Disney Racefail

Sometimes, I just don’t know what to say. The next time disney pulls something from the vault and releases it as “remastered” I’m going to have some questions!

crossposted from Sociological Images

For more posts on Disney princesses, look here, here, here, here, and here.  Two other great posts include this rejection letter (”we don’t hire women”) and this post on the original inclusion of black slaves in Fantasia.

[Love Isn't Enough editor's note: Note, too, that but for Jazmin, who is kind of brownish, Disney's princesses hold fast to a European-influenced beauty hierarchy.]

Hat tip to Jezebel for alerting me to this post. Also on Jezebel, see what one woman is doing to make Barbies more diverse. It’s awesome! I’ve never wanted a Barbie before, but now…

Genevieve wrote:

When I was in high school, I did a report on Race and Gender in Disney for History Day. The report itself was weak (I was 14 years old), and I still have a soft spot for Disney, since I was raised with it and their movies are visually masterful, but this post reaffirms what I was trying to get across to the judges: that Disney does promote messages that are actively harmful, and whether or not that’s deliberate, they have a responsibility as providers of entertainment for children to be responsible in the messages being sent. Then that got into a whole capitalism-responsibility debate (if you don’t like it, don’t watch, etc.), plus the fact that my topic was considered a bit unsavory, I think.

Some major things that I really felt strongly on were the rewriting of Pocahontas’s history (REAL PERSON) and the Mulan story (Here: Mulan was a SUPER-PATRIOTIC lady who served in the army for her family since her brothers were too young, and in the end, astonished her comrades by revealing she was a woman, since they never would have guessed. Vs. Disney’s Mulan who goes into and stays in the army for her father, falls in love with her commander, and, when revealed, uses, you guessed it, her sexuality, this time socially conditioned sexuality, to save… a man. Although apparently, there was a Chinese TV show that used the romance theme as a gag when Mulan’s general has to confront his “homosexuality.”). Oh, and Fantasia, of course, but no one ever believes me on that until they see the video for themselves.

“Beauty and the Beast” tends to break the mold (despite Belle’s lack of a mother, her motherish “fairy godmother” Mrs. Potts, and the clownish “gag fat woman” dresser/chiffarobe/thing). HOWEVER, this is due to the outright theft of the “Belle as bookish” motif from the novel “Beauty” by Robin McKinley (published fully 23 years before the 1991 movie release)– the library gift in particular is almost word-for-word what ended up in the film– in response to protest over “The Little Mermaid,” plus the theft of the Gaston archetype (and other visuals) from Cocteau’s film “Beauty and the Beast.”

Esmerelda, oddly, is not included as a Disney Princess at all, despite Mulan’s inclusion, and she’s not a princess, either. I think it’s because Esmerelda is seen as too sexual to be a role model, honestly. Then again, I remember my main impressions of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” being that Esmerelda was gorgeous, and that Frollo was waaaaaay too creepy for me to begin to be comfortable with. Speaking of sex, Tinkerbell is heading the “Disney Fairies” line, which is nice, especially with the introduction of POC as other fairies; but she was originally introduced in Peter Pan (which is like a black hole of women- and race-related issues, seriously) as petty, vain, and sexualized, but who eventually redeems herself. I understand Hugo didn’t help by killing Esmerelda off in the source material, but as I recall, Tinkerbell dies in the Peter Pan book, as well. I guess you can sanitize the sex out of a white character, but not out of a brown one?

I’m concerned about “The Princess and the Frog,” because at first I was hoping Disney was just feeding off of HBO Family’s “Fairy Tales for Every Child,” but she still appears to be a traditionally “European” princess as far as dress and hairstyling go. Her turning into a frog for most of the movie is also an issue for me, but I was more stunned by the giant, fat, bipedal gator (a la All Dogs Go To Heaven) in the trailer to really analyze the “ethnically ambiguous” prince. Despite how happy I am we’re finally, officially getting a black princess, I would watch it by myself before I took anybody’s kid to see it.

Posted 02 Nov 2009 at 4:50 pm ¶

via Disney Princesses, Deconstructed | Love Isnt Enough – on raising a family in a colorstruck world.

