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.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Thursday, May 14, 2009
"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.
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.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
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.
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.
Friday, May 1, 2009
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.
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.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
You Are What You Make...
In class this week, we discussed social class and watched a film about the many classes that make up our society as a whole. Although we may not pick and choose our friends based on what class they are in, what jobs their parents hold, and in what way they dress, we have subconsciously become a product of the class we are in. When in a certain class, one has the mindset of what kind of job they will hold in the future, whether or not college is or is not an option, perhaps even when the next getaway to Paris will be. In each crevice of society is somebody and that person will belong to one class or another.
The determinant, at least I believe it is, is the money one is making and the work they're doing to get this money. There is no breaking a barrier in classes because although we want to look to everybody as an equal, we set certain standards for ourselves that we then believe everybody else should abide by. However, everybody may be in a different financial situation, in a different "class" then ourselves, and they can't go about making the same goals as we do, because maybe their goal is just to get by.
Some of us are just lucky to be able to make big plans in this life, some of us are lucky enough to get a vacation in sometime during the year, but some of us are just trying to get through it all, one meager meal at a time.
So when you look all around you, where do you fall in? Where do your best friends fit in? Where do we all fit in?
The determinant, at least I believe it is, is the money one is making and the work they're doing to get this money. There is no breaking a barrier in classes because although we want to look to everybody as an equal, we set certain standards for ourselves that we then believe everybody else should abide by. However, everybody may be in a different financial situation, in a different "class" then ourselves, and they can't go about making the same goals as we do, because maybe their goal is just to get by.
Some of us are just lucky to be able to make big plans in this life, some of us are lucky enough to get a vacation in sometime during the year, but some of us are just trying to get through it all, one meager meal at a time.
So when you look all around you, where do you fall in? Where do your best friends fit in? Where do we all fit in?
Sunday, April 19, 2009
the revolving door
This past week in class, we've been watching an episode about the US prison system and how so many people find themselves back behind bars once they've gone through them once. Sadly, the upper-middle class can find its way out of these situations, but the poor keep comin' back for more. I'm sure it's not the life they would choose for themselves or a lifestyle they would endure but I see it in a couple ways.
Some agents of socialization could be where they were raised and the life they had always known, because you and I both know that if we were living in the South Side of Chicago, we probably wouldn't consider going to college, costing our families 40 grand a year because that kind of money wouldn't even be available to us. What our day to day struggle would be there is much different than it is here.
In a sense, I feel like some of these people fall back into patterns of prison life because it's consistent; they get a bed to sleep in every night and food to eat three times a day. I don't necessarily agree with the US prison system, in fact I find it very unfair and after having read Courtroom 302, I have lessened respect for authority because of their reign in power. Before people are even convicted of a crime, they already tell them they have no chance at winning their case. I think in this respect too, people fall into the "revolving door" of prison. When constantly beat down and told that you will never amount to anything, a person begins to listen and sometimes they go down the wrong path.
It's too bad that the rehabilitation program that was shown in the Virginia prison isn't as prominent elsewhere, and I think that it would be useful if some of these "convicts" were shown a way out and taught that there is something more that they can do with their lives. Unfortunately American society has a long way to go in advancing its prison system and its enforcement in general.
Some agents of socialization could be where they were raised and the life they had always known, because you and I both know that if we were living in the South Side of Chicago, we probably wouldn't consider going to college, costing our families 40 grand a year because that kind of money wouldn't even be available to us. What our day to day struggle would be there is much different than it is here.
In a sense, I feel like some of these people fall back into patterns of prison life because it's consistent; they get a bed to sleep in every night and food to eat three times a day. I don't necessarily agree with the US prison system, in fact I find it very unfair and after having read Courtroom 302, I have lessened respect for authority because of their reign in power. Before people are even convicted of a crime, they already tell them they have no chance at winning their case. I think in this respect too, people fall into the "revolving door" of prison. When constantly beat down and told that you will never amount to anything, a person begins to listen and sometimes they go down the wrong path.
It's too bad that the rehabilitation program that was shown in the Virginia prison isn't as prominent elsewhere, and I think that it would be useful if some of these "convicts" were shown a way out and taught that there is something more that they can do with their lives. Unfortunately American society has a long way to go in advancing its prison system and its enforcement in general.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Deviance in our Society
We read an article about two different groups of boys in the same school; one being the Saints and the other, the Roughnecks. Both of the groups did the same sorts of illegal activities, be it drinking under-age, pulling pranks, and other such things. While one group was able to get away from town because they had more money to spend and their own cars to drive, the other was constantly in the town's view. It was the Roughnecks that were considered as such because everybody considered them the lower-class kids with bad habits and the kids who were going nowhere; they weren't all-star athletes and honors students. But while these boys did the same things as the Saints, because those boys were the all-star athletes and honors students, they were able to get away with their illegal activities. So why is this? Why is it that when one has good credentials and enough money, they can get away with just about anything? But when doomed to fail, one little slip up has everyone talking?
I've seen it among us Patriots as well, with the right amount of sweet gestures, smiles, cash, and decent grades, it seems like there's kids who can get away with it all. But if everyone knows you're headed down the road to nowhere, anything "bad" you do will be used against you. How do we fix this cycle of deviance? How can we as a society look past class and race to see that no matter who commits the crime, it's the same crime? Why is it that some can get away with it while others cannot?
I've seen it among us Patriots as well, with the right amount of sweet gestures, smiles, cash, and decent grades, it seems like there's kids who can get away with it all. But if everyone knows you're headed down the road to nowhere, anything "bad" you do will be used against you. How do we fix this cycle of deviance? How can we as a society look past class and race to see that no matter who commits the crime, it's the same crime? Why is it that some can get away with it while others cannot?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
