THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM: PICTUREBOOKS,

PHILOSOPHY FOR CHILDREN AND RACISM

Darren Chetty
Institute of Education, University of London, UK

Abstract:
Whilst continuing racism is often invoked as evidence of the urgent need for Philosophy for
Children, there is little in the current literature that addresses the topic. Drawing on Critical
Race Theory (CRT) and the related field of Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS), I argue that
racism is deeply ingrained culturally in society, and best understood in the context of
‘Whiteness’. Following a CRT-informed analysis of two picturebooks that have been
recommended as starting points for philosophical enquiry into multiculturalism, racism and
diversity – Elmer and Tusk Tusk by David McKee, I argue that whilst the use of stories with
animals is commonly regarded as offering children the comfort of distance from emotionally
challenging topics, this has the effect of separating racism from its temporal and spatial
realities, which limits rather than enhances opportunities for engaging philosophically with
it. I argue in favour of the practice of ‘reading against the text’ and consider the
epistemological and practical obstacles to this practice drawing on my own experiences
discussing race with P4C practitioners in the UK. I attempt to illustrate how the selection of
recommended materials, combined with commonly held principles of P4C, make for a
climate where a philosophical engagement with race and racism that considers the discourse
of ‘Whiteness’ is highly unlikely to occur. This leads me to posit the idea of The Gated
Community of Enquiry.

Keywords: Community of Inquiry; Racism; Whiteness; Multiculturalism; Diversity;

Picturebooks

El elefante en la habitación: libros ilustrados, filosofía para niños y racismo

Resumen:
Mientras que el racismo es a menudo invocado como prueba de la necesidad urgente de
Filosofía para Niños, hay muy poco en la literatura actual que aborde el tema. Sobre la base de
la Teoría Crítica de la Raza (CRT) y el campo relacionado de Estudios Críticos de Blancura
(CWS), se argumenta que el racismo está profundamente arraigado culturalmente en la
sociedad, y es mejor entendido en el contexto de la "blancura". A partir de un análisis de dos
libros ilustrados desde una perspectiva de la CRT, libros que se han recomendado como
puntos de partida para la investigación filosófica del multiculturalismo, el racismo y la
diversidad - Elmer y Tusk Tusk de David McKee, sostengo que, si bien se considera
usualmente que el uso de historias con animales ofrece a los niños una cómoda distancia de
temas emocionalmente desafiantes, esto tiene el efecto de separar el racismo de sus realidades
temporales y espaciales, lo que limita más que aumenta las oportunidades para
comprometerse con él filosóficamente. Argumento a favor de la práctica de "leer en contra del
texto" y considerar los obstáculos epistemológicos y prácticos a esta práctica sobre la base de
mis propias experiencias de discutir cuestiones raciales con los practicantes de P4C en el
Reino Unido. Trato de ilustrar cómo la selección de los materiales recomendados, junto con

childhood & philosophy, rio de janeiro, v. 10, n. 19, jan-jun. 2014, pp. 11-31. issn 1984-5987
the elephant in the room: picturebooks, philosophy for children and racism

los principios comúnmente sostenidos en P4C, configuran un clima donde es muy poco
probable que se produzca un compromiso filosófico con la raza y el racismo que considere el
discurso de la "blancura". Esto me lleva a plantear la idea de la acorralada comunidad de
Indagación.

Palabras clave: comunidad de indagación; Racismo; Multiculturalismo; Diversidad; LIbros

ilustrados

O elefante no quarto: livros ilustrados, filosofia para crianças e racismo

Resumo:
Mesmo se o racismo é amiúde invocado como prova da necessidade urgente de Filosofia para
Crianças, há muito pouco na literatura atual que aborde o tema. Sobre a base da Teoria Crítica
da Raça (CRT) e o campo relacionado de Estudos Críticos da Brancura (CWS), se argumenta
que o racismo está profundamente enraizado culturalmente na sociedade, e é melhor
entendido no contexto da “brancura”. A partir de uma análise dos livros ilustrados desde
uma perspectiva da CRT, livros que foram recomendados como pontos de partida para a
investigação filosófica do multiculturalismo, do racismo e da diversidade – Elmer e Tusk Tusk
de David McKee, sustento que, bem que se considere usualmente que o uso de histórias com
animais oferece às crianças uma distância cômoda dos temos emocionalmente desafiadores,
isto tem por efeito de separar o racismo de suas realidades temporais e espaciais, o que limita
mais do que aumenta as oportunidades para comprometer-se com ele filosoficamente.
Argumento a favor da prática de “ler contra o texto” e considerar os obstáculos
epistemológicos e práticos a esta prática sobre a base de minhas próprias experiências de
discutir questões raciais com os praticantes de P4C (filosofia para crianças) no Reino Unido.
Trato de ilustrar como a seleção dos materiais recomendados, junto com os princípios
comumente defendidos na P4C, configuram um clima no qual é muito pouco provável que se
produza um compromisso filosófico com a raça e o racismo que considere o discurso da
“brancura”. Isto me leva a colocar a ideia da comunidade de investigação encurralada.

