You can't have too many books featuring people of color, just like you can't have too many books featuring white people.
Interpretation
Diversity in literature is essential, and representation matters for all races.
Jacqueline Woodson emphasizes the importance of inclusive literature, arguing that just as it is valuable to have a range of stories featuring white characters, it is equally vital to have a variety of stories that represent people of color. This statement advocates for a balanced and diverse literary landscape where all voices are heard and celebrated, promoting understanding and empathy across different cultures.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of diverse voices in literature.
'Brown Girl Dreaming' was a book I had a lot of doubts about - mainly, would this story be meaningful to anyone besides me? My editor, Nancy Paulsen, kept assuring me, but there were moments when I was in a really sad place with the story for so many reasons. It wasn't an easy book to write - emotionally, physically, or creatively.
In the midst of observing the world and coming to consciousness, I was becoming a writer, and what I wanted to put on the page were the stories of people who looked like me.
Sometimes you do have to laugh to keep from crying. And sometimes the world feels all right and good and kind of like it's becoming nice again around you. And you realize it, and realize how happy you are in it, and you just gotta laugh.
I don't want anyone to walk through the world feeling invisible ever again.
The strength of my mother is something I didn't pay attention to for so long. Here she was, this single mom, who was part of the Great Migration, who was part of a Jim Crow south, who said, 'I'm getting my kids out of here. I'm creating opportunities for these young people by any means necessary.'
I would have written 'Brown Girl Dreaming' if no one had ever wanted to buy it, if it went nowhere but inside a desk drawer that my own children pulled out one day to find a tool for survival, a symbol of how strong we are and how much we've come through.
Books, like proverbs, receive their chief value from the stamp and esteem of the ages through which they have passed.
It's not how much money we make that ultimately makes us happy between nine and five. It's whether or not our work fulfills us. Being a teacher is meaningful.
Children are not simply commodities to be herded into line and trained for the jobs that white people who live in segregated neighborhoods have available.
But because we've all been readers, we know what the experience is like, and we hope that what certain writers have given to us, we will give to someone.
I believe in the power of ideas, I believe in the power of books, but you have to give them time.
The reader must come armed , in a serious state of intellectual readiness. This is not easy because he comes to the text alone. In reading, one's responses are isolated, one'sintellect thrown back on its own resourses. To be confronted by the cold abstractions of printed sentences is to look upon language bare, without the assistance of either beauty or community. Thus, reading is by its nature a serious business. It is also, of course, an essentially rational activity.
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