Thursday, December 15, 2011

Racism

The race unit we've been in has probably been my favorite unit because I feel like i've been made aware of a lot of things I haven't noticed before. I always thought racism could just be explicit and never did I consider all the implicit ways people could be stereotyped and the bias that comes with race. The way we judge each other is terrible and I'm almost ashamed that i've never realized how people can be judged against. Being a cuacasian girl, I'm pretty blind to the racism around me so I never thought about how the media might poorly represent African Americans or how they might be blamed for something more easily just because of their color. One of the hardest things to watch throughout this unit was watching the experiment about the middle eastern women be called "not american"and "terrorist" because of how she dressed and her color. As well, the angry eyes video made me more thankful for my ability to "walk away from racism" in comparasion to most poeple of color who will never be able to. I was surprised in the video that all the african american students said they were judged against everyday. It was eye-opening to me and I think Jane Elliot had to be so mean in order to get her point across that racism still exists and is as bad as ever before. After this unit, i've been trying to pay attention more to the slight forms of racism around me and it's been shocking. I've heard freinds and even a teacher make tiny remarks about people of color such as african americans and hispanics. For this reason, I agree that it's impossible to be "color blind" because we will always notice the color differences; however, we still need to be able to accept all our different colors and see every person as an equal regardless of what they look like.
     My shock at how bad racism still is also comes from watching Crash. For one, I think the movie is very entertaining and moving, however, it's hard to watch at some points becauase the racism is so extreme it actually makes me cringe. Some of the worst parts were seeing how Matt Dillon could treat the African American couple and how much it ended up effected the couple. Also, I think that the locksmith is constantly being unfairly treated just becasue he is Hispanic. It's ridiculous how terrible people can treat each other and it's embarassing that people actually do act like this. I've always known that explicit racism exists but never to such an extent and the most shocking is the implicit and istitutional racism that are so under the radar that people stop even considering it to be hurtful or racist!

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Class and Income Blog Post

I found the Movie we've been watching in class very eye-opening and intresting. It really developed on the disparity in social class that most people choose to ignore. I think it's crazy how there can be such a difference between someone like Thomas (WASP) and Tammy (who works on minimum) live. Sociological Imagination is shown because we've learned to respect people that are humble and kind. This is why most people, me included, think Thomas comes off as a jerk since he clearly views the WASP as the best social class. I've learned to find disgust in people that can be so condescending and think that they can be better than anyone else. Tammy, however, seems genuine and I can respect her for her hardwork and positivity. The movie also demonstrated how we see social class based on previous known stereotypes such as seeing the Red Neck Games as low class since they might not have as good incomes or "lifestyles". I think that it is wrong to judge people based off of their social class or income level just because there is much more to a person than a typical sterotype. For example, though I think it's intresting that their are so many differences in social class, I don't think it is necessarily fair. I thought it was crazy that you could even find differences in food such as higher income people eat more wheat bread while lower class eat more white bread. The movie demonstrated how there are so many simple differences and how people of different social statuses view each other!