Final Blog

When I first answered this question in August, I simply stated my background, about my family and some things I liked to do. I thought this is what made up me. Throughout this semester in sociology, I have found out that many other things make up who I am. I discovered that many things about myself are the product of what society perceives me to be. I am a white upper middle class girl so therefore everyone sees me as this hard-working sweet girl who never gets into trouble. Yes it's partially true, but I feel like there's a lot more to me than that. But I have discovered that people's perception of you really does define you and sometimes you can't escape the neat little box you have been put into. Society's take on gender has also really affected my life. I think of myself as the ultimate girly-girl and I just assumed that's just how I am. But I think a lot of it has to do with how society thinks girls should be. From a young age, I have always been given dolls and pretty much anything pink because that's what my parents assumed they should do with a daughter. The fact that I am 'in the middle class is also greatly affected by sociology. I always thought working hard was the key to success but I have discovered that there is so much more. My family didn't defy the odds and get out of poverty. My grand-parents and great-grand parents have always been middle class. Therefore my parents had the opportunity to go to college and in turn get good jobs to adequately support our family. Because of this, I will probably also end up in the middle class when I am older. It seems to be an almost unbreakable cycle.

Well that's it for my sociology blogs, bye!

Crash

I just wanted to start out by saying I'm obsessed with this movie, it was definitely on the intense side, but it was so good and really made me think. Anyways. There were a lot of examples of both implicit and explicit racism in the movie. The Sandra Bullock character clearly demonstrates both. She later admit that she felt afraid when she saw the two black men approaching her, but she didn't want to act upon that fear because then she would be a racist. But because she later felt like she should have done something, she is explicitly racist towards the man who was redoing her locks and she was sure he must be a gang member because he was Mexican. The Iranian man also assumes the same man cheated him probably also because he was Mexican. However, the gun shop owner is explicitly racist towards the Iranian man and basically calls him a terrorist.Another example of implicit racism is when the cop Tommy picks up the black hitch-hiker. It's obvious that Tommy is trying so hard not to be racist, but deep down we know he was scared because he assumed the black man had a gun and ended up shooting him. I could go on and on with examples from the movie, but I think you get the point. Although I think explicit racism is always worse than implicit because the overtness of it just hurts feelings of others, implicit can sometimes be just as bad. Like I said before, Tommy wasn't explicitly racist, but his implicit racism caused him to shoot the man. I think all of us have some implicit racism and it's not really something we can control. Our society taught us that white people are "good". I was really surprised to watch on Oprah that a black woman even felt safer with white people. I hate to say it, but I know a part of me implicitly racist even though I wish it weren't true.

Race

This week in class we talked about how racism isn't biological, it's more of a social construction. I never really thought about this way, but it's definitley true. People can not all fit into neat categories, just like it was impossible to group the different balls into three categories when Sal started to add more- it simply didn't work. Many people, especially in America are not just simply black or white or asian - we're a mixture of races. Although my family is completely European-American on both sides, it's still hard for me to classify myself because my family's mixture of religions - which I consider a component of race. I was raised Jewish, but only my mom is Jewish and my dad is not. Everybody is so shocked to hear that I'm Jewish because I don't have a Jewish last name and I resemble my dad so I don't have the stereotypical Jewish traits. I always explain by saying I'm half Jewish, but that's not really true, it's the only religion I've ever practiced. These things have altered society's perception for what I "should" be. Just like race, religion is not biological and we should not categorize people by simply looking at them.

Monopoly & Minimum Wage

When we played Monopoly in class yesterday, I was unlucky and was put in the lower-middle class. I know this game is not a perfect representation of society, but if it's anywhere close- being poor sucks! It seemd that roll after roll I was just owing the the richer people money. It was even worse for the lower class person. She ended up over $700 in debt. She didn't buy a lot of property or anything, but she just seemed to lose hundreds of dollars each turn. The worst part of  this was the high class person kept getting richer and richer - it was crazy and totally unfair. It was like the rich have so much control and the poor have none and we just had to sit there helplessly while we lost more money. In addition to this, the 30 days episode on living on minumum wage was also an eye-opener. I can't imagine living on only that money. I make a little over minimum wage as a lifeguard and I certainly could not survive on only that. The part that really stuck out to me was when Morgan said there were so many times he was hungry and he couldn't afford to buy anything. I'm so used to just buying food if I'm hungry- or even if I'm really not. I don't even think about it, it usually costs less than $5 but I guess that adds up. If they can't even afford fast food, what can they afford?

Tammy

There were many parts of the video that were sad, surprising and even shocking, but it was the story of Tammy and her family that I found myself thinking about days after watching. I mean I knew people lived like that, but I guess I really hadn't ever met someone living in poverty. Getting to know her family in the video made me appreciate my life more and more. First of all, Tammy has 21 siblings! That's crazy, but no wonder her parents didn't have enough to go around. This resulted in Tammy rasing her own family in the lower-class because that it the class she was born into. Our society tends to think down upon people of the lower-class because we think they're lazy and don't find a way to go to school and get a decent job. But the truth is they can't go to school because that takes away from time they could put towards earning money - something they desperately need. And Tammy works very very hard. Her job as a janitor at the local Burger King might not be the hardest job on the planet, but the fact that she walks 10 miles each way to get there and back is remarkable and shows the effort she is putting in to provide for her family. While I was watching this, I kept thinking that her life could never possibly happen to me. First of all, I am lucky enough to have the opportunity to go to college and this will hopefully get me a good job. But even if it doesn't and I end up with no money, my parents will always be there to help me - a luxury Tammy doesn't have. I hope that Tammy's son Matt defies the odds and ends up going to college and getting a better life for himself.

Jail and Drugs

This week we have studied both drugs as well as prisons. These may seem like two separate subjects, but I have come to realize that they are very much related. In both the article, Court 302, and Morgan Spurlock's experience in jail in an episode of 30 Days, it is evident that the majority of crimes are drug-related. However, the interesting thing is that most of the people locked up for drug-related crimes are minorities and are poor. We all know that plenty of white rich people do some hard-core drugs but it doesn't appear that they really are punished for it. This goes back to the Sanits and Roughnecks, rich white people aren't punished because they are perceived to be upstanding citizens and if they do mess up, they aren't trouble makers, they just "made a mistake". And if they do by chance get caught, it's a totally different story. Take Lindsay Lohan for example, I can't even count the number of times she has been arrested for drug or alcohol related crimes and somehow she always gets away with miniscule sentences and she gets to go to rehab centers that are probably more like luxury resorts. These people in prison; however, need rehab the most because it's impossible for them to break the cycle without it. Often times, inmates just end up back in jail after they are released. They need help, but our country isn't willing to pay for that.

Saints and Roughnecks

I thought the Saints and Roughnecks article was very interesting and I have to admit I was kind of shocked by it. I couldn't believe all these things the Saints were doing while still maintaining good grades and the role of leaders in their school, some of them even won very prestigious awards! I don't think we really have Roughnecks at our school, but we definitely have some Saints. However, I think there are some differences. First of all since our school and community is so big, not everyone has a certain perception of everyone else. I don't think there's really a group of kids that every teacher would just regard as good students because its likely they have no idea who the kid is. Same goes for the police. But they're are definitely people at school who take difficult classes, are involved in extra curricular activities, but get into some bad things outside of school. But again I see another difference. At our school I don't think there's any way someone who is regarded as "a smart kid" could skip half his classes and still get good grades. If they're known as smart, they're probably taking a lot of accelerated and AP classes and it's just not possible to miss that much school and not do homework and still do well. I don't know, maybe I'm just ignorant to what really goes on, but that's how I see it.