Reflection on Framing

Media has impacted our lives for a long time.  Most of the time we do not even realized how much the media impacts what we buy or how we think.  When you read the article by Kendall on Framing, you will start to wonder yourself, how much is the media influencing your thoughts?  Especially Kendall talks about how media frame social classes.

Kendall describes in her article how television shows depict social classes a certain way.  She states rather than providing a meaningful analysis of life in various social classes, the media either play class differences for laugh or sweeps issues under the run (pg. 448).  In her article she analyzes various TV shows that do this exact thing, from the very rich to the very poor.  In the way that media portrayed the different classes influenced how society constructed images of classes.   Since I do not watch a lot of TV I had not watched of any of the TV shows that she wrote about.  What this did remind me of was various TV shows that I grew up with.  Such as “Leaving it to Beaver”, which portrays the average American middle class family.  The father was a successful business man and the mother was a dutiful house wife.  The children were perfect, or tried to be.   At least was how I saw it, the problem was it was unrealistic.  However, many Americans thought that this was the typical middle class American family.

This is because our mental maps of what the various classes look like have been influenced by media.  For example in Harris and Carbado’s article they show two images of victims from Hurricane Katrina.  One image is a black man with a bag of trash wading through chest deep water.  The other image is of two white people wading through water with backpacks.  The media depicted the first picture as a man who was looting a grocery store.  The second picture the writer depicted the two white peoples with backpacks as finding food and supplies.  The way the writers of these two photos portrayed the photos influenced how people felt about what was happening in New Orleans after Katrina. 

I have to admit that thinking about these two articles and the article by Garland-Thomson about how disability is framed was troubling.  In Harris and Carbado’s article they discuss how society is “color blind” to racism.  In the article I read about disability last week this was basically the same message.   I have been writing about how I feel that racism is the United States is being wiped out but maybe that is just my “color blindness” to racism.   I feel sometimes that I cannot win no matter what I feel. 

We are a society that is completely influenced by the media.  From the cars we drive to the movies we watch, media is impacting our decisions.  I find this disturbing and wondering how I can help myself not be influenced by media.  How has my view of social class been influenced by the media and how am I going to change those frames?

Reading 45: Kendall, Diana – Framing Class: Media Representation of Wealth and Poverty in America

Reading 46: Harris, Cheryl. L, Carbado, Devon W – Loot or Find: Fact or Frame?

Reading 48: Garland-Thomson, Rosemarie – Disability and Representation

Reflection on Education

This book has really pointed out some inequalities in our society that I have never really thought about.  Reuss’s article on Cause of Death: Inequality is one of those articles.  In this article he makes you look at the disparities between deaths of people who are educated, versus people who are not.  His research has shown that educated people have a longer life expectancy than people with limited education.  I have never linked education with life expectancy.  I am really not someone that likes statistically data as I feel it can be manipulated to show whatever outcome you want it to shown.  However, thinking about life expectancy in relationship to education makes me think that we should be doing everything possible to ensure that every child has an equitable education.  This goes right back to all our teacher education class, providing all students with an equitable learning experience.  In doing this we are not only ensuring all students are receiving the same opportunities but we may also be increasing their life expectancy.   This is amazing to me.

 His research has also shown the lower you are in the social hierarchy the shorter you are expected to live.  He mentions that 44% of poor people in the United States lack health insurance (pg. 302).  I wonder what that number is today.  This is a disturbing figure to me.  Almost half of the United States does not have health insurance.  I can definitely see the relationship between the lack of health insurance and the shorter life expectancy of people lower in the social hierarchy.    I think access to preventive health care would go a long way and increasing the life expectancy of the poor.  

This article just really made me think about the link between education and other factors in someone’s life, like life expectancy rate.  If you think about it as a teacher for every student you encourage and help to graduate from High School (and perhaps continue with college) you are maybe helping them also live longer.

I have mixed feelings about Larew’s article.  I know that his data shows that students that go to Ivy League schools are usually very successful and they have greater opportunities than students that go other colleges.  This in turns relates to economic success and possible longer life expectancy   He talks about how “unqualified” students are getting into Ivy League schools because they parents went there and how unfair this is.  I think there is a much bigger discrimination issue with colleges.  It is not just legacy children, but certain person are also selected because they fit a certain criteria “black”, “female”, etc.  This has nothing to do with how qualified the students actually is.   Until there is a system that every college needs to follow, colleges will continue to select the people they want in their schools.  It appears for Ivy League Schools this is related to how much money a family has. The other problem I have with colleges is the cost to go.  Ivy League schools are much more expensive than other schools and students leave with a boat load of loans.  

