What Exactly Does "A Return To Normal" Mean To Black Children? - Philly's 7th Ward

What Exactly Does "A Return To Normal" Mean To Black Children? - Philly's 7th Ward

WHAT EXACTLY DOES “A RETURN TO NORMAL” MEAN TO BLACK CHILDREN?

Certainly, the masses of Americans are ready to return to “normal.”

By normal I mean a return to engaging in all the activities and indulgences of life. An unavoidable truth is that for “normal” to return – activities that serve one or both functions of generating income and/or entertaining – young people must return to school.

The Coronavirus pandemic is obviously why we’re far from normal, but is normal our preferred destination?

For many Black students, normal wasn’t all that great. Actually, normal was downright oppressive at times. Public schooling has a long history of racism. Black children are over-policed, continue to endure de facto segregation, taught culturally irrelevant and non-identity affirming content by majority white teachers, while attending schools subject to inequitable funding.

Now, throw in the mix that we remain in the midst of a global pandemic that has killed more Americans than anywhere else; a pandemic that disproportionately kills Black people, and it’s no wonder why Black students, and their parents, are in no rush to return to in-person school, as opposed to white parents.

And yet, governors on both sides of the aisle are calling for schools to open; CONTINUE READING: What Exactly Does "A Return To Normal" Mean To Black Children? - Philly's 7th Ward

Normality in Sayaka Murata – radical eyes for equity

Normality in Sayaka Murata – radical eyes for equity

Normality in Sayaka Murata

What is normal? Are you normal? Am I normal?

“Normality was contagious, and exposure to the infection was necessary to keep up with it,” explains Natsuki in Sayaka Murata’s Earthlings.

If we accept that “normal” describes what is typical, and thus, what we may expect in any circumstance, then the novels of Murata are themselves not normal.

And the central characters in both Earthlings and Convenience Store Woman are certainly not normal either.

Having focused for the last couple of years on fiction in translation (see links below)—prompted in part by my scholarly and personal interest in Haruki Murakami—I think part of the appeal of fiction from other cultures, crafter originally in languages other than my native English, is that the works confront and challenge my perceptions of normal, even though my critical CONTINUE READING: Normality in Sayaka Murata – radical eyes for equity