I agree that this chapter was hard to trudge through. Psychology always confused me in undergraduate school, and this was pretty psych heavy. Whew! I'm not even sure if I "got" the points at all, but I'll try to make some sense of this post :)
Even though this reading was difficult, the part that stood out the most to me was the passage about crayons: "We learn about color with crayons. We learn to tell the difference between white and pink and a color they call Flesh...Flesh we know has no relationship to our skin, for we are brown and brown like all good things (pg. 17).
You know, like many topics in this class, this is one that hit me smack in the face. It is one that I don't think I've ever devoted much time to thinking about, probably because I'm white and it has never affected me negatively like it has with those with different colored "fleshes."
In my pathetic attempt to relate, I thought about my everyday issues with being a left-handed writer. This world is very much geared toward those who are right-handed. Many things that righties take for granted are very frustrating for us southpaws. Door handles are placed to be convenient for the right-handed, notebook spirals hurt our hands as they rest on the left side of the page. Some school desks have the table part on the right hand side, forcing lefties to twist our bodies awkwardly to be able to write. The frustrations build up, not enough to make me act out on it or get cranky, but then again, these issues are petty and minute.
It must be the same with those of a different skin color than the majority. They go through life in a world that is geared toward those of another skin color, and those frustrations that build up are much bigger than the ones I mentioned previously. We don't realize how these small things, like crayon colors, are affecting our fellow humans.
Christy Rivers
Comments (2)
It is amazing at how small a little thing like a crayon can hurt so bad. I remember my first encounter with the "flesh" colored crayon. I was doing my Jr. internship in a first grade classroom that was pretty well mixed. I will never forget that my cooperating teacher wanted the kids to color in their "All About Me" doll. One of the beautiful brown babies (as my coop teacher called them) wanted to know what color did the "flesh" crayon say. I told her what it said and told her that flesh meant skin. She immediately started crying. "Why aren't there any colors in the box for me?" "I am not as brown as the brown, and I am not light like the 'skin' crayon." "They never make stuff for us, even band-aids don't match." That incident really upset her, upset me b/c she was right and b/c she was upset, upset her teacher (who is white), and the other black kids in the class. Fortunately for the beautiful brown babies in this class, my cooperating teacher promptly placed an order through her school for the multi-color skin tones construction paper and ordered the skin tones crayons for her class.
Posted by Cherrita Hayden-McMillan | March 28, 2009 4:59 PM
Posted on March 28, 2009 16:59
This is by no means meant to be a "deep" comment. I just wanted to let you know that I, too, am a leftie. Thanks for using that example in your post. It made me stop and think about my little frustrations and how much more frustrating it has to be for some of our students to try to fit the "school" mold when it is so opposite of their real lives.
By the way, have you ever tried to read an advertisement on a pen or pencil while writing? Guess businesses aren't reaching out to lefties!
Posted by Lisa Rasey | March 29, 2009 2:55 PM
Posted on March 29, 2009 14:55