(no subject)
I read Keep Out, Claudia! for the second time last week. When I read it the first time I was eight or nine and I remember reading it and thinking it was a little vague, the way they say "prejudice" instead of racism. Because prejudice is more than just race-related, but the way it is referred to in this book, it's like it's an exact synonym for racism rather than a hyponym. Reading it last week, I noticed that not only is it vague, it seems to be purposefully so. It seems to me like AMM - and she actually wrote this one; so less excuse for its crappiness - has gone out of her way to avoid saying the word "racism". For example, in one part Stacey says, of people being racist because other people have been racist towards them, "there's a term for that, isn't there? Reverse something-or-other?"
So is this an American cultural thing that I'm missing? Is racism like a taboo word over there? Or otherwise, any ideas on why the word is so aggressively left out of a book which is about nothing else? And if it's the obvious thing of "oh kids can't deal with such big issues"... why write the book if you're not going to address the issues properly and accurately?! She could have just written another one about Stacey having a crush on someone or whatever.
Incidentally, I read another Claudia book, Claudia's Big Party straight afterwards, and in the description bit she says, "...I wonder how I ended up in this family. We look like a family, though - a Japanese-American family." Because all Japanese-American families look exactly alike, of course. Wasn't there an entire book built around the premise that Claudia looks nothing like her family? Maybe it's not racism but certainly a great example of orientalism right there...
So is this an American cultural thing that I'm missing? Is racism like a taboo word over there? Or otherwise, any ideas on why the word is so aggressively left out of a book which is about nothing else? And if it's the obvious thing of "oh kids can't deal with such big issues"... why write the book if you're not going to address the issues properly and accurately?! She could have just written another one about Stacey having a crush on someone or whatever.
Incidentally, I read another Claudia book, Claudia's Big Party straight afterwards, and in the description bit she says, "...I wonder how I ended up in this family. We look like a family, though - a Japanese-American family." Because all Japanese-American families look exactly alike, of course. Wasn't there an entire book built around the premise that Claudia looks nothing like her family? Maybe it's not racism but certainly a great example of orientalism right there...