The Final Blog =(

After a semester of sociology I feel that I have been able to open my mind to all kinds of people and appreciate the many things that make us up as individuals rather than as a general group. For so long, I’ve picked up on words and terms given to a general group and would then unintentionally label a person by this specific group rather than come to understand whether or not this small part of them was even voluntary or involuntary. Although I would never repeat these words aloud, they would simply come to my mind because I heard them around me constantly. Throughout this course, we have learned about being sociologically mindful of those around us, understanding the many agents of socialization that make up every aspect of us, and through this I have learned to truly appreciate every person for what they’re worth.
I haven’t changed my mind at all about the type of person I am and the type of person I hope to one day become. I still do think that what realm of society we are a part of is an agent of socialization in the type of person we are. Sadly, the media greatly affects us in what we wear, what we eat and don't eat, etc. I’m sure that if I was in the lower-middle class, I wouldn’t be as concerned with material things, instead I'd probably just be trying to get by. For this very reason, so much of me wants to just get up and leave this area and see all the world while trying to help those less fortunate than myself. We have done plenty of simulations in which we have seen how hard it is for people to make it in this country even though we present ourselves as “the land of the free,” freedom certainly has a price to pay. I have gained much more respect for the many people around me who face different struggles and hardships day to day while I have been fortunate enough to learn in a classroom setting and soon will be going off to the college of my choice.
I think that this class has put the world into perspective for me, I have come to an understanding with so much that I hadn’t before and I just hope that as I go on through life I will continue to stay sociologically mindful of the many people and situations I encounter.

"Crash"

We've been watching the film Crash in class all week and it was a really intense film that has put so much into perspective for me. Without even knowing it, we classify people by their race and generalize about them. The film showed how a number of characters of different descents were all intertwined in some way. It's funny because in life, we go through everyday without truly knowing the many people around us but inadvertently size them up simply by looking at their faces among the sea of many faces.
I finally started to hear myself make comments or look at people and realize that I do it too, I size people up way too quickly. The movie was very powerful, every moment was important because it justified the next one, you never got too close to any one character because they all made a significant difference.
I was moved by the main character being racism, as Sal likes to say. I think that's why the audience can never truly get to know one specific character, because they are all of equal importance, they all connect in the way that we do in everyday life. Sure, the plot may not be realistic, but every day people are being discrminated against and being wrongfully judged.
I gained from this movie insight on myself and how I can potentially better myself as a person. I just hope to change my own view of that stereotypical perspective we all have of one another, break that barrier, and be open to everybody and their differences.

Graham: It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something.

Race Relations

Here in America, we classify everybody by skin color, by "race." But what is it really? Upon reading Mixed Blood, I came to terms with the fact hat depending on where one lives, they may be a different "race" entirely. "Race" is not biological, it is a classification depending on where exactly a person is at the moment.
In America for example, race is based on one's skin color, not including their hair, their eyes, their nose, their lips, just solely their skin color. Why is that? Why is it that I'm white and your black and he's Asian and she's Hispanic? What if my mom was Hispanic, my dad was Black, my grandpa was Phillipino, well hey now they have a new term for that too, multiracial. So many prejudices have been made based on "race," so many judgments have been made based on a social classification. How do we end this? How do we put a stop to limiting the way we view other humans, just that, humans. No white, no black, no Asian, no Hispanic, no nothing, just human. We all have vast differences and are so similar that rather than judging one another in a negative manner for something as simple as our skin color, we should just come to understand what's underneath it all.

digging a hole too deep...

As we played Monopoly in class through the class structure found present in the U.S. I realized that it is very hard for somebody to be able to climb up that structural ladder especially when at the way bottom of the totem pole. I was a lower class blue collar worker and I ended up with not very much more than I started up with. We've been trained to think that in America, the land of the free, we can do anything and become somebody. However, I now realize why the poor struggle so much, tend to abuse drugs, and get in trouble with the law, because the hole they find themselves is too deep to find a way out of.
Morgan Spurlock's 30 days episode about poverty in the U.S. had also given me insight into just how difficult the impoverished have it. As much as people may try to dig themselves out, the lack of health insurance, the minimal flow of money coming in, and other such things prevent them from moving up in class because they can barely get by.