When you were a kid, did books make you "uncomfortable" & "ashamed" of your whiteness?

[Hekate]

Last edited Fri Jan 28, 2022, 03:20 PM - Edit history (1)

I have been trying to figure out how to put this intelligibly for days
More later The car’s moving and my phone is jiggling

EDITED TO ADD: See my post 82 below. I finally managed to gather my thoughts.

[Archae]

1. Hell no.

Not even Huck Finn or To Kill A Mockingbird.

The last book I saw that made me REALLY uncomfortable was "The Turner Diaries."

I never see THAT one on the banned lists!

[TreasonousBastard]

2. Not at all. And Amen to Turner Diaries, Protocols, and the other crap...

the banned stuff warned me about.

[niyad]

3. No. A lot of books horrified me, or pissed me off, but did not make me

"uncomfortable".

[Caliman73]

4. Another question to ponder before talking about the books...

Can anyone give a coherent definition of "Whiteness" without providing a negative definition, meaning what it is not?

It would be very helpful to have a definition of what we are talking about before we delve into how books can make you ashamed of a concept that I have never seen defined adequately.

[Hekate]

36. The people who are yanking books from K-12 library shelves certainly seem to know...

They’re pretty clear that they believe the US is and always has been ordained by their god to be occupied by and ruled by those of European Christian descent.

They are clear that they don’t want their children to be taught otherwise, because it makes them (the adults) uncomfortable, and they don't want to have to deal with their own children’s questions.

Does that answer your question sufficiently?

[Caliman73]

68. Well... not always and not consistently.

There is no sufficient answer because no one can give a consistent coherent answer.

Irish people are "White" now, but they certainly were not in the 18th, 19th and early 20th Centuries. Neither were Italians, Poles, and even Germans at some point.

The point is White is an exclusionary idea that was invented to marginalize anyone the dominant group wants to. They will add groups as needed to gain dominance, then they will begin to exclude groups again, once that dominance is obtained.

Also, it isn't just books about race that are being banned. LGBTQ books are being banned too.

LGBTQ issues are intermingled with race, but not exclusive to the concept. Are LGBTQ people not White? (Note, I am not arguing with you.)

[cachukis]

5. Yes. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.

[malaise]

6. The sad truth is that the folks who want to ban books

didn't read period and I suspect neither do their kids

[Solomon]

58. Exactly!

[Polly Hennessey]

7. No.

[Nevilledog]

8. Nope.

[Xipe Totec]

9. Yes - A short account of the destruction of the Indies - by Bartolome de Las Casas

Required reading in 8th grade in Mexico.

[yardwork]

27. I read that in college.

It didn't make me ashamed of being "white." It helped me recognize the same behavior when US soldiers burned and looted books and artifacts in Iraq.

[Xipe Totec]

32. I'm 80% Iberian

Look, it's okay to feel uncomfortable. It is an uncomfortable subject.
I'm the end product and beneficiary of 500 years of racial oppression in Latin America.
I am a direct descendant of multiple bloodlines tracing back to the original conquerors of Mexico.
It is what it is.

[Hekate]

52. Thank you, Xipe

[Croney]

10. I guess Gone With the Wind comes to mind.

I was a white Southern kid in a world of race-separate water fountains. Reading about slavery made me uncomfortable. I knew things were not supposed to be the way they were.

[madinmaryland]

11. No. But now I am disgusted and ashamed by what my white ancestors did. I can't change the color

Of my skin, but I can admit that what some of them did was wrong. I realized this as a teenager.

[Piasladic]

12. It wasn't the books

I always figured they were other white people who did that. What made me ashamed is when I finally started recognizing my privilege and looking back at my past behavior.

[no_hypocrisy]

13. I eagerly read about Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Ruby Bridges

and wanted to be LIKE THEM. And I'm a second generation European-American.

[haele]

14. Nope. And I read a lot of controversial books by the he time I was 12.

My parents were comfortable talking to me about reality. And I grew up with the Civil Rights movement and Vietnam War protests on the news and TV every night.

