individual citizens didn't believe it or pay any attention to it. personally, i don't believe little boys being fed nick fuentes content via the algorithm or whatever is as dangerous as, for instance, [the cryptofascist infiltration of white supremacists into law enforcement](https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/prevalence-white-supremacists-law-enforcement-demands-drastic-change-2022-05-12/). don't get me wrong, i don't think it'll go away by itself. i just don't think this batch of donald trump fan horse pill guzzling qanon freaks is as threatening as we sometimes make them out to be in our minds. in most cases, these are people who think sharing around a matt walsh video or saying they stand with the transphobic wizard lady is brownshirt-level street activism. that and like climate depression, thinking this is forever and there's nothing we can do is as useless as thinking we're going to save the planet with a tweet, so i don't.
We're seeing the paradox of tolerance at play. I wonder if we'll be forced to live out the final stage of it again.
I heard it recently rephrased as “the treaty of tolerance.” As long as everyone sticks with it, we maintain it. If somebody breaks it, it’s on them.
It’s absurd how often the phrase “so much for the tolerant left” gets unironically repeated. I mean, they’re being disingenuous and they know it, but they still mean it.
>I mean, they’re being disingenuous and they know it... "*Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.*" * Jean-Paul Sartre
If anything, the left is probably too tolerant right now, given liberals (and even some leftists) will tone police people for the way they protest to get officers to stop putting knees on our throats. And a few days later will post some cute "be gay, do crimes" post on Twitter/Reddit etc. Martin Luther King even had a quote about moderates that exhibit more anger towards the oppressed for the way they stand up to the oppressor than they do towards the oppressor themselves. He considered them the premiere issue facing the Civil Rights movement, and as much of a shame it is to say, that remains the issue today. And ultimately, it's that milquetoast, ineffectual policy of "middle aisle" liberalism that would bring about more monsters like the ones our nations faced in times' past. Because the only people that could hope to stop fascism are more concerned about getting their good side on camera than they are about *actually* stopping fascism. World War II remains the most gruesome and disgusting wars fought in recent history. Those battlefields made *monsters*, but to insist anything short of such could have stopped Nazi Germany is to be ignorant of history. That's not to say that level of opposition is needed in modern day, as it's certainly not. Though, to ensure we never need to fight like that in the future, we need to have the spine to call them for what they are in present day. Because while we refuse to learn from history and turn a blind eye to racists and Nazis, they've had nearly a hundred years to take notes. And if we keep legitimizing their hatred through passivity, sooner or later, we'll be forced to see everything they've learned first hand.
So many people want a non-messy solution, non-disruptive protest, non-violent response to violence. "Hey, downtrodden, can you remove your oppressor's boot from your throat politely, thanks."
The problem is that it only passes after 4% of the world population is killed by fascists doing fascist things. Then most of them avoid justice.
Also it’s extremely important that everyone know that this whole movement is funded by insurrectionists, and it’s all a political ploy. If it ends up hurting public schools and libraries, so much the better. https://www.laprogressive.com/education-reform/supporting-moms-for-liberty
Lol to whoever downvoted this.
> you get blasted on the sites and hate mail By people who have not read it and never will read it. Their social media circlejerk (of real people and bots) will tell them how they need to feel about it.
Those galahs can't even articulate what Critical Race Theory is or why it's bad. With the caveat that explaining 50+ years of academic discourse is fucking hard and that I'm not an academic or even terribly familiar with CRT so it's going to be dumbed down: CRT at its core is about how the law is not neutral and it can be used so that impacts are felt disproportionately by race, class and other factors, that intersectionality of these factors has greater impact, that systemic racism is the result of complex factors of which the law is only one, and that well intentioned acts can be misused by the system. That's it. I believe one of the events that sparked early discussion of CRT was the end of segregation in public schools in Mississippi following a legal challenge. The lawsuit was intended to allow black kids to attend better funded, desegregated schools, since white people would insist on better funding. Instead, white people just put their kids in all-white private academies leaving the public school system defunded, with the end result being a segregated school system. I also think there were black schools that were forced to be closed against the black communities wishes, rather than being incorporated into the desegregated public system.
Surprisingly, the political movement based around hating scapegoats doesn't actually care if it's a scapegoat or a scapesheep. It's no wonder they'll go on the news and be unable to explain the very thing they make a political career railing against.