How come our education systems requires us to pay so much to go to college?  How about the idea that all colleges charge the same amount?  What would that do to our society?  What if college was free?

These articles shed a new light on how important education is.  It is like the system of interconnected parts and educations play a huge role in people’s lives.  It is very true that the greatest gift we can give our children is the gift of education.

Reading 31: Reuss, Alejandro – Cause of Death: Inequality

Reading 32: Larew, John – Why are Droves of Unqualified Unprepared Kids Getting into Our Top Colleges?  Because Their Dads are Alumni 

Reflection on Racism and Stereotyping

I have to admit, that I felt when Barack Obama was elected president it was a sign that racism was coming to an end.     As Wise wrote in his article, Obama’s election to the presidency showed that people could come together and defeat racism.  Obama got the white working class to confront racism and think about what was best for the nation.    He got young people to work together in what he called cross racial collaboration to make it possible for Obama to win the election.   His campaign to the presidency made people see racism first hand. (pg. 364)  I think this really changed people when they witness the inequalities and discrimination first hand.  So for me when Obama was elected as the president I thought that our nation was on the road to wiping out racism.  I know that Wise’s article goes into why that is not true and would probably label me one as a white who refuses to see what is really happening.

I am not saying that racism has ended.  It was quite clear to me when that Basketball owner publically made racial comments about his “own” players that racism was alive in well in the United States.  However, the public reaction to his actions also shows that we are making ground in wiping out racism.  I do think that we are making steps toward ending racism.  Do I think that it will happen in my lifetime?  Probably not, change takes a long time to happen.  Racism did not happen overnight, ending racism will be a slow process.  As one of the article in the books stated, we may not see the change today, but everything we do will have an impact on things in the future.  We need to keep taking the steps to letting people know that we will not tolerant racism.

On another note, the article by Wu about the “Model Minority” really made me think.  His point is that most of Americas think of Asians as computer geniuses, math wizards, doing well, overachievers, polite, law abiding, and the model citizen.  Wu says this is just a myth.  It is creating a certain image of Asians that is not true.  Wu writes this stereotyping is use to compare Asians to Africa Americans, as it provides the statement to Africa American’s “They made it; why can’t you?” (pg 373).  Wu states that it creates jealous among other groups as they feel Asians gains are their loses and they resent Asians. 

I currently work at National Life in Montpelier.  The National Life Insurance Group works in the same building.  They are many people from India that work for National Life.  I have heard many comments that they are computer wizards, super smart, polite, and work for less money.  I have also heard from former National Life workers that they lost their job because they employee people from India because it was cheaper.  It is this type of activity that causes resentment in people.  If someone truly lost their job because someone from India could be paid less, it is not fair to either party.  I have heard of this in other places and I wonder what we can do about it. 

So just as I am feeling that we are moving forward with wiping about racism, I have to take a half a step back.  I have to admit that I have heard many people refer to Asians Americans in this way.  They believe they are super smart, computer savoy, hardworking, and they threaten their jobs. This type of resentment is racism. We will always have companies that exploit people that is a different issue that needs to be addressed.  I still believe that we are moving forward in eliminating racism, it is just a slow process.  I am not ignoring that racism is an issue, but I do believe in general as a nation we are working toward eliminating racism.  We have to keep making the steps forward.

Reading 38: Wise, Tim – Between Barack and a Hard Place

Reading 39: Wu, Frank – The Model Minority: Asian American “Success” as a Race Relations Failure

Reflection on Disability 

I was very moved by reading the articles by John Hockenberry and Sally French.  These articles were about the real life experiences of two individuals who have disabilities.  One person was wheel chair bound and the other person had limited sight.  Both individuals were labeled by society as disabled.  In my view they both did indeed have a disability.   That is the whole point of both of the articles, the way that society viewed them made them want to deny their disabilities.  I am therefore as guilty as the cab drivers in Huckenberry’s article or the people in French’s article that made them feel that way.

