Kareem Abdul-Jabbar says, "Horton Hears a Racist"

First, check out the entry of the NBA hall of famer's blog at http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/kareem/

Here is the comment I left on his blog:

Kareem,
Thank you so much for the blog. I don’t have daughters. In fact, I have no biological children. However, each school year I “adopt” 25-30 children. Each year my third grade students become a part of my family (I place them right under my wife, and just ahead of my dog). I do all I can to help them achieve academically, but I find myself caring even more in the fact that they believe in themselves when their time with me is done.

You comment about Horton Hears a Who really struck me. After initially seeing the title of the movie in your blog, I assumed that it had something to do with the pro-life controversy. Instead, I found myself running upstairs and reading the entry to my wife (we went and saw the movie last week) I really felt enlightened by the question that you asked: “Why doesn’t he groom one of his much more enthusiastic daughters?” As you put it, “The daughters? They get to cheer from the sidelines.”

I wouldn’t see any problem in having a movie out like this presented to millions of children, if (and a big if here), there were plenty of movies that carry the same message with the roles reversed. The problem is, there are very few such films that I am aware of. For every Matilda (a girl heroine), there are a dozen Monster’s Inc, Shrek, Cars, Nemo, Toy Story, and Snow Whites out there where female characters do nothing more than sit on the sidelines as the male characters save the day.

Mr. Educator
http://www.educatormr.blogspot.com/