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Forum nameGeneral Discussion Archives
Topic subjectIs this the response letter?
Topic URLhttp://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=18&topic_id=180208&mesg_id=180303
180303, Is this the response letter?
Posted by flipnile, Tue Nov-10-15 12:16 PM
"""
I wanted to share my thoughts with you from a totally different angle, as an educator concerned with the developmental stages of childhood and young adulthood.

As a former preschool teacher... it is hard for me to give credence to a claim that there is something objectionably “appropriative” about a blonde ­haired child’s wanting to be Mulan for a day. Pretend play is the foundation of most cognitive tasks, and it seems to me that we want to be in the business of encouraging the exercise of imagination, not constraining it.

I suppose we could agree that there is a difference between fantasizing about an individual character vs. appropriating a culture, wholesale, the latter of which could be seen as (tacky)(offensive)(jejeune)(hurtful), take your pick. But, then, I wonder what is the statute of limitations on dreaming of dressing as Tiana the Frog Princess if you aren’t a black girl from New Orleans? Is it okay if you are eight, but not 18? I don’t know the answer to these questions; they seem unanswerable. Or at the least, they put us on slippery terrain that I, for one, prefer not to cross.

Which is my point.

I don’t, actually, trust myself to foist my Halloweenish standards and motives on others. I can’t defend them anymore than you could defend yours.
"""

The author of that letter merely SPECULATED that the first letter might be too limiting in its message. Speculated. Which is clear by these lines:

>I don’t know the answer to these questions; they seem unanswerable.
>Or at the least, they put us on slippery terrain that I, for one,
>prefer not to cross.

I'm back at the same place again where I just don't see anything offensive, in either of the letters.