Tag Archives: Diversity

The ‘Woke’ Cinderella Recipe: A Dash of Queerness, a Pinch of Feminism, and a Sprinkling of Fairy Dust

By Veronika Heinrich

Once upon a time, there was a young woman named Cin­derel­la (Cami­la Cabel­lo). In the 2021 film, she loves to design dress­es and wants to make a busi­ness out of it. When the prince (‎Nicholas Gal­itzine) announces a ball, her step­moth­er Vivian (Idi­na Men­zel), want­i­ng to pro­tect her from the patri­ar­chal world out­side, destroys Cinderella’s dress to keep her from poten­tial­ly mar­ry­ing a man she’d just met. The prince, how­ev­er, is in love with his best friend (Jenet Le Lacheur) but can’t real­ly admit it – not even to him­self. Also, he’s not qual­i­fied to rule the king­dom. The patri­archy, how­ev­er, wants him to become king and will nev­er agree to his smart sis­ter (Tal­lu­lah Greive) becom­ing queen.

When Cinderella’s fairy god per­son (Bil­ly Porter) arrives, they not only turn one of her designs into real­i­ty, but they also throw a par­ty at Cinderella’s place. When the prince and his best friend arrive, the pres­ence of the fairy god per­son gives them the strength to admit their feel­ings for each oth­er. The prince’s sis­ter becomes heir to the throne, and Cin­derel­la finds a queen with whom to trav­el around the world and sell her designs. And they all live hap­pi­ly ever after.

Only that’s not what happens.

Read more »

“My Goal Would Be To Go Out of Business and Go Back to the Classroom”: An Interview with Nancy Dome

By Sabrina Völz

At the din­ner table, on the train, or at work, we wit­ness dis­crim­i­na­to­ry lan­guage or racist remarks from time to time. We often know that we should say some­thing, but we – for one rea­son or anoth­er – do not always get involved. Many peo­ple would like to do more but don’t always know how. Dr. Nan­cy Dome, who has worked with chil­dren and edu­ca­tors for over 20 years, has lit­er­al­ly made that quandary both her busi­ness and mis­sion. This week’s blog fea­tures an inter­view with the CEO of Epoch Edu­ca­tion about fos­ter­ing the under­stand­ing of diver­si­ty and the devel­op­ment of inclu­sive cultures.

Read more »

Politics and Religion in a Secular State

By Bobbie Kirkhart

It is iron­ic that, as the world’s first sec­u­lar democ­ra­cy hav­ing scorned all state reli­gion, we soon became and have remained, social­ly and polit­i­cal­ly, pre­oc­cu­pied with god. Cam­paign speech­es end with “God bless you.” The song, “God Bless Amer­i­ca,” which Irv­ing Berlin wrote as a par­o­dy sung by a com­i­cal­ly chau­vin­is­tic char­ac­ter, is now per­formed as a patri­ot­ic hymn.

“God Bless Amer­i­ca” by Joelk75 is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Read more »