Speaking the unspeakable in forbidden places

     This article was very powerfully because it had a personal story that a women was able to talk about and share to the world. At first, it was interesting to me that the students were able to understand the word "gay" and relate the meaning to the relationship of 2 guys, the word "lesbian", which the teacher was, was different to them. As I continued to read more about her students reactions, I remembered a time in 3rd grade when this happened to my class. 

     I cannot remember exactly why the word "lesbian" came up, but when my teacher said it in front of an entire class of 7 and 8 year olds, there was many giggles and chatter. Immediately, my teacher yelled at the entire class because her sister was a lesbian and we all got in trouble. Our punishment was to write a sentence about making fun of people about 20 times. I remember this sort of well because this created a big uproar with the parents. During the next week, many parents came in and talked/yelled at the teacher for punishing the students for laughing. It is hard to say who, or if anyone was in the wrong here. Were us students just not educated about gayness yet so to us it was still new and unknown? Or, was the teacher wrong for not accepting the fact that the 3rd graders thought that the word "lesbian" was funny?

     I found a link on YouTube about children 5-13's reaction to gay marriage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TJxnYgP6D8  Most of the children had an understanding of gayness. Some of the younger children had a more shocked reaction but still were not completely shocked. I am not sure if it had to do with their life and how they were brought up or if they were educated on the issue so it was not a big deal to them anymore.

"Why Can't She Remember That?"

                               

While reading this article, the authors examples of each child's use of different humor with their parents stuck out to me. Marisa, the Spanish speaking preschooler, used a sing song intonation associated with teasing her community to joke around with her father. Lindsey, the English speaking preschooler used a poem to get her mom to grab her food from the floor when she refused. "Each of these preschoolers, socialized in very different linguistic and cultural communities, demonstrates the ability to use language in powerful ways to negotiate relationships with other people. " I think this quote explains the authors whole idea and meaning behind her examples.

Another quote that stuck out to me was "Children who don't have many early book reading experiences learn their cultural lessons through interaction with family and other communities." The author uses immigrant children and families as an example. Many do not grow up with books to read at home whether it is due to the fact that their families can not afford them or it is just not part of their culture. They learn from different experiences like their interaction with family as stated in the quote above. Their experiences and life lessons may be different from other children, but that does not make them less off than the next child. It may be just due to their culture and family back ground.

Silenced Dialogue

There were a few quotes that stuck out to me while reading Delpit's article. "If schooling prepares people for jobs, and the kind of jobs a person has determines her or his economic status and, therefore, power, then schooling is intimately related to that power". This quote does make sense because schooling is a chain effect related to your future and status. Determining at a young age where you are from and what school you go to has a way of determining the means and access to different job opportunities, 

The quote above is linked to another quote in Delpit's article. "Children from middle class homes tend to do better in school than those from non middle class homes." This quote reminded me of when the women from Inspiring Minds came and talked to us about the diverse classrooms in the Providence school system. These families are mostly low income families. They gave a statistic where these children hear half the words per hour than those of a middle class families. This then is taken to the classroom where the child may have difficulty learning. Now, this is a chain effect like the quote above states where this can determine the job they get later on in life, which then can relate to their economic status.

White Privilege

I read the article "White Privilege" by Peggy McIntosh. I agree and disagree on a few of her listed points she made about white privilege.

One point I disgree about is "I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented." Depending on when this article was written, most music now a days is made by people of color. I can definitely argue new music such as rap, pop and hip-hop. I feel it is actually harder to find new music made by white people. In my opinion, this example is the opposite of white privilege. 

One point that I agree with is "I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed." I see this at work often. I work at Target and we have security that walks around and investigates people. If you observe long enough, they pay more intention to people of color than white people. Whether this is a policy for them to follow or their own personal actions, it still gives white people the privilege and advantage as a customer.

McIntosh had strong arugements that were based from her personal life and personal experiences. As a white female, she knew she had privileges but did not realize how many she had until she sat down and started to write them down.