INTERRACIAL VOICE (IV): Who is Margot Sage-El?

MARGOT SAGE-EL (MS): Well, I grew up outside Boston in a working-class Irish-Italian neighborhood where I was the only non Irish-Italian, or at least it seemed. I went to prep school there, and I moved to New York to go to college and have been in this area ever since. I moved to the New Jersey suburbs in 1990. I think that move really politicized me to the cause of "people of color" and interracial families. In the city you can have an anonymity, and you can live your own life. Once in the suburbs, though, there are these "norms" that you have to fit, and if you don't fit the norm, you either quietly try to mold yourself into them or you become this raving lunatic. You try to educate people about yourself or about others outside the "norm."

IV: You're married now?

MS: Yes, for fourteen years to a black man, and I'm white. We have three children, ages 9 1/2, 7 and 2. I think having had children makes the personal choice of marrying interracially a political, public one. You end up justifying or supporting your choice for your children's lives in the schools. So that really does make it a public decision.

IV: How did Great Owl Books come about?

MS: I started that company because I was totally frustrated in my efforts trying to find books for my children. It dawned on me that most of the books out there are about children who don't look like mine. One of the first ones I found when my oldest was 2 years was "Black Is Brown Is Tan." A cousin of mine had a special order for it since it was out of print, and once we received it and read it to our children... it was such a phenomenal affirmation for them as to who they are. I don't know why some books have that ability to affirm your "beingness," but I suppose it's because you see your self in them.

I spent many years trying to find more books for my kids, and they're hard to find. As the kids grew older, and I had this small collection, I realized that book choices had become very polarized for kids. Nowadays there are all these special interest types: African-American, Spanish language books that are sold separately and then all the white books are sold just as "books." I thought that this was all wrong, that this is still giving people messages that they still belong in these particular little groups. I wanted, therefore, to develop a catalog that celebrated all the kids and all the families. There are universal themes in these books that apply to everyone -- books about a father and son going on a trip together, a book about a family that has a new baby coming in and they have to make room for the newborn without displacing the older child. These are universal issues, and yet they picture people of varying races and ethnicities so that kids receive the vision that the world includes more people than just themselves -- that we're all in this together.

IV: How large is your catalog?

MS: It's 24 pages and features about 160 books, mostly for younger children from toddler to grade 3. Those are the kids that you can read the same book to repeatedly, so it's worth it to buy books. I run the business out of my home. I have a small inventory, and I fulfill the orders from here. When people have special requests, I really try to accommodate them. In fact, as a result of my contacting all the different interracial support and advocacy groups nationally, I'm going to develop a special catalog for biracial children, adults and families. People are asking for it; it's too hard to find these books because they're so scattered around.

IV: Are there many to begin with?

MS: It's sort of a handful. I have a list here now; there's about 20 books for kids, and they range from the politics of being interracial to wonderful little books about a kid who happens to be biracial. There are some really interesting adult books coming out now by interracial adults themselves writing about their own experiences. This is really becoming a community; it's not just individual choice. I think that as parents of interracial children reading these books written by interracial adults is fascinating, and I believe necessary.

IV: You often speak locally at schools in your area?

MS: Yes, the title of my discussion -- it's not a speech -- is "Talking To Your Children About Diversity Through Books." I think there are many monoracial families out there who don't realize that we're all in this interracial world together, especially the children. While the adults pretty much stick to themselves, the kids all go to school together. They make friends with each other, and I think the kids come home with questions about differences and race. Often the parents, living in their monoracial world, don't know how to answer them. I think one of the easiest ways to answer those questions is to sit down and read a book with your child, and as the questions arise, you're in a natural, relaxed setting. You can then talk about it as opposed to just sitting down with your kids and saying, "So, what do you think about interracial issues?"