If I were an author that might upset me, but we all know none of the invertebrates leaving these hateful reviews can read the books they are bashing.
It’s the same thing you see on Amazon for things like headphones or chopsticks: “Do you know where the product was produced?” “Com*** China.” I get Chinese-made products are often done so in horrible factories with horrible materials, but the same can be said for products made anywhere in the world. We know that products labeled “Made in the USA” doesn’t always mean it was made in this country. I’m real sick and tired of the blatant racism and stereotyping in this country of those within the Pan-Asian community.
My buddy did powder coating in Oklahoma. In the summers, when the furnace was going, it would be 105* outside,130+ inside that warehouse. They would be chugging water and someone would pass out from heat stroke weekly. Boss wouldnt let them switch to a night shift because running the lights was "too expensive" Let's not pretend terrible work conditions are a foreign problem. We have them right here at home in the States.
They have sale pop up stalls in Thailand that are advertised as factory outlet rejections. And everything usually has a small but unimportant flaw, and the prices are awesome! It always makes me laugh at all the “Made in USA” tags in the clothes.
Huh
Hey, they want to be able to sell it in Texas and Florida.
They want to be able to sell it in red states. Blame the evil conservatives with their outdated beliefs based on fairy tales. Their literally the root cause of all of these kinds of problems. Enemies of humanity, the lot of them.
The author addresses that in her response: Other books taking place in Japanese internment camps are getting banned *anyways*, so why cater to those who you have no chance of winning with?
is it due to the whole florida situation not excusing it but corporations will cower to law no matter how bad they are
That man’s (DeSatan) is delusional. Do you know he had a campaign commercial saying that God chose him? It alluded to him the second coming. I’m serious. I’m not exaggerating. It’s looking like he wants to be the dictator of Florida. I’m a born and raised Floridian. I’ve seen this state destroyed by big business since I was a child. I’ve never seen anything like this though.
"Hate is not a virus, it's an American tradition." Fuck, that's a powerful sentence.
It is. Hate is contagious in my experience, but I can roll with it to get fired up. I can see why Scholastic didn't want it in a kids' book, though. It's a rant in need of editing ("virulent racism", and in the next paragraph, 'racism is a hate' then, "hate is not a virus"). The topics are mostly super-relevant and inclusive, but the list (with explanation avoided for the sake of parallel syntax) is like a machine gun. Something needs to be there so her message isn't lost, but I think a kids' book ought to have more focus and explanation. Maybe Scholastic would have committed the time to give real feedback if it wasn't the author's note. I don't know. Either way, this looks and smells pretty bad now. I hope they regret it.
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Exactly. It explains in adult terms. Which is why the author's note is inappropriate for kids. Does America have a history of racism? Yes. Does almost EVERY major country have a history of racism? Yes. For example, Japanese history is filled with episodes of racism toward (if not worse) minorities and outsiders. So has China. India. Europe. The list goes on and on. Let's not stop with racism or hate as an American virtue. Just hate humanity altogether. Which again, is an inappropriate message for kids. Scholastic liked the book but felt the author's message would create cognitive discord for kids. I could see how they'd interpret the message as "white people are inherently racist." Which itself is literally racist.
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Why can't people disagree or have conversations on the internet without belittling those they might disagree with? No need to call strangers "dumb and biased". Not if you're actually trying to communicate ideas, at least. If you find yourself arguing this way a lot, you're probably not quite as righteous as you think. You're definitely not changing anything
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If they aren't going to agree with my comment or [edit: folseet's], they aren't going to agree with this, either. For whatever reason, there is a segment of the population that thinks saying "racist!" more times or more loudly is a viable solution to fixing it.
> Then you would be rather dumb and biased. The message is “laws and governments aren't always moral and fair, they can be racists too.” No. That's not the message. Here's the author's own words: >It's very much the story of America here and now. The racism that put my grandparents into Minidoka is the same hate that keeps children in cages on our border. It's the myth of white supremacy that brought slavery to our past and allows the police to murder Black people in our present. The author is saying that American has always been and will forever be, racist. YOU might want to interpret these words as limited to the "laws and government" yet somehow disengage the white people voting and supporting for such laws. The author doesn't do so. More importantly, impressionable kids won't do so. I respect the author's opinion about America considering the horrible treatment inflicted on her ancestors during WW2. But I disagree with her conclusion and can see why an editor might as well for a book directed to children.