The first article told the story of John Hockenberry who became a paraplegic due to a car accident.  He describes his life in the 1990’s in New York City, trying to hail a cab as a paraplegic.  He painted a horrible picture of me of our society treats people.   It seem like almost every cab refused to pick him up because he was a paraplegic.  He said some of the cab drivers that did pick him up refused to put his wheelchair in the trunk.  Some stated “I have a bad back”.  One cold Christmas eve when he could not get a cab, he wheeled himself over to a cab parked across the street from him.  He asked the cab driver for a ride.  The cab refused at first, then Hockenberry reminded him it was “f?>king Christmas Eve”, so the driver agreed. However, when Hockenberry got into the cab the driver refuse to put the chair in the trunk.  A series of events occurred and Hockenberry “went crazy”.  He had reached his tipping point, and he smashed out the windows, headlights, and tried to choke the driver.  He felt like he really wanted kill this person.  You will have to read the article to get a good picture of what happened, but I can understand his frustrations. For those of you who know the holiday movie “Christmas Story”, Hockenberry’s reaction to the cabbie reminded me of Ralphie in the Christmas Story.  The scene where Ralphie beats the bully because he had enough.

The profound event to me was the cab driver who did pick him up.  He nicely put Hockenberry’s chair in the truck and treated him as an individual.  Twice this man picked up Hockenberry.   I was thinking we need more people like this in society.  You later find out the cab driver is one of the men that bombed the Trade Center in 1990’s.   I just kept thinking how is this possible?

Hockenberry also discusses his experience as a paraplegic trying to get to and from the subway station. 

In French’s article she talks about her life long struggle to get people to accept that she has limited sight.  She felt bad when people asked her if she saw a rainbow, when she couldn’t.  So she started saying she could.   So she started going through life denying her disability.  She wanted to seem normal so other would not be unset.  This again was sad to me.

These two articles gave me a different perspective on people with disabilities.  We are faced challenges in our lives, some people more than others.  We should however treat everyone that same and as we would like ourselves to be treated.  We should not make someone feel bad about their disability or feel they need to hide it.  My other thoughts from reading these articles is that it seemed like Hockenberry and French both wanted to do things themselves.  So if I see a person with a disability is it better to ask them if they need my help or leave them alone?

Reading 33: Hockenberry, John – Public Transit

Reading 34: French, Sally – “Can you See the Rainbow?” The Roots of Denial

Reflection on the Deaf-World

Oliver’s article on the definition of disability was interesting.  He wrote that one of the reasons why definitions are important is because of the need to identify and classify people.  He said if a disability is see as a tragedy, then disabled people were be treated as if they are the victims of some tragic happening or circumstance (pg. 167).  The other very interesting thing that I found in this reading is Oliver said that poverty is a major cause of disability (170).

Understanding the politics of the definition of disability was important for me moving forward in reading Liza Mundy’ article “A World of Their Own”.  In this article she writes about two women (Sharon and Candy) who are deaf.  They also have a deaf daughter.  They sought out a sperm donor that was deaf, so they would have a better chance of having another deaf child.  I found it interesting that regular sperm banks did not allow deaf people to donate their sperm.  The women had to ask a deaf friend to be the donor.

Throughout the pregnancy the women worried whether their child would be born deaf or not.  They were hoping for a deaf child.  Although they said they would love the child either way, they really wanted it to be deaf.  Three months after the child was born it was given a hearing test.  The test showed the child was deaf in one ear, and severely deaf in the other.  The child could have been provided with an aided device that may have helped him hear something.  Sandy and Candy decided not to have the hearing aid.  In a world where most parents would have done anything to help their child hear, these parents decided to wait until the child could make the decision.  It seemed like in the article that by waiting, the child would have lost his chance of hearing.

This raises two questions. What are people’s thoughts on Sharon and Candy seeking out a deaf donor to increase their odds of having a deaf child?  What are people thoughts on Sharon and Candy not providing the hearing aid to their child? 

