#nacho talks

They didn’t release the Epstein files!

They redacted most of it!

500 full pages of redactions!

And that’s not just like victims names or anything. No. Full pages.

I have great news:

Not only do those books still exist, but there's more of them, they're more diverse, and more are being written by people who belong to those cultures (rather than well-meaning white researchers). This was just what I found on a five minute cursory walk through the children's area of a small, rural library - there's way more than this, and that's not even touching on the hundreds, thousands of picture books, chapter books, comics, and YA about, by, and for people of all backgrounds. This was just one shelf!

Don't let nostalgia bias fool you into thinking that children's books haven't gotten more diverse because it is very much the opposite. If you haven't heard of the organization We Need Diverse Books, they were formed over a decade ago and they're awesome - they're not the only reason things have improved but they're a big part of why.

We've come so far from where we used to be and we're going to keep moving forward no matter what. Remember that.

oh

that's right

You used to be able to turn on any TV and find a PBS station playing educational children's shows that featured a wide range of perspectives and cultures. Other broadcast stations also had educational kid's shows (i remember watching a TON of time warp trio on NBC in the 00s)

To watch TV now you probably don't have the ability to just plug it in and watch local channels for free, unless your house still has a broadcast antenna that can receive the signals. You have to have a TV provider, or else you need to pay for internet that can stream TV. Plus the cost of streaming services.

You can't easily stream PBS shows for free. PBS has an app, but it's fairly limited in its selection, not to mention hard to use. HBO had fucking sesame street paywalled for years. SESAME STREET. And with the CPB shutting down a lot of places - remote, rural areas especially - have lost their PBS stations.

And yes there's ways around this. You can find all sorts of ways to watch things online for free, both legally and not. You can even access the internet for free at places like the public library!

If you know how.

okay I found one (1) entire page of vampire jack doodles from like 4 years ago and I definitely have more somewhere but here have this loser