Haele

[Hekate]

51. Same here.

[Haggard Celine]

15. No, I didn't feel uncomfortable. I just felt sympathy.

And that's the problem these authorities really have with these books. They don't want people to feel sympathy for others who are different in some way. They want closed-minded, ignorant children who will grow up to be just like them.

[Bluethroughu]

17. +1

[yardwork]

28. That's it.

[MotorCityBeard]

43. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison did that for me

It didn't make me uncomfortable, but it made me empathetic as hell to what the protagonist was going through.

[Haggard Celine]

55. Yes,that's a very good example.

The book banners don't want white, heterosexual Christians identifying with people different from them. That would encourage understanding and, in their eyes, would weaken their own beliefs. After all, how can you be a good white, heterosexual Christian without disliking everyone who doesn't fit your mold? Everybody knows that God abhors pluralism. I'm sure there's a Bible verse that says so.

[Bluethroughu]

16. No, but I was ashamed of some of the behaviors of those

that did NOT stand up for their fellow mankind, and that may have been in regards to gender, race, sexual orientation, or religious beliefs of ALL kinds. We should be learning from all these walks of life, because their stories are OURS.

Some people choose to hide from uncomfortable in order to avoid the work that goes into fixing what is WRONG.

[BlackSkimmer]

18. Reading to Kill a Mockingbird made me feel terrible.

In junior high, I was given a list from which to choose a book and write a report about it.

I chose Black Like Me. That book also made me upset. Kudos to the teacher who had that on our reading list. There's been controversy about it in years since, but it was eye-opening.-

Many books have made me uncomfortable, but not about who I am. Books should make us uncomfortable.

I am female, white, and gay. I've never been ashamed of whom I was born to be.

[XanaDUer2]

79. I read Black Like Me, as well

Eye-opening. It didn't make me feel ashamed, but empathetic and mad

[luvs2sing]

19. No. They made me..

determined to do and be better.

[Stardust]

20. Yes. n/t

[Phoenix61]

21. No. They made me love Hobbits and Dragons and Wizards.

They made me sad about some things that had happened but made me dream of things that could be. Not a single book, out of the 1,000’s I read, ever made me feel bad for being me including “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.”

[yardwork]

22. No. I read about Harriet Tubman and slave ships when I was in elementary school.

Scholastic Books sold paperbacks in the 1960s that included biographies of Harriet Tubman, histories of slave ships, etc. I was horrified about how slaves were treated. Never once did I feel ashamed of being white. Slave owners did those things, in my mind, not "white people."

[Srkdqltr]

23. They know it will make kids feel sympathy and a lot of bigots don't want that.

Kids get a whole lot more information than we all did, except the youngest of us. Hopefully banning the books will make a lot of them look for the books.

[TeslaNova]

24. Not as much as FOX News does

[panader0]

37. This is a good answer.

[JustAnotherGen]

25. I've got an idea

I might flip this question . . .

[PA_jen]

26. Awareness that humans can be so harmful and mean

To one another that is what made me uncomfortable and ashamed then mad. I realized to be a better human I needed to see the mean and promise I would do better so that others wouldn't hurt. Learn from the past. Unfortunately we are repeating the passed.

I hope that made sense

[tenderfoot]

29. Not at all

This whole thing is bullshit and shame on our media for making it so.

[cachukis]

30. Reading the responses here is remarkable.

Empathy is the experience of experiencing another's perspective. To go through life confident that your perspective doesn't need humbling, is quite stark. I'm sure many here have had to come to grips that some of their own don't have it together as it would be embarrassing. To write that off may be a psychological tactic to maintain self esteem, but missing out on that experience keeps Dostoevsky beyond your reach.

[Generic Brad]

31. Never

I didn't oppress anyone nor did my ancestors. My people came to America through Ellis Island or Canada and were among the under privileged huddled masses.

