The Snowy Day by Keats Ezra J. is one of the pioneer writings among stories for children that depicted an African American child as the main central character. The story was published during the Civil Rights Movement era by an author of Jewish heritage. Although it is a children’s book, some individuals found racial issues and even racist remarks. The fact that the author did not intentionally include some prejudices and stereotypes proves that these ideological fallacies are deeply ingrained in one’s mind. Therefore, the book inevitably contained highly racial sub-textual messages and reflected the general prejudices and stereotypes regarding African Americans.
Stereotypes
It is important to note that The Snowy Day is a highly innocent book that describes an African American child’s day during the winter. It does not explicitly state the racial background of the character, nor does it directly carry racial pieces. However, the images and visual aspect of the story signals strong race-related messages. The author stated that he approached the story with total innocence and no predetermined racial subtext (Hintz and Tribunella 314). Hintz and Tribunella state: “just because Keats’s goal were benevolent does not mean his work is not a product of its historical context and therefore marked by race and racial bias” (314). However, it makes matters worse, because it means that stereotypes are deeply ingrained in one’s mind without him or her realizing that it exists.
In order to understand the stereotypes in the text, it is important to define it. A stereotype is a fixed order of actions, described according to the model of conditioned reflexes and included in a social setting. They are predefined, easy to identify, used to understand, organize the social world, and interact as long as the situation is not problematic. In addition, stereotypes can be manifested in negative-stereotypic and positive-counterstereotypic information (Dukes and Gaither 796). By reproducing possible relationships, social stereotypes constitute a special type of logic that works in different contexts, on any amount of information due to the unlimited attribution of the known to the unknown.
The manifestation of racial stereotypes is characterized by the close interconnectedness of cognitive, emotional, affective, and behavioral components, which can be observed in the book’s subtext. In the story, there are a number of African American stereotypes, such sub-urban environment and red hooded clothing of an African American child. The same components can be attributed to the content of ethnic stereotypes. The cognitive component is an integral part of the stereotype, which is information about the norm of perception of the object. The latter can be observed in the author’s depiction of the overall setting and child’s lifestyle features. The mechanism of the formation of the cognitive component of national stereotypes is still not well understood. Due to the limited interethnic communication, cognition of another racial group is often carried out on the basis of absolutization and transfer of traits characteristic of its individual representatives to the racial group as a whole. In some cases, ideas about an alien group can arise even through third parties, without direct contact.
Racial consciousness not only absolutizes some truly existing ethnic properties but also tends to ascribe to “own” and “alien” races non-existent traits. For instance, it is stated that the media representation of African Americans as victims of police brutality can be manipulated to shift towards victim-blaming through stereotype induction rather than rational analysis (Dukes and Gaither 790). As a result, only approximate, simplified ideas about the basic properties and characteristics of another group are formed. The representations themselves are not just visual images of reality, but always to a certain extent, generalized models that are essential in the mental regulation of human activity. It is also important to distinguish the three main functions of representations, such as signal, regulation, and tuning. Although the author did not possess any intentions to impose racial context on the story, he inevitably signals his own deeply ingrained stereotypes.
Racial consciousness presupposes not only a statement of the specifics of an alien group but also an emotional and affective attitude towards it. Even initial superficial knowledge of a racial or ethnic object already generates certain relationships. The latter may include attraction, repulsion, or indifference to members of another racial group. Thus, the main components of the cognitive structure of racial self-consciousness are stable attributive integration and differentiation symptom complexes. They characterize members of their own racial group, as well as representatives of other groups along the lines of traditional and cultural systems. Under the attributive symptom complex is understood as a system of characteristics attributed to one or another group reflecting the content of a racial stereotype.