At first I could not understand why they would have chosen either road.  Then I read the article by Lane on Ethnicity, Ethics, and the Deaf- World.  I also read the person essay.  This shed a new light on my feelings.  The personal essay by Heather Shaw was very moving.  The most powerful statement and reflection on myself I got from that essay was her words “I am not disabled, until someone sees me as disabled”.  This goes along with what Oliver state in his article about definitions, if it is seen as a tragedy, it will be treated as one.   These articles, along with Lane’s article changed my thinking about Sharon and Candy.  Sharon and Candy are part of a Deaf-World, to them this is their ethnicity, their identify.   The Deaf-World sees itself as an ethnic minority group.  They do not see themselves as disabled, others see them as disabled.  So in a world where woman are having test to determine the sex of babies, spinal bifida, cystic fibrosis, Downs Syndrome, and another of diseases, then making the decision to terminate their pregnancy, then I cannot be angry with Sharon and Candy for choosing the child that they wanted.

I felt bad at first, then I thought who is to say that being able to hear is not a disability.  Who I am to tell a deaf person that they have a disability?  These articles have given me a new perspective on the Deaf-World.

 Reading 18: Oliver, Michael – Disability Definitions: The Politics of Meaning

Reading 19: Mundy, Liza – A World of Their Own

Reading 20: Lane, Harlan – Ethnicity, Ethics, and the Deaf – World

Personal Essay – Invisibly Disabled

Reflection 2 on Sexual Orientation

I wish that I had read this article before I did my first reflection.  The article by Peplau and Garnets specifically talks about sexual orientation on women.  They stated that female sexual orientation is influence by their environment.   Lancaster’s article talks about sexual orientation of men.  In Lancaster’s article he sites three different studies that were done to try to determine what influenced male sexual orientation. 

Some people believe that men were born that way and were looking for genetic marker that caused this.  I found all three studies really have no solid information to make any real determination what causes male sexual orientation.  I see no real purpose for these studies.    I personally think that whether there are specific “biological causes” or environmental factors makes no difference, people should be able to choose whatever sexual orientation they want.   Why are we spending so much time, money, and energy to find a solution to a nonproblem?  How about using that time, money, and energy to cure cancer, or another of other real problems we face in the world. 

I think that society is changing the way its view LGBT, but I think we still have a long way to go, especially in schools.  During my student teaching experience there was a girl (7^th grader) who told her teacher she was a Lesbian and did the school still have a LGBT group that met.  The student had heard there was one, but did not know how to contact them.  The teacher checked, but there was no LGBT group in the school and they did not know of one “appropriate” outside the school to suggest to her.  I am not sure how far this went as I left the school shortly after.  Thinking about our Critical Practitioner class I feel that this is the type of external (or internal) resources that schools need to have available for students like this girl who wanted to meet other students that were Lesbian.

My daughter also had a friend who told her parents and friends at 15 that she was bisexual.  All her 15 year old friends did not care what her sexual orientation was, she was their friend.  Her parents were not so happy and tried to “fix” her.  The parents were probably raised to believe there was something wrong if a person was not heterosexual.  It was how a majority of society felt when they were growing up.   The family had a falling out and I think just now ( 7 years later) have come to understand she is who she is.

My thoughts on this is that a good many people in the generation coming up are not bias about someone sexual orientation and I think as we moved into the future more will follow this view.  I believe that it is a slow evolution in changing society but we are moving toward erasing the prejudice around sexual orientation.    

Reading 15: - Lancaster, Roger N.  - The Biology of the Homosexual 

Reflection on Sexuality and Sexual Orientation

In the article on Women’s sexuality and sexual orientation, Peplau and Garnets talk about the shift in believing that there is no normal with either heterosexual or homosexuals.  They state that homosexuality should not be categorized as a mental illness or not normal.   They specially talks about women’s sexual orientation in her article.

Peplau and Garnets say that there is little evidence that women’s sexual orientation is linked to biological factors.  They say that recent research has shown that women’s sexual orientation is linked to personal choice and social influence.  Especially they list education, religion, and acculturation as having the greatest impacts on aspects of women’s sexuality. (pg. 160). This is why some women’s sexual orientation changes over time.  This is true of bisexual, heterosexual, and homosexual women. They state that about 77% of lesbians had had one ore male sexual partners during their lifetime (pg 160). 

Peplau and Garnets also dismisses the myth that childhood experiences have a hand in shaping women’s sexual orientation. They say that research has failed to identity any links to events shaping a woman toward lesbian or bisexual.

