Resonances:
The Creative Underclass: Youth, Race and the Gentrifying City [Chapter 3- Chillaxin] (Tyler Denmead
- p.78 “Through its pathetic sense of self, anti-blackness expects black girls to be compliant, enraged, or indifferent to pain because compliance obeys its power, rage illustrates lack of self-restraint that legitimizes its white policing, and stoicism in the face of pain demands even harder punishment.”
- I thought that this quote was extremely powerful in describing how girls of color are both expected to act and also depicted in media and social platforms. I thought this was a powerful explanation of why a white-dominant culture would want young black girls to behave in ways that perpetuate their stereotypes in a way that allows for further policing.
- Have I accomplished enough? Do I have enough time left? Have I experienced everything? Time based anxiety. -“youth compression” “temporality”
- This was a theme talked about in the above article that resonated with me. In the article they talk about this as a heightened experience for marginalized creative teens. I think that many young people experience some degree of this as they are entering adulthood. I still compare myself to others my age - should I be getting married, having kids....should I have a more important job or a clear career path, etc. I know from other readings and classes that different countries all portray youth in a different way - unique values, descriptive words, categories, roles, and time frames. This to me shows how 'youth' is almost entirely a social construct.
- “This is a means of survival, this being unproductive”. P.85
- Again, I found this quote to be profound in explaining the importance of giving students, especially those belonging to the BIPOC or other marginalized identities, time to decompress in a way that lacks judgment or structure.
- Children’s play remains a key site for negotiating identities as young people try on different possibilities from popular culture and the broader social landscape. While this play can be generative in broadening available gender expressions in particular, such play can also reproduce harmful and limiting stereotypes that narrow and exclude identities. p.136
- I thought it was interesting how this article showed how the children could both conform to and also challenge gender and racial roles through their active and fluid play. While the while children clearly had more examples of whiteness displayed in their popular culture, this still didn't stop children of color from challenging this power and creating space for themselves.
- Beyond notions of masculinity or femininity, women should have the freedom to express, perform, and define their identity. p. 137
- I resonated with this quote and agree with the urgency of allowing women to express and define themselves however they see fit, without having to gender it.
- Physical violence is dealt with because it is visible, but gender violence and subtle racism are less visible and ignored. p.155
Questions:
What is it that creates anxiety around time within young people and specifically creative young people? Is it society, education systems, the art industry, social media, parental pressure, themselves? The article presents some possible answers as follows:
Programs being pressed to prove “impact”, thus leaders putting pressure on young people. - wouldn't be questioned with a similar program in a white wealthy elite community.
Mentorships create an unreasonable and unattainable expectation for low income students.
How do you change this?
- Classifying practices as feminine/masculine—even making space for children to choose one of those options freely—fails to account for children’s movement between spaces. p.13
- This was an interesting point that was brought up and made me question - how can I allow for fluidity in my classroom space? At the young ages of 18 months - 3 years old there is less of a demand for acceptable gender roles, yet they are still engrained in children based on the images they see and they way the adults around them act. I have a classroom baby doll that is available for all children to use and I would say that it is pretty even - the girls and boys all play with and care for the doll. This article made me think about how I can introduce more opportunities for children to explore different roles outside of their presenting gender.
Critiques:
In other words, multiple interpretations are possible, and analysis of the texts on their own is incomplete, requiring the researcher to consider the everyday context motivating young people to write” p 147
I think this is an important point to note and the authors did address it. However a study of this kind could be looked at as adults interpreting youth behavior without actual intent statements given by the youth. I think many of these interactions stated could be interpreted in many different ways making it hard to quantify.