Palavras-chave: Comunidade de Investigação; Racismo; Multiculturalismo; Diversidade;

Livros Ilustrados

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 darren chetty

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM: PICTUREBOOKS,

PHILOSOPHY FOR CHILDREN AND RACISM

1. Introduction    

Continuing racism and social injustice are sometimes invoked as evidence of

the urgent need for Philosophy for Children (P4C) in education. For example,
Laurence Splitter and Ann Margaret Sharp begin their text on Philosophy for
Children and the Community of Inquiry with the following words,

“We live in difficult times… Conflict and discontent are widespread,

ethnic and racial hatreds flourish, the gap between the ‘haves’ and the
‘have-nots’ is wider than ever…”
(Splitter & Sharp 1995:1)

More recently, the 2007 version of the Society for the Advancement of
Philosophical Enquiry and Reflection in Education (SAPERE)1 Level 1 Handbook
states,

“In a world where 35,000 people die every day of starvation, where one
in five are malnourished and where 16 per cent of the global population
controls 80 per cent of the world’s GDP, there must be – surely – a
desperate need for reasonable, responsible, informed, freethinking and
active citizens to change this appalling situation for the better. P4C has
demonstrated over 30 years that it can be non-partisan, and yet give rise
to the thoughtfulness that is needed to challenge injustice and suffering.”
(SAPERE 2007: 11)

However, there is little in the current literature relating to Philosophy for

Children that explicitly addresses the topic of race and racism. In the UK, some
SAPERE (Society for the Advancement of Philosophical Enquiry and Reflection in
Education) trainers have reported that teachers often request more guidance on
facilitating philosophical enquiry around issues of race and inequality and that they
themselves are not always sure as to what to advise. Haynes and Murris write that for
teachers on P4C/PwC 2 courses, “Race and racism often crop up as problematic ‘no-
go’ areas.” (Haynes & Murris 2012a:128)

In this paper, in order to attempt to make sense of this reported uncertainty

about discussing race, the apparent lack of attention to race and racism in P4C

1
Founded in 1992, SAPERE is a UK educational charity that promotes P4C.
2
Some writers use the term “Philosophy with Children (PwC) to distinguish between Matthew Lipman’s original
Philosophy for Children (P4C) program and other practices which differ in varying degrees from this.

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the elephant in the room: picturebooks, philosophy for children and racism

literature3 and the sometimes dismissive, sometimes hostile reactions to my own

attempts to discuss race in P4C seminars in the UK, I draw on Critical Race Theory
(CRT) and the related field of Critical Whiteness studies. CRT argues that everyday
racism is best understood in the context of ‘Whiteness’ (which I will discuss in the
following section). I offer a CRT-informed analysis of Elmer and Tusk Tusk, two
picturebooks that have been recommended in the UK and internationally by
Philosophy for Children practitioners as starting points for philosophical enquiry into
racism, multiculturalism and diversity, and argue that rather than providing
opportunities for philosophical enquiry in to racism, they can be read as cultural
products that perpetuate Whiteness by providing narratives that are seemingly about
racism but that remove its temporal and spatial realities. Whilst not wishing to ignore
the potential for alternative readings of texts in philosophical enquiry, I reflect on my
own experiences of discussing racism with P4C practitioners and highlight evidence
that supports my belief this is not commonplace in the UK. Rather than attempting to
persuade the reader of the correctness of Critical Race Theory, I attempt to illustrate
how the selection of recommended materials, in this case children’s books, combined
with commonly held principles of P4C practitioners, make for a climate where a
philosophical engagement with race and racism that considers Whiteness is highly
unlikely to occur.

Finally, I pose the questions of whether the recommendation of such materials

and the omission of more critical perspectives of race amongst recommended starting
points and training materials might constitute a form of ‘gate-keeping’ of
philosophical thought and thus whether the notion of ‘The Gated Community of
Enquiry’ might be illuminating in considering how P4C practitioners approach the
subject of racism.

**

2.  The  Community  of  Enquiry  

“When children are encouraged to think philosophically, the classroom

is converted into a community of inquiry. Such a community is
committed to the procedures of inquiry, to responsible search techniques
that presuppose openness to evidence and to reason. It is assumed that
these procedures of the community, when internalized, become the
reflective habits of the individual.”
(Lipman et al 1980: 45)

The community of inquiry is central to Matthew Lipman’s hugely influential

Philosophy for Children programme. Lipman’s programme includes philosophical
novels and teacher manuals. Lipman believed that narrative was the most
appropriate medium for introducing children to the history of Western philosophy.

3
See Chetty (2008) for discussion of this.

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 darren chetty

As well as the presentation of different views on a given philosophical topic, the

classrooms in the stories serve as a model community of inquiry to the reader.
Lipman claims that, with the added model of the teacher, children will engage in the
higher order thinking and behaviour of the characters in the stories.

Whilst Lipman claims to have “neutralized” the “godlike power of the author”
in his philosophical novels, this has been strongly questioned by Kohan (1995), and
Rainville (2000), both of whom argue that it is not neutral to ignore the foundations of
systematic discrimination and the ways institutions have arisen out of and continue
to perpetuate the repression of minoritised groups.

