Thread by @AzieDee

@JenSloan212 @skwithycombe Yeah this is the part that I had a problem with. The rest seemed like it was more about significant differences in cultural norms and values of Western individualism vs collectivism and how it translates in childrearing.

@JenSloan212 @skwithycombe The author was problematic af. Which is unfortunate bc much of what she observed was accurate from my childhood w Black/Indigenous grandparents as primary caretakers.

This is why it’s important for *us* to write about our cultures *ourselves*. The white supremacist lens distorts

@JenSloan212 @skwithycombe It interesting bc I grew up w the opposite stereotype than is discussed in this thread. Black and Natuvr mothers were considered unable to parent well, more likely to spank or “beat”, have bad tempers, neglectful, etc.

@JenSloan212 @skwithycombe Instances of our children being taken out of our homes and communities and put into foster care/adoption is higher bc of these biases that we are naturally BAD parents and white mothers will raise our children better.

@JenSloan212 @skwithycombe This trope came up recently in the new Western movie w Tom Hanks “News of the World” in which he rescues a white child raised by Kiowa. She is a CLASSIC savage child stereotype. She rummages through his belongings and steals food. Eats soup with her hands while singing (??)

@JenSloan212 @skwithycombe I was like a Native child wld *never*. Not bc our genetics are different, or we’re closer to nature or whatever, but bc our cultural values/ideology are deeply anti-individualism. Everything she did was self-serving. A savage kid of the white imagination is a modern type of brat

@JenSloan212 @skwithycombe In written accounts on the behavior of traditionally raised Native children forced into boarding schools at the time, they were oppositite that portrayal - concerned with meeting the expectations of adults, not drawing attention to themselves, and responsibility to the collective

@JenSloan212 @skwithycombe Of course in the movie the white child raised by Kiowa is “civilized” when Tom Hanks starts raising her. Like she suddenly calms down after they get her out of buckskin and into a white person, cotton dress.

@JenSloan212 @skwithycombe And on the other hand, I grew up with the whole Bebe’s kid’s stereotype of Black parent/child relationships. Black kids are naturally unruly and disobedient, and Black moms are on edge, have bad attitudes, and can’t “control” them.

@JenSloan212 @skwithycombe A few years ago, I went to a storytelling event and a WW told the story of her infertility. She said her husband wanted to adopt a Black child, but she insisted on an Asian one because “When have you ever seen an Asian kid misbehaving at the airport”. Black kids are bad.

@JenSloan212 @skwithycombe So when I heard this NPR report, I was kind of happy a WW was put in her place and had come to realize that American white culture may know *much* less about parenting and child psychology than a traditional indigenous one. But of course her prejudice was *glaring* as well.