Category: Blog

Guest Blog by DeeAnn Veeder

At a “Writing for Social Justice Workshop,” I met Eden-Renee Hayes, Board Chair for Multicultural BRIDGE, an organization whose mission is to “promote mutual understanding and acceptance among diverse groups.” When I expressed my goal of  writing about white privilege in a way that white people will truly understand, she arranged for me to meet Multicultural BRIDGE Co-Founder and CEO Gwendolyn Hampton Vansant.

Gwendolyn is a “diversity leader and trainer, bilingual certified interpreter, and community activist/organizer, [who] designs curriculum for workplace language classes as well as highly customizable cultural competency, literacy and proficiency training.”

And so, on a sun-dappled spring day that felt buoyant with promise, I almost skipped down the sidewalks of the handsome village of Lee, Massachusetts, and into the Multicultural BRIDGE offices.

I happened to arrive on the very day Gwendolyn received the proofs of her anthology, Berkshire Mosaic: A Multicultural BRIDGE Living History.  The story of how the book came into being is a perfect example of how the tenacity of an independent voice can be a force to create change.

In 2012, Gwendolyn had the goal “of portraying a gentle, inviting, celebratory yet powerful form of social justice.” She partnered with the local newspaper and found nine diverse writers to collect and write the stories of people in their community.

“The premise of our anthology,” says Gwendolyn, “supported by psychological research, is that stories are authentic human experiences and timeless links.  Stories can connect us to ourselves and to a larger sense of belonging, history and existence.” The stories were first published in the BRIDGE blog and in the newspaper.

Gwendolyn then created a compilation of the profiles into book form. It introduces us to people who live in Berkshire County; from youth to the elderly to the disabled, new residents to veterans, Polish, Italian, Indian, Jewish, Irish, Latino, and African Americans, rabbis and reverends and Muslims, professors, anthropologists and police chiefs.  There are 64 profiles in the volume.  “My dream,” says Gwendolyn, “is for our Berkshire community to be a model for other communities, honoring that we each have a story to be told and we each have a place to claim.”

An ingenious element of the book’s story is that Gwendolyn envisioned the full-color, hardcover anthology as an innovative fundraising tool for Multicultural BRIDGE, which is a 501(c)3 non-profit.  Children’s book author, Nik Davies, who is also BRIDGE Board Treasurer, stepped up to be the book’s Editor-in-Chief.

At my initial meeting with Gwendolyn on that spring day of promise, learning the story of this book and seeing the fresh proofs, I was immediately enthralled – with Gwendolyn and the book – and very excited. When Gwendolyn said she needed a proofreader/editor, I almost jumped with joy, “I can do that!  I can do it!”  As an editor and marketing associate with BooksEndependent LLC, I respected and admired the spirit of Gwendolyn’s publishing endeavor. I really wanted to be a part of her magnificent social justice work and this beautiful book.  I am immensely honored that she let me.

The completely independent, self-published Berkshire Mosaic  was launched in June 2015 and has already raised over $6000 for Multicultural BRIDGE.  This is a comprehensively inclusive creation, and it creates a shared humanity that is powerful.

Gwendolyn is a brave fusion of quiet intelligence, hard work, resilience, compassion and creativity, all perfectly mixed with a strong streak of stubborn independence.

BooksEndependent applauds the indie spirit and voice of Gwendolyn Hampton VanSant.

By DeeAnn Veeder

So this happened. Just a couple of weeks ago. At Book Expo America 2015 (BEA) in New York City, at the Javits Center. I was attending the conference with the newest member of our BooksEndependent (BE) team, Samuel E. Woods-Corr, our Digital Marketing Administrator. This was the first opportunity we’d had to connect as a team, and I became more and more impressed with this young man over those two days. He is enthusiastic, smart, and charismatic. He is knowledgeable and confident in areas that complement my ability to work a typewriter. He’s a super people person, asks questions easily and sees the big picture fast.

This particular incident happened when we were each attending separate seminars. Before the session started, Sam was standing off to the side talking to David Parker, author of The More You Do, The Better You Feel, when a woman approached Sam and asked if he could turn the air conditioning down. Now why did she ask Sam to do that? Was it the strong feeling of capability that Sam exudes? Was it his friendly demeanor, his killer smile, his light blue polo shirt? Was he standing next to the thermostat? Or was he the only black guy in the room? Mr. Parker apologized to Sam on behalf of all white people. Sam related this story to me in good humor, but, really…ouch.

Ironically, the seminar I attended was WNDB: Be the Change You Want to See. WNDB (We Need Diverse Books) was a campaign conceived last year in response to an oversight of BookCon’s organizers; diverse authors were absent from their Blockbuster Reads panel, which was all white authors and one cat. The people in charge stretched right on past and over people of color, disabled people, LGBTQ people to a cat. Grumpy Cat. I love cats but, come on, is it even a calico cat?

