race

In our society racism is socially constructed for us. At a young age we are influenced to think that white skin represents beauty or "good" while black or darker skin represents ugly or "not good." This is very evident from the video of the little kids we watched choosing which color dolls were the "good" ones. It was shocking to see how many kids picked the white dolls. So even at a young age we can see society constructing racist views even if it's not intentional. I wouldn't say I'm a racist, because I don't go around hating people that are black. Now to say that not everyone has racist tendencies would be a lie. I believe everyone has racist tendencies just because of our society. It is just how it is, we can see it everywhere. Another article that talked about this was an NBA article which stated that more fouls were called if the refs were of the opposite color (black and white) of the player they called the foul on. So this racist idea isn't just white people being racist toward blacks, it goes both ways. I remember I was walking downtown with a few friends and this black guy walked up to us and asked us for some change. Not one person in my group gave him money. Literally about five minutes later a white man came up to us and asked for change and a few people gave him money. Right there is racism, even if it was unintentional. My friends naturally felt safer or felt a better use for their change giving it to a white man. Sometimes we can't help but to have racist thoughts or actions, the only thing we can do is acknowledge that they are there and focus on trying to prevent it from happening as much as possible.

mingling social class

In our society we belong to some sort of class, even if we think they don't exist. In the movie we are watching we had some middle class kids go down to a bar and hang out with blue collar people. From the middle class point of view they did not see a problem hanging around there and seemed to enjoy themselves. A few of the blue color people loved having the polite middle class kids hanging around, but some felt that it was disrespectful for them "trying" to fit in. That itself is proof of the social class. Those kids belonged to a different class and some people rejected them. Now the question is was it disrespectful of those middle class kids to go to that bar? Or were those kid just having fun and being friendly. It truly is up for interpretation because the way I saw it was that they just wanted to have fun with the people in the bar. I could easily see how those people in the bar would take offense to it because they came into the bar and somewhat acted like they knew everything, and did make fun of some people. It doesn't really matter how you interpret it because its split no matter what. One time I decided to sit with some different people at lunch. I had happened to know one of the kids at the table already so I thought why not. I sat down and said hi to everyone there. The surprising part was that some of the people were friendly and some kind of gave me the cold shoulder. This is kind of the same idea of mingling between social classes, because I wasn't really friends with those kids and one random day I tried to be nice to them and it seems different. This idea of being separated by social class is everywhere and there are boundaries that are set up in our society.

Special Olympics

To start off sorry it took so long to blog about it, but my computer has been giving me fits. I did about 10 hours of community service on April 17. I helped work the Special Olympics for the bocce ball tournament. I must say on my way to this tournament I was very skeptical. It wasn't a very nice day at all, it was rainy and cold. Well I was wrong to be skeptical because it turned out to be very fun and definitely worth getting up at seven in the morning on a Sunday. The athletes that came to Bocce were very fun to work with, and they came ready to play. In fact they would easily beat me in Bocce ball any day of the week. I mean when you hear special Olympics you think of people who are different then you are, and people who don't know what there doing. These people couldn't be more different than that stigma, not only did they love to compete against each other, they all had a goal they wanted to accomplish. They reminded of myself when I compete in any competition. Sometimes when you work with people that may have some type of mental problem, someone tells you to just be nice. This wasn't even on my mind. I didn't really see much of a difference between them and myself. I acted as I normally did and they laughed along with me. Eventually we even got a fierce game of Bocce ball going and the athletes loved that we were so into the game. Maybe they are a bit different socially but if you see past that outside, you can see that they are just like everyone else. They competed, the smiled, they laughed, the yelled, and they shook hands after a game. This is the first time that I didn't have to watch what I said because I didn't want to offend anyone. I didn't need to watch what I said because it didn't even cross my mind that they were different. They came to play and they did it so well both myself(and my group) and the athletes had a great time.

I'm better!

