Richie's Picks: GUARDIAN by Julius Lester, Harper/Amistad, October 2008,
130p. ISBN: 978-0-06-155890-0; Libr. ISBN: 978-0-06-155891-7
"There are moments in which one word can bestow life or abort it.
"A mere word, one syllable from a parent to a child has the power of a
commandment from God."
So many children are parented in a way that leads to their not feeling good
about themselves. And so, instead of securing real power -- the power to be
yourself -- they end up resorting, instead, to the power of domination.
The power of domination has been sought throughout history by people joining
into groups in which members develop a sense of belonging and a sense of
superiority. Achievement of these two senses yields a feeling amongst group
members of power and well-being.
But since the power of domination is such an illusory power, it needs
constant maintenance. Groups trying to maintain dominance must take regular
action
-- abuse, war, exclusion, economic exploitation, enslavement, vilification
-- against those being dominated to prove to themselves that their power
really exists.
And so it has been through history that men have sought to dominate women,
and whites have sought to dominate blacks, and Christians have sought to
dominate Muslims, and Aryans sought to dominate Jews, and straights have sought to
dominate gays, and those who were there sooner have sought to dominate those
who arrived later, and on and on and on.
Having been a Long Island kid before moving west, I'm currently working my
way through an excellent college textbook that is teaching me all about
California history. Just this morning I was reading about the Gold Rush and came
upon a passage about how "trading posts made fleecing Indians systematic and
endemic" setting separate "Indian prices." As one trader rationalized, "no
Christian man is bound to give full value to those infernal redskins...they got
no religion, and tharfore no conscience, so I deals with them accordin'."
Yup. Whatever it takes to feel better about yarself.
GUARDIAN, Julius Lester's latest young adult novel, is an anatomy of a
lynching. This is an uncompromising story about the power of domination, set in
the fictional Southern town of Davis in 1946. (Uncompromising in this
instance is code for its having significant literary quality and significant
educational potential along with frequent, historically-accurate use of the N--
word.)
"Ansel opens his mouth to say something, then closes it slowly. He looks at
Willie, and he is ashamed. He had forgotten what Willie cannot forget.
"It is only at this moment that he understands the difference in their
lives, the difference between one who could imagine that his life could be
different, and one who knew that his life would not be, regardless of how much he
dreamed.
"Ansel wants to apologize, wants to say something that will take away the
look of resentment on Willie's face, wants to say something that will take back
what he almost called him this morning. But when he speaks, he is surprised
at the words that come out, surprised at how fervently they come out.
"'We've got to start dreaming, Willie. We've just got to!'"
The story center on a quartet of teens. Two are unusual friends for the
time and place -- Ansel, the white kid and Little Willie, the black kid. A
third character is the new minister's daughter. And the fourth is the adolescent
incarnation of the power of domination, sixteen-year-old Zeph Davis, "the
great-grandson of the Zephaniah Davis who gave his name to the town, the son of
Cap'n Davis, who owns the largest plantation in that part of the state, as
well as every building in the center of town," including the building where
Ansel's dad's store (previously Ansel's granddad's store) is located.
"You got to look outside your eyes
You got to think outside your brain
You got to walk outside your life
To where the neighborhood changes" -- Ani DiFranco, "Willing to Fight"
Whites lynching blacks in America may now be history, but there is no end to
the parenting that perpetuates this power of domination and the perpetuation
of associated hate groups. (See Julius Lester's Author Note for info on
hate groups.) Whether the target of a group is a race, a gender, a nation, a
religion, an orientation, an economic class, or a group of newcomers, there is
a chain in which this hatred is handed down from generation to generation to
generation.
It is forever a challenge for those seeking to change the world -- sever
that chain -- to help people learn how to feel better about themselves without
having to hate or dominate others. It is so often through exceptional
children's and young adult literature that readers come to recognize that which is
not so apparent in the real world. It is sometimes through such exceptional
books that a reader's life will be forever altered.
GUARDIAN is one of those books.
"He keeps the blade of his knife as sharp as hatred. You never know when
you might come upon a snake, a baby bird, a kitten or a frog.
"He puts the frog on the ground, pressing hard against its back, forcing its
legs to splay outward.
"With surgical precision, he slices off one of the frog's hind legs, then
takes away the hand that is holding it down.
"Frantically, the frog moves its remaining leg back and forth, back and
forth, trying to take a giant leap from a cruelty it did not know existed.
Unable to leap, it nonetheless goes through its instinctive kicking motions, but
to no avail."
Richie Partington, MLIS
Richie's Picks _http://richiespicks.com_ (http://richiespicks.com/)
Moderator, _http://groups.yahoo.com/group/middle_school_lit/_
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/middle_school_lit/)
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