These subliminal messages facilitate self- loathing and maladaptive constructions of what it means to be beautiful or desirable.
How do we support young Black girls in this healing process? In addition to not seeing themselves in stereotypes, their beauty and lifestyles are so heavily policed by dominant culture.
Black girls must be exposed to and seen within the subject that they are learning while also given the opportunities for counternarratives and resistance to injustice.
I think counterstorytelling is important, especially for People of the Global Majority to be able to share their stories authentically and challenge racist stereotypes and assumptions. However, where I'm feeling a lot of tension with media representation is when People of the Global Majority are given roles that have historically been done by white folx. Counterstorytelling is not the same thing as rewriting narratives. It's frustrating that students have to see themselves in "other versions" instead of having nuance roles or roles that were specifically made for them OR even roles that are not centered around tropes of a culture but instead are actually about People of the Global Majority having normal lives with universal experiences. A good example of this is "Never Have I Ever." But also nuanced roles like Shang-Chi are important as well!
Johnson (2015) suggests that within mainstream media, young Black victims, particularly Black boys, tend to be presented as guilty adults. Black youth and children are hardly ever portrayed as victims or labeled as “children” in the media in comparison to young White victims and suspects.
This is one of my biggest struggles working in education. In my spaces with white educators specifically, I'm constantly finding myself in conversations where they both infantilize AND adultify our Black students. In academic settings, these specific educators have such deficit thinking about what our students can and cannot do -- all based on negative assumptions about our students capabilities. However, in events with "behavior management," our students are adultified and are punished accordingly. It cannot be both, and it really shouldn't be either of those options. We should be treating our students as full humans with a wide range of capabilities while also recognizing that they are still children who need our guidance and support through love and high expectations -- not punitive reactions to disobedience of white supremacy.
don’t know what to do, and are just scared for their lives. That’s supposed to be somebody that’s going to protect us. Not somebody that we need to be scared of, or afraid.
This is incredibly frustrating because on top of students, specifically Black and Brown students, experiencing racial policing in the real world, many students also experience it in schools, a place that is supposed to be a inviting and inclusive and a place for them to let their guard down. We cannot build safe and brave spaces for students to have meaningful learning experiences if they aren't allowed to make mistakes or are always met with punitive measures for their mistakes. The same way that we judge "Karens" for calling police on BIPOC folx, teachers need to assess how they do the same thing when they call admin and SROs on students of color as a defense mechanism for their white discomfort.
Listening to teachers and students that day and in the weeks leading up to and following the 2016 election provided striking and poignant reminders that students of all ages carry with them into school the myriad worries, ideas, and oft-repeated phrases of indoctrination spouted on television, websites, and in neighborhoods.
I was a senior in high school when Donald Trump was elected into office. Many teachers had very strong opinions about this, and many had different opinions about what should and should not be allowed to share with students. I distinctly remember one teacher, who had given her opinion specifically once (as to not center herself in the conversation), but gave all of us the space to listen, speak, cry, and work through our emotions about such a controversial election the day after the election. I understand the pressure that teachers have to remain neutral in political conversations with students, especially due to legality issues but also families who heavily condemn this. However, when students are experiencing trauma from current events and are turning to schools and trusted teachers for comfort, it needs to be our responsibility to publicly condemn bigotry, white supremacy, Anti-Blackness, racism, Islamophobia, and homophobia for our students. Especially when we are active members in a system that historically has harmed students from these marginalized communities.
When absent in teacher education programs and national policies, it is little wonder that many English teachers may be both stymied and fearful about addressing the civic, healing needs of classrooms
This is very interesting because during my teacher preparation program here at UIC, we often were covering SEL and trauma-informed lessons, but I don't think anything can truly prepare teachers for the way our society is built on trauma of BIPOC folx. For example, many of our trauma-informed pedagogies are centered around student wellness and trauma they experience on a personal level, and while we may beat around the bush that the real problem are social oppressive systems and their impact on students, it feels very rare that we are examining how trauma is ingrained in every aspect of our society for Black and Brown children. For example, none of us were prepared to support students through the trauma of Covid-19, but the trauma that Black and Brown students are experiencing from Covid-19 is very different from the experience of many white families, and that is, again, because of the oppressive systems that we know of but don't fully examine as being the reason why students have so much trauma.