It’s tremendously gratifying and exciting to see how fast WNDB has grown in a year. Their website http://weneeddiversebooks.org/ is now a fantastic resource, and there are some seriously talented, prolific, award-winning authors involved in every facet of the organization.

Ellen Oh, one of WNDB’s founders, was the moderator of this conference and on the panel were Lamar Giles, Linda Sue Park, Matt de la Pena, and Tim Federle. This was by far the most entertaining, exciting, and important panel at the show. The discussion was animated, brilliantly insightful and relevant. They talked about the groundbreaking WNDB Publishing Internship Program headed by Linda Sue Park. They presented WNDB in the Classroom, and appealed to the gatekeepers, the teachers and librarians, to understand how vital it is to bring diverse books to every school and library in this country.

Now back to Sam’s seminar, Public Libraries, the Publishers’ Friend in the Digital Age; the white lady who thought Sam was a janitor could very well be one of those gatekeepers, a librarian. I can only hope that she attends WNDB’s conference next year. Or better yet, maybe she heard about them this year and is reading up on their mission, their worthy efforts; maybe she’s perusing their Summer Reading Series right now; maybe she’s checking out their Booktalking Kit. Maybe she’s ordering all kinds of diverse books so she can avoid hurting someone else’s feelings in the future.

posted by Valerie C. Woods

on June, 17

The post BE and WNDB and BEA 2015 (Guest Blog) appeared first on Valerie C. Woods.

The Armchair Activist
By DeeAnn Veeder

When I was a kid, I had a dream of having a child of every race, a noble dream for a young blonde child; I thought if families were made up of every race, there wouldn’t be hatred or prejudice, and I would start with my own. Realistically, though, how many children would that be? And, well, so many men, so little time. I only made it as far afield as Italians, then I married a Jew and had two white children. Fifteen years later, I notice I’m living in a predominantly white small town. But I am not a racist. Right?

My daughter’s first friends here in first grade were a ginger-haired boy, a white girl and a black boy. I became the most friendly with the white girl’s mother and the ginger-haired boy’s parents. My son’s first friends here were an East Indian girl and a Chinese girl. But it’s not like he chose these friends; he was only six months old. The girls’ parents were my friends, and they were all white. Still, I am not a racist. Right?

My kids’ pediatrician is a black woman. My daughter’s basketball coach was a black man. Her track coach was a black woman. Her favorite teacher and mentor was an Asian man.

Also once I walked into the room where my son was engrossed in a television show, which I watched with him for a few minutes; it was a kid detective show with three young sleuths, a white boy, a white girl and a black girl. I asked him which one found the clue, and he said the one in the skirt, which was the black girl. Yes! I happily patted myself on the back; my son doesn’t see color!

Wow, when did I get a clue anyway?

It might have started that day I took the review copy of an old friend’s new book to our village bookstore to ask if they would carry it. It was with speechless surprise a week later that I carried that book back home with me after being told by the clerk it was too ‘ethnic’ for them to sell in their store. (See? I have a black friend.)

Too ethnic? What? This clerk was a retired teacher from our middle school! Too ethnic? We are all ‘ethnic’ or none of us is. Wait a minute, how ignorant, how white, how closed-minded is this town, anyway? I didn’t say those things, I barely thought them; I was embarrassed, shocked, abashed that I dared to ask such a favor at a bookstore I had been frequenting for fifteen years. There followed dismay, sorrow, and eventual anger.

The book? Katrin’s Chronicles: The Canon of Jacqueléne Dyanne, Vol. 1 by Valerie C. Woods.

One of the things I absolutely love about Katrin’s Chronicles is that, for me, it transcends race. It’s about deductive reasoning, trusting your hidden powers, writing your story, 1968, South Side Chicago, sibling love, supportive family, independent and resourceful and good kids. It is a delightful book with wonderfully original characters that made me happy reading it. It’s the Nancy Drew mysteries I loved so well as a young girl, but with new, interesting, and intriguing characters. J. Dyanne is intense and Katrin is precocious, and they have adventures and solve mysteries and learn about their psychic gifts, and Katrin uses wonderfully big words telling us about it all. These young girls are defined through their intelligence, their adventures and their candor, and through their color.

Katrin’s Chronicles isn’t a book about being black, but it is important that these girls are black because there aren’t enough books like this. In fact, this is the first African American girl detective novel. It’s important that young black girls see themselves as the stars of the story. It’s important that young white girls see young black girls as the stars of the story.

It is necessary for books like Katrin’s Chronicles to be present in a town like this, in every town like this, in the bookstore, in the school library, in the public library and in classrooms, so that a book with a drawing of black kids on the cover, a book about two black sisters in an innocent tween mystery novel is not something out of the ordinary, something ‘ too ethnic’ to sell in 2014 in a small upstate New York town of predominantly white people.

It makes black people relatable to those white people who don’t have a black friend.

posted by Valerie C. Woods
on May, 14