Books helped me understand what I was and what I was not. They gave me pride, not shame.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

33. As a child, I consumed media mostly uncritically and came away with the impression that the struggle

Black people face/d was largely Just The Way Things Were, had little to do with me, and if they would just work harder, things would work out for them. White supremacy reinforces itself in such a way.

[BlackSkimmer]

38. Hmm. I suppose you're being sarcastic.

But I certainly never felt that way.

Even that one paragraph in Huck Finn angered me.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

40. I'm not, actually. I've had to do a lot of work.

[BlackSkimmer]

41. Ok, I misunderstood you.

Apologies.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

42. No problem. I see now how it could have been seen as sarcastic. But it's true.

[BlackSkimmer]

47. I do understand exactly what you're saying.

Sadly.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

49. Thanks for checking and having the discussion. I think it's important to acknowledge that people

can change their minds and come to new understandings. ETA: And that white supremacy is more than burning a cross.

[BlackSkimmer]

67. Oh hell yeah it is.

Sad, but true.

[ymetca]

34. Most history books

from my childhood were unabashed "Western (aka White) Supremacy" nonsense. Even as a kid they made me feel "uncomfortable".

A lot of my fellow "boomers" now running things grew up with that same propaganda, which explains a lot right now. Crying over A Confederate General from Big Sur.

Things were starting to loosen up in the Sixties, but the backlash since has been lethal and severe. It's like all the hippies were invited to a "Red Wedding" and their parts subsumed into the Partridge Family.

[gay texan]

35. No

But i did learn the entire galaxy was one seriously fucked up place.

Two headed people, an answer to a question nobody knew, trees that bear ratchet screwdrivers as fruit, and a planet where mattresses are alive....

[Hangingon]

39. No

[cinematicdiversions]

44. No

I find the whole concept silly.

How am I responsible for a bunch of crackers who are dead?

Seriously, no one has ever given me anything resembling an answer to this?

[Deep State Witch]

45. I grew up in the 70's and 80's

We had Good Times, Sanford and Son, The Jeffersons, The Cosby Show (well, it WAS popular), Hill Street Blues, etc. Never felt "ashamed" of being white. Even watching the buffoon white husband on The Jeffersons.

[MotorCityBeard]

72. Thank god for Norman Lear

His shows always had great liberal characters.

I grew up then, also. Hell, we had Roots; would they even show that today? I picked it up on dvd a few years ago and rewatched it. It is still incredibly powerful.
When it was originally on it was must see tv for our family. As you didn't have streaming then, I remember rushing home every night to see the next episode.

[Deep State Witch]

83. Roots Was a Revelation!

Okay, my parents were Civil War buffs. I guess that comes from being second and third generation immigrants. But, I remember watching "Roots" and being blown away by it. I mean, we had the whitewashed version of slavery, but that was definitely NOT it. Did I feel ashamed of being white because of it? Not at the time, because 1) my Mom and Dad were pretty progressive for the suburbs in the '70's, and 2) they were able to distance themselves from it because their families had come to America after the Civil War.

Ashamed of being white? No. Ashamed of White Americans that let systemic racism continue? Yes.

[leftyladyfrommo]

46. I never even considered it. Never crossed my mind. nt

[Hekate]

48. I want to thank you all for your replies. Please keep on. I was halfway through a longer response...

… when something fratzed and I lost it all. So, after making dinner and everything else, I will try again.

These days of book-bannings and brainwashing in schools are hellish for me, and being at DU among the like-minded is a help.

For the moment, suffice it to say I am a reader from a family of readers. I have mentioned before that we devoured sci-fi, but in fact we devoured everything. What grade level is The Last of the Just, by Andre Schwartz-Bart? The Wall, about the Warsaw Ghetto, by John Hersey? I have no idea, but they were in the house and I read them.