Wherefore meseemeth that if the room be well watered and well closed and shut up, and if nought be left lying on the floor, no fly will settle there.
I take back my previous comment. Clearly, this husband does know how to take care of himself. He explicitly spent two paragraphs telling her how to keep their home free of bugs. This letter to his wife is not only instructions on how to be a "good" wife but also how to be a good pest controller. What a time to be alive.
Have a care that in winter he have a good fire and smokeless and let him rest well and be well covered between your breasts, and thus bewitch him. And in summer take heed that there be no fleas in your chamber, nor in your bed, the which you may do in six ways, as I have heard tell.
Why do men not know how to take care of themselves?
such services make a man love and desire to return to his home and to see his goodwife, and to be distant with others.
Yes, but does it make this "goodwife" suicidal? Kind of like there's no sense of living when my only purpose of life is to pleasure and listen to a man who has no respect for me and has no intent of pleasing me in return? Or should I simply be thankful that a man wants to come home to me at all?
his person
Who is his "person" exactly?
for the husband is the head of the wife, even as our Lord Jesus Christ is the head of the Church.
Comparing men to THE Jesus Christ? Slight reach.
above all before other people.
Do not embarrass your husband.
his pleasure should come before yours.
What's extremely interesting is that so many men have this mentality yet have never read literature containing it, which begs the question of how on earth do men, whether it is subconsciously or not, decide that women are simply less than them? It's almost like some men are inherently misogynistic because right now we can blame media and films for enforcing misogyny. What about cultures, such as medieval ones, that have absolutely no access? What influenced them?
The first particular saith that you shall be obedient: to wit to him and to his commandments whatsoever they be, whether they be made in earnest or in jest, or whether they be orders to do strange things, or whether they be made concerning matters of small import or of great; for all things should be of great import to you, since he that shall be your husband hath bidden you to do them
It's official. Marriage, in the context of this society, is now legalized rape and legalized slavery.
to whom God has given natural sense
Husband: I have just given you a ridiculous list of things because you are not the perfect wife, but here is a small compliment to you and your kind because I am not a terrible husband or human being.
So likewise is with domestic and field animals, as with wild beasts. Of domestic animals you shall see how that a greyhound or rnastiff or little dog, whether it be on the road, or at table, or in bed, ever keepeth him close to the person from whom he taketh his food and leaveth all the others and is distant and shy with them
He's implying that unwavering devotion to a mate is biological, that it's a primitive instinct. Maybe so, for loyalty can, indeed, be found in many animal social groups. However, it is not forced because these animals have natural attraction to one another, sexual or not. If he genuinely believes that loyalty is a primitive instinct between mates and family, he should be able to identify the reason he has to explain this letter to his wife at all.
f the male birds stop, so also do the females and settle near to their mates; when the males fly away they fly after them, side by side
but not as a team. Instead, wife is obedient to her husband.
female birds do ever follow and keep close to their mates
He wants her attached to his hip... it's so unhealthy on both ends. It's so interesting how he doesn't seek for his wife to be independent, smart, and self-sufficient. He literally wants an obedient wife. With that intention and the fact that she is only fifteen, it just reinforces the idea that in some cultures, marriage is simply legalized rape and nothing more.
very distant with all other men and most of all with overweening and idle young men, who spend more than their means, and be dancers, albeit they have neither land nor lineage; and also with courtiers or too great lords, and with all those men and women that be renowned of gay and amorous and loose life....