In the UK, the notion of the Community of Enquiry is central to SAPERE’s

model of P4C just as it is to Lipman’s Philosophy for Children programme4. The
SAPERE Level 1 Handbook begins with a section on the Community of Enquiry,
which includes a working definition: “A group of people used to thinking together
with a view to increasing their understanding and appreciation of the world around
them and each other” (SAPERE 2010: 15). Robert Fisher, one of the first people to
publish P4C materials in the UK, claims that, “A community of enquiry can help
children develop the skills and dispositions that will enable them to play their full
part in a pluralistic and democratic society.” (Fisher 2013:54)

The SAPERE model of P4C differs from Lipman’s programme, however, with
regard to the starting points or stimuli for enquiry. Neither Lipman’s first P4C novel
Harry Stottlemeier’s Discovery nor SAPERE founder member Roger Sutcliffe’s
adaptation of the novel were ever central to SAPERE courses and it is no longer
mandatory for Level 1 courses to include at least 1 Lipman extract. Instead, the
SAPERE approach emphasises that P4C can be practised with any story that raises
philosophical issues. Karin Murris, a founding member of SAPERE, pioneered the use
of picturebooks as starting points for philosophical enquiry with children (Murris
1992) and many SAPERE trainers report using picturebooks on SAPERE Level 1
courses with teachers.

By not regularly using the Lipman novels, Philosophy for Children in the UK
has grown to be a different entity than that in the USA, and SAPERE trainers and
practitioners are free to choose whatever materials they wish as starting points or
‘stimuli’ for philosophical enquiry. The approach of selecting any story that might
provoke philosophical enquiry, is potentially a liberating one for practitioners of
philosophy for children, particularly those who are concerned with what is, and is
not, said by characters in the Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for
Children (IAPC) materials. It may appear then that the concerns raised by Kohan

4
The switch from ‘Inquiry’ to ‘Enquiry’ was to facilitate the SAPERE acronym, and does not reflect any
methodological difference (Roger Sutcliffe, private correspondence).

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the elephant in the room: picturebooks, philosophy for children and racism

(1995), Rainville (2000) and Chetty (2008) regarding IAPC novels may not be relevant
to P4C as widely practised in the UK. However, I will argue that the alternative
materials advocated and some of the key principles of P4C in the UK may still serve
to perpetuate rather than interrogate key epistemological assumptions that
characterise Whiteness.

3.  Critical  Race  Theory  and  Critical  Whiteness  Studies  

Critical Race Theory (CRT) grew out of the field of Critical Legal Studies in the
USA and was first used as a term by Derrick Bell, the African-American Harvard Law
professor. CRT views racism as endemic and the normal state of things in the USA;
something that is not aberrant nor rare but rather ‘deeply ingrained legally and
culturally.’ Gillborn describes CRT as multi-disciplinary, and as ‘crossing
epistemological boundaries’ and lists its ‘conceptual tools’ as “story-telling and
counter stories that honour the experiential knowledge of people of colour”, the
notion of “interest convergence” and “critical White studies”. (Gillborn 2006:251)
CRT has spread beyond its legal roots and, most pertinent for this paper, influenced
the work of scholars in education studies (Ladson-Billings 1998) (Gillborn 2008)
(Dixson & Rousseau 2006) and philosophy (Mills 1997, 2003).

The last twenty years have seen a growth in the number of articles on the
subject of Whiteness, which is increasingly regarded as central to what we might term
‘the antiracist project’ and important to intersectional analyses of inequalities.
Scholars in the field of Critical Whiteness Studies, which originates in the USA, are in
agreement with multiculturists and anti-racists who hold race to be a discredited
biological construct. However, Whiteness studies emphasises the day-to -day lived
reality of race and racism and is ‘…not an assault on White people per se’ but rather
‘an assault on the socially constructed and constantly reinforced power of White
identifications and interests. (Gillborn 2008:33) In Zeus Leonardo’s view, “’Whiteness’
is a racial discourse” and thus “race studies that do not sufficiently address whiteness
are at best disingenuous and at worst ineffective” (Leonardo 2009:9).

Critical Whiteness scholars argue that Whiteness is not easily recognized by

those who benefit from it. In Richard Dyer’s view, “The colourless, multi-
colouredness of whiteness secures white power by making it hard, especially for
white people and their media, to ‘see’ whiteness” (Dyer 1993: 143). Sarah Pearce
observes that, “[m]ost white people do not have to give a great deal of thought to
race” (Pearce 2005: 110) and Saynor claims that, “[m]ost white people consider
themselves “the natural order of things” (Saynor 1995 cited in Bonnett 2000).

In arguing for White supremacy to be regarded as “a theoretical object in its

own right – a global social system comparable in current significance to Marx’s class

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 darren chetty

society and feminist thinker’s patriarchy,” (Mills 2003:178) philosopher Charles Mills
emphasises the need to challenge the ahistorcism that he sees as being part of liberal
thought. Mills makes the distinction between de jure and de facto White supremacy.
During the period of de jure White supremacy, a period that included slavery,
colonialism, segregation and unequal employment and educational rights in the US, a
huge disparity in wealth and property ownership accrued between those deemed to
be White and those not. Furthermore a narrative of the naturalness of White
dominance served to connect in law Whiteness with full personhood. Mills, in an
analysis with important implications for liberal theory and theories of social justice,
shows how Kant’s theory of persons and sub-persons served to legitimise the process
of colonisation and the social construction of the White race.

