I feel that specifically taking the time to say 'the black snake is not representative of the black skin of humans' would not be an appropriate connection to make in this book, and that instead, there should be other, more natural discussions of the colors of our skin that arise in the classroom-those can be facilitated by more relevant books. In this situation I would re-examine my entire classroom's library, and make sure that we aren't reading a pattern of books that establish any patterns of bad colors. Culturally, we see all too commonly stories where white and light colors represent good, and black and dark colors represent bad. I think that in this situation the issue is not that one snake is black, but is instead with the themes and patterns of connotation with color.

In the meantime, this is how I might handle myself in a classroom: I would be interested in a Black parent or teacher's perspective. I am writing this reply as a white and Indigenous person who experiences a lot of white privilege in my day to day life-on sight, my skin is white. It was applied to the protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline because of the color of oil-perhaps the prophecy was about oil, as oil pipelines are being snaked across Native lands without regard for life or nature.

Some history on the Black Snake: the Black Snake is not a term invented for this book, and refers to a Lakota prophecy about a black snake ' that would slither across the land, desecrating the sacred sites and poisoning the water before destroying the Earth.' My presumption is that this prophecy was written before the colonization of the Americas, but I could be entirely mistaken. This is an interesting question, and I wouldn't have thought of that association!

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