How do our current narratives keep us from dismantling systems of oppression?

Readings: Roxane Gay’s “Thoughts on The Help”
bell hook’s “Dig Deep: Beyond Lean In”

Roxane Gay in her article “The Solace of Preparing Friend Foods and Other Quaint
Remembrances from 1960’s Mississippi: Thoughts on The Help” critiques the damaging
narratives found in both the book and the movie of the same title: The Help. She details the
difficulty she has “watching historical movies about the black experience (or white
interpretations of the black experience)” and lists the many different ways in which Hollywood
keeps getting it wrong. Bell hooks is also interested in the narratives we tell ourselves as a
society. In “Dig Deep: Beyond Lean In” she explores the ways in which Sheryl Sandberg
misrepresents and misinterprets feminism and makes the claim that this kind of faux-feminism is
dangerous to the cause: the cause of dismantling the patriarchy. Using these two readings,
answer the following question: How do our current narratives keep us from dismantling
systems of oppression?
Questions to get you started:
 What stories do we love to tell and why? What does this say about us as a society? Which
specific narratives will you focus on?
 How do these narratives prevent from understanding the nature of racism, sexism and
other forms of oppression? Why are these narratives potentially dangerous?

also include headers, page numbers, and quote what is necessary please. It’s ok if it doesn’t sound too good. Thank you!

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