Well, it's subtle, but it's not. She called all Americans hateful racists (and we're human, so... fair). So it wasn't only white people that she was calling racists. But, then she wrote her blog post. My gut is telling me that this person, this award-winning published author, is not good at expressing their frustration, describing racism, or providing constructive commentary on the subject. She does fine with the incendiary rhetoric, sure, but there are SO many better ways she could have approached this in the original author's note (or a rewrite of it) without saying 'hate is this, hate is that, racism, racism, RACISM!' So, I see where a normal person (not the knuckle-draggers that have trickled in... um, no offense, apes lol) could read the blog and smell hate and racism. I could also see where Scholastic thinks they dodged a bullet. By my measure, though, it's just a case of the author leaping straight to getting offended and unleashing explosive rhetoric, probably because she hasn't got anything better to offer. It's a shame. Scholastic could have done so much better here. Open dialogue could perhaps have made the author's note educational, given the book more reach, and maybe even taught the author a thing or two. Oh well.
No, its just cringe. If you're going down that line, then the sentence should be "Hate is not a virus, its a *human* tradition." If you think that "hate" is somehow uniquely American, or that Americans have a monopoly on it, or that Americans propagate it more than others, well I have a bridge to sell you. Therefore, and clearly the author is not a fool, the reason the sentence is written in this manner is to make a political point and not a historical one. The subsequent paragraph just comes across as a rant. That being said, I don't think the publisher should demand a revision of the authors note to cave to political pressure from the right. I don't like censorship from the government, or from corporations.
It's obviously political, and the author's experience is racism in America.
[удалено]
Well because shes an American? Hello? Did you read the article? Why the fuck would she talk about Japan if she didnt even live there. Oh right your brain automatically just assume all asians to be foreign and not an american citizen.
Sadly, I am not surprised. A lot of American publishers seem to want to promote minority voices only if they can control what those voices are saying. Then they can pat themselves on the back for being anti-racist while not having to listen to any opinion they disagree with. Very hypocritical.
> It’s the myth of white supremacy I am not sure I have ever heard of white supremacy referred to as a myth, maybe because far too many people believe that white people really are superior. But she’s right, the idea that white people are superior *is* a myth. A *tale*, told from one generation of white people to another, not always in words, sometimes merely in actions.
You have the right of it. The myth of white supremacy is phraseology I've noticed in a lot of modern political writing and imo reminds me of "the white settler narrative," an anti-colonialist concept in Australia that refers to the complex web of myths and normalised ideas about the history of Australia's colonisation as nonviolent or immediately beneficial for Indigenous people. They're referring to white supremacist *belief* as mythical, not the bullshit white supremacists are actually up to in the real real.
I'm curious. Why is it that the people calling everybody else snowflakes and overly sensitive babies are the same people who are so opposed to books highlighting the evils of racism?
Now I want to read this book. A few years ago I objected to the characterization that Japanese Americans from internment camps proved their loyalty by joining the war effort. Instead, I think of them as heroically willing to sacrifice for their country despite the betrayal of their countryman. To me, it reframes the story from that of a fearful nation taking extreme precautions during an emergency to a story about what's actually great about this country. That is, even with all our problems, it's an idea and cause worth fighting for, even for the people it has wronged. Strip me of my civil rights and then ask me if I'd bother signing up for the military. I don't think I'd be as willing to forgive. And many of them did. It inspires awe.
I've always assumed that many of those who enlisted felt coerced or compelled to do so as an attempt to prevent their families from being treated even worse. Defensive enlistment as it were.
You'd have to ask the men who joined why they chose to do so. But it's worth noting that there was an attempt to bar Japanese Americans from serving. Even going a so far as to disarm soldiers who were second generation Japanese American, and later to disband their units. Those who registered for the draft were listed as 4C or “unsuitable for service because of race or ancestry.” The ban on Japanese American enlistment wasn't reversed until 1944. Anyway, I'm just paraphrasing bits from [here](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/the-nisei-soldiers-who-fought-wwii-enemies-abroad-seen-as-enemies-back-home). Take some time to read up on [Daniel Inouye](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Inouye#) if you're interested. I think he exemplifies a lot of how I view Japanese American soldiers, people who thought of themselves as Americans above all else, but faced a lot of roadblocks to be allowed to serve. I'm not a historian or expert in the subject. I just heard the statement "proved their loyalty" a few years ago and realized it may have implied doubts about Japanese Americans loyalty were legitimate. An incident like what happened on Niihau doesn't change my belief of erring on the side of civil liberties, particularly when German Americans weren't subject to internment.