Prejudice
In order to understand prejudices of the book, it is important to define its definition. Prejudice is highly interlinked with stereotyping, but it differs in meaning. The former describes the pre-judgment of an individual regarding another group, and it does not require experience to develop a specific set of beliefs and feelings. One may never encounter or be among Asian people, but hold prejudices about the given racial group. This is also applicable to the story, where the author depicts an only adult and the main character’s mother as a stereotypical African American single parent (The Teacher’s Library 00:02:03-00:02:06). Prejudice supposes and even promotes the notion that African American families lack fathers. Although the writing does not explicitly state that the child does or does not have a fatherly figure, it paints a clear prejudice-based picture of African American single-mother families.
The prejudice is based on pre-judgment, that is, an unfounded negative view of other people. In itself, a negative view is not yet a prejudice. It becomes such if it does not change even if there is convincing evidence that this judgment is unfair, erroneous, and refuted by positive facts. Any prejudice is a deviation from three specific norms, such as norms of rationality, norms of justice, and norms of humanity. The tendency to prejudice becomes a character trait, reinforcing prejudices, and antipathies towards certain groups of people. Prejudice is a negative idea of other people, which does not change even if there is convincing evidence that this judgment is unfair, erroneous. The causes of prejudice are labeling, an inappropriate parenting style that is rude and dismissive of other people, and unexpected emotional trauma received by the child when interacting with other groups.
Prejudice is widespread and enduring since, like stereotypes, it is an effortless way of thinking, and it is triggered by anxiety and a threat to security. They are an integral property of an authoritarian personality, and they become part of her thinking. Most likely, this is because many people, by their character, need prejudice and religion in order to ensure themselves comfort in life. Therefore, people might possess without any intentional analysis, which can be observed in the author’s story. Prejudice is tenacious by virtue of conformism, and the functioning of prejudice in society explains such a terrible social phenomenon as fanaticism (Rini and Matulessy 38). Prejudice is a type of blinders in front of quite intelligent and educated people. They are even more rooted in those people who have insufficient experience and gaps in education, delusions and lack of intelligence, inadequate development of empathy and sensitivity, responsiveness, compassion, not to mention the need for high morality and humane attitude to people.
The fact that the author did not deliberately include racial subtext into the story means that even a well-mannered and a socially aware individual can develop certain prejudices. Education, the development of self-awareness and intense self-knowledge, the formation of self-esteem, which does not allow neglect of other people, help get rid of prejudice. However, the given case illustrates that these approaches do not guarantee the complete elimination of all prejudices. Prejudices change if their change reveals social, economic, and personal meaning. Social sciences are a powerful weapon against fanaticism, and social psychology occupies an important place among them.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is evident that the story is not meant to address racial topics and invoke a debate about one’s race. The primary intention and objective of the author were to make children stories more inclusive and diverse by depicting an African American child as the main protagonist. The overall criticism and controversy around the story is not targeted at the author and his individual issues, but rather addresses the fact that prejudices and stereotypes are present among even well-meaning people. By deliberately making efforts to promote African American imagery in stories for children, the author unintentionally illustrated his inherent stereotypes and prejudices regarding the African American people. These cognitive elements are not explicitly expressed, but rather take the form of the subtext. The most prominent depiction can be observed in the visual components of the book.
Works Cited
“The Snowy Day.” YouTube, uploaded by The Teacher’s Library, 2016, Web.
Dukes, Kristin Nicole, and Sarah E. Gaither. “Black Racial Stereotypes and Victim Blaming: Implications for Media Coverage and Criminal Proceedings in Cases of Police Violence against Racial and Ethnic Minorities.” Journal of Social Issues, vol. 73, no. 4, 2017, pp. 789-807.
Hintz, Carrie, and Eric L. Tribunella. Reading Children’s Literature: A Critical Introduction. Broadview Press, 2019.
Rini, Amanda Pasca, and Andik Matulessy. “The Influence of Private Conformity, Group Self-Esteem, Fanaticism and Obedience toward the Aggressiveness of Political Party Partisan.” International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Invention, vol. 5, no. 12, 2016, pp. 37-46.