Mills argues that in the present period, where White supremacy is no longer in
formal existence, we have instead de facto White supremacy, where Whites’
dominance is for the most part, “a matter of social, political, cultural and economic
privilege based on the legacy of the conquest.” (Mills 1997:73) Whereas in the de jure
period Whiteness and race was emphasised, the de facto period, Mills argues, marked
a switch to an emphasis on “racelessness, an equal status and common history in
which all have shared, with white privilege conceptually erased.” (Mills 2007: 23)

So whilst we live with the legacy of colour-coded inequality under the law, we
now inhabit a time of near-equality under the law – but with a corresponding
‘colourblindedness’. In this period reference to race is often argued to be
retrogressive, recalling a time when all were not equal under the law. Thus, attempts
to challenge the prevailing notion of colour-blindness by reference to both a racial
history that has advantaged some groups and disadvantaged others and empirical
data of patterns of continuing inequity in educational outcomes, employment and
treatment under the criminal justice system amongst these groups, is often met with
the idea that talking about race is itself racist. However, this argument serves to
silence discussion of the economic and cultural legacy of de jure White supremacy.

Inspired by Carole Pateman’s The Sexual Contract (1988), a re-examination of

social contract theory, Mills develops the notion of ‘The Racial Contract’, which
prescribes, “an epistemology of ignorance…producing the ironic outcome that whites will in
general be unable to understand the world they themselves have made.” (Mills 1997:18;
italics in original). This ignorance, he argues, is maintained by “ simply the failure to
ask certain questions, taking for granted as a status quo and baseline the existing color-
coded configurations of wealth, poverty, property, and opportunities, the pretence
that formal, juridical equality is sufficient to remedy inequities created on a
foundation of several hundred years of racial privilege” (Mills 1997:73-4)

By severing racial history from analysis of the present, “White epistemology…

can only be concerned with ‘how things are and not how they got to be that way’.”
(Leonardo 2002:40) Mills argues that White signatories to the Racial Contract will, to a

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the elephant in the room: picturebooks, philosophy for children and racism

significant extent, live in “an invented delusional world, a racial fantasyland.” (Mills,
1997:18) In this setting, a belief in a meritocracy is preferred to examination of
structural racial inequality as a legacy of de jure White supremacy. Thus, for many
(but not all) White people their relative privilege is unacknowledged on a day-to-day
basis.

Researching the racial identity of White student teachers in New York, Bree
Picower identifies what she terms “tools of Whiteness” which she categorises as
‘emotional, ideological and performative.’ Amongst the emotional tools, she lists
anger and defensiveness when the topic of racism is raised with White teachers.
Amongst the ideological tools she lists expressions such as “Now that things are
equal” (a refusal to acknowledge persisting inequalities), “Everyone is oppressed
somehow” (an attempt to draw equivalence between race and all other human
differences), “It’s personal not political”(a perspective that racism is an individual
pathology without an institutional or structural dimension) and “’Just be nice - I’m
colour-blind” (A belief that not acknowledging race is both complimentary to people
of colour and helpful in ensuring racial equality) (Picower 2009).

These tendencies can create tensions in multiracial classrooms, for whilst

White teachers generally do not view race as being a significant element of their
identity, children of colour generally do. As Meira Levinson (2003:166) notes, studies
of identity development in the US have shown that “Black, Hispanic, and Asian
children consistently describe themselves from a fairly young age as being black,
Hispanic, or Asian (as well as being tall, having brown eyes etc.)” (Levinson
2003:166). These tensions are significant for P4C in the UK, where the teaching
population is disproportionately, and in the case of SAPERE trainers exclusively,
White. Critical Race Theory explains why this tension between teachers' refusal to
acknowledge race and children's lived experience of race exists. Teachers who do
want to discuss race, however, are often directed towards picture books as a way of
doing so. In the next section, I attempt to show why this is not sufficient to interrupt
the entrenchment of Whiteness that Critical Race Theory has highlighted.

4.  Elmer  &  Tusk  Tusk    

In this section, I will discuss two picturebooks that have been recommended
by P4C practitioners as useful for discussing themes of multiculturalism, racism and
diversity. I will then raise a number of aspects of each story that, I argue, are not
analogous to the realities of racism and multiculturalism, but rather reaffirm the
discourse of Whiteness.

At a recent conference in Graz, Austria, the presenter, a teacher educator and

P4C practitioner, argued that the picturebook Elmer by David McKee (1989) was an

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 darren chetty

excellent starting point for philosophical enquiry with children related to the broad
theme of multiculturalism. Gasparatou and Kampeza (2012) also include Elmer as one
of the books selected to raise questions and provoke interactions on topics of
friendship and diversity in their work with P4C with Kindergarten children in
Greece.

The title character of Elmer by David McKee is a multi-coloured ‘patchwork’

elephant in a world where all the other elephants, though differing in age and size,
are grey or “elephant colour”. Early in the story, Elmer decides that he is “tired of
being different”. He rolls around in “elephant-coloured berries” until he looks “like
any other elephant”. Then he re-joins the other elephants. However they have
changed in demeanour; he has “never seen them so “serious before.” Elmer shouts
“Boo!” which both surprises and amuses the other elephants. The rain washes off his
berry covering prompting an old elephant to remark that “it didn’t take you long to
show your true colours.” The elephants decide to celebrate this day annually by
decorating themselves brightly. On this day only Elmer is “ordinary elephant
colour.”

