The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

Disney movies are fantastic!  While I can admit, I've honestly only watched a handful of them, my daughter is obsessed with being a princess!  Although we try our best to not allow this fantasy life of a prince on a white horse riding in and sweeping her off of her feet into a problemless world . . . she is 4 and she deserves the right to allow her imagination to flow and be creative.

We [my husband and I] recently took her on a date to watch the movie Frozen.  What a fantastic movie!  Elsa, the soon to be Queen with special powers of turning things into snow/ice, and Anna, the young sister that lost her freedom of growing up with the windows of the castle open and playing in the garden or outdoors in order to contain and protect Elsa.  When Elsa reaches the age of coronation, the castle is opened to the village and in an act of anger Elsa freezes the entire village with a forever winter.  Anna is lost, she's wanted only to live with freedom from the castle and to fall in love and to live life.  Yet, she feels guilt that Elsa's anger was caused by her actions [which they were] so she begins a journey to get Elsa to return . 

Both of these actions ruined the life for those within the village.  They took away their freedoms, their rights, and their liberties.  They became angry at Elsa, without understanding Elsa's feelings of pain.  Elsa too was hurt, she's stricken with this punishment of freezing things (anything she touches), and she too wants a normal life just like everyone else. Unfortunately, Elsa has the entitlement of Queen now to live up to.   

This reminds me of my daughter.  My husband and I have held positions within the church of authority.  Being a pastor's kid, you're held to these higher standards yet always thought of as "the worst kids of the bunch".  Although, they're not worse than others, all children make challenging choices. A pastor's kid just makes them and their public knowledge because we usually add them into our sermons or the children are looked upon with a microscope.  I wondered while watching this movie, how do our children feel?  While we're not royalty, at times, we're held to these similar higher standards.  Do our children wish that they were able to attend church without these "titles" held over them?

What I love about this Disney movie the most, is that it shows that different parties involved did wrong.  And they all apologized.  Something our world is missing.  Apologies!  It also shows that you can make something good from a "badly dealt hand."  In Elsa's position, she can make her life meaningful for the good with her "snow powers" and still take on her privilege of "Snow Queen."

Really a true must watch if you haven't seen the movie.  My daughter can't stop running around the house singing their songs.

Check out Frozen's Oscar Nominated song in 25languages.  It's beautiful!

Microaggression Awareness

Practicing Awareness of Microaggressions

Chinese New Year was celebrated this week.  We have one family, that happens to celebrate it.  We have a family that is originally from Thailand in our classroom.  As the mom was talking to me during pick up time about their preparations another parent was listening to the conversation.  After the Thai family left, another parent asked me why they celebrated The Chinese New Year if they are from Thailand, making a comment "Aren't they Thai, only Chinese celebrate that."  While at first I looked at this as an opportunity to educate this parent on the celebration, now I can understand how this could have been construed as a microaggression.

While upholding our confidentiality for our other family involved, I solely said that "a large population of Chinese live in neighboring countries of China like Thailand, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, and others.  I'm not sure exactly their origin, but any reason to celebrate is a good reason to me." 

I wasn't upset towards this parent that spoke the words, and as a professional you don't judge where or why this person made a comment as they did.  Each day we are blessed with the opportunity to interact with others.  Our tone of voice, choice of words, and context of conversation could be the cause of microagression without even knowing it.  

A constant struggle, and I can't be the only one on this, is understanding the person's tone, facial expressions/body language, and purpose behind a statement.  Sometimes a microaggression is blatantly obvious as racial slurs or derogatory language is used.  In this circumstance, understanding the facial language, body language, and facial expressions made it clear they were critical on the purpose of this family celebrating a holiday.  I thought this week, would it have been an offensive comment if this parent's body language and tone of voice were different?

As an educator, we're in the position to also assist a parent in some education.  This though, educating a parent on positive social interactions is not something I'm ready to tackle.  I'll keep to doing that with 4 year olds!

Photo Credit:

Nigatu, Heben (2013) 21 Racial Microaggressions You Hear On A Daily Basis. Retrieved 29        January 2014.  Website:  http://www.buzzfeed.com/hnigatu/racial-microagressions-you-hear-on-a-daily-basis