I really like this article by Peplau and Garnets.  The point I get from there article is that love, intimacy, and environment are the important factors for women’s sexual orientation.   Women’s sexual orientation is fluid and may change over time and is influenced by society.  Within society there are many factors that determined women’s sexual orientation.

I have read Sam's post on The Biology of the Homosexual, which I feel kind of contradicts some of the things that Peplau and Garnets talk about in there article.  I will have to read Lancaster's article to see how they differ.  I am wondering if that article talks more about men's sexual orientation because Peplau and Garnets state there are differences in what shapes women's  and men's sexual orientation.

I also liked the heterosexual questionnaire.  The questionnaire really makes you reflection on sexual orientation. I do not know what caused my heterosexuality or if it will change over time.  How silly some of these questions seemed to me.  “Would you want your children to be heterosexual, knowing the problems they’d face?” “What do you think caused your heterosexuality?”  These questions are often asks to lesbians and gays and I have gained a better insight into how unfair and meaningless these questions really are.

Reading 16: Peplau, Linda D., Garnets, Linda D – A New Paradigm for Understanding Women’s Sexuality and Sexual Orientation

Reading 17: Rochlin, Martin – The Heterosexual Questionnaire

Reflection on What is Social Class

I think that many people’s definition of social class relates to a person’s economic status.   Even though there has been variations of the categories of social class, three main labels stick out.  The rich, the poor, and the middle class.   Within each of the three there is a quite a bit of variation in the status of the people labeled in those groups. According to Zweig’s article on “What’s Class Got to Do with it?” social class is really a question of economic and political power (pg. 130).  He also states that this power would not exist if there were not specific classes.  He then goes into how all the classes are interrelated and dependent of each other.  He thinks that we need to view social class in terms of power not wealth and in doing this we will have a better understanding of the relationship and links between the classes.  (This does seem clear, however it just changes the naming of the label)

I found this article a little confusing.  Zweig’s states at the beginning of his article that social class is invisible, but I am not sure if I agree with that.  I think just as society will view whether a person is a male or female, light skinned or dark skinned, they can view is a person is rich, poor, or middle class.   For example, you see pro athletes or famous people, the cars they drive, their homes.  You can see they have money, especially when you see on the news how much their new homes is worth or how much they get paid.  You also see people who are living on the streets, in cars, or in homeless shelters.    All the other people you just assume and label as middle class.  I know that there is much more to this than what I am writing, but my point is that I do think that we see social class.  This is not to say that you could be wrong about what social class you label someone in.  For example the homeless person living on the street is actually a millionaire, this kind of mistake is made all the time.  We label and view people on what we see, not what we know.  This is the same with race and gender.

The Economist points out that most people stay within the social class that they were born into.  I think this is because there is a broad range of variation and movement in each class.    The Economist points out that the last 30 years has been a profitable time for the rich.    This is due in part to globalization, which I think in turn is one of the reason why people in the middle and poor class have stayed the same.

I think there will always be a social class.  It is how students are label within these classes that society needs to change their views on.   As teacher we need to be conscious that students are not tracked based on their social status.  

Reading 12: Zweig, Michael – What’s Class Got to Do With It?

Reading 13: The Economist – More or Less Equal?

Reflection on a perceptive from the other side

In Wimsatt’s article “In Defense of Rich Kids”, he says that not all white rich people are the same. This is true of all people.  He makes a good point that we need to realize we are categorizing all rich people to be the same.  He writes about how he feels he is dismissed and I would say discriminated against, because he is a white rich person.  I think that it is important for us to look at diversity issues from multiple perceptive.   As Wimsatt states he has money and he gives it away to fund social change.  He says “I know how to change history and I know it takes money” (pg 508).  He said that it takes billions of people from all backgrounds to come up with strategies to save the planet.  He is not saying he is more important than poor people but that rich people are people too.  He is the one coined the phrase “Cool Rich Kids”.   His message is not to forget about rich people and think they are all the same.  They can be part of the solution and they can change things.  You sometimes need to have capital to make changing and he is working to get more rich people involved in making these changes happen.

I think his message is a good one to reflect on.   I do not think it is fair to pick on rich people, some of them did not choose to be rich.  I think there are more people than we realize like him that are contributing their money to improve the lives of others.  It is not fair to put them all in the same category.  He is doing something and as I mentioned in previous posts everything has a ripple effect and if he can influence other rich people to do the same as him then the effect is greater.

