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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   27884 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 26, 2022

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I am curious what proposition, overt or covert, you take the depiction of interracial or LGBT families to be propaganda for.

Literally every single book my 3 year old daughter got for Christmas is either packed to the gills with LGBTQ "families" or interracial families mixed to a degree that I'm pretty sure is genetically impossible. Like I don't think White Woman + Latino Man = 1 Asian Child, 1 Black Child and 1 tan baby.

I suspect most people are not thinking about the plausibility of genetic relationship between depicted family members when buying children's books. For one, people can have family members whom they are not genetically related to. For two, children's book authors are known to take creative liberties with reality for the purpose of telling an entertaining story or imparting a moral. For example, they may depict an animal doing something it is quite unlikely for it to do in reality (like a caterpillar eating chocolate cake) or imagine entirely new creatures which do not exist (like large furred horned hominids or dragons).

  • -15

I am curious what proposition, overt or covert, you take the depiction of interracial or LGBT families to be propaganda for.

To the exclusion of all else. That's what I'm complaining about. It's to the exclusion of all else. Representation of families like ours, the majority of my nation, if this semi-random sampling of search engine recommended examples is to be believe, have been all but completely extirpated from contemporary children's book.

If representation matters, as the people advocating inclusion of interracial or LGBT families claim it does, why have they erased my family?

Do you feel particularly erased, seeing as you're the majority of your nation?

  • -13

The greater the percentage of some demographic in the country that isn't represented, the greater the number of people erased.

Only if the demographics of the books constitute "erasure" in the first place. You are begging the question.

Surely then nonwhite people shouldn’t complain about erasure of their experiences if people of their skin tone aren’t represented, then, if demographics of characters in books don’t count as erasure?

I was not aware that I had argued otherwise.

I assume you agree, then, that the progressive push towards showing disproportionately more minorities in media for representation and to combat erasure, etc etc., is similarly ill-argued.

I actually didn't express an opinion that the claim was ill-argued, but rather that it was not argued at all. I suppose that 30 years ago the existence of certain groups was probably ignored by children's literature, though I don't know that "erasure" is the best term to describe that phenomenon. Regardless, that is no longer the case. Nor is it likely to be the case that OP's demographic is ignored in the children's literature currently available for sale.

BTW, is it safe to assume that you agree that complaints about Halle Bailey being cast as the Little Mermaid are misplaced, as well?

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