Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us

"Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us" is an article written by Linda Christensen. She discusses how our society teaches us how to "act, live, and dream" through cartoons, Disney movies, and movies that we see as children. She argues that we have been manipulated by children's media and advertising. She focuses on the movie Cinderella and how we are taught as women to believe that our main goal in life is to get a man. In the version Cinderella as well as Cindy Elle, the girls compete with their sisters to achieve it.

 

 She asked her students to generalize what they got from stereotypes in cartoons, and some of them were as follows: "Look, Ursula the sea witch is ugly and smart. Hey, she's kind of dark looking. The young, pretty ones only want to hook their man; the old, pretty ones are mean because they are losing their looks." Another student noticed, "People of color and poor people are either absent or servants to the rich, white, pretty people."

 

I've thought a lot about all of these things since reading this article. I definitely think that these ideas that we have put in to our heads as young children mold the way we are as adults. A lot of children connect so much with characters in Disney movies, or any other cartoon for that matter. If children are connecting with characters who are only searching for men, or stories that teach us that only pretty and rich people are successful, then what does that set them up to believe as adults? Parents spend so much time trying to teach their children the right lessons in life. We're taught that we should always be confident, and as women we're taught that we don't need to depend on anyone besides ourselves. How can these lessons really be learned if we're being poisoned with false ideas of happiness and success from such a young age? We can't. It's not realistic. These movies disguise these anti-feminist values through makings it's viewers identify with these so called protagonists.

Speaking The Unspeakable

After reading the article "Speaking The Unspeakable", I spent a lot of time thinking about what it was like growing up in a public school system when someone chose to openly come out as gay. This article talked a lot about how schools are set up for heterosexuals, and that's very much true. Homosexuality was always something that wasn't really talked about, or it was considered taboo. People acted shocked when someone they grew up with, and had known for most of their childhood, finally admitted that they were a homosexual. It's sad, but truthfully, we live in a society where if people aren't the exact same as us, or part of what we consider "normal" then they're judged. Just because they aren't a part of this cookie cutter idea that we're all supposed to be the same, they get made fun of, bullied, and are told that they're wrong becasue they're different.  In this interview of Rayven-Symone, she openly talks about being gay, and not wanting to be labeled for anything that she is:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXAho8vlmAI

 

She says, "I don't want to be labeled gay. I want to be labeled a human who loves human."

 

 

The reading for this blog entry is "Hunger of Memory". It's an autobiography by Richard Rodriguez who came to the United States as a child, who only spoke Spanish. The autobiography takes you through his life, and his development. Initially, he thinks of the way his family speaks in Spanish at home as a type of intimacy. Over the course of the reading, as they all learn to speak English more fluently, his family life changes. They go from a family who only felt they could communicate freely at home, to being a family who is connected to the outside world. It changes the dynamic of their relationships. Towards the end of the reading, he reaches a point where he doesn't even really feel comfortable speaking Spanish at all. He uses the example of his grandmother however, who only spoke Spanish to prove that their intimacy didn't depend on language. He understood Spanish, so he would just listen to her and nod a lot of the time, but they still had an intimate relationship. He argues, "Bilingual enthusiasts, moreover, sin against intimacy." These are the people who argue that people should keep their family language. He claims that these people credit their language to what they should credit to their family members. It’s the people who depend upon their language and think that that's what keeps their family intimate. He disagrees, because he feels like intimacy isn't about language. I think it's interesting because he's someone who comes from Spanish as his first language and had to go through a lot of difficulty in order to speak English, and he still doesn't agree with it. It wasn't what I was expecting to come out of the reading, especially with how it started out as him really appreciating that his home life had a different language than most of the people around them. He felt that it bought them closer. His argument shows both sides, because as a child, he seems to be a bilingual enthusiast. However, as he grows up, his perspective changes.

The focus of this blog post is “Other People’s Children – Cultural Conflict In the Classroom” written by Lisa Delpit. I want to focus on what she listed as the five aspects of power.

1.     Issues of power are enacted in classrooms.

2.     There are codes or rules for participating in power; that is there is a “culture of power.”

3.     The rules of the culture of power are a reflection of the rules of the culture of those who have power.

4.     If you are not already a participant in the culture of power, being told explicitly the rules of that culture makes acquiring power easier.

5.     Those with power are frequently least aware of – or least willing to acknowledge – its existence. Those with less power are often most aware of it’s existence.

The first point that she makes discusses how schooling is intimately related to power. From the teacher to the student – from who writes the curriculum – all of schooling is about power and who holds the power determines what school systems are like. Her main point in this writing is that it is mostly upper to middle class white people who hold the power and it’s upper to middle class white people who determine what goes on in our school systems. The power is held by virtually one culture, even though our school systems are made up of people from many different cultures. It seems to be setting the students who aren’t apart of the majority (or the people of power) for failure.

