Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now we'll open up the phones. After hearing Jacqueline Woodson talk about not seeing herself as a Black girl, a Black child in children's books growing up, we'll open the phones on the question, when did you first see someone who looks like you reflected in a book or a movie or other arts or entertainment if you hadn't been before and what effect that had on you? 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692. Did you catch these two bits from the interview where Jacqueline Woodson was explaining that she writes because she likes telling stories but also for a larger purpose, there was this one?

Jacqueline Woodson: I started writing books with people of color because I was growing up and those books weren't in our libraries and our classrooms and I didn't understand why my existence as a person of color was erased from literature.

Brian Lehrer: She also said this.

Jacqueline Woodson: I thought the idea of myself not in the world made me feel illegitimate. I wanted the Black experience to be legitimate in the world and writing it into the narrative would do that.

Brian Lehrer: Did you relate to that as a reader, anyone? Can you think of the book or other creative work where you suddenly realized you and your life in some way, your family, your lived experience in some way was reflected, and what kind of effect that may have had on you? 212-433-WNYC. Did you feel, to use Jacqueline Woodson's word, legitimate? Did you feel a part of the larger society in a way that maybe you didn't before? Has it gotten easier to find those books and TV shows that say you belong? Call and tell us about that work of art or even a TV commercial or magazine cover when the erasure was disrupted? 212-433-9692.

I think for most white people, this would be a strange question. For me, as a white kid growing up, white male kid no less, I saw myself all over the media and entertainment. It wasn't even a question. The basic reading skills book from kindergarten or first grade in those days, the Dick and Jane and Sally books, they were white kids. I saw them as kids like me. I didn't even think about them being kids like me because as a white kid, kids like me in that rough general sense were depicted everywhere. On TV shows, pick your family sitcom or whatever, it was just a given.

I imagine this call-in will really be for listeners who grew up as Black or Latino or Asian Americans, maybe for girls as opposed to boys, at least in how girls were depicted. Maybe if you're LGBTQ or a person with a disability or anyone else marginalized in literature or on TV, in the movies, or whatever, when did you first see yourself in some way reflected or depicted in a positive light? One more clip from the Jacqueline Woodson interview, she also talked about her experience growing up with an uncle who was incarcerated and how that was never talked about. When she visited schools and juvenile detention facilities as National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, she would think about this.

Jacqueline Woodson: I realized so many of these young people had those similar experiences. I'd go in there and read my book, Visiting Day which is about a girl whose dad is in prison, and suddenly, all these kids realize, "Oh, here's the green light. I can actually talk about this thing that I've been hiding and feeling ashamed about," because I've set the tone as the writer with the literature with my own body with a similar experience. I've said, "Okay, this is okay to talk about."

Brian Lehrer: Has a work of art given you a green light, as she put it, to talk about something you thought the culture wanted hidden? Whoever you are, we welcome you to call and shout out what work from the arts and entertainment you remember as a first for seeing yourself reflected in some way and what effect did that have on your self-esteem or your vision of possibilities for yourself in the world or anything else? 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692, and we'll take your calls after this.

[music]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC and now to your calls on the first time you saw yourself reflected in literature or other arts or entertainment if you hadn't before. We're going to start with Edie in New Haven. You're on WNYC. Hello, Edie.

Edie: Hi, Brian. Thank you for taking my call. I just remember growing up one of the genres that I loved to read for pleasure was romance novels. It was always a Caucasian story. Then, one day, I came across a Terry McMillan book in the very back of the romance map section of the library. Just to see Black love portrayed in that way, the story of a Black couple and the nuances, that forever changed my view of the genre. Now, it opened the door to other Black romance writers such as Eric Jerome Dickey. Just that exposure, it resonated so much with me at 18 that I never thought these books existed.

It struck me that it was so far in the library and I'm the mother of two little boys now and to see the plethora of books where they are reflected where my son can say, "Mama, he looks like me." That is profound in this day and age because growing up everything [crosstalk]--

Brian Lehrer: Even in the very non-political, I guess what people might even consider a shallow world of romance novels, it made a difference.

Edie: Yes. Without a doubt, it made a difference.

Brian Lehrer: Edie, thank you so much for your call. Deborah in Jersey City. You're on WNYC. Hi, Deborah.

Deborah: Hi, Brian. Thank you for taking my call. Around when Star Trek first came out, my mother used to watch it. I was about 10 or 11. I watched a few episodes with her, and to see the multicultural cast, especially to see Lieutenant Uhura, I think that's when my love of reading science fiction and watching science fiction began because it showed that we were there. We were in the future. One thing about the Star Trek franchise is they have always had multicultural even today. Now we have the first African American female captain in the latest [unintelligible 00:07:23] [crosstalk] of Star Trek so [inaudible 00:07:24] [crosstalk].

Brian Lehrer: Deborah, thank you so much. We've gotten romance novels and science fiction in here already. Valerie in Tarrytown. You're on WNYC. Hi, Valerie. Thanks for calling.

