{"id":500,"date":"2014-10-15T20:14:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-15T20:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/?p=500"},"modified":"2018-11-20T05:42:03","modified_gmt":"2018-11-20T05:42:03","slug":"kidlitcon-2014-notepad-forum-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/?p=500","title":{"rendered":"KidlitCon, 2014: NOTEPAD FORUM, part i."},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>
\nCharlotte Taylor, our program director, has clear Leadership Skillz, and came up with a great way to keep us thoughtful during those brief moments when people were at loose ends. She put a note pad up in the foyer space of the library, right next to one of the (oddly hidden) bathrooms, and put pens out. Just… a blank piece of paper, and some markers. And she wrote, “Ask some questions!” or something to that effect. And the weird thing is, people DID. Charlotte may have asked the first one, to get us started, but then other questions – and answers – and arrows appeared.<\/p>\n

It was probably just as well that the pad of paper was on an easel. It made it harder to write super-long messages on. Maybe next time, we’ll cover a table with butcher paper and let the pen-and-question crew go to town.<\/p>\n

<\/a>One of the questions was about how to support diversity within the kidlitosphere.<\/p>\n

At first I thought the answer was obvious… to support diverse bloggers, follow them and comment, right? That’s how we support ANY bloggers. But then I thought about it…and realized I was maybe more confused by the question. To wit: does diversity need<\/i> to be supported within the kidlitosphere? Online? Do I need to follow diverse bloggers specifically? Is that the best or only way to find diverse content?<\/p>\n

I’m a diverse blogger as is AF… and it’s a weird thought to imagine that people are following this blog specifically because we’re non-white bloggers. (Is anybody doing that? Nobody is doing that, are they?) Here’s the thing:<\/p>\n

\"Kidlitcon<\/a>We here at Wonderland blog books<\/i>. Period. If you’re coming to this blog to receive the AfAm and biracial Pakistani-American perspective on books… well, good luck with that. I don’t know that I give readers the African American perspective on…anything. I give visitors to the blog the Tanita perspective, which is obnoxious and opinionated and pretty much stabby sometimes. Sarah gives the knowledgeable and amusing, slightly snarky, mostly goofy, much-quieter-than-Tanita perspective, which is all her. None of that has to do with who we are by our labels, by our “groups.” Know that little thing Chimamanda Adichie said about The Danger of a Single Story<\/a>? Yeah. There IS no differently-abled perspective. You already know there is no one gay or trans or bi perspective. There is no Pakistani-American or African American perspective. We don’t all have one diversity “experience,” and no matter how many times people go on about “the Black experience,” I honestly don’t know what that means.<\/p>\n

\"Kidlitcon<\/a>And, the danger of a single story is not only that sometimes simplistically written books or the media portrays people with one story but that we believe — it’s that on the other side of the fence, we think we’re the only ones put upon in a certain way, the only ones who understand certain things, and the only ones who feel a specific way. And pretty soon, we have lines in our heads and labels that say “Us” and “Them” and “They,” and we’re pulling back, just that tiny bit internally. You know what else this kind of “Us” and “Them” thing leads to? Segregation – which is just the polar opposite of the aims of true diversity. I’m not about to stay in “my” people’s camp, are you? True diversity is an invitation to broaden<\/i>, not an excuse to limit.<\/p>\n

One of the things touched on briefly – really briefly – this weekend was identity struggle and imposter syndrome, how easily we feel un-genuine and how our insides don’t always match our outsides, and we forget who the world perceives us to be when we speak out on various issues. It’s easy to make assumptions based on stereotype and then be looked at at just some Angry Brown Person – easily dismissed because the assumption is that someone else has the shorthand explanation on our “experience.” Eh, no. Let’s not make that mistake here. While we have differences in where we’ve come from, we’re all in this together – let’s not assume or summarize, underestimate or dismiss.<\/p>\n

\"Kidlitcon<\/a>YES, we view life through the lens of our privilege and our background, but each of us has our own set of lenses. My privilege is not yours. My myriad hang-ups are not yours. My sense of smell, love of snakes, unwieldy hair, and clunky shoe tastes are not yours – why, then, would anyone expect our “experiences” to match? If you’re not coming here for the Sarah and Tanita Find Wonderland show, you’re out of luck. You can see things from the perspective of A<\/b> Latina person,<\/b> a biracial or transsexual or single or married or blue-shoe-loving person<\/i>, but there’s never ever been any one tabula rasa<\/i> onto which the “experience” of your or my specific group is written… and there never will be.<\/p>\n

So, do you need to support me in the Kidlitosphere because I’m sharing something specifically here as an African American? Not to my mind. But, you tell me. What do you<\/i> think?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Charlotte Taylor, our program director, has clear Leadership Skillz, and came up with a great way to keep us thoughtful during those brief moments…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[34,19,10,27,17],"class_list":["post-500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-diversity","tag-kidlitcon","tag-views","tag-what-we-do","tag-who-we-are"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=500"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8284,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500\/revisions\/8284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}