Blog Post #5 - Unlearning The Myths That Bind Us (Reflection)

          In "Unlearning The Myths That Bind Us" by Linda Christensen, several points are brought up as to why feeding our children with racist cartoons, advertisements, and images of a "perfect" society is harmful. This article was interesting, I hadn't really thought about how racist old cartoons and TV shows actually are. I had always thought of them as favoring male characters by saving the "damsel in distress" for example, but hadn't really dug deeper than that. I enjoyed how this teacher made her children watch these old cartoons and enter information into a checklist when they thought something was racist or sexist. It's a great strategy to really analyze what our children are seeing and also does a good job showing why certain racial groups are looked down upon in society. No one likes talking about racism and sexism, but I'm sure it's the last thing on their mind as they're popping in a Disney movie for their young children to watch.

          Exposing children to these racist and sexist images at such a young age affects them greatly later on in life. Some don't even realize they are being fed racist material until they are in high school. That is a long period of time to be subjected to these messages. Females take a large hit too. If they are not the "perfect" body size and shape, Disney movies (along with advertisements, TV shows, magazine covers, essentially media as a whole) show them that they will not be happy. They are also fed that they need a "Prince Charming" which is also a falsehood. I am glad there are teachers that are trying to undo this brainwashing of young children's minds.

An example of a racist cartoon that is related to this article would be this one. It is a banned Daffy Duck cartoon, in which he portrays being a Nazi during World War II. It contains extremely racist portrayals of different racial groups as well as war propaganda.

Linda Christensen: