Yet More Ish I Should Have Known

 I had a hard time falling asleep last night: my mind was disturbed. When I did sleep, I dreamed of the Tacky Postcard Contest my dear friend Sarah and embarked upon in college. Wherever either of us went we sought out the tackiest possible postcard and sent it to the other. It went on for a few years, with some remarkably tacky cards, until Sarah went to Florence and mailed me a postcard that was a closeup of the genitalia from Michaelangelo's masterpiece sculpture David, with "I came, I saw, I conquered!" written in Latin across it. We acclaimed this the winner, and the contest ended.

When I woke up I thought immediately of the thing that had made it so hard for me to fall asleep.

Lynching postcards.

I'm in an online writer's group with four Black women. We're diverse in age, experiences, and geography. I fully believe that it is not their responsibility to teach me about being Black in America, and yet, nearly every meeting, they do.

Last night one of the others was telling the group about her involved, beautiful idea for a novel that blended Ghanian folklore, American history, and magical realism. As she was talking, she mentioned 'lynching postcards' in passing. It was clear the other three understood what this meant. I did not. I said, "I'm really sorry--what is a lynching postcard?"

They told me, but in the interests of clarity and full detail I will quote this from Wikipedia, which I read this morning:

Spectators sold one another souvenirs including postcards.^[7] Often the photographer was one of the killers.^[8]

In a typical lynching postcard, the victim is displayed prominently at the center of the shot, while smiling spectators, often including children,^[7] crowd the margins of the frame, posing for the camera to prove their presence. Facial expressions suggesting remorse, guilt, shame, or regret are rare.^[8]

Some purchasers used lynching postcards as ordinary postcards, communicating unrelated events to friends and relatives. Others resold lynching postcards at a profit.^[6] Still others collected them as historical objects or racist paraphernalia: their manufacture and continued distribution was part of white supremacist culture, and has been likened to "bigot pornography".^[9]

Whatever their use, the cultural message embodied in most lynching postcards was one of racial superiority. Historian Amy Louise Wood argues:

Within specific localities, viewers did not disconnect the photographs from the actual lynchings they represented. Through that particularity, the images served as visual proof for the uncontested 'truth' of white civilized morality over and against supposed black bestiality and savagery. ^[9]

Viewed from an outsider's perspective, bereft of local context, the postcards symbolized white power more generally. White citizens were depicted as victorious over powerless dead black victims, and the pictures became part of secular iconography.

Richard Lacayo, writing for Time magazine, noted in 2000:

Even the Nazis did not stoop to selling souvenirs of Auschwitz, but lynching scenes became a burgeoning subdepartment of the postcard industry. By 1908, the trade had grown so large, and the practice of sending postcards featuring the victims of mob murderers had become so repugnant, that the U.S. Postmaster General banned the cards from the mails.^[10]

As late as the 21st century, James Allen was able to acquire a collection of lynching postcards from dealers who offered them in whispered tones and clandestine marketplaces.

Obviously this is repugnant almost beyond belief. But here is what bothers me most, what kept me up at night: I didn't know.

I'm 53 years old, smart, very well educated, and over the past 15 years have tried to read and educate myself about race, particularly in America. When you're writing historical fiction, as I do, the biggest dangers are what you don't know you don't know--the things you never think to question, that you therefore don't bother to research, that therefore leave holes in your story.

I will never write a story about a lynching. But still, I should have known. Somewhere in my history lessons, while I was told about Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks, and that Black and white people couldn't use the same drinking fountains, someone should have taught me that the Civil Rights movement was about more than that. Someone should have explained redlining, told me that the reason having Black people moving into a neighborhood would decrease property values (a fact I vaguely remember hearing from my childhood) wasn't because Black people were intrinsically less valuable, but because white people had rigged the housing market to make it so. Someone should have explained about penal servitude. Someone should have told me about the Tulsa race massacre. These should have been facts presented in my history, not just Dr. King's dream and subsequent assasination.

It is my teacher's fault and it is my fault. 

Now I know better. By reading this, so do you.

Beverly

 My husband and son and I were having dinner in California. We were uptight and anxious, because several thousand miles away my daughter's horse had developed a full-blown medical emergency that could well prove fatal; my daughter, and especially our friends Caroline and Bruce--especially you, Bruce, we won't forget it--were loading him into the trailer for a midnight haul to the veterinary school two hours away. (My daughter drives our truck and trailer well--after her horse recovered she picked him up by herself--but that late drive with the horse's life in danger was emotionally beyond her. Our friends stepped up large and got her through it when the rest of us were 3000 miles away.)

Anyhow, we were sitting outdoors, under a heat lamp, trying to have a lovely time at a real restaurant while our stomachs tied themselves in knots. I checked my phone, hoping for news from my daughter. "Oh, no!" I said. "Beverly Cleary died!"

"Oh, no," my husband said, softly. "I'm so sorry."

"What did she die of?" my son asked. 

I scanned the news item. "It doesn't say."

"How old was she?"

"A hundred and four."

Husband and son looked at me. Son began to grin. And okay, it wasn't a tragedy. One hundred and four--very nearly one hundred and five. And yet. For the next few days my internet feeds were filled with universal mourning. From Judy Blume to Victoria Jamieson to me, at least two generations of children's book authors were influenced by her work, and who knows how many children. Millions. My mom read Ramona The Pest to me when I was myself in kindergarten--I identified with every aspect of Ramona's perilous walk to school. Her pulling up that flowering beet--I loved her. 

The next day (the horse was better, survived the night without surgery, happier spirits all around. We love this horse, he's young and vibrant and quirky and smart, we can't bear the thought of losing him) I went with my husband and son while they played an old, beautiful, California golf course. One of the houses on the course had a Little Free Library near one of the teeboxes, so of course I went to have a look--and there, among the other books, was a copy of The Mouse and the Motorcycle, my favorite of all Beverly Cleary's books. 

I just looked it up. It was originally published in 1965. The edition in the LFL had been published in 2016. I read the first few pages--they're still good--and replaced the book for a child to find.

We all knew she wouldn't live forever, but there were many of us who loved knowing that Beverly Cleary was still in our world. We loved her for her quiet groundbreaking subversive ordinary characters. We loved her for her truth.

For awhile now my husband and I have been thinking of getting a second dog. Our young cavoodle, Cava, loves the company of other dogs. She sometimes finds my husband and I dull, well-loved but slightly insufficient as playmates. When she's around other dogs she lights up with joy.

And so this Saturday we acquired a schnoodle pup. Just as we hoped, Cava reacted with joy, and patience, and deep satisfaction. The puppy is all things puppy, affectionate and sweet.

My husband named her. He names most of our animals. He's very good at names.

I present to you: Beverly Cleary Bradley.