Valerie: Hello, Brian. First-time caller, long-time listener. Oh my goodness, I was a teenager in the late-'60s, and Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was the first piece of writing that really resonated with me. From that time on, I searched for any African American writer. I just wanted to also tell you that I taught in a high school for a long time and I got some pushback for using the work of the writer that you use that you had spoken to, I'm blocking out her name.

Brian Lehrer: Jacqueline Woodson.

Valerie: Yes, Jacqueline Woodson. I actually met her in person, and I used her work many times for my students because her novel touched a wide area of students that I approached. Thank you for having this [inaudible 00:08:34] [crosstalk] today and--

Brian Lehrer: Do you remember the pushback? I'm just curious if you remember which Jacqueline Woodson book and why people objected.

Valerie: Well, I taught in Nyack. Actually, I offered the book to my students because I used From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun with eighth-grade students. I did that mostly because part of it was about a young man coming of age and his mother had the audacity to also have an affair with a woman. The students were very receptive but I got some pushback from some evangelical parents who did not feel that their daughter should be exposed to this. They wanted to have her not be placed in the classroom when we were discussing this, which was pretty sad for the girl because she wanted to be with everyone else. She was actually excluded from the opportunities that the other children had.

Brian Lehrer: Valerie, thank you very much. Ellen in Nyack, the just previously mentioned town on the other side of the Mario Cuomo Tappan Zee Bridge from where Valerie is. Hi, Ellen.

Ellen: Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much for taking my call. I'll try to make it quick. I just wanted to speak up for those of us assumed always to have white privilege but not feeling that growing up. I just wanted to add that. I grew up in Washington Heights, working-class family, and when I read Dick and Jane, I did not relate to it at all. It seemed like a totally foreign existence of houses and white picket fences and little dogs. The culture to me did not reflect my reality. I did read books like Anne Frank but that only reinforced that there was a lot of prejudice towards people who had my name and-

Brian Lehrer: Towards Jews.

Ellen: -looked like me. I grew up with a lot of Holocaust survivors. My parents were not, but I grew up with people who had really suffered for their religion. When I finally read All-of-a-Kind Family, which was about a Jewish immigrant family in the 1900s in New York and about the little girls and their adventures and how the family celebrated holidays, which I was familiar with, which were not included. In my public school of mostly Jewish teachers, we all had to say the Lord's prayer every day and learn Christmas songs. That was a given. We never [crosstalk]--

Brian Lehrer: Wow. Yes. It's interesting, and for me, growing up in an apartment in Queens when I was reading Dick and Jane, I did relate to them as me, but then to reinforce what you're saying, I had another level of experience when I started in Hebrew school to prepare for my bar mitzvah and there was a Dick and Jane equivalent in Hebrew where the children were named [unintelligible 00:11:44] and I was like, "Oh yes, right," so I think I had a little revelation there as maybe a 10-year-old that even Dick and Jane left me out a little bit and here's something even a little closer. Ellen, thank you for adding your story.

Ellen: Oh, thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Francesca in Rapid City, South Dakota, you're on WNYC. Hi, Francesca.

Francesca: Hello. I just wanted to say really this is a wonderful topic of interest. As a young Black girl growing up, I was fortunate enough to have generations of women around me and they had Jet magazines. That was the first time that I really identified and understood Black beauty as a part of commercial reality as much as the internal and esoteric beauty of Black women that, of course, everyone talks about but seeing them as just beautiful Black women was, for me, very important to see women who look like me.

Brian Lehrer: In Jet. Francesca, thank you so much. Danny in Copiague, you're on WNYC. Hi, Danny.

Danny: Hi, Brian. Thank you for taking my call. It's a pleasure to speak on such an awesome radio station.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you.

Danny: I first saw the movie To Wong Foo when I was a young kid and Chi-Chi Rodriguez, the character played by John Leguizamo was just so comforting and inspiring and made me feel-- I don't know, I don't think I understood anything when I was younger, but to be a trans person, to be a drag person, to be a person, and to just try to listen to myself. I was young, I didn't understand but I still carry that with me to this day.

Brian Lehrer: To Wong Foo through that film. Thank you. Harold In Cooperstown, New York, you're going to get our last 30 seconds and I'm going to have to continue to 30 seconds because otherwise, we're all going to go poof into the next show. Hi, Harold.

Harold: Hello.

Brian Lehrer: What you got?

Harold: For me, it was reading Down These Mean Streets by Piri Thomas.

Brian Lehrer: Because?

Harold: Because he dealt with life in Harlem during the 1950s and '60s and I was born in the 1950s in East Harlem. I'm originally from the Lincoln houses and it all made living in Harlem a legitimate reality for me.

Brian Lehrer: That's a great way to end. Harold, thank you. Thanks for all your calls on this Martin Luther King day.

Copyright © 2022 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.