Even though Wimsatt talks about the need for money to make changes there are also other things you can to stand out against racism.   On page 513 of the book it lists a number of things that you can do, the ones I really like are; take risks, teach your children about racism, interrupt jokes, respect, and understand.  I know that it is hard sometimes to take risks but to really change society we need to take these risks.  Speak up when you see racism.  Stop jokes when you know they are going to be a racial putdown.   Teach your children about racism and encourage them to speak out about it.   I know that I am going to work on making these changes myself, it will not be easy but I understand it is the only way that we can change things.

  One of the strategies that Kivel writes that you can use when addresses issues of racism is to use the “I” statement.   In using the “I” statement you are not specifically attacking the person who is being racist but you are letting them know how you feel about it.   When you speak out about racism then you are making a difference and you may be encouraging other people to do the same.  This is the way that we can change how society addresses issues of racism and discrimination.  We all need to work together to change it, rich, poor, black, white, young, old, and we need to teach our children and students to embrace diversity.

As Sengupta states in his article, no one is innocent.  I like this statement because it is not pointing the finger at one category or singling out a group, is statement that no one is innocence.  It simply states that we all should be working together to stop racism and discrimination.  Maybe instead of pointing fingers at groups we can focus on how we can solve the problem.  Everything that we do to speak out about discrimination and racism is step toward changing history.

Reading 53 – Wimsatt, William Upski – In Defense of Rich Kids

Reading 54 – Kivel, Paul – Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice 

Reading 55 – Sengupta, Shuddhabrata – I/Me/Mine – Intersectional Identities as Negotiated Minefields

Reflection on Promoting Change

Reading the articles in the book have left me a little frustrated with us as human being.  Some of the issues that I was reading about required society to change the way it thought and acted.  I was only one person in society, so I was feeling a little hopeless.  So I flipped through the book looking for an article that may not frustrate me so much.  Nothing caught my eye until almost the end of the book, page 502.  I would recommend everyone take a minute and read this article.  I would also recommend reading article 51 about how to influence public policy.  (if you do not already know how).  Both these articles left me realizing if I really want to, I can make a difference.  I found this quote from Robert F. Kennedy that is a good summary for article 52.

Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.” 
― Robert F. Kennedy

In his article Johnson explains that the challenges we face with discrimination, exclusion, privilege, etc have been around for hundreds of years.  Even though we are seeing some changing now, there is still discrimination and inequalities.  However, as Johnsons puts it “society is always in motion”, meaning it is always changing.  It does not change at the rate that the current people living in it want it to change, but it is very fluid and it is changing.  His point is that we may not see the changes we want to see in society today, but we can impact the way society views things in the future. He states that most of the shift of the attitudes of society do not change in the current setting, but the shift occurs between generations.  I think this fits very well into the idea that we should be teaching students to be global citizens.  This is a great way to change the way that future societies view diversity.   We can also change our own mindset to be one that accepts the small changes we make today will have a ripple effect. 

I feel better about moving forward in reading the articles now.  I do go back and forth about I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t attitude.  I guess I know I could make a bigger impact if I did some of the suggestions Cogan writes about.  She says you could take an even bigger part in making changes by influencing public policies.  You can become part of advocacy groups, you could even do something at your local level.  She states the process may seem daunting to some people, but she says help is always available.  If you have questions about how to go about something, you just ask.  She makes it sound simple. Now I feel kind of bad about myself because honestly I am probably not going to start some advocacy group to promote change at any level.  I am busy living my own life and should I feel bad about that?

What I have walked away with from both of these articles is that I can change myself.  I can set an example that may provoke other people to change in their own time and way.  The things I do to help stop discrimination, promote equality, and embrace diversity will have a slow ripple effect on society.  Also for those of you reading this reflection, the things you do will also have an effect and the more of us embracing the diversity of the world, we will then widen the circle of change.

Reading 51 – Cogan, Jeanine C. – Influencing Public Policy

Reading 52 – Johnson, Allan G – What Can We Do?  Becoming Part of the Solution.

