Reading American Girl's Addy Walker Series for the First Time | Know Your Hunger
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 ส.ค. 2024
- I decided to read the historical series of Addy Walker, the titular character of the American Girl book series. This lead me to clear up misconceptions I had about the character, as well as lessons on the way. While the positive goal was Addy and her family based around the American Civil War, her being the only black character until 2011 doesn't sit well. It goes to show that even in toys, black girls find themselves in tokenism. There needs to be more of a push in more inclusiveness in dolls for black girls.
__________________________________________________
Know Your Hunger is a platform is where I talk about issues going on today. If you enjoyed this video, please give it a like, comment, and subscribe.
__________________________________________________
Social media handles: Instagram/Twitter: @knowyourhunger
Thanks for your video!
I love Addys’ story. Even though there’s several heartbreaking moments, ultimately her story is full of hope.
Thank you
Master Stevens is, of course, listed among the dossiers for this book because he is a notable associate of Addy's. He is counted as a friend because equally notable characters in other series are characterized as such. It might not be the most accurate characterization, but it helps get across the point that the characters featured in that listing are an important part of the main character's life. Basically, the gist of it is that it would be much harder to fit the other people in Addy's life into a category labeled in such a way as to reflect Master Stevens crew significance in Addy's life. Master Stevens is not physically abusive to Addy at any point during the one book he's in, but he's only so harsh with her in front of the other plantation owner in the kitchen scene. He engages her by addressing her by name and interacts with her in front of others. I guess that's why he's listed as a friend.
By the way, Addy and her mother did not decide amongst themselves to journey to freedom; Ruth took it upon herself to execute as best she could a plan that she and Ben had discussed and settled upon some time before, having been sufficiently knowledgeable to be aware of measurably greater opportunity for black people in Philadelphia. Addy went along with her mother's decision to take action because she wanted to experience freedom herself.
We'll never be on even footing with others if we can't get past the idea of others suppressing us.
That seems to be the black M.O., and as long as we determine to live based on an attitude that gives rise to that kind of whining, we won't deserve to be on even footing with everyone else, because it evidences that we're not trying our best to make the most of ourselves and the community we live in.
As a black woman, you have got to carry yourself with some dignity. You can't just expect everybody to lay everything out perfectly for you; even if they're not malicious in their being sloppy, sometimes they just can't put things together perfectly. You've got to be able to have an eye for what's wrong and figure out for yourself what it looks like when things are in order.
Besides, trust me it's not just black people who have to keep their feelings inside because they're not free to express themselves. People of all backgrounds face Injustices everyday, some witness it, some are even part of it - but because they lack freedom and power, they have to keep it inside and not express how they truly feel to anybody. The fact remains that even now and for everybody, in many cases, people are only free on the inside; if evidence of people's emotions doesn't manifest, there's nothing of it for people to strike out against. What about all this stuff you know of this that you're keeping inside? What you and are we black people need to do is stop buying into the idea that we have to accept and live by the mentality that we are supposed to not behave as well as white people, as any other people, that we have less of a responsibility to hold ourselves to a high standard of behavior, because we are black.
There's better, even, than this, on the minds of people you encounter every day, and you deny it!
???
@@knowyourhunger2691Don't play dumb.
You lay out this word salad that could’ve been better said in one comment. What do you mean deny? I make the content that I see fit. If viewers want to watch it, they can. According to YOU, this don’t matter. If that was the case, the the Twitter thread on this subject wouldn’t have an effect. No, it may not hard hitting subjects,but matters to somebody. It matters to avid readers like me.
@@knowyourhunger2691 Wow. I actually forgot how outlandishly you behaved. I don't really remember my encounter with this too well, and it's probably because my mind doesn't run on the kinds of things you brought to the table, the kind of worldview and line of thought you indicated that you operate on every day, but from what I can tell of what I've written before, there was a lot to analyze about the Addy text that you missed, and you didn't give the greatest deal of thought to that of it which you did notice. You can't responsibly consume and analyze literature, and especially historical fiction, without accounting for the past and the world around you and the people with which you share it. The fact is that there's more to many Black people, what they see of themselves and see in the world, than you're laying out there. Since you're involved in communications, it's a shortcoming in you're living out your responsibility to make sure we connect and communicate positively in a way that moves our human conversation forward. As a black woman and a human being, it's embarrassing. We've worked too hard across centuries for you to knock it all backwards in a few minutes by way of how you conduct yourself. Do you think it's cool to do that just because you have at your disposal tools to pull together a polished media platform? You've got everything you need to do a better job of this and more.
@@knowyourhunger2691 Funny. One might think you like salad.
Maybe the reason why you're the only person to even come close to doing something resembling a critical analysis of the literature pertaining to Addy it's because no one is willing to face the truth where this is concerned and have an honest, earnest go at it.
Addy was released in the 90s! There is no reason for her to be a slave. This was the 90s. Stories about slavery are important but none of the other girls had terrible stories like this. This was so problematic for a little black girls toy.