Find Yourself In A Book – If You Can
If you’re like me, you never had much trouble finding someone who looked like you in movies, television, or in books. It didn’t occur to me at the time, but it wasn’t difficult to find a white male, usually the protagonist, in the stories I engaged with. More to the point, any character that did not meet those criteria always stood out because it was usually the only example of someone other than a white male. I didn’t know the word tokenism yet but looking back, even as a kid, I assumed that’s what was happening.
Around the time I started becoming more aware of the like of diversity in the entertainment, (primarily books) that I was consuming, I also noticed that I wasn’t growing anymore. At a statuesque 5’5”, I haven’t stood in the back of a group photo in a long time. Quickly, some of my favorite characters were removed from the pool of personalities that was available to me. With the exception of “The Lord of the Rings” and “Brave New World,” the protagonist is rarely short.
Those two titles, and many others, are why I started reading more science fiction and fantasy stories. In those genres, everyone looks, sounds, even smells radically different than anything in our known world. Because the base reality is exponentially more varied than usual, not only does it become easier to see yourself represented within the story, it’s also easier to see your actions represented in the story. Actions become the defining characteristic.
I was lured in with people that looked like me, because that is the easiest thing to compare. Then I discovered people who acted like me or at least acted in ways I aspired to emulate.
Then I had a child. Specifically, I had a child that doesn’t look like the characters in most books. We are a mixed family and so my wife and I have made an effort to find depictions of diverse worlds and people. It’s not only characters that look like our daughter that we’re after, but characters that look like everyone. While still not as easy as it should be, this search is not terribly difficult with the mildest amount of effort.
I could take up this entire space listing study after study citing how important early exposure to stories helps to form the world views and ways of processing the world in children. They help to form personality, behaviors, and what is possible in their ever-expanding world. If children don’t see themselves in that depicted world, the obvious implication is that they can’t see a place for themselves in the real world.
Our daughter has started identifying different skin colors and other physical traits in the books we read together. Some look like mommy, or daddy, or many other friends and family. She will even point to some and say her own name showing a level of self-recognition. Keep in mind, she’s 2 years old.
The encouraging part is that she often says her name while pointing to characters that look nothing like her. They are all characters that act like her though. She recognizes the behavior, the interests, or the gray, floppy, hiking hat as much as if not more than skin color. The characters all look different so that becomes one of their defining traits instead of their only one.
Representation matters and the world is a diverse place. The more that is represented in popular media, the easier it is to see yourself as part of the world. It is also easier to see yourself represented in that diversity.
