Minding the White Default Package

 

Linda Sue Park, author of Prairie Lotus, among other works, wrote a guest blog on the School Library Journal site this summer titled "The Default in Our Stars." Basically, her premise is that if book reviewers continue to identify race in their reviews when the character is non-white, then it creates a White Default for the majority of the books. In other words, if The Hate U Give is about an African American girl, Starr, then I should also say that The Folk of the Air series centers around Jude, a White mortal protagonist who is kidnaps and lives among the White fairy folks. If we do not identify everyone, then White becomes the "normal" and everything else is "other" and on the liminal edge of "normal." 

I was interested in this blog so when NCTE recently put a panel together based on this blog post, I was definitely in, especially because when I read through some of my blogs, like The Hate U Give, or even just looking at the books I review,  except for the majority of the fantasy, I do not read a lot of books headed by White characters. Linda Sue Park said something interesting in the panel. What if for one year we just by non-White books? I think I do that. Now I have to decide if I need to be identifying each race? I notice that 1. I gravitate toward books with diverse and non-white characters on the cover because I am reading for a very diverse group of students in Hawaiʻi where White is actually a minority in this minority majority state. 2. Unless race is a major factor in the story, like They Called Us Enemy, I do not tend to mention race. Perhaps it is my being "asleep" versus "woke" but race is not an issue in the same way in Hawaiʻi as it is on the continent. I am not saying that racism does not exist. It very much does in that plantation crabs in a bucket way where all the minorities tend to be fighting for the same piece of the colonialist rock, however it is different. I do not know how to explain that to someone who has not seen us from the inside of the fishbowl versus the outside. 

Dr. Laura Jimenez said something else in the panel. She talked about the idea that it is more than just about race. The White Default is a package (White, Male, Cist, etc.) I understand the package more. I remember talking about The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson and the reason why I liked the protagonist in "another girl power" trilogy was that she was a badass but she was also fat, "seam busting." I thought that was worth mentioning, but then again, I may be pointing it out because I have a White Default Package in my head too. 

I am not sure what I am going to do. These 7 months on lockdown has actually killed my desire to read and I have not finished or even started anything since March. If I am not reading, then I am not reviewing, so perhaps this post is moot. Either way, I guess what I pick up as my next read on my queue will help me figure it out.