A guest post by SorryWatch Senior Kidlit Correspondent Andria Amaral, the Young Adult Services Manager at the Charleston County Public Library in South Carolina. 

As you’ve probably heard by now, after winning the prestigious Young People’s Literature Award for her gorgeous book Brown Girl Dreaming at the National Book Awards on Wednesday night, Jacqueline Woodson was the subject of a hilariously unfunny and appallingly racist “joke” about her allergy to watermelons, delivered by the event’s MC, Daniel Handler.

One of the most upsetting things about this whole debacle is the way it’s shifted attention away from Woodson’s achievements and toward Handler’s buffoonery.

But his comments can’t be ignored – casual racism must be called out whenever it happens. Even if it’s perpetrated by one beloved children’s author towards another. Especially then.

I’ve always been a fan of Handler’s Series of Unfortunate Events books for kids (published under the pseudonym Lemony Snicket), and like millions of other readers worldwide I found his snarky, irreverent tone delightful. But the tone of his NBA comments was upsetting. Particularly because the children’s book world has only JUST begun to acknowledge its distressing lack of diversity. The #WeNeedDiverseBooks campaign set out to “change the landscape of children’s literature” and has already started to affect the way many of us think about books for young people and the wide range of human experience they should depict.

I was sad, angry, disgusted. HOW could Handler have thought his comments were even remotely ok?

His initial apology was quick and contrite and delivered via Twitter: “My job at last night’s National Book Awards #NBAwards was to shine a light on tremendous writers, including Jacqueline Woodson…and not to overshadow their achievements with my own ill-conceived attempts at humor. I clearly failed, and I’m sorry.”

Grade: B. He took responsibility for his actions, seemed sincerely regretful, and understood the damage his comments had caused in taking the spotlight off Woodson. But it wasn’t entirely satisfying. What has he learned from this? How is he going to make amends and what will he differently in the future? Also, apologizing by tweet kind of feels like breaking up with someone via text.

Today he delivered another apology, also via Twitter: “My remarks on Wednesday night at #NBAwards were monstrously inappropriate and yes, racist.” “It would be heartbreaking for the #NBAwards conversation to focus on my behavior instead of great books. So can we do this? Let’s donate to #WeNeedDiverseBooks to #CelebrateJackie. I’m in for $10,000, and matching your money for 24 hours up to $100,000.” [Donate here.] And finally, “Brown Girl Dreaming is an amazing novel and we need more voices like Jacqueline Woodson.”

Grade: A-. Better. He admits the joke was monstrously racist and takes steps to move the conversation forward, to increasing diversity in children’s books, and celebrating Woodson. And he’s putting his money where his mouth is, which is always refreshing in a public figure; as a result some real good may come from this. But I still want something more substantial than a tweet. He is a MAN OF LETTERS. He should be able to put together more than a string of 140-character sentiments. It’s possible this is still forthcoming. I hope so. And he should have apologized, privately and profusely, to Woodson; apparently they are friends so perhaps he already has.

By many people’s accounts, it appears that Daniel Handler is basically a good guy who just fucked up royally. It happens to the best of us. It’s how you react and move forward that matters.

Woodson has not had much to say in response to this scandal, obliquely remarking that she wants to continue in a “positive light rather than a negative one.” She’s a class act. And she’s right. There’s not much to gain from continuing to lambast Handler. He obviously knows what he did wrong and seems to be sincerely remorseful.

But we do need to keep talking about casual racism and the culture that led Handler to make those remarks without thinking twice.

Here in Charleston, we recently had our own “Watermelongate.” A local high school football team smashed a watermelon, on which they had drawn a grinning, curly-haired cartoon face, during a victory celebration after a win at a rival school. The winning team has only one black student on their roster; the losing team is predominantly black. The players named the watermelon “Bonds-Wilson,” after an all-black segregated school that used to stand on their school’s current site. They smashed Bonds-Wilson in front of the losing team’s players and families, all while hootin’ and hollerin’ in the grand Southern tradition.

The cherry on top of this racially insensitive sundae is that the team’s coach was aware of the incident and had “no concerns about potentially racially sensitive overtones or perceptions.” It all turned into a major mess ending with the School Superintendent resigning under pressure.

The most offensive part for me was all the white people arguing that nothing offensive had occurred. “There’s nothing racist about watermelons, y’all!! They’re just a fruit!!” The thing is, white people don’t have the right to decide what’s offensive to other races. And stereotypes around black people and watermelon have a long and unpleasant history in the United States. Even if you didn’t know that history (and if you didn’t, please read the preceding link) or how it taints even our friendly neighborhood ice-cream trucks (seriously, click on that link too) we as a society really should have moved past dumb ethnic jokes by now.

So maybe the gift of this “watermelon pickle” is a reminder to examine our ingrained biases and the unintentional ways we subtly demean less-dominant cultures. Maybe that’s how we can honor Woodson’s request that we move forward in a positive light.

(The title of this post comes from a lovely poem by John Tobias called Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle Received from a Friend Called Felicity. Read it here.)

Thank you, Andria!

Editor’s Note (from Snarly): I apologize for the use of potentially distressing imagery in this post. The visuals were my idea, not Andria’s. When I was discussing last night’s incident with my own (well-read!) 13-year-old, she had no clue at all that watermelon could have racist connotations. So the pictures of vintage postcards and the cookie jar are, sadly, for her. To end on a less distressing note. I’m reading Brown Girl Dreaming to my 10-year-old at bedtime. It’s amazing. Buy it. And support #WeNeedDiverseBooks for all kids.