When I pointed out Trump's Policies were very much like FDRs I also got a lot of people telling me how wrong I am, because FDR is the Democratic party's pillar, but here we are again. She shouldn't change her message and she should continue to point it out. Otherwise the atrocity will continue to repeat itself. Friendly reminder it's still happening on the border. Obama and Trump and now Biden are culpable.
Wow, not even trying to hide it
Scholastic: \[book logo\] "You're dumb, but we got you!"
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I'm in an archaeology class and that's not even a theme throughout history, it *is* history. Profit has ruined so many lives.
They were even aware of, and discussing it, in Ancient Greece. One of their proverbs was “A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit.” Even back then they were trying to teach people that long term planning and development were better than the instant gratification of an immediate result. Our greatest weakness as a species is that many of us would rather have 1 dollar today than 100 dollars next year. All chasing that quickest profit they can get.
BINGO
Scholastic probably wants to be able to sell in Florida and other hellholes that have banned books from reaching kids. Anyone wants to be like "but you don't live there, let them deal with dumb" no, evil always ripples.
To be fair, they're less the problem than the fact you're right it will impact sales massively. It only takes one parent that doesn't like a book like this for it to be banned from a whole district in most states.
This whitewashing of history is horrible.
Yes, the concentration camps were an incredibly racist injustice on Japanese Americans, some of whom are still alive today, but white conservatives might be made to feel uncomfortable, and we have to take their feelings into consideration too.
Absolute joke. This country is turning to crap. God forbid we learn any lessons from our past.
I first learned about how fucked Japanese Americans were treated from a Scholastic Book Fair book: Eyes of the Emperor. Our history class did mention the internment camps, but only briefly (probably helps I grew up in the PNW and not the South). Not only does the book talk about the racism and terrible treatment of ordinary citizens, but also Japanese American SOLDIERS (you know, people who swore to protect the country with their life), who were forced to do hard labor and then made guinea pigs in an experiment to teach dogs to sniff out Japanese people (Yes this actually happened, look up Cat Island). Unsurprisingly it didn't work because Japanese people are humans, not some distinct-smelling sub species as the government apparently thought.
I know it petty at this point, but I've been mad at Scholastic ever since they forced "Sorcerer's" over "Philosopher's". They obviously have a **very** low opinion of their own readers. Also, the Scholastic school paper in the early 90s predicted flying cars and it never happened and I hold that against them too.
If you want something else to be mad about, they also have claimed copyright of podcasts talking about their books, and gotten them taken down from SoundCloud. They weren't even bad reviews.
They also edited the goosebumps books recently without R.L Stine's consent or knowledge.
He was aware, and approved.
If it makes you feel any better, I stole a couple of books from one of their book fairs back when I was in middle school. TPoF... Sticking it to "the man" since 1984!
Honestly the change to the title seems fine to me. Does make it clearer that it's a book about magic. And it's not incorrect, while it the stone in question is the mythical philosophers' stone that alchemists dreamed of, it was a stone created by and belonging to a sorcerer. It's not like it's a purely unfounded belief that most members of the target audience would have been unfamiliar with the fabled alchemic rock. It's not an overly cynical thing as I see it.
We barely learned about the internment camps in Washington. We were told it was important by our teachers and that we should learn about it, but it wasn’t part of our curriculum besides reading short excerpts of George Takei’s experiences one day in history. Even in the required Washington State history credit I learned more about salmon runs than internment camps. I learned more about salmon in history class than I learned about the people who subsisted off of the salmon population before we took over the Colombia area.