The extent to which Elmer’s difference is analogous to race is of course

debatable. It is a colour difference, but a fantastical one. It could be analogous to any
number of differences. However, it does seem reasonable to read the text as being
about ethnic or racial difference, and the P4C practitioners I mention above who
advocate using Elmer seem to agree here.

“Elephants like this, that or the other, all different but all happy and all the same
colour. All, that is, except Elmer.”

Whilst the artwork shows each elephant to be a slightly different shade of

grey, Elmer is one-of-a-kind. He is not presented as part of another group. There is
the group, which we may read as analogous to a class or a community, and Elmer. As
such this is not analogous to multiculturalism or to the lone child of colour in a
classroom who will most likely have a family. When read as an analogy of diversity,
Elmer’s uniqueness makes it difficult for us to consider the relative power of different
groups in society. There is no apparent power dynamic between Elmer and the other
elephants, and the other elephants appear unconcerned with his colour difference.
Depicted as without family, the story appears to exist independently of history, a
feature shared with Whiteness discourse. There is no suggestion that elephants like
Elmer have ever existed before and thus no suggestion that they have experienced
differential treatment by the other elephants. Without this history, Elmer shows a
colour difference without any of the common connotations that exist in real-life.

“Elmer was not elephant colour.”

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the elephant in the room: picturebooks, philosophy for children and racism

The depiction of elephants, and contrasting their natural colour with Elmer’s
unnatural multi-colouredness, appears to reaffirm rather than disrupt the White
normativity that is a core aspect of Whiteness. Whilst there is such a thing as
‘elephant colour’, there is not such a thing ‘human colour’. McIntosh (1988) has
commented on the use of ‘flesh – coloured’ for plasters as an everyday example of
this conflation of white people with humankind.

“No wonder they laugh at me”

Whilst no discrimination or prejudice is portrayed in ‘Elmer’, Elmer is shown as being

so unhappy with his superficial colour difference that he attempts to remove the
difference. Thus the problem of being different is not given a social context but rather
seen as a psychological condition. The behaviour of the other elephants toward Elmer
is consistent throughout the story. The story is of his emotional journey, from being
“tired of being different” to accepting his difference. A message that it’s OK to be
different raises the possibility of thinking the opposite – that it might not be OK to be
different – but why not? The story has little to support enquiry into this.

“This will be Elmer’s Day. All elephants must decorate themselves and Elmer will
decorate himself elephant colour.”

The story ends with the elephants dressing up in what can be read as a
celebration of difference. This has become an annual event, rather like the multi-
cultural/International evenings I have experienced as a teacher in a London primary
school. This resolution makes sense in the fantasyland of Elmer apparently devoid of
inequality, but has been critiqued as a patronising form of tokenism in the real world.
Whiteness is not threatened by the existence of those not White – indeed their
existence may enrich the experience of the White majority, as in the case of Hip-Hop
music or Indian ‘curry’ which may be consumed without troubling continuing
inequalities. Elmer, through his jokes and his different colour, which is mimicked
annually, appears to enrich the main group’s experience. Without the colour he
brings to their life, the other elephants are ‘serious’. He adopts a role akin to joker-
mascot, which perhaps has echoes of Minstrelsy – however I see nothing in the story
to indicate that this role is at all problematic for Elmer.

Tusk Tusk by David McKee

Tusk Tusk, also by David McKee (1978), is included on a list of picturebooks suitable
for P4C (Nottingham & Nottingham 2008) found on P4C.COM, a web-site that
provides resources for P4C practitioners. Haynes and Murris appear to comment
favourably on Tusk Tusk being used as a starting point for philosophical enquiry in
post-apartheid South Africa. (Haynes & Murris 2012: 115) Furthermore, after sharing
my emerging critique of Elmer as a starting point with SAPERE trainers, Tusk Tusk

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 darren chetty

was recommended by one trainer as being a more appropriate text for enquiry into
racism.

What follows is the entire text of Tusk Tusk;

“Once, all the elephants in the world were black or white. They loved all
creatures, but they hated each other, and each kept to his own side of the
jungle. One day the black elephants decided to kill all the white
elephants, and the white ones decided to kill the black. The peace-loving
elephants from each side went to live deep in the darkest jungle. They
were never seen again. A battle began. It went on…and on, and
on…until all the elephants were dead. For years no elephants were seen in
the world. Then, one day, the grandchildren of the peace-loving elephants
came out of the jungle. They were grey. Since then the elephants have
lived in peace. But recently the little ears and the big ears have been
giving each other strange looks.”
(Mckee, 1978)

“…but they hated each other..”

There is no declared reason for the black and the white elephants to start
fighting. There are no territorial disputes; no historical account of the conflict is
provided; indeed, the conflict does not seem to be about anything specific. The
conflict appears to have its origins in murderous, irrational hatred of difference,
rather than any desire for land, resources and power. The hatred precedes the
violence and does not grow out if it. It appears to be caused by the difference rather
than the difference being constructed as significant due to the situation. If we read the
story as an allegory of race, its ahistoricism is potentially mis-educative; there is little
to help children make sense of current racial tensions, save the possible implication
that we naturally hate those who are different from us.