We are Irish-American, not Jewish. But when my mother was in high school in Colorado, a refugee Jewish boy ended up in her school. Not sure what year it was, but I’d say late 1930s. Mom never got over the horror she felt when he told her about great piles of books in the street of his former hometown, being set on fire. She transmitted that horror to me. I feel it now.

[BootinUp]

50. oh yes it was terrible, lol. Not.

I am not sure I understand but that is my answer at this time.

[scarletlib]

53. Never.

I really grasped reading in the 2nd grade and never stopped. I read everything and anything—magazines, newspapers, comics and books of all kind. As a kid I read some over again multiple times. I still read hours each day.

I learned about life, other cultures, history, and people. I learned style, how to use indexes, tables of content,footnotes, how to study all from books.

Books were my lifeline in my childhood and beyond.

[DemocraticPatriot]

54. Some made me want to join 'the other side'

such as 'Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee', but I was very old by the time I read that..


I suppose when I was a kid, there was no chance of any such books sneaking their way into my reading list...

However, clearly, white kids never experienced any such thing to make them ashamed of being white. Mostly, I was grateful that I did not have to experience the disadvantages of having been born some other color (DUH!) I felt very sorry for African-Americans, and was glad for the "great changes" that I believed had been made (freeing the slaves, the civil rights and voting acts, etc)

Never dreamed we would still be fighting those same battles when I am approaching old age...

[Gore1FL]

56. Here's the best answer I can give you.

I grew up privileged. In many ways, I grew up privileged for a white person. When I was 5, I thought everyone went to Florida for a couple of weeks in the summer. I learned later that wasn't true. In fact, I was a DUer for a while before I understood what privilege even meant.

In the early 1980s, I attended a predominately African American High School (Normandy, the same one the late Michael Brown attended). In things like Marching Bad, I was direct witness to and even felt the effects of the racism when directed at the whole when we went to competitions across Missouri.

I never thought of myself as a racist then. Compared to many of my fellow white students, I certainly was not. But, yeah, I harbored stupid ideas, biases, etc. that I grasped about as well as I grasped privilege.

I saw the actual Nazi footage of mass their victims lying naked in mass graves in the eighth grade. I was horrified. I never thought it had anything to do with me. (More on this later) I didn't feel guilt. I didn't feel shame. I just felt horror.

I remember seeing Roots when it was a first-run television event. (The was more like 4th or 5th grade). I saw the depicted slave ship. I saw the depicted beatings. I was horrified. I didn't feel guilt. I didn't feel shame. I just felt horror.

I wasn't ashamed of my whiteness as a kid. I didn't know anything, either. Here I am decades later. I am not ashamed of my whiteness as an adult. The things that happened in history had nothing to do with me. (This is that "More on this later" part.) While I am ashamed of is not the privilege that have had in life, what I am ashamed of is the times where I might have, knowingly, or unknowingly, afforded that privilege to others. What I am proud of, is when I have.

Learning about racism hasn't been comfortable. The greatest enemy of racism is understanding. And while that may not be a comfortable thing, I'd like to think of myself as empathetic enough to realize it's a lot more comfortable than being on the receiving end of continued racism, individual, or institutional.

The tl;dr answer: Maybe, but in the end understanding leads to better comfort long-term. Ultimately, I am more ashamed of white people being afraid of losing privilege they deny having. I go to the dentist and I have received colonoscopies. I didn't do it for the comfort of the experience.

[meadowlander]

57. No. As a child I understood that my skin color is not a source of pride or shame

it is an accident of birth.

The only source of pride or shame is your actions and choices.

Books may have made me temporarily ashamed of choices I had made without knowing better (like jokes I learned in kindergarten and repeated without understanding what they meant) but that temporary shame was a catalyst for learning to be a better person.

It's too bad so few people on the right can understand and accept that.

[Withywindle]

59. Occasionally when I read about some horrible injustice

I felt sad and angry. Not ashamed because I didn't do it personally, but just the fact that such things could happen in the world and often, the people who did it aren't punished but rewarded with wealth and power.

