Full disclosure: as a writer and librarian I do have some investment in the way things are now. And my viewpoint is heavily colored by my own experiences with the publishing industry. I do believe there CAN be a commercial publishing industry that's much more open to marginalized voices than it is now.
I don't interpret the paragraph you quoted as a call for people who are marginalized and disempowered to get up and effect change in ways that are impossible for them. I interpret it as a call for everyone to consider what they can do. Maybe a poor kid in Kentucky with homophobic parents can't buy books with gay characters or ask the librarian to do so, but I can. There are tons of people out there -- both teens and YA-reading adults -- who consider themselves to be allies, or at least consider themselves not to be prejudiced, but they don't necessarily seek out books with LGBTQ characters.
If they did -- maybe we wouldn't get past the problem of the blinders of privileged people. I don't know. Maybe we would get a lot of books that are desperately condescending and well-meaning. But I think most people who are writing books about teens of color and LGBTQ teens are doing so because they remember what it was like to be a teen of color or an LGBTQ teen, and it's hard for me to think they can't write books that speak to marginalized teens today.
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Date: 2012-03-05 04:24 pm (UTC)I don't interpret the paragraph you quoted as a call for people who are marginalized and disempowered to get up and effect change in ways that are impossible for them. I interpret it as a call for everyone to consider what they can do. Maybe a poor kid in Kentucky with homophobic parents can't buy books with gay characters or ask the librarian to do so, but I can. There are tons of people out there -- both teens and YA-reading adults -- who consider themselves to be allies, or at least consider themselves not to be prejudiced, but they don't necessarily seek out books with LGBTQ characters.
If they did -- maybe we wouldn't get past the problem of the blinders of privileged people. I don't know. Maybe we would get a lot of books that are desperately condescending and well-meaning. But I think most people who are writing books about teens of color and LGBTQ teens are doing so because they remember what it was like to be a teen of color or an LGBTQ teen, and it's hard for me to think they can't write books that speak to marginalized teens today.