Why aren’t free speech organizations as concerned with the exclusion of writers of color from the publishing marketplace as they are about the censorship of one racist children’s book?
Earlier this month, the children’s book industry released yet another picture book featuring smiling enslaved people, gleefully going about the apparently-not-so-bad business of slave work. A Birthday Cake for George Washington tells the story of Hercules, the first president’s enslaved chef, and his daughter, Delia. Life seems to be pretty decent for them, judging by the wide, shiny grins that appear on almost every page. No context is given about the true, horrific nature of American slavery; George Washington appears as a warm, benevolent patriarch. Besides a brief mention of the complexity of the topic in an author’s note at the end, the book gives no hint as to why Mr Hercules would go on to run away, leaving his daughter behind, on George Washington’s birthday.
Related: 'Self-censorship' of children's book depicting smiling slave condemned
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