Robert F. Kennedy Quote - http://www.pbs.org/programs/rfk-in-the-land-of-apartheid/

Reflection on Identity and Ethnic Enigma

Race and ethnicity are social constructed categories.  I had never really thought much about that until this class.  My last reflections were on race and how I thought we should do away with the category.  I know understand even if we do away with one category another one will takes its place, ethnicity.   So I feel that we are always going to categorize people, but is it how those categories are viewed that we need to change.  If they are socially constructed categories with socially constructed inequalities attached to them, then the inequalities should be able to be socially reconstructed.

In Suarez-Orozco’s article on identity in a globalized world, she describes some of the ethnic challenges immigrants and second generation people face.  Many of those challenges deal with their ethnic identities and how they are constructed by society.  First Suarez-Orozco’s mentions that immigration worldwide has challenged nation’s sense of unity (pg.221).   The diversity of immigrants threaten the identity of the citizens in the areas that they settle.    However, immigrates and their children also have their identities threatened.   So how do we integrate these two groups into a society that is free of discrimination?  How can both groups keep their ethnic identities and be free of discrimination and inequalities?  Educating people to be global citizens is a big step in that direction.

 Many immigrants are leaving areas where they had strong social and cultural ties and they knew how they fit into the world. Then they move to an area where they may not be accepted and they wonder how they fit in.   Many of them lose their ethnic identities as they are assimilated into the society where they live.  Others embrace their ethnic identities and keep their strong ties to their culture.  Some of the children develop coethnic identities.  Such as calling themselves, Mexican American, African American, etc, which studies have shown that these children feel they may be at more of an advantage then saying they are from one ethnic background.

Another problem is second generation children may not be accepted by their native country, they may not feel connected to their ancestral home land or their parents.  Their sense of identity is confusing to them.  They may feel more connected to their native born country, but that may cause disappointment with their parents.  Their parents may impose an ascribed identity on them so that they do not lost track of where they come from.  This means that these children’s identities are constructed by their parents, which could leave to problems with their children understanding who they are, and embracing other people for their differences.

When reading Mcleod’s “Everyone’s Ethnic Enigma”, he talks about being ask his ethnicity by strangers and how it left him feeling.  Since he was from a mixed marriage he had more than one ethnicity.  He felt bad because people expected him to know Spanish, or how to pronounce words just because of the way he looked.

If we can remove the social inequalities that are attached to ethnic categories then people can formulate an identity that is true to themselves.

Gordon Brown talks about global ethic vs national interest in the Ted talk link below.  The message he gives in the Ted talk is about becoming global citizens.  I think the message is a good one, but the comments on the site themselves about him are negative.  His message was that we need to all come together for good of the planet.  We need to protect all humans, we need to work together on global issues such as climate change and security.  In order to do that we need to become global citizens. To become global citizens we need to embrace all citizens’ identities.

I also like what Suarez-Orozco said in her article about people and their identities.

“The ability to formulate an identity that allows for comfortable movement between worlds will be at the very heart of achieving a truly “global soul”.

Listen to the Ted talk here:

https://www.ted.com/talks/gordon_brown_on_global_ethic_vs_national_interest#t-338568

Reading 21: Suarez-Orozco, Carola - Formulating Identity in a Globalized World

Reading 23: McLeod, Jelita - Everybody’s Ethic Enigma

Ted Talk - Global Ethic vs Nation Interest

Reflection on Whiteness and changing Color Lines

The readings I choose for this reflection left me frustrated and hopeful.  After reading Frankenberg’s “Whiteness as an “Unmarked” Cultural Category” I was frustration.  It implies because I am white, I am privileged, have power, and dominance over other groups.  I do not agree with this.  However, I understand that many people in power are white, I think just as many people are white that do not hold positions of power, privilege or dominance.  Not all white people are the same.  We are labeled and viewed the same though by society.

Then the article frustrates me more by taking about white sameness.   So first if you are white you are discriminated against because you are white.  You are in the privilege group in society.  In being perceived as all other whites, I am labeled neutral, or lacking culture.  Many people think of people of white color as the same and boring.  I have no idea what it even means to be white.  I do only know what society believes it to mean.  I do not believe we will ever get rid of labeling people but we can change the way the labels are perceived.

