Borscht for dinner, anyone?

We learn more and more about sociological mindfulnesss but just recently we learned about how to do so when looking upon another culture as well. Many people tend to be ethnocentric due to culture shock when they come upon something they aren't familiar with. We must understand however, that not everybody will do things in a way our particular culture may consider "the right way."

As I am the first generation in my family from Russia, I am accustomed to certain Russian foods. When I was younger, I used to be so embarrased to bring my lunch to school because my mom would put in foods that American kids wouldn't be familiar with. At a young age we are taught to do things a certain way; eat cereal with a spoon, fries with our hands, and bring steak to our mouth with just the fork, and so on. As I've grown, I've come to appreciate my heritage and the culture is as much a part of me as American culture is.

I think that because my family comes from an entirely different background, I have a broader understanding of the world and haven't been closed in by one culture specifically. I'm thankful that I've learned through my growth from embarrasement to appreciation. It's important to be able to see past the "gross, weird, not right" ways other cultures may do things, and come to understand why they do things a certain way and what about their culture has shaped them to do these things.

A Bronx Tale

Even though I wasn't able to see all of A Bronx Tale, the social construction of reality in this movie was present from the very beginning. The unwritten laws and rules all pertain to the gang that Collogero finds himself so intrigued with. Sonny and his gang have a presence about them and everybody knows not to "mess with them." The adults know that these men are dangerous and do everything they can to keep their children off the streets. In Collogero's case, as soon as he gets off his father's bus his mother greets him at the window and motions for him to come upstairs right away.
I think the racist attitudes are also due to the community's social construction. This is seen as the bus of African-American children rolls by Collogero's stoop, a few of his friends chase after them screaming derogatory terms. This social construction was produced by the era that they are living in. This was a time when African-Americans and anglo-Americans had terrible relations.
In our own community, there are unwritten laws and rules that many of us follow because we believe that this is what we should be doing and there are no questions about it. For example, living in a middle-class community and going to a highly-acclaimed high school, many of us believe that we must go to college to continue our education. In our social construction of reality, this is the next step. If we were living in a different part of the state, country, world perhaps, this social construction may be very very different. At this age, some people may be going straight to work, starting a family, joining the military, etc.
Unlike Collogero's social construction of reality, in our community we don't have gangs to look out for and have been taught to be open-minded individuals who don't see the world in black and white. Of course these things still exist elsewhere, but in our community there is a bit of a different social construction of reality than in the south side of Chicago per say.

Who Influences You?

In class the other day we created a molecule of the various groups we are a part of, whether or not our membership within the groups is voluntary or involuntary, and other components involving our being a part of all of these groups that in turn make up who we are as individuals. Following this activity we were to read an article about how we tend to generalize people upon the assumptions we have made through past experiences and the stereotypes that we have created in our minds as a result of this.
Through the first activity I was able to see in people something that is a huge component of their lives and of themselves while it ranks of much lower importance to me. I stood up when family was called and talked about the significance I bear in my little sister's life because she looks up to me as her role model and unconditionally loves me no matter how rude I can be to her. Other students howerever, stood up to explain how sports, ethnicity, religion, friends, and so many others, were one of the most important aspects of their lives.
Through the stereotypes we make, it is difficult to appreciate all of the components that make up every person as an individual. By keeping a sociological mindfulness however, hopefully we can learn to understand that each person is made up of so many components that differ greatly from the person standing right next to them. These activites have already made me open up to understand why people may dress a certain way, talk a certain way, carry themselves a certain way, all because I now am starting to understand that every person is so much more complex than we take them for.
There's a part of me that really wishes this course was required for everybody because I think this world would be so much more at peace if everyone looked at each other as an individual rather than labeled them with a specific group that makes up one part of them. Until you understand how important this group is to the individual and whether or not they are a voluntary member of the group, this label is simply a generalization and maybe even a stereotype that you've ingrained in your mind.

Schwalbe, Williamson, and Us

After having read the Schwalbe article on opening up our minds sociologically I realized that even though I thought I had done so before, there are so many things that I still have to work on. I thought it was perfect timing to read the article because when checking my e-mail today, Yahoo news proved to me that not everybody is ready to be open about things. In fact, I was appalled when I saw that British Bishop Richard Williamson denied that the Holocaust had ever happened. Before being admitted into the Roman Catholic Church, the Pope had made sure he changed this view but it was still ridiculous to me to think that him and countless others are so unwilling to believe the horrific truth.
I think that in society as a whole, we fail to account for our mistakes. We fight war after war but never learn from any of them because we make one mistake after another. We try to "forget" or "deny" something that has happened because it is too horrible for us to actually believe that we as humans are capable of doing such miserable things.
The U.S. has done this too, I can't just blame Bishop Richard Williamson for his denial. The U.S. has denied for years that we sent away the Japanese into camps similar to Hitler's. Athough we didn't kill these people, we made sure that society knew how unwelcome they were.
This article opened up my eyes to see that the world really isn't ready to be sociologically open and it's terrifying. By denying our faults, we will never perfect our ways. Instead, we'll be walking in circles forever.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090204/ap_on_re_eu/eu_vatican_jews;_ylt=Ajd02.7ZkrmcSTIl_I7QLoR0bBAF