The next point, “There are codes or rules for participating in power, that is there is a “culture of power”, talks about there’s a way to present yourself, a way to talk, a way to write. In our school systems there is only one way that is acceptable to do all of these things. Students are expected to walk the straight and narrow, even though everyone comes from different cultures. Everyone comes from a different home life. We are all individuals, yet we’re expected to perform the same way in school. The way schools work now, is that we’re all based around tests. We spend all of our time in school preparing for major tests such as the SATs, ACTs, etc. that are supposed to be a test that is going to judge how smart we are.

In her third point, “The rules of the culture power are a reflection of the rules of the culture of those who have power.” She discusses how generally children from middle- class homes do better in school, because the culture of the school is based on the culture of upper to middle class homes. The people who have the power (middle- class white people) are the people who make up these expectations of how students are expected to perform in school. How is it that as a society we allow one culture to determine these expectations? Speaking as someone who comes from a middle class white family, I can say that I don’t know anything about who it’s like to grow up in poverty. Nor do the people who set these rules, these expectations. I don’t know anything about what it’s like to go to school in a school system that seems to be directed at a different culture than my own. I can look at it and clearly see that it isn’t fair.

Her fourth point is that, “If you’re not already a participant in the culture of power, being told explicitly the rules of that culture makes acquiring power easier.” Her point here is that when ideas are attempted to be expressed between cultures, there isn’t much communication. Both sides don’t seem to understand how the other culture thinks. This I think is a huge contributing factor to the problem. There isn’t communication. She said in her piece that white people listen but they don’t hear. This seems to be a widespread issue across many cultures. If we have a school system that is made up of people from all different cultures, then the “culture of power” should be made up of people from all different cultures. The problem, however, is that the communication is at a block. We are human, and speaking in general, we have our own beliefs, and because they are our beliefs, we sometimes can’t understand other peoples beliefs if they differ from our own. I think this is why our school systems seem to have developed this “culture of power”. The people who hold the power can’t see or really understand peoples beliefs if they differ from their own.

Her fifth and final point is, “Those with power are frequently least aware of – or least willing to acknowledge- its existence. Those with less power are often most aware of its existence.” Her point here is that the people in the power, don’t even really notice that they’re the power group. People who clearly aren’t in the power, are aware of it. This reflects not only the power in the school systems, but the power in all areas of our society. It’s just like how we say that we live in a country that’s equal, and just. Yet there are still the people who are generally considered valued. Straight – Christian – White -- Able bodied—Male—Property owners. However, anyone who isn’t one of these things acknowledges or can probably think of a time when they were made to feel less valued, just because they don’t fit in to what we as a society consider to be valued.

White Privilege

After reading White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh, I feel like I have a better grasp on looking at the controversy of racial fairness from an entirely different perspective. Reading an article written by a white woman, I can understand better because I can relate to where she’s coming from. She lists twenty six things that she can do on a daily basis without having to worry about, simply because she is white. Every point that I read made me acknowledge things that I do every day that I’ve never had to think twice about or think that there are people who don’t have the same advantage. I feel like most white people don’t consider themselves racist, but we are aware that there is a disadvantage. McIntosh states, “I did not see myself as a racist because I was taught to recognize racism only in individual acts of meanness by members of my group, never in the invisible systems conferring unsought racial dominance on my group from birth.” As a whole, white people still aren’t willing to let go of the power that we’ve been born in to, in order to make for a truly equal society. We accept the power that we’re given, not earned, with no questions asked because we are the people with the power and we aren’t negatively affected by it. She says in her piece, “I began to count the ways in which I enjoyed unearned skin privilege and have been conditioned into oblivion about its existence.” The keyword here is unearned. We’re born into an automatic privilege, just because of the color of our skin. However, we claim that we live in a democracy where all people are considered to be treated equal. It seems that white privilege is something that gets overlooked by some white people because they don’t want to give up having this sort of power. This video is a debate between Bill O’Reilly and Megyn Kelly, over the subject of “white privilege”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlsS8J4HH78

Megyn Kelly says, “The black population feels forgotten, that’s why they are resentful. They don’t believe the justice system is going to give them a fair shake.”

It’s not acceptable that one part of the population are the people in power; People aren’t given a fair shot because they aren’t white. This system of people having an advantage or a disadvantage over their race needs to change.

Hey there!

My name is Rachel Gauthier. I'm a junior at Rhode Island College, majoring in elementary education. I just changed my major, and now that I'm in a major that I feel passionate about, I can't wait to finally be taking classes I really enjoy. I've lived in Rhode Island for four years. I'm originally from Alabama, and since then I've lived in Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, and now here. I've loved having the opportunity to live in so many different places, and meet so many different and diverse people. I'm a manager at Justice, and I also work at a jewelry store. Between work and school I don't have very much free time. I'm also in a sorority at RIC, Delta Phi Epsilon. My free time is very limited, but the time I do have, I enjoy being with my family and friends. I'm really excited for this semester!