I feel like reading about people who were different from me helped to teach me empathy. One of my favorite books when I was a kid was Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor. I didn't have any experience of sharecropping or terror of lynching but I loved Cassie as a character and it was so vivid, feeling it through her.

And of course Anne Frank was a real person, not a fictional character, but her diary had so many things that were perfectly relatable to me as a bookish tween girl that the horror of the Holocaust became so much more real, reading the story of someone I probably could have been friends with going through what she did.

We do a real injustice to our kids when we hide stories like this away. Of course, the people who advocate for banning these books don't WANT their kids to develop empathy. They WANT their kids to see "the other" as less than human, because they do.

[lunatica]

60. Nope.

But on occasion I’ve been ashamed of my fellow humans.

[Demsrule86]

61. No, but I prefer light reading and always have. I read most of the books in college. And I

was not shocked. I had lived in the deep South during part of my childhood...Navy brat.

[Vinca]

62. No. The whole "uncomfortable" thing is ridiculous. On the off chance Junior manages

to pick up a book, it's more likely he'll be "uncomfortable" because he doesn't know how to read it.

[Emile]

63. No

[MineralMan]

64. No, but my voracious reading of books sure taught me about hypocrisy.

Yes, indeed. Slaves? WTF? How can that be justified, I asked myself? Since it could not, I learned that people do not follow the things they claim to follow. Slaughtering Native Americans? Same reaction from me.

[treestar]

65. No.

We had a unit on prejudice in Language Arts - must have been a liberal running the school.

[Dial H For Hero]

66. I can't recall reading any "controversial" books growing up.

While I was a voracious reader as a child (and am to this day), it was pretty much exclusively fantasy, science fiction, and science fact back then. I don’t remember reading anything which addressed racial issues even in school.

[LizBeth]

69. Sure in many ways for different reasons. Still do. But specifically what you are

talking about, yes. I actively looked for those books too for education and insight, for knowledge and understanding and of course as a white person reading some of the books, yes I was uncomfortable and certainly ashamed as I should be being a thinking person. The words challenged my white young view and made me have to address what I perceived and understand a different view. It was a valuable exercise.

[LizBeth]

70. I am surprised all the people emphatically saying no books did not make them uncomfortable.

Then I ask what is the purpose of so much writing? Why didn't people feel in their reading?

[IL Dem]

74. Exactly.

n/t

[Dial H For Hero]

80. In my case, I read escapist fiction (fantasy & sf) for pleasure. I can't recall ever reading

anything growing up that addressed racial issues.

[LizBeth]

87. I purposely went out looking for it and specifically provided for my boys when young.

But even with that, the word is powerful and be it a book or even messages on a board, there are reactions. To suggest one is not reactive. Uncomfortable in cases as they should be per writing, or shameful. So much I read from white people today tht at 60 I feel shameful.

I do not know what people are doing with this conversation but to the point of siliness for me to suggest writing, literature does not affect us in the slightest? I just went thru a whole lot of reading on the Holocaust the other day. Feeling LOTS of shame.

This issue is not about denying the uncomfortable for our children. That is not the direction to go. Further, rw states we progressives coddle our children. We give our children such massive responsibility in the learning, providing knowledge, history, being a better person. I embrace it. I challenged my kids in every part of their growth. And a lot of that was thru books.

[IL Dem]

71. I was at times uncomfortable,

but I don't think that's a bad thing. Discomfort can be an impetus for necessary change. That's what these people who complain about their children being made ashamed or uncomfortable are fearful of. They want to maintain their privilege without having to look at themselves or having their children ask them questions they don't want to answer.

[LizBeth]

77. Right, exactly right back at you. Now if the questions is, .... When becoming uncomfortable

with reading something that counters perspective and challenges views, make one think... Is that a bad thing. But to say one is not ever uncomfortable or ashamed in reading then, well, all writers have failed them. Black Like Me. I read at 10. 5 decades later I still reflect on my experience with that book.

