In the tradition of Marion Wright Edelman's "The Measure of Our Success," a best-selling author speaks frankly with his daughter about racism. A runaway best-seller in Europe, Tahar Ben Jelloun's Racism Explained to My Daughter has been translated into more than a dozen languages and sold more than 300,000 copies. Writing in response to his ten-year-old daughter's questions about racism, the prize-winning author has created a unique and compelling dialogue, speaking to racism as a problem not only in France, but around the world. Elegant and sensitive, "deceptively simple" (New York Times), Racism Explained to My Daughter is for all parents who have struggled to engage their children in discussion of this complex issue. It also includes personal essays from four leading U.S. writers who are also parents.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
If its success in Europe is any indication, this book should be a best seller in America. Attempting to explain racism is challenging enough, and it is even harder when one is explaining it to a child. Prize-winning author Ben Jelloun (Corruption, New Pr., 1995) meets the challenge, as Bill Cosby acknowledges in his introduction. Written in question-and-answer formatAhis daughter's questions, Ben Jelloun's answersAthe book is appropriately brief. The author does not consider his words final, and so the four responses, from William Ayers, Lisa Delpit, David Mura, and Patricia Williams, parents and writers all, are important in continuing the discussion and applying it to the American scene. The book is easy to read and provocative, touching on discrimination, religion, genetics, stereotyping, immigration, xenophobia, and more. Rare should be the library that does not have it.AJohn Moryl, Yeshiva Univ. Lib., New York
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Jelloun, a French writer of Moroccan descent, wrote this book in response to his 10-year-old daughter's queries about racism. The queries came at a time when France and other European nations were exploring how to absorb--or not--people from their former colonies. Jelloun discusses cultural differences, genetics, and religion, all the things that make us different. He examines the social, political, economic, and psychological aspects of racism. Although the topic is fairly weighty, Jelloun articulates the issues without being pedantic. He tells his daughter, and the reader, that racists are deeply troubled people. Jelloun's essay is aimed at guiding children from 8 to 14 and could help young people appreciate the complexity of racism. Other writers offer their own responses regarding how to explain racism: a black female professor, an Asian poet, a white male professor, and a white female children's author who has adopted a black child. The introduction to this interesting book is written by Bill Cosby Vanessa Bush
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13 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
How to hate racism and still think like a racist,
This review is from: Racism Explained to My Daughter (Hardcover)
"Racism Explained to My Daughter" is a maddening read. Its creditable intentions and seemingly careful explanations draw you in quickly, and Ben Jelloun's economical prose has all the virtues of a well-prepared lesson with none of the overwhelming preachiness. And it is this patience of demeanor that makes this such a dangerous book, for Ben Jelloun's argument here ends up reproducing, with a gentle and seductive touch, the same limited and limiting mindset of the racism he sets out to "explain."The topic is, of course, timely, and as acclaimed a writer as Ben Jelloun is perhaps more prepared than most to take on the task. He proceeds step by step with his clarifications, defining difficult terms in often sensible ways, all the while using a form of prose that has very long roots as an expository genre: the dialogue. This format allows the daughter's voice to anticipate the very questions and demands for greater clarity that are simultaneously arising in the reader's mind. And her father is happy to simplify. And that's just the problem. Racism is not a simple thing. Ben Jelloun is to be commended for his attempt, but there is strength in not knowing, and greater strength in admitting that one doesn't know-just ask Socrates, the ancient master of the dialogue. Socrates would have paled trying to explain racism. To his credit, Ben Jelloun includes numerous critiques (letters sent to him from readers, things said by students during his tour of schools in France and Italy) of the earlier edition of "Racism Explained" and, while these afford an opportunity for showing the real complexity of racism, they also reinforce the poverty of his own argument. And what's wrong with his argument? Ben Jelloun wants to break things down very carefully and be fair, and he gives every appearance of doing so, but it is only an appearance. The problem with this project ultimately revolves around the fact that, in order to discredit racism, Ben Jelloun relies on the same reductive worldview that causes racism in the first place, the same lack of vision that only sees things in opposed pairs: black/white, good/bad, us/them. Thus can his daughter, at the book's end, declare that "racists are b**tards [salauds]." She has learned well how to ignore multifarious causes and use instead blanket judgments. Substitute any sub-group for "racists" in her equation, and you've got the beginnings of hate: for Hitler, it was "Jews," for Falwell it's "homosexuals," etc. Racists are many things, but not all racists are one thing. Ben Jelloun once said of James Joyce that Joyce's work is so revolutionary because it "works on language," and Ben Jelloun's own novels have performed this revolution often over the last decade. Sadly, when a fine author decides to take on social issues at a more explicit and obvious level, the humanity and nuance fade, and all we're left with is a choice between two worldviews: that of the reductionist explainers, and that of the racist b**tards. Precisely because of its pretensions to fairness, sober-mindedness and tolerance, this could very well be one of the most dangerous books I've read. It gets three stars for the discussion that forms around the critiques included at the end (the only sustained dose of reality in the book) and for the discussion I hope it will provoke here in the USA.
11 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A nice little book to open our eyes,
This review is from: Racism Explained to My Daughter (Hardcover)
Tahar Ben Jelloun (his daughter and her friends) have done us a great service by asking and answering seemingly simple questions about the issue of racism. The French context helps Americans better understand the universality of racism and his responses help all understand the stupidity of racism. Please buy this book. Like all books from the New Press, it hits the mark.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
definitely a must read for parents, teachers, everyone,
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This review is from: Racism Explained to My Daughter (Paperback)
the book begins with an essay by tahar ben jelloun, but also includes responses to that essay by David Mura, Patricia Williams and others. I have my disagreements with the Ben Jelloun essay, but those are addressed by other writers in the book. In my opinion, the best essay of the bunch is by David Mura, responding to and critiquing the Ben Jelloun essay.
The essays are supposed to make you think, to challenge your way of viewing the world. They're supposed to make you a little uncomfortable-there's nothing "comfortable" about race and racism. What's particularly fascinating about this little book is its accessibility and readability. it's blissfully free of much of the jargon that is often found in books today. As parents, we all face this problem, how to explain racism to our children without perpetuating it, without damaging our children's psyches, without crushing their souls. While this book didn't give me all the answers, it did help me to think through how to address this issue with my four year old and her teachers. In fact, I think I'll give this book to her teachers as a gift. I'd like to stimulate their thinking on this issue as well. I highly recommend it.
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