Donnarae MacCann’s White Supremacy in Children’s Literature does a fantastic job of making imperative arguments affecting a variety of disciplines including History, Literature, and Childhood Studies. I appreciate this text because it persists with its agenda, and the sheer amount of textual evidence only helps to magnify her persistence. They range from the early 19th century to the mid 20th century American textual depictions of Black people. Although I only had to read the introduction and Chapter 1 for this assignment, she makes great use of quite a few texts by various writers, particularly Lydia Maria Child in Chapter 1. Moreover, the introduction is, quite frankly, awesome and well-organized. I tend to judge a book by its introduction, and MacCann’s did not disappoint. She starts out her intro by making her focus plainly outlined and compelling, stating:
Literary, political, biographical, and institutional history[ies] are combined in these pages as a way to reveal the scope of the white supremacist ideology. The antislavery cause accelerated the momentum toward war, but then vanished in the regressive milieu of peace—in the romanticized plantation stories, ambivalent protest novels, and prejudiced adventure fiction. (xiii)
This part of her claim (the other part goes on to say similar claims about Postbellum texts) is compelling because I hear this type of white supremacist glamorization everyday. That special group of White people who are fierce in their work as an self-proclaimed ally . . . until someone tells them (or they tell themselves) that they can pat themselves on the back because I have Affirmative Action, a plethora of available “Black people scholarships” just saturating the scholarship market, and a ridiculous number of slave narrative films, all of which supposedly show “racism’s all in the past,” just sitting there, not doing much of anything, chilling on a stoop, drinking a Bud Light, getting up every now and then to tell me that there is something historically substandard about Black people. For one thing, Black identity was definitely “presented as of less value than European American identity. Black people were unequivocally “expected to accept a restricted status and role in the American civil community” (xiii). And you know what? We still are.
Also, she clearly separates her introduction into 7 parts labeled: “social/political focus;” “institutional “gatekeepers”;” “The Aesthetic Focus;” “Young People and Audience Response Theory;” “”White Supremacy” and Related Terms;” “”White Supremacy” and Intellectual History;” and “Applying and Eclectic Approach” (xiv, xviii, xx, xxii, xxv, xxvii, xxx). All of these titles are relatively self-explanatory, but I may talk about the labels in class depending on how the class goes because they’re helpful for understanding her arguments throughout her book.
Chapter 1’s argument focuses on the “[a]mbivalent [a]bolitionism” of various Antebellum anti-slavery narratives that, according to MacCann, do push for the abolition of slavery, but aren’t consistent in the “potency” of their agendas/messages. She solidifies her claim by zooming in on the texts’ mixed signals, which often reveal a contradictory binary set up consisting of:
Magnanimous White slave owner/substandard Black slave versus The racial equality the narratives claim to be rooting for.
Ultimately, her close reading of certain texts in this chapter is spot on, particularly her use of Lydia Marie Child’s anti-slavery narratives. Her examination of Child’s works reveals stories that ranged from “vehement exhortations, to antiprejudice parables, to incidental remarks tacked on to narratives,” all of which are ambiguous in their dogmatic forcefulness (4). MacCann notes that Child’s “Jumbo and Zairee is ambiguous in its contradictions; Child notes that the slaves on the narrative’s plantation “were not abused,” but the narrative “is full of instances of abuse” (5). MacCann asserts, “Even though Child emphasizes that the principle of slavery is wrong, she depicts Mr. Harris, the slave owner, as a paragon of virtue” (6). And what’s great is that MacCann just keeps the criticism coming. ^_^
It’s an argument I love because it reminds me to remain vigilant in my own criticism, especially because half of the primary texts I study are as dated as Child’s narratives. Assumptions about abolitionists and Antebellum anti-slavery texts can gloss over hidden prejudices in the same way that children are marginalized by adjectives like “innocent,” “pure,” and inexperienced.” In terms of a criticism of this book, I would say that MacCann is a good close reader, but an even better implicit critic of people and texts who could be (and have been) overpraised. While reading her work, I could see the constant vigilance in her maintenance of her argument throughout her book. She seems to actively place her own vehement criticism against the marginalization of Black people conducted by sometimes-halfhearted White abolitionists movements. I don’t know about you, but I think her writing shows she’s pretty appalled.
MacCann keeps her argumentative fervor going throughout; I never question her objective, and I picture someone speaking while reading MacCann’s work, someone who comes off as invested. Could MacCann have also been more inclusive? Yeah. But I think that when a scholar choses to limit their scope, it means a number of things, one of which being that they don’t want to water down their argument, give readers too many perspectives to read at once, or take more time to “close the deal.” It sort of reminded me of Gubar’s Artful Dodgers. She seemed to try quite a few readings of various “texts;” as a result, she loses me during certain chapters (Carroll and Stevenson) and captivates me during others (the Nesbit). Gubar sort of closes the deal for me by slightly overstretching her arguments at times. MacCann closes the deal by not doing too much, only enough for the space she has given herself.