But that is with all writing including fiction. The whole purpose is to make one feel one way or another.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

73. No

[csziggy]

75. No, but reading the wills of my ancestors who owned slaves did

All of my mother's family was from Alabama since 1834 (the earliest in Alabama got there in 1819 and most came from South Carolina) and a lot of them owned slaves. Reading wills where the distribution of slaves to individual heirs was disturbing. Since I was transcribing the documents for my mother's genealogical research in the min 1960s during the Civil Rights movement and desegregation, it hit me really hard.

After that, books about white people owning slaves was an anticlimax.

[Hekate]

78. That's powerful stuff right there. nt

[alphafemale]

76. Charlotte's Web made me feel horrible about killing spiders

there's that.

[Initech]

81. Nope. Didn't know or care.

[Hekate]

82. The book-burners have no idea, do they? I felt empathy for the oppressed, identified with girls...

Last edited Fri Jan 28, 2022, 05:42 PM - Edit history (1)

… my age and older, felt protective of the weak, outraged at injustice, and got empowerment from the stories of ordinary people who rose to heroism.

I felt empowered by the example of people I read about, especially young people. I didn’t say to myself that I couldn’t relate to the biography of Harriet Tubman that I read in 5th grade, nor did I feel guilt for the sins of others. I admired her and asked myself if I could ever be that brave, and what I would do if it were I. I asked what I could have done as a white person living in that time, and pondered the white people who participated in the Underground Railroad, putting their lives and livelihoods at risk of the law — and then over time found out about the Abolitionist movement, iwhich could not have functioned without the white women who participated, their organizing skills often honed in the humble Sunday School mission efforts.

To Kill a Mockingbird was inexpressibly sad, and so much was told from a child’s-eye view…

I cried at the end of Anne Frank when I was 14, even though I knew how it ended already. I read other books current at the time (in grade school and in high school), and learned that there were many participating in the Resistance from their own homes by sheltering Jews — putting their own lives at risk. I asked myself, what would I have done? In my child’s heart I was sure I could have done my part.

I was not a child but in my 30s when I met a Belgian Resistance fighter in real life, who by then was a very old man. One day something triggered his memories and a flood of stories came forth, some of which I knew (he was in the hospital when the Nazis came for his family, and they all perished in Auschwitz), but I heard other things, like how he blew up a train, & another time saved several downed American pilots. He told these stories vividly. But there was more: he took Jewish children to Catholic nuns, as many as he could, and the nuns took them in. My father in law revered those nuns to the end of his long life.

These are not bad emotions for a kid to have — they are human and promote empathy and understanding. Narration brings history alive.

And that’s a clue to these clueless adults, isn’t it? They are deathly afraid that if history is taught fully, that their story will change, and that they will feel all those emotions they project onto their kids, especially when those same kids ask questions they can’t or won’t answer. “What did you do in the war, daddy?” would be the least of those penetrating questions.

The adults would be forced to think, and their brains might crack from the strain.

Book-burners. May we do our part and resist. May the gods keep us from a new Dark Age.

[Meowmee]

84. There was lots that made me feel uncomfortable

I don’t think ashamed of whiteness but I was jewish too so a minority of sorts. The one thing that really sticks out in my mind is a horror movie we watched at an afterschool film club or something - it was so horrible a woman was being burned at the stake and screaming and I was traumatized by that I don’t know what was going through the teacher’s head, that was in junior high school.

[LearnedHand]

85. Yes, and it changed my life

I read Black Like Me when I was a teenager. I was never bigoted, but I had been spectacularly uneducated about how hard daily life was for people simply because of their skin color. I never lost what I learned from this white man's experiences living as a Black man. I feel the same today when I read accounts of trans men discovering exactly how much easier life is and trans women discovering the built-in difficulties of being a woman.

[Joinfortmill]

86. No.

It sometimes made me angry at some white folks' behavior, but I didn't identify with them. Frankly, I thought bad, racist behaviors was on them.