White Parents, Black Babies

 I was reading a post at Womanist Musings about transracial adoption last week. I left a brief comment, but decided to post my somewhat lengthy thoughts here because a) my thoughts are more related to multiracial families rather than transracial adoption and b) I think she makes several excellent points that are relevant for biological parents of multiracial children.

I know what it is to love a child. I know what it is to hold their little hand and see the world through their eyes but children of color require more. This is not about special treatment, as much as it is arming them and protecting them from the certain cruelties ahead. The first time my child was demeaned because of his color, it was to me, his Black mother that he poured out his soul and not his White father. Children know intuitively who can be of help. Without a parent of color, each assault is new and shocking.

When I taught my child that officer friendly wasn’t necessarily friendly, it was with the passion of Black mother that has heard far too many laments of Black mothers, who have lost their children to police violence. When I inform him that his behaviour must be different than his White friends, it is with the knowledge that though they are both children, the world will see my gentle Black child much differently. When it comes to children of color, there are harsh lessons that must be taught and to believe that a White parent is prepared to do that is to deny the racist culture in which we live. Children need love and they need a sense of community to grow, though these things are quickly forgotten when a White person steps up to adopt. Whiteness may be the dominant culture, but it is not the only culture or community of value.

I think Renee makes some really, really excellent points. I do agree that when it comes to transracial parenting, whether by birth or adoption, white parents are often poorly equipped to address the cultural needs of children of color, or prepare them for a racialized society. But (yeah, I know… you saw this coming) I disagree that it’s the black parent by default or that it’s impossible for a white parent to handle. When my 10yo daughter was troubled by a classmate dropping the n-word in conversation, she did know, intuitively, who could be of help, and it was her white mother, not her black father.

It happened because I am parenting with purpose, and not depending on luck (or love) to get us through.

I think first and foremost, she came to me because I initiate dialogue about race and she knows that I am open to discussion, that I am going to stay calm and LISTEN to her, whereas her father tends to overreact to the most benign scrapes & bruises. Secondly, there’s the whole African vs. African American dynamic in our family. Like many African immigrants, Dad has picked up a lot of negative stereotypes about Black Americans; furthermore, he has no ties to the African American community. Between the two of us, I am more familiar, for lack of a better word, with Black American culture and history than he is. That’s not to say that as a white woman I know what it’s like to be black or that I have more experience with racism, but his experience in this country is as an African man in America, and my daughter’s is that of a biracial/Black American.

I have no experience with transracial adoption, but I ran into the challenge of raising a COC without a COC (community of color this time) when my then 3yo’s dad moved to the opposite coast and took the “color connection” with him. I worried how my son was going to develop a healthy sense of self during summer visitations. Over and over in multiracial parenting bulleting boards & support groups I ran into white mothers who dismissed the importance of actively providing their multiracial children with a healthy culture of color when the father wasn’t playing an active role. “Well, his (absent) father doesn’t consider himself african american, so I don’t worry about it.

So I tried not to, and I told myself love would be enough (love, and the massive stack of books featuring black children of various cultures). And it was pretty easy at first, because my son wasn’t much darker than I was. We didn’t get many comments from strangers. But I was about to give birth to my second child… and then the cat was out of the bag. After Halle was born, it suddenly became glaringly obvious that Tyler was biracial. People were suddenly very curious about where Tyler’s curly hair came from, and I began to worry that Tyler was going to slug some well meaning white lady in Target who loitered too long and gushed too many compliments.  Strangers aren’t supposed to talk to kids! or Strangers aren’t allowed to touch my sister! he would tell them.

Like you should need a four year old to tell you that.

As the years went on, and the zooing got worse, I began to contemplate “reverse white flight.” So I moved. And I thought, that was that. My children had love, a community of color that included teachers and peers, tons of black children’s books, and I’d thrown in brown baby dolls and a Ruby Bridges movie.

But all that wasn’t enough, because I still didn’t get it. I still had to let go of what I believed about race, and accept someone else’s reality.

via Womanist Musings.

