Insider/Outsider Debate

When thinking about the insider/outsider debate, I do not believe that it is an either/or debate. I do agree with Bishop when he said that "you have to know a culture intimately if you're going to reflect it accurately in your fictions." This quote simply sums up how I feel about this issue. I believe that quality and authentic children's literature should not be limited to only authors who are considered insiders, and by insiders I mean someone who is of the same ethnicity, race, sex, or gender. Therefore, the one quality that I think should be the determining factor should be if the author has spent quality time researching, spending time, and accurately represents the group that they are writing about.
Bishop says "to exclude the literature of any group from the body of multicultural literature is to distort the literal meaning of the term". Therefore, I believe that the same holds true for the authors of this literature. I don't believe that its accurate to say that only genuine and authentic literature comes from an insider. As I stated earlier the only true determining factor for authors of genuine multicultural literature is that they know a culture intimately. However, in closing I will add that, I do think its fair to say that often times people who often know a culture intimately are often people who are an insider.

Mascot Movie

Watching the movie in class was extremely touching and some of the images have stuck in my mind over the past 4 days since class. The images that I keep seeing were in the part of the movie where the guy danced around the gym in the headdress and when the woman was crying recalling her memories of when she took her children to a game. Seeing how hurt this lady and her children are over the this mascot was heartbreaking to me. The most heartbreaking and eyeopening part for me is that I have been ignorant to even know that this could have been offensive to Native Americans. The part that was the most upsetting to me was the part when the Native American woman was protesting/yelling at the mascot outside. The mascot got right in her face and was yelling. The upsetting part is that these people refused to changed their mascot even after knowing that it was offensive and hurtful to a certain group of people. I can understand that the initial creation of the mascot might not have been made with the intent to hurt others, however no matter what their intent was, the bottom line is that it is still harming others.

I had an experience in my Eng. 310E class which I could easily relate to this movie. We are talking and focusing on African Americans and media. Last class we watched a movie called Bamboozled, by Spike Lee. In this movie the main character is black and his boss is white. His boss was freely using the "N" word around him, and he politely asked his boss to never use that word in his presence. His boss proceeded to tell him that it was ok for him to use this word because he is "just as black as him maybe even more black" because he had a black wife and black athletes posters around his office. The point that struck me at this point in the movie is that fact that instead of the boss apologizing to his employee and telling him he didn't mean to offend him, he justifies his reasoning for saying the "N" word and continues to use it.

The lesson that I learned from both of these experiences is that as teachers and even as human beings we need to not only be very cautious about the things that we say and do, but also we need to be aware of how other people are perceiving the things that we do or say. Just because we are doing something that we don't intend to be hurtful, doesn't give us the right to continue to do something if we know that the outcome is not taken in the same way that we intended them to perceive it.

Let me introduce myself

My name is Kelly Mason. I am currently a senior at Michigan State University and I am studying Special Education, Leaning Disabilities. I love working with students and their energy for life that they often show. I currently work at a daycare, babysit, and volunteer.

Diverse Literature is important to me for many reasons. However, the most important reason for me is because it gives students from all different cultures and backgrounds a chance to see a reflection of themselves. It allows all students to be able to connect on a personal level with literature.
Some questions that I have and would like to explore this semester include:

1. What are exceptional books to include in my diverse library?
2. What books (or what qualities in books) if any should I not include in my diverse library?
3. What are politically correct terms that should be used? Which shouldn't be used?