Chronicles of ACE: Volume 1, No. 1
I am starting my ACE Fellowship bootcamp tomorrow. Before descending into non-stop conversation about leadership and higher education, I needed to find a little respite. I headed across the street to the Minnesota Wildife Refuge. Unexpectedly, I walked upon a lending library
I love these and how they silently and quietly promote reading and the love of physical books.
I loved reading bedtime books to my children. I realized very early on, some “children’s” books were actually not meant for children, especially not at bedtime. I often wondered what was the experience of some these children’s books writers and why they wrote such horrific stories to be read “at bedtime.” But, I’m still drawn to books and children’s books.
I peeked at the books. Today, many of the books were children’s books.
I noticed a classic – The Three Little Pigs. A story about “an old sow with three little pigs” who “had no money to keep them, so she sent them off to seek their fortune.” We remember this story.
Today, I re-read that story, looked at the vivid images, imagined the horror of reading the story to a kid a bedtime with pictures of angry, fang-bearing wolves, with horrific yellow eyes.
Not a bedtime story.
Let’s remember and remind ourselves how it goes. The wolf has a conversation with the first little pig who made his house from straw;
“Little pig, little pig, let me come in.”
“No, no! Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin.”
“Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house in.” said the wolf.”
“So he huffed, and he puffed,
And he huffed and he puffed, and
at last he blew the house in.
And he ate up the first little pig.”
And then, the second little pig whose house was made of sticks suffered the same fate.
The third little pig built his house of bricks.
This story has a few additional nuances. When the wolf comes along for the third pig, he becomes very cunning, because he is unable to blow done the brick house. He then decides to seduce the pig with an invitation to get turnips for dinner together. They agree on a time, at 6 pm.
The pig was cunning, too. Got up at 5:00, got the turnips and was cooking them when the wolf arrived. Incensed, the wolf attempted to scheme again. This time, apples, coming at 5:00 am. Again, the wise little pig left at 4:00, but couldn’t get home in time and the wolf saw him in the tree. The greedy wolf wanted an apple so the little pig threw the apple as far as he could and ran in the opposite direction home.
Even more incensed, the wolf came again, inviting the pig to a fair at 3:00. The little pig went at two and bought a butter churn. Once again, he ran into the wolf on the way home. He jumped in the butter churn and rolled away, scaring the wolf with the barrel rolling towards him.
One final time, the wolf tried. “The wolf was very angry indeed.”
He decided to climb down the roof.
The little brilliant pig built a fire, put a pot on the fire, and as the wolf descended, the wolf landed in the pot. The pig put the lid on, boiled the wolf up, and “ate him for supper.”
“And the little pig lived happily ever afterward.”
So……in my metaphorical imagination, I see this wolf as representing anti-DEI movement: the energy of antagonism, anger, frustration, and hate. It is persistent and non-yielding. It files lawsuits against universities, enacts legislation eliminating DEI offices and budgets, threatens faculty and students on social media, and creates unwelcoming environments, promoting the antithesis of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion.
Those of us who are social justice activists, advocates, and allies have to fight this wolf, his huffing and puffing, and threats to blow down the diversity, equity, inclusion and social justice houses we have worked so hard to build. Yet, some of our social justice houses are made of straw, some sticks, and others bricks. But we all must be vigilant, and think of creative strategies to thwart this energy. We need a stronger counter-movement and counter-energy. We gotta be like that third little pig and outsmart, outmaneuver.
I have two takeaways:
- Understand the “wolf” of oppression and hate and develop an underground railroad strategy.
- And, some books should not be read to children at all, and especially not at night.
More on another children’s book also in that little lending library next time.