“…each kept to his own side of the jungle..” “...decided to kill…”

The story does not appear to be depicting a group that can be viewed as
dominant in any way. Rather, there is a sense that both groups are each equally
wrong to fight and that the conditions of both black and white elephants are identical.
Inequality does not appear to exist in the fantasyland of Tusk Tusk. Furthermore, the
actions of both black and white elephants are identical – there is no apparent
difference in the history, culture and social status of each group. The story’s irony is
that it removes difference at the very point that it highlights it – that is to say, it
removes a particular kind of difference (social inequality) whilst highlighting another
(superficial bodily markers), which, once decontextualized, is rendered socially

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the elephant in the room: picturebooks, philosophy for children and racism

insignificant. And so a book about difference becomes in fact a book about sameness,
consistent with ‘colour-blindness’.

“Since then the elephants have lived in peace.”

The end of the story seems to suggest miscegenation to be a solution to colour-

conflict (I choose this term over ‘racism’, because I do not believe racism to be
depicted in the story). The ‘peace loving’ elephants survive, having removed colour
difference through miscegenation. Until another, arbitrary difference becomes
significant, again for no apparent reason. This might even suggest that conflict over
difference is ‘natural’, with only the difference itself changing. Colour difference is
merely one of many possible divisions for elephants/ people. In the fantasyland of
Tusk Tusk there is nothing specific about colour difference compared to, say, ear size
difference. Indeed, the final sentence suggests a reading that the conflict is only about
physical difference.

**
Fables

Whilst picturebooks most suitable for P4C are, as Murris says, “interrogative
texts that do not moralize or patronize” (Murris 2009:108), both Elmer and Tusk Tusk
could be argued to be in the literary tradition of the fable. By this I mean “a short,
fictional tale which has a specific moral or behavioural lesson to teach” (Grenby 2008:
10). Indeed, the first printed page of Tusk Tusk reads “Vive la Difference!” and the
TES review, printed on the reverse reads, “A first lesson in tolerance.” The books’
publisher writes that, “David McKee, through Elmer, subtly indicates that it's okay to
be different” (Anderson Press). Grenby argues that whilst the fable has become more
sophisticated, “it remains fundamentally a didactic form, designed to draw in its
readers through a compelling story and appealing, even cute, characters, and to teach
important lessons through allegory.” (Grenby 2008:11)

The lessons of these two books are commonplace in a prevailing school climate
in the UK that often sees difference as superficial, racism as an irrational response to
superficial difference, and tolerance and integration as solutions to racism. Tolerance
is a value often claimed by practitioners to be central to P4C, yet it has been critiqued
by a number of critical scholars of Whiteness (e.g. Hage 1998) as a form of
patronisation, that, in asking who, what and how much should we tolerate, speaks to
the dominant group. A celebration of difference and an emphasis on tolerance are
defining features of the multicultural education criticised by many as leaving
Whiteness and racial domination and oppression uninterrogated. Both stories have
morals that are consistent with de facto Whiteness - that it is OK to look different and
that we should tolerate those who are – and fail to problematise Whiteness against
the norm to which all else is measured, compared, and othered. Neither book speaks
to structural inequality, which is historically situated and not arbitrary, and to how it

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 darren chetty

positions groups as inferior and superior. They don't appear to portray oppression.
Consequently, the solutions they offer are very different from the kind of solutions
often considered appropriate for addressing racism. Elmer's difference is celebrated
and integrated into the group in a tokenistic way, whilst in Tusk Tusk the solution is
toleration, co-habitation and miscegenation. Because they don't discuss structural
inequality, they don't open up for enquiry justice-based solutions like repair,
redistribution or reconciliation.

**
‘Reading Against the Text’

Whilst I cannot be sure that those recommending the texts discussed above
have not themselves identified the limitations of the stories as analogies of racism, I
think it unlikely, given that they do not make reference to any. As facilitators of
philosophical enquiry, we might posit alternative perspectives for children’s
consideration. Obviously, our ability to do this rests on whether we ourselves are able
to identify such perspectives. Alternatively, we might wait for such perspectives to be
voiced by our students - but I would argue that this approach is problematic. It is
indeed possible within the community of enquiry for a child to raise some of the very
ideas I have raised about, for instance, Elmer and multiculturalism. It is possible for a
child to say something approximating “But how it is for Elmer is not how it is for
Black people in England”. However, the fact that this is possible does not mean it is at
all likely. In the event of children not questioning the analogy, what is the likelihood
of a P4C facilitator encouraging children to consider its appropriateness? Where in
the theory and practice of P4C do we see evidence for this being likely? What are we
to make of a pedagogy that might be reliant on a child of colour to have both the
insight and the willingness to speak out in order for critical perspectives to be
considered? Can we take a child’s silence on this to mean that they don’t recognise
the inaccuracy of the analogy? Or should we be signalling more clearly that reading
‘against the text’ is a useful, perhaps essential skill to develop? The practice of
philosophical enquiry would seem the very place where those skills could and should
be learnt.

