what is the tell of the critical thinking box

What It Means to Truly “Think Outside the Box”

by Sabrina Meherally

what is the tell of the critical thinking box

Summary .

Society is filled with unwritten rules that many of us are taught to follow from a young age. For example, the belief that clothing is gendered, the concept of a weekend, and even more official laws like the ban of burqas and niqabs in European countries.

The author argues that these standards belong to something called the colonial imagination — ideas born out of colonial, white supremacist, patriarchal, and hyper-capitalist values with the intention of upholding power and privilege for a select few, at the expense of everyone else.
To rewrite these rules, we need to think outside the box. The problem is that our “out-of-the-box” thinking generally happens within the confines of the colonial imagination.
When we talk about thinking outside the box, the real exercise and challenge is to step entirely out of those boundaries.
The catalyst for real change exists in our ability to radically imagine new possibilities (even if they feel out of reach), to question the way things are, and to stretch the boundaries of what could be.

How often have you questioned the separation and labeling of “men’s” and “women’s” clothing in retails stores? It’s a standard that was established years ago , when most people were less conscious of (or simply didn’t care about) the harm this practice has on gender non-conforming people — or anyone who challenges the binary. Still, big retailers continue to replicate and rely on this model. It’s now become so engrained in practice that many of us don’t question it, unless it impacts us personally.