[CALIBK12] Richie's Picks: GUARDIAN

[BudNotBuddy at aol.com]

Richie's Picks: GUARDIAN by Julius Lester,  Harper/Amistad, October 2008, 
130p. ISBN: 978-0-06-155890-0; Libr. ISBN:  978-0-06-155891-7
 
"There are moments in which one word can bestow life or abort  it.
"A mere word, one syllable from a parent to a child has the  power of a 
commandment from God."
 
So many children are parented in a way that leads to their not  feeling good 
about themselves.  And so, instead of securing real power --  the power to be 
yourself -- they end up resorting, instead, to the power of  domination.
 
The power of domination has been sought throughout history by  people joining 
into groups in which members develop a sense of belonging and a  sense of 
superiority.  Achievement of these two senses yields  a feeling amongst group 
members of power and well-being.  
 
But since the power of domination is such an illusory power,  it needs 
constant maintenance.  Groups trying to maintain dominance must  take regular action 
-- abuse, war, exclusion, economic exploitation,  enslavement, vilification 
-- against those being dominated to prove to  themselves that their power 
really exists.
 
And so it has been through history that men have sought to  dominate women, 
and whites have sought to dominate blacks, and Christians have  sought to 
dominate Muslims, and Aryans sought to dominate Jews, and straights  have sought to 
dominate gays, and those who were there sooner have sought to  dominate those 
who arrived later, and on and on and on.  
 
Having been a Long Island kid before moving west, I'm  currently working my 
way through an excellent college textbook that is teaching  me all about 
California history.  Just this morning I was reading about the  Gold Rush and came 
upon a passage about how "trading posts made fleecing  Indians systematic and 
endemic" setting separate "Indian prices."  As one  trader rationalized, "no 
Christian man is bound to give full value to those  infernal redskins...they got 
no religion, and tharfore no conscience, so I deals  with them accordin'."
 
Yup.  Whatever it takes to feel better about  yarself.
 
GUARDIAN, Julius Lester's latest young adult novel, is an  anatomy of a 
lynching.  This is an uncompromising story about the power of  domination, set in 
the fictional Southern town of Davis in 1946.   (Uncompromising in this 
instance is code for its having significant literary  quality and significant 
educational potential along with frequent,  historically-accurate use of the N-- 
word.)  
 
 
"Ansel opens his mouth to say something, then closes it  slowly.  He looks at 
Willie, and he is ashamed.  He had forgotten what  Willie cannot forget.
"It is only at this moment that he understands the  difference in their 
lives, the difference between one who could imagine that his  life could be 
different, and one who knew that his life would not be, regardless  of how much he 
dreamed.
"Ansel wants to apologize, wants to say something  that will take away the 
look of resentment on Willie's face, wants to say  something that will take back 
what he almost called him this morning.  But  when he speaks, he is surprised 
at the words that come out, surprised at how  fervently they come out.
"'We've got to start dreaming, Willie.  We've  just got to!'"

 
The story center on a quartet of teens.  Two are unusual  friends for the 
time and place -- Ansel, the white kid and Little Willie,  the black kid.  A 
third character is the new minister's daughter.  And  the fourth is the adolescent 
incarnation of the power of domination,  sixteen-year-old Zeph Davis, "the 
great-grandson of the Zephaniah Davis who gave  his name to the town, the son of 
Cap'n Davis, who owns the largest plantation in  that part of the state, as 
well as every building in the center of town,"  including the building where 
Ansel's dad's store (previously Ansel's granddad's  store) is located. 
 
 
"You got to look outside your eyes
You got to think outside your brain
You got to walk outside your life
To where the neighborhood changes" -- Ani DiFranco, "Willing  to Fight" 

 
Whites lynching blacks in America may now be history, but  there is no end to 
the parenting that perpetuates this power of  domination and the perpetuation 
of associated hate groups.  (See Julius  Lester's Author Note for info on 
hate groups.)  Whether the target of  a group is a race, a gender, a nation, a 
religion, an orientation, an  economic class, or a group of newcomers, there is 
a chain in which this  hatred is handed down from generation to generation to  
generation.    
 
It is forever a challenge for those seeking to change the  world -- sever 
that chain -- to help people learn how to feel better about  themselves without 
having to hate or dominate others.  It is so often  through exceptional 
children's and young adult literature that  readers come to recognize that which is 
not so apparent in the  real world.  It is sometimes through such exceptional 
books that a  reader's life will be forever altered.  
 
GUARDIAN is one of those books.
 
"He keeps the blade of his knife as sharp as hatred.  You  never know when 
you might come upon a snake, a baby bird, a kitten or a  frog.
"He puts the frog on the ground, pressing hard against its  back, forcing its 
legs to splay outward.
"With surgical precision, he slices off one of the frog's hind  legs, then 
takes away the hand that is holding it down.
"Frantically, the frog moves its remaining leg back and forth,  back and 
forth, trying to take a giant leap from a cruelty it did not know  existed.  
Unable to leap, it nonetheless goes through its instinctive  kicking motions, but 
to no avail."
 
Richie  Partington, MLIS
Richie's Picks _http://richiespicks.com_ (http://richiespicks.com/) 
Moderator, _http://groups.yahoo.com/group/middle_school_lit/_ 
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/middle_school_lit/) 
BudNotBuddy at aol.com
_http://www.myspace.com/richiespicks_ (http://www.myspace.com/richiespicks) 





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