crunching the numbers
People often say, “Numbers don’t lie,” but statistics can be misleading and are too easily used to uphold an illusion rather than to reveal the truth. I grew up with a mother who was obsessed with losing weight; my father shamed my mom about her body throughout their marriage, and she has spent a lifetime feeling uncomfortable/guilty/ashamed about food. My older sister has tried every diet in the book and she’s been a committed gym-goer for years. I didn’t want to live my life like that, and so I refused to buy a scale and I ate whatever I wanted. But twice now my weight has gone up to unhealthy levels and so I find that I have become a version of the women in my family. I’m still holding out on the gym but I weigh myself daily, and yesterday I learned that my BMI has gone down one point (it’s 25, which apparently still puts me in the “overweight” category; 24.9 would be “normal”). My doctor was pleased with my weight loss and I fasted for my blood test this time, so we’ll see if my “bad” cholesterol level has gone down. I haven’t given up cake and I just had oatmeal and kettle corn popcorn for breakfast, so I still have work to do to establish a healthy relationship with food. I don’t want to count calories and obsess over my weight (I’ve got an 85-day streak on My Fitness Pal), and yet I cringed when I saw the photos taken while I was on stage during the Blackademics TV taping last week. Being a writer appealed to me as a teen in large part because it was a way to be disembodied; I thought people would only hear my voice in the words printed on the page, and that meant I could remain safely invisible. It’s almost a miracle that I became an educator because as a teen, I was terrified of speaking in front of others. I wasn’t shy—I was afraid of being scrutinized because when my father took a good look at me, his face would screw up with disgust over my teenage acne. I still have acne and at 42 I’m as pudgy as I was at age 2, but that won’t keep me away from the mic. And I guess I have to accept that writers DO have an image, and looking fabulous is nice but not always possible—or necessary. I don’t have kids but whenever I get down on myself, I imagine that I have a daughter. Would I talk to her that way? Would I allow her to talk to herself that way? NO. Still aiming for body positivity…
The other numbers worth talking about are the 2014 stats released by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center yesterday. I was astonished to see that the number of books ABOUT Blacks nearly doubled since last year. What’s going on? Well, it’s not as encouraging as you might think. Check out this chart from the CCBC, which shows books BY and ABOUT and BY BUT NOT ABOUT:
In 2013, 68 books were BY Black creators (authors/illustrators) and 93 books were ABOUT Blacks. In 2014, the number of Black creators went up to 84 and the number of books about Blacks skyrocketed to 179. This is why we MUST talk about equity when discussing diverse books. The spike in books ABOUT Black people is probably due to the fact that whites are writing stories about us. So there’s no real significant redistribution of power. The CCBC reviewed 3500 books and if we add up all the creators of color, we get 288 or 8%. The number of books ABOUT people of color adds up to 393 or 11%. I’m not great with numbers but that means white creators make up 92% of those published and books about whites make up 89%. How do we figure out how many books are BY whites but not ABOUT whites? We will have more diverse books if members of the dominant group write about those of us who have been marginalized. But the POINT is to let those who have been marginalized tell their own stories in their own way. Which means we still have a LONG way to go…