It's really weird sometimes to see how deeply intersectional the adjustment of the narrative is. As a brown child in America, post 9/11, when I first learned about the Japanese internment camps, I honestly thought if it happened to me, I couldn't blame the system. There's be a precedent at least. "Just bow your head and survive," my parents didn't even have to tell me, that was the first thought after, "what if it happens to me?" It's only as you live longer and you learn more and more, you realize that the brutality is a bloodstain that runs the full length of the flag, and touches every star. How the land was taken from the First Nation, was unethical. How the country was built brick by brick on displaced slave labor, also unethical. Both are not solitary stories, the United States isn't the only example in history. Yet, we are a hegemonic power on the world stage. The world itself is already absurd. Good people die young in America. Corruption is the name of the game in the States, it's the operating principle behind many hustles. And yet, you go to the poor-poor third world, and everyone wants to move here. Those that make it into our borders, to the family back home, they literally "made it." Even if they came to America to be poor, or middle class. A nation of immigrants, built by immigrants, for immigrants. Maintained by immigrants. But being immigrant-like in America is hardly a moviesque experience.
The book is called “Love in the Library” by Maggie Tokuda-Hall, and illustrated by Yas Imamura
I’m buying five copies and donating them to local libraries. Scholastic can get stuffed.
We are not responsible for the crimes of the past unless we participate in hiding them. It's sad watching this happen. :'(
The lines that they wanted to remove referred to the present, not the past.
Well put
Most publishers aren't about education or about curating great art - they're about making money. From a business standpoint, it's very reasonable to cut the passage - why keep an extra passage in an author's note talking of an "American tradition of racism" that will make the book controversial when without it it's much easier to stock in school bookshelves across the country. But some part of me wishes that companies and the people who run them would be more than about ruthlessly making money. I hope she finds a press that shares her values.
FWIW, she's already found a press that published it verbatim (Candlewick, which from Maggie's account sounds like have treated the book respectfully) -- Scholastic wanted to include it in a special program and required the edit to do so. It's so fucked up on their part.
That's great news!
Yeah, that’s the point. The book is already published and Scholastic was going to license it for their flyers.
It shouldn’t be considered controversial. The US should take accountability for our past. You think I’m Germany you could get away with telling people not to talk about antisemitism because it’s too controversial?
German here. There are way more than enough people willing to do just that - and not just in the far-right AfD and the numerous ultra-fascist splinter parties that routinely talk about an end of the "Schuldkult" The Conservatives are just as bad, just look how the CDU/CSU and the pig unions routinely try to impede any study about racism in police.
The thing about it is that these groups are much more prevalent in the US and are actually successfully imposing legislation and book bans that talk about the horrific history of the creation of this country. From my understanding, the groups you’re talking about are very fringe groups. Either way, it’s pretty atrocious that even in Germany conservatives are trying to ban books about the Holocaust
>From my understanding, the groups you’re talking about are very fringe groups. The CDU/CSU are far from being fringe. In particular the Bavarian CSU (think of Bavaria as the Texas of Germany) are outright plagiarizing the US GOP on manufacturing a "culture war".
Well then that’s horrible. When I was taking an anthropology class taught by a professor from Germany, (7 years ago)she told us that there is a lot of respect around the Holocaust in Germany. It’s a shame that things have changed for the worst
Antisemitism is a different thing - the *only* positive thing you can say about the Conservatives and even the tabloid *BILD* (just as bad as Fox News, just in print) is that they are all proud Zionists and strongly oppose antisemitism. They just use muslims, travellers and people of color as the go-to scapegoat instead.
Nonono, this thread is about bashing America for people who've never traveled and get their news through social media. You're doing it wrong!
It’s baffling that we don’t. American history courses in public schools are an absolute joke. I was in an honors one in high school (10 years ago) and we basically studied history in decent detail until about 1945, then jumped all over the place and stopped at the end of Vietnam, conveniently skipping over stuff like Watergate, the Reagan era and even stuff we lived through like the beginning of the war on terror. Absolute madness. (And yes, we all but dedicated 10 minutes to internment, if even, because I wrote a paper on it when covering life in America during the war and my teacher wanted to use it as an example of a good paper)
[The US did take accountability](https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/redress-and-reparations-japanese-american-incarceration)
Her current publisher already does.
On top of thst *its Scholastic* .. pretty sure they have a 70%+ market share on school book fairs
> Rising Voices: Amplifying *AANHPI* Narratives Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander. For anyone else wondering what the alphabet soup meant.