When I think of myself and my culture this is what I think of.  I was told that I was from a very mixed background.  My parents told me I was part Irish, part Polish, part French, and part English.  Sometimes I think they even made some of it up.  My mother told me I was part black because I got so tanned in the summer.  Both of my parents have passed on, so I cannot ask them to verify any of this.  My mom always like to favor her Irish ancestry, or at least that what she commented on the most.  I remember things such as “Oh that is your Irish side coming out”.  My dad favored his polish ancestry. 

So after reading this article I started looking around on ancestry.com and myfamily.org.  I wanted to see if I could find any records that indicated where my ancestry came from.  After I spent (or I might say wasted) an hour looking through records, I decided I did not really care.  My ancestry could be made up by my parents, but what does it matter.  It is how I see myself.  Whether I have any linkage to any of those groups is unimportant to me.  However, during my research what I found interesting is that in 1962, when I was born both my parents had to put their race on the birth certificate and my race.  White.  I was born white.  I looked at my daughter’s birth certificate and it does not list my race or my daughters.  She was therefore born raceless, which I find interesting.  Could it be a sign that we are moving away from defining someone’s race right at birth?

When reading the article by Lee and Bean I finished feeling hopeful.  There are a lot of statistics in the article about the percent of interracial marriages based on what the native ancestry was.  The statistics point to Latinos and Asians being able to blur the color lines, mostly because they are new immigrants.  They do not have the history of discrimination that has created the black/white divide.   What I found that was hopeful it that we are changing the color lines.  The number of interracial marriages has increased greatly in the United States.   This means that there is an increasing number of people who are multiracial. These racial boundaries are flexible and they can change.

What it means to any race has and still is changing and the more I read about it the more it does not make sense to me.  Asians used to be identified as black and now they are identified as white.   What does that mean, it did not change who they were.

It appears we no longer ask for race on birth certificate.  So if everyone is born raceless can they choose what race they want to belong to?

Reading 6: Frankenberg, Ruth, Whiteness as an “Unmarked” Cultural Category’

Reading 7: Lee, Jennifer & Bean, Frank D., America’s Changing Color Lines: Immigration, Race/Ethnicity, and Multiracial Identification.

Reflection on “Race”

Race has always been associated with power, wealth, and privilege.  This association started with the conception of the ideology of “race”.  Accord to Smedley, race was a social invention that came about in the eighteen century to separate humans based on their differences.  It was deemed necessary to stop rebellions in the Colonies.  Leaders fears that poor whites, Native Americans, and African’s would rebel against the colonial government.  In order to prevent this they created this social ideology of race.  Race was based on the differences in a humans physical features, predominately skin color.  Creating a “race” allowed Europeans to create laws the provided certain rights to one race and restricted rights to another.  Most of the power, wealth, and privileges were granted to the “white” race.  This separation of human beings based on physical features became an identity known around the world as race.  This term race started separating human beings on a wide scale and has been the reason for many of the problems in our nation today.

If race is based on skin color, how can Mrs. Phipps, who skin color is white, eyes are blue, and hair is blond, be considered black?  According to Davis, Mrs. Phipps was determined to be black because she had some amount of black ancestry.  She said she was white and her physical features were considered white features.  If no one knew about Mrs. Phipps black ancestry, wouldn’t she then be labeled by society as white?   If you think about this race really doesn’t make any sense.  What is it really?  In the colonial times it came about to allow privileged people to feel ok about the way they treated other people.  You would have thought that we would have moved beyond that as a nation today.  So how come Mrs. Phipps race today was determine by some amount of black ancestry?  Why does it matter to anyone whether she considers herself white or black?  What purpose does it serve?

I have a niece whose mother is white and her father is black.  According to her physical features, society would probably label her as black.  I have never thought about her race.  By law she would need to identify herself as black since she has black ancestry.  Why couldn’t she say she was white?

In reading 3, The Evolution of Identity, in small letters at the end of the graph it states that in 2000, the Census bureau allowed Americans to select more than one race.   So my niece could now identify herself as black and white.  What if she wanted to say she was Native American too? This again makes me wonder what the purpose is of race.  I think it is time we stop asking people what their race is. 

Reading 1, Smedley, Audrey “Race” and the Construction of Human Identity

Reading 2,Davis, James F.  Who Is Black? One Nation’s Definition.

Reading 3, The Evolution of Identity