Last Blog

When I was asked who I was in the beginning of the year, I thought it was an odd question that we aren't asked too much in life, but it's a question that is really important to think about. I said in the beginning of the year that only one person had a big influence on me. Obviously I was wrong from what I learned this semester. I learned about so many things that influence me daily that I never realized before. I realized that the media influences me more than almost anything in very negative ways. I can now see the things that outside sources influence me on thanks to this class. Sociology helps me view the world with out some of the stereotypes. It helped me realize what stereotypes there are out there and it helps me to correct myself whenever I realize that I am being judgemental. Sociology really helped me become a better person in many different ways for the better.

Crash

I really loved the movie Crash. It gave extreme examples of racism, but these examples are in our daily lives. The movie helped us realize our biasts towards certain races. The movie really helped me think about what I would do in certain situations. It also really helped me think about what type of implicit racism I have, because I try not to be racist, but sometimes it just comes out. For example, the policeman was trying really hard not to be racist, and even left his partner because he was too racist, but in the end his racism came out when he assumed the man he picked up had a gun in his hand. We can try really hard to not be racist, but sometimes it still comes out. It is really hard to not be racist at all, but we have to try in order to accept everyone the way they are.

Race

Learning about how race is a social construct this week wasn't the first time I had heard it. We also had a couple days in my US history class learning about this, although it was a bit different. In sociology we just sort of took the information and accepted it. But in my USH class, a lot of people argued over it and had trouble believing it wasn't actually real. The way we learned about race in sociology really helped clear it out for me because before this week I was confused about it. The races we put people in don't have a constant list of do's and dont's, but as Americans we have a need to categorize. Talking about hate groups today really made me realize that racism is no where near gone in America. When I heard Obama gets 30 death threats a day my mouth almost dropped. I thought that America was close to shutting out racism. We have come a long way, but we still have quite some time to go.

Monopoly

When we played monopoly in class the other day, we played it using different social classes. It was very unfair because the richest person started the game already owning multiple spots on the game board. This put them at a very large advantage, and almost guaranteed a win for them. Another advantage that they had was every time they passed go they got a lot of money. Me, being the poorest, only got around 70 bucks each time I passed go. It was very frustrating not being able to buy anything because I didn't want to go into debt, but if I didn't buy anything I wouldn't make any investments. I know it was just a game, but it really did mirror real social classes. People who are "old" rich start off with so much, that they don't have to work as hard, but will still succeed in life. The people who are the poorest, like I was in the game, have to be very careful with what they spend their money on. I really like this lesson

The Panel

I really enjoyed Nick and Cj coming in to our class this week. For me, I knew a lot of that stuff because I am friends with Nick and other people that have different sexual preferences than being straight. But for people that don't know much a lot about it, which is actually a large majority of our school, it was a great learning experience. Probably more than fifty percent of our school throws around the word faggot more than once a day. I hear it all the time just walking through the halls. I thought it was semi-widely known why people call gay people faggots, how Nick explained during the panel, but I guess it was a great realization to some people. My friend from another sociology class actually came up to me after and told me that the panel really changed his view on people with sexual preferences and that he had no idea where the word faggot came from before Nick explained. I think that example right there is what Nick and Cj, and the rest of the panel, wanted to get out of it. They wanted us to know that just because your gay doesn't mean you aren't a person with feelings. Also, that all people in the LGBT, and the other letters I forget, should not be stereotyped because everyone is different.