In America it's the ideology that everyone is equal, and that no matter what your background is or who you are you can achieve. Although this is true to some extend America is very much a country based on class and rank. For example a family's income is huge when it comes to social status and education. Mainly a family with higher income tends to have a better education. This seems almost obvious because with more money, the better education you can receive. In class we saw a graph showing the average income of a family directly affecting a child's ACT scores. Once again the higher the income the better the test score. This is not to say you can't break free from what you grew up doing, that is what makes America a bit different then other countries. The idea is even though we think we are so free in America, there is a class system, and it does effect the type of life you could possibly live. The top one percent of America are those celebrities that our media cares about. This is a great example because they are very wealthy and they get a lot of attention, everything they do is on T.V. To compare that, is your life on T.V. everyday? In America our celebrities are basically royalty. I don't have much experience being a celebrity, but one time I was at a football game and it was just a regular day. It just so happens that a famous celebrity was sitting in the front row somewhere. Just because of that persons status the stadium kept showing that person on the big screen. I don't know about anyone else but the big screen never shows me on purpose over and over again.

You look Deviant

Deviance is all about perception. One act could be interpreted in different ways depending on the perception of the person, and the people who see it. As we read Saints and roughnecks we could easily see that the same crimes committed were treated differently because of the perception of who committed it. Even at my school this is obvious. Obviously this is just an example and not necessarily what exactly happens but the idea of it does. We have two kids in the same class, one who is barely passing the class, and the other who is doing just fine. When the kid who is barely passing doesn't show up to class the teacher will clearly be angry and may even hint at what a bad kid that is. While if the kid who is passing easily misses class the teacher won't even notice or care. In reality the kids both ditched class yet one kid was discriminated against because of the perception about him. One time it was about three in the morning and I was with a group of kids. We walked into Ihop to get some food. At the same time there was this group of other kids who dressed in a much different manner than us, that also walked in. When both groups walked out there was a police officer in the parking lot. We acted casual because we just got some food. The officer perceived the other group of kids to be deviant and went over to talk to them while letting my group leave. Neither group did anything wrong and still the officer thought that because they dressed more poorly than we did that they had to be trouble. It shows that perception is everything when it comes to determining deviance.

I feel Deviant

It's amazing how much our society influences us, we are brought up in America a certain way. We learned earlier that there are social norms in our society. If we take this one step further those norms also decide what is considered deviant. Deviant doesn't automatically mean a bad thing, as we discussed there are two types of deviance positive and negative. Negative can be described as something looked down upon in society such as driving while using a cell phone. This is a strange situation because before it was acceptable to drive while talking on your phone. An example of positive deviance would be doing something to help another person that you do not normally do, like buying a lunch for someone else. To sum deviance up, it is something that is not normally done, good or bad, and sometimes it is even looked down upon. I will admit I have been guilty of some negative deviant behavior. Occasionally if I'm expecting a call from someone while driving I will answer my phone. In today's world this is unacceptable and people that see you do it sometimes give you looks or go as far as to yell at you while driving past. Who knows how long this phase of deviance will last because deviance is not absolute and it does change depending on the time period.

Manliness or violence?

In the American culture a man has to be strong. Strong can mean a lot of things but in this case it means being tough, emotionless, and being strong physically. As kids we grow up learning how to "be a man" and that molds who we are as people. As teenagers and young adults this idea of having to be strong shows up frequently. If we don't have a lot of muscle or if we don't play sports society looks down upon those people as being weak or not masculine. With boys being stigma as weak and more feminine it can sometimes take away our sense of pride. Society marks the tough boys to be true men and the weaker ones to be pathetic. We take that to heart, so if you shun someone because they aren't a varsity athlete, or would rather play chess than to play basketball it really affects the minds of kids. This correlates with school violence. Kids who feel picked on because they are not "tough' lash out. In the more severe cases they will even hurt fellow students just so they can feel strong. For example the shootings at colleges, the kids are able to hold a gun in their hands and hurt other people. This is a type of strength and they are able to wield it. So in killing some students they are simply following the social construction of being a tough guy. For me I was always pushed to play sports as a kid. The sport didn't really matter but as long as I was playing people respected that. Also when I was a kid and I got hurt my dad would always tell me to rub some dirt in it and stop crying. This is exactly what we are brought up to be like, just be tough and you will be a true tough man, and Anything less and we feel like failures and rejects.