Anthony Asadullah Samad writes:
In a materialistic world, what is the most valuable thing you can give your young boys? Nope, it’s not money — they’ll spend it on rims and shoes. Nope, it’s not “bling†— they’ll only create a false illusion of wealth that, in the end, they’ll pawn. Nope, not video games — it only makes them fat and lazy (but they’ll have strong thumbs). How about a book? Yes, a book.
It’s time to recognize our children are [being] significantly disadvantaged in their desire to get immediate information. Reading magazines and Wikipedia is not the same as reading books. We are in a new literary renaissance period. When a new Harry Potter book can sell eight million books in 24 hours (or 15,000 books a minute), you have to ask yourself, what’s going on?
They used to say that if you want to hide something from black people, put it in a book. I can tell you, having moderated panels on both coasts (the Harlem Book Fair and the first Leimert Park Book Festival) in the past month, that, for the most part, a lot of black people are reading. It’s what they’re reading (fiction, romance, erotica) that might be of concern, but at least some are reading. The African-American market is the “growth market†for the book industry. There is an exception. Young black boys.
Several national surveys have stated that black boys (ages 13-24) are not reading books. An amazing 54% of young boys under 15 years of age (more than half of school aged boys) have never read a book. Most of them drop out of school because they’re made to read books. Literary is a crisis in the black community, even though some suggest we’re in the midst of a new “black literary renaissance.†70% of black boys/men (high school and college) 21 and under, claim to have read at least one book in their lives, but most can’t recall the title. Most of them have read newspapers (mostly sport pages, and magazines), but don’t know the pleasure of reading a book. Their leisure (and study) time is spent watching “channel zero†(television) playing video games or on-line.
How do we rationalize, as a race and a culture, not exposing our children to literature? I believe that for every video game a child has, they should have two books. (more…)