Let’s Get Real About Halloween

I keep seeing twitter comments along these lines: Sex offenders hand out big candy bars, razors, drugs, & hugs, or some such nonsense.  Which is so interesting to me because I live in Phoenix, which is a pretty big damn city, one also known as the kidnap capital of the US, but I can’t think of a time I’ve ever heard of an abduction or other child sex crime on the news around Halloween. So before I run out and buy The Offender Locator, let’s look at some facts, and CHILL THE FLOCK OUT. Instead of psyching yourself out over something that is highly UNLIKELY to happen, how about worrying about the things that are LIKELY to happen… like your child getting plowed down by a vehicle because you were too busy looking for sex offenders to look both ways before crossing the street… or some of there other tragedies that are far more likely to happen to your child.

Researchers looked at a 9-year period, saying even before increased awareness and enforcement, there were not significant spikes in sex crimes against children around Halloween.

“Reasonable parental supervision and vigilance on Halloween is appropriate, but there does not appear to be cause for alarm concerning sexual abuse risk in particular,” the study found. “Increased vigilance concerning risk should be directed to the summer months, where regular seasonal increases in sex crimes are readily seen.”

The report also notes that it could be more worthwhile to have police focusing on traffic-related incidents on Halloween over monitoring sex offenders.

“The wide net cast by Halloween laws places some degree of burden on law enforcement officers whose time would otherwise be allocated to addressing more probably dangerous events.”

via Sex crimes against children don’t increase at Halloween, says Lynn University professor | Extra Credit.

via Let’s Get Real About Halloween.

The Souls of Black Girls

About The Souls of Black Girls

The Souls of Black Girls is a provocative news documentary that takes a critical look at media images — how they are instituted, established and controlled. The documentary also examines the relationship between the historical and existing media images of women of color and raises the question of whether they may be suffering from a self-image disorder as a result of trying to attain the standards of beauty that are celebrated in media images.

The documentary features candid interviews with young women discussing their self-image and social commentary from Actresses Regina King and Jada Pinkett Smith, PBS Washington Week Moderator Gwen Ifill, Rapper/Political Activist Chuck D, and Cultural Critic Michaela Angela Davis, among others. The Souls of Black Girls is a piece that attempts to provoke honest dialogue and critical thinking among women of color about media images and our present condition—internally and externally.

via The Souls of Black Girls.

the spectrum of peace

This post from earlier this year was recently reposted on a UU blog that I follow.  As I ponder the recent beating death of Derrion Albert, this lesson learned made my heart ache even more.

Are we teaching our children to practice non-violence? Are we teaching them to wage peace? To love their neighbors as themselves? Are we even teaching them that even though they may have to finish a fight, they should never, ever start it? Are we setting this example for them with our actions AND our words? Or are we all just too deeply intenched in our culture of violence? 

In the 1960s, my father’s heroes and mine included two men. One said, “Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him. “

The other said, “I don’t call it violence when it’s self-defense, I call it intelligence.”

My dad thought Martin Luther King was one of the bravest men alive, but for pursuing justice, Dad preferred El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, the former Malcolm X. When Mom taught me Jesus’s advice to turn the other cheek, Dad taught me Gene Autry’s Cowboy Code: “The Cowboy must never shoot first, hit a smaller man, or take unfair advantage.” Dad believed that if someone hit you, you hit back. If you couldn’t win, you made losing so hard for your enemy that he would never want to win again.

read the rest at it’s all one thing: the spectrum of peace: what my father taught me

originally posted at paxpac

 

: the spectrum of peace: what my father taught me.

We Need Each Other

I used to have some really lofty ideas about ”people who drug their kids to make them behave” back before I had a child with ADHD. Today’s guest blogger, Laura, wrote a blog that touched me deeply. She wisely reminds us to give others not only the benefit of the doubt, but our support as well.  Parenting a special needs child can be very isolating for the whole family. ~ Cyndi

 I have a ‘friend’ who her and her husband are trying to live a perfect life. They have 2 children, a boy and a girl, and they seem to project that everything in their world is clean, orderly, and going as planned. They have the view that if you make a plan, and follow it perfectly, then your children will turn out exactly how you ordered them. The expectation is the son will be gifted in sports, like dad, and the daughter will follow in her mother’s highly organized, academically superior ways.