However, if we agree that the UK is a racially unequal society, this has

implications for the central notion of the community of enquiry as an egalitarian safe
space. The ground rules or guidelines for philosophical enquiry may themselves
serve to prohibit the voicing of critical perspectives on racism. Consider the
suggestion in the current SAPERE handbook, that teachers encourage, “…positive
body language, such as eye contact and smiling…” (SAPERE 2010:23) In such a
scenario, we may ask what place there is for anger about injustice? Anger, as
Leonardo points out “is a valid and legitimate feeling” and “when complemented by
clear thought, … frighteningly lucid.” Ground rules such as encouraging ‘positive
body language’ can give rise to a “a pedagogy of politeness” which “only goes so far

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the elephant in the room: picturebooks, philosophy for children and racism

before it degrades into the paradox of liberal feel-good solidarity absent of dissent”
and ultimately a “democracy of empty forms.” Leonardo (2002:39)

Leonardo and Porter alert us to the Catch-22 situation often faced by people of
colour when deciding whether to participate in race dialogue or maintain silence;
“Either they must observe the safety of whites and be denied a space that promotes
people of color’s growth and development or insist on a space of integrity and put
themselves further at risk not only of violence, but also risk being conceived of as
illogical or irrational.” (Leonardo & Porter 2010: 140) The ‘safety of whites’ may be
observed by choosing to speak in such a way that Whiteness is not interrupted and
White people are not forced to think anew about their relationship to racism.
Alternatively, it may be observed by silence. Burbules raises similar concerns when
he writes that, “The proclamation of any particular dialogical genre as the instrument
of human emancipation will inevitably exclude, silence, or normalize others in
radically different subject positions” (Burbules 2000: 18).

Lest I be accused of such a thing, I am not suggesting that White children be

made to feel guilty. Rather, I suggest that we need to take seriously Leonardo and
Porter’s claim that a comfortable discussion about race is, as they say, “incongruous”
and unlikely to have philosophical depth, and that if we are truly interested in
promoting dialogical enquiry, then we must recognise that for marginalized and
oppressed minorities, “there is no safe space” (Leonardo & Porter 2010:140). If we
accept these conclusions, we are more likely to accept the need for “a pedagogy of
disruption…” (Leonardo & Porter 2010:139), an idea that is interestingly close to the
notion of the gadfly at the heart of Socratic dialogue. Identifying which starting
points disrupt and which perpetuate dominant racial (and other) discourses would
therefore be a useful task for P4C practitioners.

5.  P4C  &  Whiteness    

In Elmer and Tusk Tusk, the absence of culture, geography, power imbalances,
indigenous and non-indigenous, religion, language diversity, history and racism
leads to allegories of racism that have simplified to the point of falsifying. Indeed we
could argue that the two books constitute a form of ideology, in the sense of being
fables that conceal reality. Though it does not necessarily mean that this has been
unnoticed, those who have advocated using these books have not made reference to
how the books fail to depict racism as, for example, inequality or as the power to
exclude. The limitations of these books as starting points for philosophical enquiry
into racism should, I would argue, be a central consideration for all P4C practitioners.
Golding (2006) points out that dialogue within a community of enquiry is neither
“teacher-led”, nor “student-led” dialogue. Instead it is “idea-led”. However, the
ideas, the questions that frame philosophical dialogue come out of the starting point.
Haynes and Murris write that,

24 childhood & philosophy, rio de janeiro, v. 10, n. 19, jan-jun. 2014, pp. 11-31. issn 1984-5987
 darren chetty

“ The facilitator’s role is to support and guide discussion, not to manipulate or

steer it.” (Haynes & Murris 2012:6) They note however that the selection of certain
starting materials is “controversial”. I suggest this controversy is partly due to the
fact that the selection of a text will itself steer a discussion, inasmuch that it will make
some ideas more likely and others less likely to be explored. In the case of the two
texts analysed, their selection makes philosophical enquiry into the discourse of
Whiteness highly unlikely because they work to obscure all understanding of racism
as structural/systemic. I wish next to consider what assumptions might be behind the
repeated recommendation of these two books as appropriate starting points for
enquiry into racism, multiculturalism and diversity.

One possible assumption is that people of colour have little to offer to the
practice of philosophising about race. One does not have to subscribe to essentialised
notions of race in order to argue that the process of racialization affects us in such a
way that our lives and our perspectives will often be shaped by it to some extent, just
as they will be by our gender, social class and sexuality, to name but a few. Yet I
struggle to find a book authored by a person of colour, and dealing with issues of
race and culture amongst the recommendations by P4C practitioners. Furthermore,
SAPERE training materials do not include the perspectives of any philosophers of
colour on racism or any other topic. As the lone person of colour in the community of
enquiry, I have often struggled to express perspectives I know to be shared by other
people of colour and noticed that my struggle is compounded by, and personalised
by, the omission of academic perspectives that are similar to mine. I have found
myself positioned as what bell hooks’ (1994) terms a ‘native informant’ and felt
pressure to articulate views held by many absent others. As Leonardo & Porter point
out, “something has gone incredibly wrong when students of color feel immobilized
and marginalized within spaces and dialogues that are supposed to undo racism”
(Leonardo & Porter 2010:147).