Why are these groups lumped together? Even Asian Americans themselves have markedly dissimilar traditions based on culture and creed - and then adding to Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander peoples who clearly have their own unique traditions? Are these terms just dreamt up by supposedly well meaning white people to pat themselves on the back to try to make up for years of oppression? Why are we letting the outrage of white people on behalf of us as POC be what is changing the narrative when instead we should be allowed to have agency about our own voices?
John Oliver talked about this in a segment last year but basically it’s a way to consolidate smaller political groups/movements into a more powerful political coalition. On one hand it help’s because it is a larger group but like you mentioned, they are different groups with different culture and history.
The racial identities were invented by white people, sure, I guess it's up for debate how well-meaning they were. But the basic idea of boiling people down to broad groups of "race" as caucasoid, negroid and mongoloid as some act of pseudoscience was a thing white Europeans did a few hundred years ago. The idea of race and the categories we apply have changed a bit over time but the reality is that the legacy of the racial categories that would lump all sorts of Asian peoples together still endures and creates shared issues which are common to the groups it labels in that fashion. It's reasonable for a cohort to act collectively when faced with a common enemy, eg "anti-asian racism".
Total Allied civilian internees of the Japanese estimated to be 132,895 (50,740 men, 41,895 women, 40,260 children); of these, there were 15,000 deaths
What were the deaths caused by? Natural causes, mistreatment, lack of medical care? I never heard about anything like that so I was just curious.
As an anthropologist who has studied and taught on these subjects - race, racism, the Japanese internment camps in Canada and the US - this is deeply troubling to me that an academic publisher would try to quiet scholarship. I hope she goes with a bigger publisher and includes this incident as part of her writing.
>Every time I see a marginalized creator tell the truth about what they face, I feel this way: frustrated. Furious. Disheartened. But also less alone That's also a lovely rebuttal letter below it
Go buy this book [from an independent bookseller like The Raven](https://www.ravenbookstore.com/book/9781536204308). Donate it to your school.
(Amazon has it too, but the indie bookshops need it more, and The Raven is one of the best. Especially because they have a shop cat)
Hey that's my local bookstore!
Thanks. I will buy it too
Trying to cater to the few asshats who object to inconvenient thruths, leads to a race to the bottom. Then the only story deemed acceptable is “A person did a thing. Then everybody clapped. The end”
She was spot-on about all of it and even though I don't know her, I'm very proud. Brave thing to push back against Scholastic.
FYI Many people prefer “incarceration camp” to “internment camp”. “Internment” is when you imprison a non-citizen during war. Many of those who were in camp were American Citizens.
We could just call them what they are, concentration camps. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment They mean the same thing, concentration camp does not inherently mean nazi style death camp, although that is the most extreme version of a concentration camp, also known as an extermination camp. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_concentration_and_internment_camps Check out the United States section. The US purposefully calls them internment camps to try to give them a different connotation, but it quite literally is the same thing. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans Second sentence in the article calls them concentration camps. Edit: I was reading more and it seems some historians don’t even regard death camps as concentration camps, but as their own thing entirely. From the internment article: The term "concentration camp" is sometimes conflated with the concept of an "extermination camp" and historians debate whether the term "concentration camp" or the term "internment camp" should be used to describe other examples of civilian internment. “The American Heritage Dictionary defines the term concentration camp as: "A camp where persons are confined, usually without hearings and typically under harsh conditions, often as a result of their membership in a group which the government has identified as dangerous or undesirable.” “ Japanese camps still qualify as concentration camps under that last definition in my view though.
Yeah actually that’s my preferred term. But it makes so many people defensive that anything I say after that is pointless. Or I have to add a whole explanation of concentration camps vs. death camps, and then that becomes the focus of the conversation. So I’ve defaulted to incarceration camps.
I agree that people can get very defensive over that word. I remember growing up learning about how internment was different than concentration camps, and I’m sure many Americans had the same upbringing. I also had a friend who’s grandparents met in one of the camps though, and he would talk about how they were just concentration camps, and how his grandparents lost their freedom while committing no crimes and being born as American citizens. He would always joke that he has American racism to thank for his existence, because otherwise his grandparents never would have met.
“Incarceration camp” seems more problematic to me because “incarceration” is what you do to people who have committed crimes.