They are very judgemental when they see other people’s children who are alternative, rebellious, or struggling, they always assume the cause is poor parenting. I saw a crisis coming with my friend. And it is starting to come to full bloom.

Soft Feathers on a Duck

I was on Skype with my sister the other day, who lives in Germany & has an 18mo Saint Bernard… probably not the dog I would recommend to a first time dog owner with limited access to obedience classes, training supplies, & breed & training books. I’m sure all these things can be found in Germany… but my sister hasn’t come across them and hasn’t been able to get anything shipped to her from US suppliers like Petsmart, because it’s an APO. Anyway, she’s got this 120 pound dog she can no longer control, and she and her husband are at complete odds as far as how to manage it. I was giving her some suggestions and pointers that have worked for me, and thought… what the heck. It’s not like my blog doesn’t already go in seven directions at once, and decided I’d blog about my training efforts.

So far, the new additions to our crew are working out really well… The dogs are getting along remarkably well with each other, and have been great with the kids. Sassy is really warming up and starting to seek out attention, and Rico… well, he has love like an ocean for everybody. Slowly but surely, Sassy & Rico are learning the new house rules.

Training, I have to admit, has been going a little slow… in part because I’m not just training, I’m re-training… and not just one dog, but two, as this is the first time I’ve introduced two new dogs into the mix at once. Not to mention, I have three little helpers who want to chime in every time I speak to a dog… and now the dog in question has a variety of commands coming from all corners.

my daughter confronts the N-Word… with love

I wrote a blog a couple years ago about the controversy surrounding the Don Imus fiasco, where he referred to a championship basketball team of women as Nappy Headed Hos… which led to a conversation with my children about the words ho and nigger, among others. In this entry I titled Don’t call me out of name, a phrase which comes from street vernacular and means don’t label me something I’m not, I struggled with a heavy subject… how could I give my children not only the tools, but also the strength to take a stand for themselves against the lure of the n-word in peer situations. While it’s probably unlikely my kids would feel pressure to use the word themselves, I wanted to empower them to “be the change” and influence others in a positive manner to not only discourage others from using the n-word to address them, but to also reconsider their use of the word, period.

I realize that’s a mighty tall order… and from a white girl at that. Like black folks haven’t been trying to discourage their kids from the use of the word for more years than I’ve been alive. And I can get up on my soapbox with other white folks and let them have it over the n-word… cuz to paraphrase a handful of white folks who are way smarter than me… racism is a white problem. We created it, we benefit from it… we need to address it within ourselves, our families, and our communities. And I feel pretty confident in teaching my children not to tolerate for one second a white person calling them by that pejorative. But I really struggled with how to guide my brown-skinned children through the minefield of the n-word when it’s used a so called endearment or as a sign of solidarity. I’m not naive enough to think that being called a nigger lover gives me any kind of authority on what it feels like to be on the receiving end of the n-word, whether from the mouth of a white or black person… and while I know that anyone who lived through the civil rights movement and the first generation after would be hard pressed to justify or tolerate it’s use, but I guess part of me did figure that it was somehow less painful for the younger generation to hear, that whether they used it themselves or not, they were desensitized to the vulgarity of the word due to the prevalence of it’s use in music and media. I was very much mistaken in this assumption, and exactly how deeply wrong I was became very clear to me last year as my daughter first encountered the complexity of social cliques… part of the shrapnel I mention in that post was one girl’s foul mouth, including her use of the word “nigga.”

4th Grade Cliques

Last year as my (then) nine year old found herself mired in the drama of the 4th grade cliques… which I remember being the middle school cliques. 4th grade is the new 7th, or so they say… but getting back on track…

In fourth grade, Halle ran into a “mean girl” situation in her classroom… and even worse, it was between two friends who couldn’t stand each other. They threatened each other, spread rumors about each other, and each tried to rally Halle to their cause, which was very distressing to my little diplomat. She had played an official role of “Peer Mediator” for younger students the previous two years, and very naturally fell into a role of trying to mediate a situation that was way over her head.  And because so much of the conflict was playground politics and lunchroom underground, it wasn’t visible to teachers & staff.