There may be an assumption on the part of P4C practitioners that fantastic

tales are a better way of thinking about race and culture than real-life situations. It
may be that they offer the comfort of distance or that they encourage a dispassionate
approach to philosophising. However, it is questionable who is being comforted here.
Are we to assume that children are incapable of serious thought about the real-
world? Or do these ‘race fables’ provide some comfort and protection for adults
working with children? And if so, do they not set boundaries for what exactly we
discuss when we claim to enquire into race? For, as Leonardo and Porter point out,
“A comfortable race dialogue belies the actual structures of race, which is full of
tension. It is literally out of sync with its own topic ” (Leonardo & Porter 2010:153).
Murris (1992) includes racism amongst a list of “sensitive issues” that may come up
when philosophising with children, before advising teachers, “if you, or your school,
have strong views about any of those issues, it is probably better not to discuss them
at all. You run the risk of showing disapproval, or even indoctrinating the children
with your own, or the school’s beliefs.” (Murris 1992: 14) Whilst I share Murris’

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the elephant in the room: picturebooks, philosophy for children and racism

concern with the indoctrination of pupils, I wonder about the implications of this
statement. It is debatable whether it is even possible to grow up Black in Britain and
not have strong views on racism. If we were to follow this advice, it would seem to
position those who have experienced racism most harshly as the least able to
philosophise with children about it.

There may also be an assumption that racial empathy can be developed by

White people reading and thinking about fictionalised depictions of people of colour
written by White authors (such as McKee) without examining the context in which
they exist and one’s own place in that context. Haynes and Murris cite Neill’s
discussion of the relationship between fiction and the emotions: “In a fictional
narrative the reader needs to adopt a certain perspective, one that involves seeing
things from another’s point of view (Neill 2002:253) This is not a position with which I
would wish to quarrel. However, as Toni Morrison has shown, throughout American
literature, White writers writing Black characters have themselves failed to fully
empathise with their character and have instead offered their own perspective on
Blackness through a lens of Whiteness. In her essay “Playing in the Dark: Whiteness
and the Literary Imagination”, she claims that “the readers of virtually all of
American fiction have been positioned as white.” (Morrison 1992:xiv) This is rarely
acknowledged; a fact she attributes to the failure of most literary critics to give due
attention to race. As a minoritised person of colour I do not feel empathy with Elmer;
instead I recognise the authorial perspective as an all-too familiar one whereby a
minority concern with colour is not contextualised with reference to majority
historical and present attitudes to colour difference but rather understood as a
psychological condition. I would argue that Elmer is not analogous to a person of
colour – rather he is analogous to a person of colour as imagined through Whiteness
for a White reader.

**

6.  Conclusion  

My commentary on both the books and their repeated selection is, like
Morrison’s project, “… an effort to avert the critical gaze from the racial object to the
racial subject; from the described and imagined to the describers and imaginers…”
(Morrison 1992:90.) Selecting stories that do not trouble the status quo while
espousing a commitment to open-ended discussion and the questioning of
assumptions invites accusations of ‘doing’ ideology, albeit in a subtle form. There are
no doubt many and complex reasons for the absence of source material dealing with
issues of race and racism by people of colour, and these reasons are not limited to
P4C. However, I suggest that a form of gate-keeping takes place in the selection of
starting points/stimuli for philosophical enquiry into racism and that this is likely to
be exacerbated by the ground rules of the practice. I think it important to consider

26 childhood & philosophy, rio de janeiro, v. 10, n. 19, jan-jun. 2014, pp. 11-31. issn 1984-5987
 darren chetty

therefore, to what extent the community of enquiry may be considered a gated

community.

In their analysis of the rise of residential segregation in the UK, Atkinson and
Flint argue that gated communities usually house the relatively privileged and can be
viewed as attempts to “insulate against perceived risk and unwanted encounters”
(Atkinson & Flint 2004: 875) with “people ‘not like us’”. (Atkinson & Flint 2004:890)
The concerns about safety and security in gated communities enable “social distance
to be maintained” (Atkinson & Flint 2004: 875). In such a social climate the unfamiliar
is viewed with suspicion and as a potential intruder whose presence is illegitimate.
Thus the gated community can, they argue, be viewed as a “cognitive shelter”.

I propose it is worth considering the extent to which communities of enquiry,

be they school classrooms or P4C training courses, seminars and conferences, are
operating as gated communities. To end with Matthew Lipman,

‘We must also be ready to realize that the ineffectiveness of our own
approaches may be due to faulty assumptions we ourselves are making
– or perhaps even to prejudices we ourselves hold – with regard to the
nature of the problem.” (Lipman 1991:255)
 

Enviado em: 15/06/2014

Aprovado em: 17/06/2014

I would like to thank the following people for their feedback and suggestions after their reading earlier
drafts of this paper: Dr Rachel Rosen, Dr Claudia Ruitenberg, Maeve McKeown, Bréanainn Lambkin, Dr Paul
Standish and Dr John Yandell. I would like to give special thanks to Dr Judith Suissa for her support and
feedback throughout the writing process. Finally, I would like to thank the members of the ICPIC Essay Award
Committee for their comments.

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the elephant in the room: picturebooks, philosophy for children and racism

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