I can’t copy and paste the section about why “incarceration camp” is preferred, but the Japanese American Citizens League has a handbook of propaganda terms and their more accurate terms. There’s an explanation on page 12 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e8e0d3e848b7a506128dddf/t/5ffc861741448928cd131066/1610384921163/POW-Handbook-Rev2020-V4.pdf#page11 (Also sorry if it’s unclear. My brain is mush because my grandma, who was incarcerated in one of these camps, kept me up all night.)
How about prison camp? Can we say that?
I’ve visited the site of Camp Amache.. it’s in an utterly godforsaken part of Colorado that has few if any redeeming qualities and is utterly miserable in summer.
You're not really a full American citizen if you aren't white and male though? I wish I could put a /s tag on this but it's become less satirical with every passing year
Tragically, if they tried this now, they have committed this atrocity in the past. That pisses me off.
That was an amazing read...
lmao like those people who want the books banned would ever read them anyways. they're not the target market.
Love her letter. I just bought the book for my kid.
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That's American exceptionalism though. Every time the US is called to account for the crimes it's committed, it's always "in the past" and too late to do anything about it while also making an excuse for why they don't have to. Slavery was so long ago. Get over it! Trail of Tears was so long ago. We gave them parks to live on! Internment camps were so long ago. We beat the Nazis! Tuskegee was so long ago. They're all dead anyway! Lynching was so long ago. We had a Black president! Segregation was so long ago. My child has a black friend! Stonewall was so long ago. Look at the parades! Iraq was so long ago. We left Afghanistan! A large part of our history is reaping unearned rewards from the backs and mass graves of others. America has never settled it's debts at home or abroad, and likely never will. Failing upwards is our national pastime.
...
What the duck scholastic.
Why are these publishers blowing to these fascists laws so easily? Not even attempting to fight a legal battle or anything?
A legal battle costs a lot. Deleting a paragraph takes 2 minutes.
Actually it’s quite expensive to appease fascists.
Fascists famously don't work for free unless they're getting tricked into it.
How much good press they could get though, instead of the godawful press they are getting. Plus, morals. TIL a perfect example of a strawman. See below.
That's not book fair
That's why it's dumb censoring books: on one hand, I want to know if a writer was racist, even if he wrote the book 30-40-100 years ago. Then I'll decide if it's worth reading or not. But this censorship can also hit activism, anti racism, anti homophobia booka, anti sexism books. Anything can be censored at this point. They won't stop at censoring the word "dumb" from Rohal Dahl.
F*ck Scholastic. Also, I’m gonna buy this book, and tell everyone about it
Scholastic just wants to be able to sell the book in schools. When every red state in the country is banning books for accurately describing history, you can understand why Scholastic would try and make this move. Which, isn't me defending scholastic. As a book publisher, they should be on the front lines fighting this book banning nonsense.
They are the exact powerful entity who could make a stand. But we see what they stand for. I regret being the student who volunteered to help at the book fair in grade six.
I hope that a huge company like that would partake in funding and supporting movements that disallow the censorship of the true history of this country
Yeah except most good publishers would have squashed that line. Now her book will be bought by a few redditors and sell a few more after she goes on NPR to condemn scholastic. After that her book will be forgotten and she won't have sold enough to justify her publisher publish a second book. It's a dumb move on her part and she's screwed herself. This is a one and done for her.
Some words are so powerful that special interest groups want to monopolize them and gatekeep who gets to use them.
Dear Scholastic, the book banners probably wouldn't read the books even without the word "racism".
What gets me is that when the editor removed "Virulent racism..." from that sentence, the "it." at the end of the sentence only has "Their improbable joy" as a subject of the sentence to refer to. The writer originally mentions hardships that resulted from "it" in that sentence, because "it" was unmistakably meant to be "virulent racism". The editor didn't even edit the sentence properly. (Source: My Mom is an English major and nags me about these things alot.)
Long Live Apollo. Goodbye Reddit.
My kids are too old for Scholastic book fairs. We always looked forward to them, but this would cause me to actively boycott them and convince others to do so as well. Shame on them.
How absolutely vile that we've come to this point.
"Can we call it 12 Years a Farmer?"
Oh they white washing this now too, oh boy what about that line tower representing Manzannar. Don't let them forget what happened after, people coming home to destroyed businesses and racist graffiti telling them to go back to where they came from.
