Acknowledging Privilege

I wrote Lighting the Earth in 2006. It happened one morning, in the growing glow of dawn, that I put the first draft of Lighting the Earth on the page. It took me all of two hours to write the story of Sashi, a little girl living in the heart of strong community, the glow of her mother’s loving attention, and nature. A little girl potent with the potential for purpose, desperate to unfurl into the true meaning of her life with thoughtful, intentional support from her mother.

The story went through many, many drafts until I reached point where the writing communicated the gift I had hoped to offer my own daughter and daughters everywhere. Given the universal nature of the message in this book and given my struggles within a society that disadvantages people on the autism spectrum, women, people of color, and other non-dominant groups, I thought it would be beneficial to ask my illustrator to create images of a family living in a culture outside of typical US dominant norm. My intent was to be respectful, but even positive intents can cause harm.

It seemed to be a valid choice for where our society was in 2008, but given the current continuum of cultural competence, I understand now that it would have been far more competent for me to have either found an African illustrator or to have asked someone to create illustrations to reflect of my own Middle Eastern ancestry.

I had no idea in 2008 that the systemic racism I sought to address would unearth my own ignorance, but it did. And so, it is against the backdrop of current cultural considerations, I wish to make the following public acknowledgements:

1) The images in Lighting the Earth are representative of a culture to which neither myself nor my illustrator belong;

2) My illustrator created the images upon my request;

3) I no longer accept income on this version of Lighting the Earth; and

4) I intend to publish a new edition with culturally appropriate illustrations.

I truly regret any offense the illustrations may have caused and hope that my original intent of wanting to promote positive images of diverse cultures may be of benefit in some way.