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Online Forum: Capturing Race
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PEN's Children's/Young Adult Book Authors Committee weighs in on the many forms of racism—be it overt or subtle, deliberate or accidental. Please join the discussion by reading the following essay and posting your comments.
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| Fatima Shaik: Writing Melitte |
In my young adult novel Melitte, I did not let readers know that she
was a slave until the third chapter. I wanted them first to identify
with the soft-spoken, intelligent narrator.
Readers first learn that Melitte is running away with her sister, that
the Chaouachas men are hiding them from the Louisiana Frenchmen, that
the girls are at a crossroad and that they must separate.
Only when the narrator realizes that her skin color portends her status
are readers introduced to the concept of slavery. Then, they enter a
world that adults created where one child can be sold and the other
protected.
I expect young adult readers to feel just as Melitte and her white,
half-sister Marie did. When the Chaouachas aid Melitte’s escape, but
return her sister to their white father, readers feel sad.
So the book is a loss of innocence story with race at its center.
The readers’ loss of innocence is recognizing slavery and the roles
played by every echelon of American society. It is my challenge as a
black writer to capture the feelings of racism without frightening,
pacifying or fooling the audience.
Let me show you some elements of this process.
It begins with self-censorship. I have to choose from a repertoire of
American degradations of people of African descent. I have to be true
to this history of black experiences in America and yet not scare or
discourage children. So, I must find examples of heroism and heroic
spirits. In adult writing, one can emphasize the many people who were
damaged and lost. I wouldn’t do that too blatantly with children.
Luckily, the survivalist spirit that emerged from American struggle in
such tangible ways is a joy to describe. Melitte begins to sing the
escape songs disguised as Christian music that she hears on the
plantations. She creates a language in sewing, remembered from her
mother and reflected in her environment. She recognizes, even in her
isolation on a small farm, the warmth of animals to their young, and
extends it to the baby who is born and placed in her care.
She finds out the child is her half-sister. I choose to write about
race this way so children today will not be fooled. They must know that
race is socially constructed. Especially, in the melting pot of the
United States—as DNA
evidence recently has shown—many of our people are genetically
related. Color as a link to “purity” is even more fallacious in
Louisiana, my home state. So children must know, as adults do, that
race is not a given and racism is a choice.
I wrote this essay on race thinking about Katrina. I saw the dark
skinned people of my hometown left on the highways and in the
Superdome, as we all did, without even recognition from the government.
It was the history of my state reenacted swiftly before my eyes. The
darker and poorer the human being, the more rationales emerged for
their disconnection from mainstream America. Children must understand
that one important, working definition of race is the method of
deciding who is left out.
In Melitte, which was translated also into German as Melinde, the two
girls discover late in the book that they have the same father. He is a
man down on his luck with a shrew of a wife. They need money. He
decides to sell Melitte for their benefit.
The girls alone decide that it is better for Melitte to run away and
leave her half-sister—the only person she loves—rather than to
become the sacrifice. The girls are heartbroken, but they vow one day
to meet again.
When I speak to audiences of young readers—almost uniformly white or
black since they attend schools that still are overwhelmingly
segregated in this country—they often ask me to write a sequel to the
book. I ask the children, what do you want to happen? Each time, they
shout, bring the sisters together again.
I tell them I can’t write an ending they have already imagined.
Perhaps they can take the next step in real life if I have written with
care for their sense of hope, honesty to my knowledge of racism, and
sensitivity to my own experiences.
Copyright © 2007 by Fatima Shaik. All Rights Reserved.
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