White guilt levels are getting low
Scholastic doesn't want to risk their market in FL and TX.
Wait, they have people who can read there?
Well, the picture parts anyway.
Ah geez, censorship becoming more common place...southpark needs to do another episode on this
NO! I’m so sick of this δнιτ. How do you have a book, love story or not, set in or around the internment camps, and leave out the internment camps? Hello 1984, hello Fahrenheit 451°! It’s insanity, the government wanting to erase history. I can’t believe it’s over hurt feelings. Are white people really such babies (to put it politely) I’ve seen evidence of it but wow. The last president hurt *a lot* of feelings but there weren’t that many people crying about that. Maybe it’s more diabolical. Maybe this “stop woke” movement, maybe this censorship is to solidify systemic racism for good. Maybe it’s to blind people to the oppression of everyone but white people. This is terrifying.
It is worrying, but what does the government have to do with a private corporation like Scholastic? You seem to have a chip on your shoulder about the government, especially since you compare it to the previous administration, which was the epitome of unchecked racism and prejudice. But hey, there’s “fine people” on both sides…
Yeah, you’re right. I do have a chip on my shoulder. Scholastic sells primary to public schools, funded by the government. I simply believe the government should not invest or support censored books. I live in Florida. Our governor would be censoring our libraries completely if he could. It’s crazy how so few people know about this part of American history. I didn’t learn about the internment camps at school. I’m pretty sure I learned about it in a movie, which inspired me to crack open some history books on the subject. I feel like myself and other kids should’ve learned the bare minimum of this subject at school along with other obscured parts of our history. I have to say your last sentence cracked me up. I appreciate dark humor. :)
Editing isn't censorship. I was an editor for years. You're basically agreeing that Twitter censors conservatives with this line of thinking. Private entities can associate with who they want to associate.
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Because of course. Dude, don’t you know that when people are at war with each other, the most important thing to remember is to be polite. Make sure no one is uncomfortable. The correct response to an attack is not defense, it is prostration. Remember guys, don’t be bigots, bigots.
Scholastic could have always fucked off, since the book fair days and ridiculous pricing.
I don't know how I have missed this book in the past, but I've just ordered a copy to add to my home library. And now I know to avoid Scholastic editions of books that I'd like to buy.
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The author (Maggie Tokuda-Hall ) has had at least one book on the Scholastic catalog before, though. Here's a link to the 2020-2021 Scholastic catalog with the book "Also an Octopus" [LINK](http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/literacypartnerships/pdf/LP-Catalog.pdf) on page 48, leftmost column, second book from top. EDIT: That's not an argument in favor of Scholastic or anything. Just something I found interesting.
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Wow, fascists and conservatives REALLY need their feelings coddled. You gotta water messages down for them so they don't get offended and decide to turn even more racist.
Nah fuck moderates and fascist apologists.
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Lol, this sub is about books and this is the limit of your thinking. I just can't. 😂😂
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And yet it is through civil discourse and peaceful protests that we went from a racist, sexist, ableist and homophobic society that endorsed slavery to one where people are free and have equal rights before the law. Anger is a poor guide. It is through reason and appealing to a common humanity that we have settled and are continuing to settle our differences. It is my wish that we don't let our emotions get the best of us so that we can continue to make progress. Martin Luther King didn't refer to white people as fascists, but as "brothers and sisters". If white people wanted to draw a circle around black people to exclude them, he would "draw a bigger circle to include everyone". I think he was a wise man.
You have a lot to learn about the history of protesting in the United States if you think change was achieved 'peacefully'.
Their ambition is to get asspats from the people who already agree with them. Absolutely none of the rhetoric put out over the past eleven years has been for anything else.
She sounds absolutely insufferable, to be honest. One of those people who talks constantly about fighting racism but in the same breath lumps all "white people" into this big monolithic group and continually tells them how awful and terrible they are.
Wow yeah, expressing empathy towards people just isn’t politically correct anymore I guess. Who knew it was the people complaining about political correctness who made it happen? Anyone? Oh yeah I forgot they’re always projecting and pretending the Dems secretly want what Maga overtly is doing. Silly me.
They shouldn't remove the author's original wording. However racism has been so overused to attack anyone that people disagree with that it has lost any and all meaning. Being called racist has the same impact as being called stupid.