Hello, everyone. Sorry I will miss class tomorrow! Just posting a few thoughts for our readings this week:
What Feilder poses in Pets, Race is something that I always had a question about. If representation matters, how much more does it matter with authorship? To me the literature is the subject matter and Fielder broadly sees as overlaps, African American children take part in white reader (is the reverse true?) what’s important is how these literatures can show up in an African American context.
Children’s literature was amid adult news stories. Does this collapse between adult and child have an even greater impact on African American readers? I’m thinking how black children are seen as adults much earlier than white children.
I can appreciate how Fielder’s reading of the crow as a figure that can also align with folklore/emancipation rather than racist minstrelsy. A particular kind of historical contextualization of blackness needs to come into play to redirect these readings. However, I need to unpack when she writes “The Crow is a racialized animal, but not a Black human.” (p. 421, last paragraph) and later in the same paragraph, “The Crow is black and worldly.” Where is the fine line/the slippage that can help us better understand reexamine the kinds of animal anthropomorphic with coded racial histories?
Hi Jaïra, Your question about overlapping adult and child readership, and the ways that Black children are viewed as adult earlier than white children, is fascinating. There is enormous potential in that question for all kinds of scholarship that has not been done yet…and your question about “the fine line/ the slippage” likewise. I am excited to see you, and the class, explore these questions further! CH