Citation

Lester NA. Humanities (Basel) 2022; 11(2): e41.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, MDPI: Multidisciplinary Digital Publications Institute)

DOI

10.3390/h11020041

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Black children have never been exempt from the violence and abuse that have beset Black adults. Any comprehensive attention to and understanding of systemic racism, anti-Blackness, and intergenerational Black trauma must consider the historical violence literally, representationally, and fictionally against Black children and youth. For each news story headline about violence against Black children, there is a comparable Black adult story, underscoring the interchangeability of Black adult and Black children subjected to racial violence. This essay is not a history of violence against Black children in literature but, rather, an effort to understand and demonstrate that Black children's lives have not always mattered and that to address true racial justice in this country, systemic assaults on Black children and, by extension, on Black children's families and communities, must be included in any justice conversation and work. This essay looks at representative children's literature that normalizes violence against Black children.

Language: en

Keywords

Black children; children’s literature; racial justice; violence