A conversation with my son about the Obama Speech

So at bedtime I chatted with the girls about their days, and asked about the Obama speech. Afterwards, I asked my son about it, and before he really got started, I got what I decided was a flash of inspired brilliance and grabbed my crackberry and recorded our conversation. I wish I’d done that with the girls… sometimes with Tyler, you ask a question and when he’s finally done talking, it’s been an hour and you’re asking yourself…

Who put a quarter in you?

… and sometimes, he has a hard time figuring out how to express his thoughts verbally.

He’s like his mama like that…

 a 13yo’s take on the Obama Speech

When I was listening to this afterwards, I cringed a little bit. Something I said with the best of intentions doesn’t sit too well with me.

Thank you, Mr. President…

And as parents, let’s ask ourselves… what problems are we going to solve?  Or are we just creating problems where none exist, rather than address the problems already present?

The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.

It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.

So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?

Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

via Media Resources Prepared School Remarks.

via Thank you, Mr. President….

a new chapter

It’s hard to even know where to start after my last blog, but first I want to thank everyone who offered comfort to my family and I after the loss of our dogs. I didn’t respond to wall posts or comments like I normally do, but I read them all and can’t tell you how much they meant to me.

The kids all slept with me Tuesday night… I sent the girls to Ro’s the next day, and Tyler and I tried to go through our regular day. As melodramatic as it sounds, I was finding it hard to breathe. When the tears overcame me, it wasn’t the dainty pretty cry. It was the snot blowing, leave your stomach muscles aching full on ugly bawling. Not a real attractive look at work, so I went home as soon as I could.

Doggie Doorbell

Once I got there, I remembered why I went to work in the first place. I didn’t want to be in my house without Roxie and Beau. I didn’t want to walk past Roxie’s kennel in the hallway. I didn’t want to look at Beau’s bed, or vacuum up the piles of hair he left behind. I didn’t want to go to my room because I would have to pass the the back door and think about how I hung that bell on the knob, and then with the power of clicker training, taught Roxie to ring it with her nose when she wanted to go outside. I didn’t want to remember all the times the first few weeks that she woke me up at three or four in the morning with that bell… not because she had to pee, but because she wanted a treat. She may have been a badass, but she was no dummy.

After coming home the next evening, Halle told me that Daddy had said he would get her another dog… which was well intentioned, but you all know what happens when Ro buys something. He always goes overboard (I say we need a van, he shows up with an Escalade). I could see him doing what he tried to do after Ramie died, and getting a puppy that would have me running home in the middle of the day and up in the middle of the night; but I could totally understand why he did it. Halle was in tears or on the verge of almost every time I looked at her. She told me,

I want the dogs back for my birthday. I know we can’t get OUR dogs back… but I want the dogs back.

 

How do you solve a problem like Maria?

 

 

 

Oh, how do you solve a problem like Maria?
How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?

When I’m with her I’m confused
Out of focus and bemused
And I never know exactly where I am
Unpredictable as weather
She’s as flighty as a feather
She’s a darling! She’s a demon! She’s a lamb!

She’d outpester any pest
Drive a hornet from its nest
She could throw a whirling dervish out of whirl
She is gentle! She is wild!
She’s a riddle! She’s a child!
She’s a headache! She’s an angel!
She’s a girl!

 

In so many ways this song reminds me of Halle… not that she’s the eternally cheerful Maria from the Sound of Music… not even close. She can be so negative sometimes. If one part of the day doesn’t go well, the entire day is ruined, no matter how fantastic the rest of it was. It makes me want to wring her pretty little neck until her head pops off her shoulders.