Mr. Husband sounds a little insecure. Not only does he need to write out instructions for his wife to prove her love, he also doesn't want her hanging out with other men... I genuinely wonder if she would have even read this far into his letter because I certainly would not have.
salvation of your soul
Insisting her soul even needs saving to begin with.
the women of your lineage be good enough to correct you harshly themselves
Again, why marry a woman you find so many flaws in? Perhaps, and maybe I'm crazy, it's because she's fifteen, and even if she doesn't change much by the time she reaches of age, I'm sure someone will love her for who she is. Leave it to men to marry women and try to change them.
gentler birth than I
He is saying she had an easier childhood or she had a gentler birth as in she's female?
seemly so to pass the time of your youth
For whatever reason they were married, I don't think it was well-thought out. If it was for true love, he had two options. He could accept her for who she is in and the young age that comes with it, or he could have never married her and let her live her youth without the pressures of a husband, who is demanding her to grow up faster than she needs to. Of course, the necessity for her to be older is for his benefit.
my liking, pleaseth me, and has well pleased me, and will please me.
Am I surprised that a MAN is only talking about his own pleasure and what she can do to please him? No, not I am not.
rather each night, or from day to day, in our chamber, to remind you of the unseemly or foolish things done in the day or days past, and chastise you, if it pleased me, and then you would strive to amend yourself according to my teaching and correction, and to serve my will in all things
This sounds strangely sexual, perhaps because it is her husband and he references "night" and "chamber," a time and place commonly reserved for sex. However, this sounds somewhat dirty, like role-play/S & M.
SISTER,
We often hear of cousins marrying on another... sibling marriages seem taboo even for this time period. Unless they are not truly related, and this is just a (strange) term of endearment for his wife...
She, who little feared him, Did not deign to move for him; She had her lover sit next to her.
Ah, the revenge of a woman is unmatched. A very Beyoncé move.
He thinks and says to himself That he has never before seen so long an arse.
We all clearly know what he saw. The question is... does he look at arses often? Pornography does not yet seem too common, so I'm wondering how he's comparing this experience to anything at all.
Either you joust with me -- And I swear to you and guarantee, If you fall, without fail Straightway you lose your head,
I love this. She is fierce: willing to joust him and kill him. He's such an idiot, he doesn't even recognize his own wife.
Why do you mistreat your shield, Which has never done you any harm? You have started a crazy business today; God's hate on him who prizes you When you thus make war on it!"
It's annoying that he comes from nothing, granted fine armor, and treats it so terribly. Generally, it is the people who come from nothing that act humble.
Which she did not think right.
Well, it was her family's name that brought him to status. Men ruin everything.
She was afraid he would beat her, For the knight so menaced her That she did not dare go toward him or touch him. The lady kept her mouth shut. Not a word could she answer him.
It's saddening how domestic violence against women has been consistent from the 13th century and now, and I have no doubts it was present before the 13th century. "She was afraid he would beat her" is an attitude many women can relate to, even without being married to a man.
So that all is hacked and mistreated; Then he took his stout lance And broke it into four pieces.
That morning he was dressed in fine armor, and he purposely damaging it to appear as if he is winning battles.
Rather I have the prize of chivalry.
I'd argue quite the opposite. However, he is not from nobility or knighthood. He doesn't truly understand chivalry.
You do not have so bold an ancestor That I don't have a braver one, More valorous and of more prowess.
Such humble beginnings... a peasant... only to have the fatal flaw of hubris. I suspect death is close by.
Now hear what this fool did:
There is clear disapproving tone in the narrator's voice. I also enjoy reading a line that is very common in modern colloquial speech!
pressing a mattress
Is this a euphemism for sex?
And he greatly despised the lower classes.
He despises the class he was born in.
Those who marry beneath themselves for money Ought to be ashamed of it,
Well, isn't it? It's shameful to marry anyone of any class for money. It's difficult to assertively say marriage is about love, but during this time, marriage was about keeping royalty, sex, or men feeling entitled to women. However, there are instances where people are married for love. It's hard to tell with each story what the norm is for that context.
Where people are not very brave
Is this clarification for new readers or a reference for contemporary readers?