Posted on 08/09/2015 10:15:31 AM PDT by Defiant
In the spring of 2015, a nine-year-old boy named Dexter went to Disneyland with his family and found himself deeply unsettled — not by a scary ride or the unpleasantness of waiting in line, but by some of the most unsettling cultural issues of our time: racial and gender stereotypes. Disney, the world’s most prolific purveyor of pink plastic, has a long history of perpetuating gender stereotypes and feeding our unconscious biases, but what Dexter so astutely observed seemed like a particularly acute symptom of a larger cultural malady.
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Dexter and Sybilla go to The Cathedral School of St. John the Divine in Harlem — one of those New York City schools proactive about teaching kids about white privilege and its consequences — and their teacher, Ms. Elena Jaime, had instilled in them a deep concern with social justice around identity. But beyond that foundation, out of which their disappointment with Disney sprang, there was no adult hand in the letter — the kids dreamt it up, drafted it, revised it, and mailed it all by themselves.
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Dear Disney,
Like most people we love your attractions, but we found some problems with some of them and those problems are stereotypes. Stereotypes are something that some people believe are true but sometimes may not be true. For example say somebody said “girls only like pink,” that’s a stereotype, some girls might like yellow and not pink. You can never really judge.
We are third graders from New York City at The Cathedral School. We learn about stereotypes, and the impact they have on people’s identities. For instance, in the jungle cruise, all the robotic people have dark skin and are throwing spears at you. We think this reinforces some negative associations, we think you should replace them with monkeys throwing rotten fruit.
We noticed that on our trips to Disneyland and Disneyworld that all the cast members call people Prince, Princess, or Knight, judging by what the child “looks like” and assuming gender. We think some feelings could get hurt, say by accident you called someone a Prince who wasn’t a Prince or a Princess, or a Knight, or who was identifying differently than what they were called. We suggest you say “Hello, Your Royalty” instead.
With the Princess Makeovers, we think you are excluding other people who might want a makeover to be something else, including boys and transgender people. When we went to the Princess Castle, the characters only greeted the people they thought were visiting girls, not the visiting boys and again said “Hi Princess.”
We hope you know we had an awesome time at Disney and these are suggestions to make it more inclusive and magical for everyone. Please reply and let us know your thoughts.
Sincerely,
Sybilla and Dexter, The Cathedral School
If children grow up in an insane milieu, to be normal would seem insane to them.
I have more confidence than you in the ability of leftist to propagandize children and for children to regurgitate it back in well written letters. In past ages, these children would have written very nice imaginative essays about their wonderful visit to Disney. Their teachers have taught them to notice dark skin and gender stereotypes. They are only doing what they were taught. It may or may not have been written by these kids, but smart kids at a school like this could easily have written this letter, so I don’t find any need to dispute this claimed fact for purposes of discussing what the school is doing to these poor children.
I’m not sure I agree. If there is anything to the concept of human nature, and I believe there is, at some point children will stop aping the superficial prejudices of the adults who control them. Then we’ll see...
I am white, but, in spite of my dad working two jobs, none of us six kids could got to go to private schools or Disneyland.
For homosexual week in the park Disney brings in more lights and illuminates all the dark places in the park. .still doesn't stop them.
Odd thing is, most of the staff, actors and such, are homosexual, flamboyant.
Well. . .we did have Carter listening to 10-yr old Amy about nuclear policy. . .
No way, no how was that letter written by 9 yo kids.
Because as we all know, dark-skinned people in Africa never threw spears at explorers.
/
I’m sure then they are organizationally/philosophically related to Trinity Church, the Episcopal church near Zuccotti Park that was so helpful to the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Imagine if a white kid or any white person had said the same exact words. The howls Of RAAACISST-calling-negroes-monkeys would fill the airways and papers for days!
Such crap.
It is not going to work in the long run. A minuscule number of boys will choose to be made up like princesses. Not going to happen for the 99.9999999...% of boys who go to Disney.
The Amish were probably busy growing something that day.....sheesh.
Political correctness makes one stupid.
That usage, grammar and punctuation are amazing. Where do I enroll my 3rd graders?
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