If you’re on the hunt for a relic of America’s shameful past, you need look no further than the once-beloved children’s book Sounder, a bottomless pit of racist stereotypes and microaggressions.
Today’s attentive reader gets a slap in the face in the very first paragraph, in which the family dog, Sounder, is described unblinkingly as a “coon hound.” I understand that the meanings of words change, and that context matters, but actually the feelings of today matter a lot more. Do better, antiquity!
Next thing you know, we get a vivid description of how this dog viciously mauls raccoons and possums, which the family skins and eats for dinner. This will definitely be upsetting to young children—who should be protected, but instead will now require medication after story time. A scant paragraph later we learn how this family sends their cherished and faithful dog Sounder to go out and sleep under the house when it’s thirty fucking degrees outside. What kind of kiddie torture porn is this? We’re only on the first page!
It gets worse: one of the children in the book describes his “Negro” mom’s lips as “big and warm and soft.” Obviously the narrator is (a) super racist and (b) a groomer. I don’t care if language claims that it’s only trying to be descriptive. Tropes are tropes and they are usually toxic.
Suffice it to say, this book must be burned immediately by a gathering of TikTok’ers armed with home hair dye jobs and protest signs.
It’s funny how I used to think Sounder was a sensitive and nuanced portrayal of a black sharecropper’s family, penned by a white man desperately striving to be empathetic. Clearly, like the rest of the American hegemonic superstructure, I was merely trying to assuage my awful, soul-crushing guilt and excuse my unearned privilege. Anyone else getting tired of this theme? OK, I’ll stop
Issue: 17-1 (orig. pub. date: )
