“Unlearning the myths that Bind Us” by Linda Christensen

“Unlearning the myths that Bind Us” by Linda Christensen definitely brought up some good points. First off “We” as a people like to think that we are so different and we have our own style and our own way of expressing how we feel through our dress, which in fact is not so true. I don’t really believe that we ever have a mind of our own. We have been influenced someway and somehow since birth. It starts from our parents with influences of what colors boys and girl are “suppose” to wear, to the kinds of toys genders can play with and even down to gender roles such as, females cook and clean. As children we tend to keep what we have learned and put it in the “norm” category. Not blinking an eye to realize that media defined what the “norm” is and has implanted a thought in our parent’s mind which has it trickled down to us. This is a cycle that then continues on and on.

Now the real issue that I would like to address is, children shows and different stereotype of races. When I was a child I watched a lot of children show but I never realized that they were stereotyping different races. This is showed by how a show has a certain person act, to how they dress, and even some of the background music that is played. Where did they even get theses stereotypes from? I never realized that African Americans were always made out to be a servants or not there at all. Now we are made out to be ghetto, have attitudes, tell people off and naturally know how to dance or not educated. Who says that we are all these things? Naomi sims was the first African America super model and was also a business woman and she published two books,Then we have Garrett Morgan who was the inventor of the gas mask and traffic lights and lastly there is Mae Jemison who was a physician and first black woman to travel into space. And wait, let us not forget PRESIDENT OBAMA who made history becoming the first black president. We as a whole should work on killing these stereotypes so that our children won’t have to deal with this crap.