It has worked with my family. One of the most important books for my kids as they grew older that I read to them was "The World of Daughter McGuire." It's a story about an 11 year-old girl with two little brothers; the mother is biracial and the father is white. The grandparents are a combination of Russian-Jew, Italian-black, and while this diverse background has never been an issue in the young girl's life, her teacher gives her an assignment to write about her family heritage. She then panics because this is the first time that she has to deal with the issue of being interracial in a monoracial world. There's one incident where somebody calls her a zebra, and she has a hard time dealing with that. This book was such an eye-opener to my kids to start a discussion about what you do when somebody calls you a zebra. How do you handle your biracialness or your multiracialness in a world that doesn't necessarily accept it? It opened up a discussion for us that continues.

IV: How do your children identify?

MS: When we lived in Brooklyn, in a predominately black neighborhood, the kids were quite young, and race was not an issue. When we moved to the suburbs, into a predominately white neighborhood, we realized that we'd have to really emphasize the black end of things, because they wouldn't be receiving any support from the neighborhood in that respect. So we went through a fairly "African-American period." Now, they identify as biracial. What does that mean? I don't know. I believe the interracial community is going through an evolution, and some people obviously choose to identify as totally black. I want to give them as many options as possible, but I want to celebrate their heritage on both ends of things. That's what we do.

IV: Do you support the multiracial category?

MS: It's complicated, because I don't know what implications it has for the African-American community.

IV: Why is that important?

MS: Because the African-American community is still struggling for power themselves, and if we step away from them -- although I don't feel that we're necessarily supported by the African-American community anymore -- it might put their community more at risk. I don't think I would want to alter their power base, yet I want to be supportive of the multiracial community's own small power base. In that respect, I support the multiracial movement, and I think maybe that will blow the lid off all of this.

IV: All of what?

MS: Racial identification. When people start realizing that's it's getting too complicated, that there are too many levels and versions of multiracialness, then maybe one day it won't matter anymore.We can just be people.

IV: Is there a statewide movement in New Jersey to establish the multiracial category?

MS: I have no idea.

IV: A handful of states have already adopted it.

MS: I didn't know that. Locally, when I registered my children for school, I had to choose. When I asked what the consequences were for putting down "other," they said the choice would then be made by a teacher. That infuriates me, but I listed them as black at that time because the school that I wanted them to enter needed black kids.

IV: "Needed" black kids?

MS: It was a new school, and apparently they try to keep the schools racially balanced, and they had filled all the spots available for white kids. So, they were looking for black kids. I know the number of minority children effects federal monies that come into the school system, so they probably, politically, made a decision that biracial children should identify as black so they could keep the money coming in.

IV: What is your next big Great Owl project?

MS: Well, the next project is the development of the biracial booklet that I mentioned earlier.That will probably take me a couple of months to complete. I'll then send that out to all the known support groups and to others who wish a copy. Initially I was just going to do a biracial booklet, but then I thought that wasn't really a big community, and that people were somehow finding the books anyway. What I really want to do, though, is to educate the country at large. I felt strongly that different books about "people of color" were not selling because people didn't know how to market them. So, I figured all I had to do was market them properly and they would be bought, but the response has been so disappointing. People still buy only books about themselves. The country at large -- basically it's the white community that are book buyers -- buys books about white children. So, I want to educate people across the country to get them to realize that the world is larger than just themselves. That, however, will take much work.

IV: That pattern also applies to watching television. Whites tend not to view shows that have black or Hispanic stars.

MS: Right, because it's not them. Whites have always been in power, so they only see things through their own eyes. They don't recognize that other people have the same issues as they do. They don't see us all in this together, I guess.

IV: Now, people can reach you by calling your number?

MS: Yes. It's:
1-800-299-3181.
Great Owl Books,
41 Watchung Plaza,
Suite 112,
Montclair,
NJ 07042.

IV: Is there anything else you'd like to add?

MS: I'd just like to say that one of the most important things that has occurred to me over the past year or so has been my discovery of the interracial community and its support groups. It's gives you a feeling that you're not in this by yourself; you're not some nut by yourself involved in this. Even within the interracial community there are many different opinions, but we are a community, and we should be there for each other.

IV: Margot Sage-El, thank you for your time.

MS: Thank you, Charles.

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