God is an Orange

Last January, I attended an Installation Ceremony for UUCPs newly settled minister, Reverend Susan Frederick-Gray. It was a beautiful ceremony for many reasons… Rev. Susan herself, whose sermons seemed to whisper right to my very soul. The dedication of a new baby… the child of a young adult who was a coming of age graduate when I joined the congregation. And then, the Nashville UU’s Associate Minister for Music, Rev. Jason Shelton, who gave a moving sermon titled With Hearts and Hands and Voices.

I found myself thinking a great deal about Rev. Shelton’s words… I could hardly keep my mind on the rest of the sermon. I googled the catholic liturgy as soon as I got home. I wasn’t sure why I was so stuck on “God is an Orange” except that perhaps it resonated with my belief that not only is “God” in us, but we are in God as well.  

Later that night after the kids were in their beds, I unpacked the little travel cooler I’d taken along that day, filled with snacks and drinks to keep little people happy during a long, grown up service. And from it, I pulled out one of those random gifts children give their mothers… an orange so perfect, even after being in a cooler getting squished by food containers, that I thought it must be fake, and dug my nail into it’s perfect skin to test it. I had completely forgotten that Halle had given it to me in the ladies room just before service started. In fact, I dont even think I looked at it before shoving it in the cooler. I took a picture of it (note to self… dust glass top tables before using them in still life photos) and in a memo on my crackberry, paraphrased his words as best I could remember them (if he could see this, he’d realize the least of his worries was us thinking he said God was an orange…)

You have no need of our praise, yet our desire to thank you is itself your gift.
Our prayer of thanksgiving adds nothing to your greatness, But makes us grow in your grace.

God does not need our praise, but we are grateful because of God.
Our prayer does not add to God’s greatness, but makes us grow in God’s grace.

The universe has no need of our praise, but our desire to give thanks is a gift.
Our thankfulness adds nothing to the universe, but instead makes us grow in our humanity.

The orange has no need for our appreciation, but our appreciation of it’s flavor deepens our appreciation of the wonders of our world.

I’ve pulled up that memo several times in the months since. Recently I was encouraged to s l o w  d o w n by a friend, and found oranges in my mind and heart again.

I know you have a lot going on, but sometimes you move so fast Im afraid for you. Take some time, be in the moment.

God IS an orange. My daughter was able to see that, without a flashing neon sign from the pulpit. And I need to be more in the moment, so that I could see not only God in the orange, but in my children as well.

Today I give thanks for the abundance in my life love, family, friends, holding hands with my daughters while we share dances of universal peace, and oranges.

Mamalicious! Hair…Raising

Hair Today…by Deesha Philyaw via Mamalicious! » Blog Archive » Hair…Raising.

Today is Hair Day. I will wrangle two-year-old Peyton in order to remove the beads from her hair, unbraid it, wash it, rebraid it, and put the beads back on—all in the face of her protests, periodic snack and meal breaks, and the necessary Pull-up changes. I will pray for her to fall asleep, but she won’t until about the last 20 minutes or so. The whole process will take the better part of our day.

At my house, hair day has a long and troubled history. For years, despite countless beauty products, gadgets, and more patience than I ever knew I had, my older daughter Taylor #now 7# dreaded hair day. Hair Day meant hour upon hour of having me wash, blow dry, comb, part, braid—mess with—her hair, while she had to sit and hold her head just so. And it hurt. I can hear the uninitiated asking, Why go through all of this trouble? Well, I don’t have much choice in the matter. In a culture that rarely includes my daughters in its beauty standard, I must counter that narrow standard with affirmation. I want my girls to look neat and feel positively about themselves, including their hair. Just as basic care for long hair by definition requires more time than caring for short hair, black hair that is not chemically treated requires a lot of TLC. I hope that in time my girls understand that all of the time and attention we give to their hair is borne of necessity and not vanity.

As I get ready to mess with little girls’ hair, I thought I’d share this blog.  I won’t be doing whole heads this evening, since the veil braids I did last week are holding up nicely, and I’ll be “doodling” the back of the girls hair, far less stress on the scalp than braiding… but still the time that takes means my announcement that we’ll need to start on hair soon was met with groans and protest.

via Mamalicious! Hair…Raising.