SUMBLOG 7

The institution of education and the problem of race and ethnicity within it really intrigue me.  Especially the part we discuss in class about letting people of a certain race get into a particular school base on just that, their race.  This is done mainly to boost the diversity in said school.  Schools in my mind try too hard to send the message of diversity in the schools; so much so that my high school dedicated a whole week for it to increase the awareness of it.  Don’t get me wrong as I believe that diversity is a good thing, but sometimes it just goes too far.  This really remind me of the time where I was a junior in high school.  At that time the colleges around Wisconsin bombarded my mail with their brochure.  On those brochures they often feature some sort of photo with some of the students that are attending them on it.  There is this one particular detail that I noticed on the photos when looking through a few of them.  The photos more often than not show a group of happy diverse friends on it.  I find this funny because I eventually got a chance to go tour some of these colleges, and find that the brochures are misleading.  As I observe the surroundings, I noticed that there is not much diversity at some of these colleges.  However, when I do see diversity within the colleges everyone is well segregated.  Rather if it’s done intentionally or not, but looking around this campus the same observation can be made.  Although the brochures are misleading about the environment of the student body, it’s nice that they are pushing for diversity within the system.  Below is a clip from the TV show The Office, which goes to show how silly pushing for diversity can sometimes be.

SUMBLOG 5

One of the categories on attitudes and actions that we discussed about in lecture I’ve always enjoy learning about is the concept of stereotype.  Being a minority (Asian-American) in society I experienced many stereotypes growing up.  However I don’t usually get offend by them, and I actually find them somewhat funny.  I say this because most of the time some stereotypes turns out to be true.  One such stereotype that I often heard is that all Asians are good at math.  I find this funny because I actually fit in this stereotype.  I remember in junior high, the class was assigned this really long and somewhat difficult take home algebra test.  Knowing that we can help each other out, we started to form groups after class.  I was thinking of doing the test together with my friends who are also Asian.  Little did we know that we were in high demands for other people, especially with our Caucasian classmates.  I think it’s due to the stereotype that all Asians are good at math that caused this to happen.  I was reluctant at first but ended up joining a group with one of my Caucasian friend, on the promise that he’ll give me 5 Pokémon cards of my choice.  We got it done and got a decent score due to my guidance.  The group that has one of my Asian friends in didn’t do too good as his whole group just put down whatever he put down.  This particular friend unlike me is not really bright at math.  But at the end of the day we both got our Pokémon cards and that is all that matter.  The moral of this story is that don’t assume that all stereotypes are true because it can either help you or hurt you.  This video clip from Wong Fu Production does a good job at showing this; but instead of the all Asians are good at math stereotype, it’s about the all Asians know martial arts one.  Enjoy.

SUMBLOG 3

The documentary that we watch in class about the Westboro Baptist Church was a good example using religion to discriminate against other’s values and beliefs.  According to the members of the church, God have already passed its judgment and everyone living in the United States (except for the members of the church) is going to hell.  This is apparently because the United States is a nation full of “faq” supporter, sinners, and among other things.  I don’t really have a problem with this because I believe that everyone is entitle to their opinion, but what I have a problem is how they carry out this message.  Staging roadside “pickets” at dead soldier funerals and other religious events is not the best way to get a message across.  This is disrespectful toward the family of the decease their family and other religion.  This tactic only makes them look bad, and only generates more hate toward the group.  There are much better ways to go about this and they seem to have chosen the most extreme one.  The sad thing about all this is that they are teaching their children the same values and beliefs.  The one thing that stuck out to me was when the interviewer questioned the 4 years old girl about the meaning of word on the sign she was carrying and she replied that she didn’t know what it means.  This just means that the cycle would just continue on and on.

After seeing this documentary, I’ve decided to look them up on google to see if there is anything new on them.  To no one’s surprise I happen on an article on how they were going to stage a picket at the University of Missouri to protest the presence football player who recently came out as gay.  This led to the student body of the school to come together and stage a counter protest.  It’s just good to see that people are willing to come together to help battle some of the negativity in today’s society.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/17/us/missouri-sam-westboro-protesters/

SUMBLOG 2

Making sense of sex, gender, and sexuality was one of the issues that were brought up in this week’s reading and lecture.  What really stuck out to me was the concept of sex and gender.  The definition of sex that we were giving is that sex is the biological distinction between females and males.  What I got from this definition is that sex is based on rather you have the necessary reproductive parts to be considered a female or male.  The definition for gender is the personal traits and social positions that members of a society attach to being female or male.  I make this definition out to be that gender is what society sees as being female or male (e.g. pants vs skirts, long vs short hair, etc.).  Based on these definitions, we humans are socially constructed to act a certain way toward others based on their sex and gender.  This makes it uncomfortable to act according to the norms of society if you aren’t sure if a person is male or female.  The SNL skit involving the character Pat that we saw in class portrays this really well.  Pat’s friends have a hard time interacting with Pat due to not knowing what gender Pat was, thus often creating awkward moments.  Although intended to be a funny skit, the reality is that this kinds of incident does occur.  Just think about how you act towards your male friends and your female friends.  Do you act differently when you’re around one of the two?  In my case, I’ll have to say yes.  So if I were to happen to meet someone like Pat I wouldn’t know how to act either, and it’ll eventually turn into the SNL skit.  I saw this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYixpEA5iWY) a while back, and it’s about the experience of two friends using a unisex bathroom for the very first time.  Since it’s not norm for men and women to share a public bathroom, things can get a little awkward just like the Pat issue.

SUMBLOG 1

What really stood out to me in this week’s lecture about the social construction of race, ethnicity, and nationality is the concept of race.  In class Professor Barry gave us two definitions on the word race.  The first definition states that race is the “categorization of people based on biologically transmitted traits”.  While the second definition states that race is the “socially constructed category of people who share biologically transmitted traits that members of a society considered important”.  Both definitions seems to support the notion that race is define as what a person looks like on the outside (that’s a given).  We as humans know that everyone belong to different race.  So what I don’t understanding is that when the issue of race surface, why are people so uncomfortable with it.  The Guess Who activity we did in class did a good job at demonstrating this.  It was said in the video that when people are doing this activity, about 57% of the people playing this game are reluctant to ask clues involving peoples’ race.   One would think that with all the civil rights movements and such things, people would be more comfortable to talk about race openly.  However, that is not the case at all, and people are still uncomfortable with it even in today’s world.  During the Super Bowl this past weekend, there was a cereal commercial about an interracial couple and their six years old daughter.  The commercial was about the nutritious benefits that the cereal provides, but this apparently flew over some people’s head.  What they saw wasn’t a cereal commercial, what they saw was this biracial family, and because of it received some negativity. Here is a link to the video of an interview with the family after the negative backlash that the commercial received, and talk about their experiences (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjJ4tqVV1OE).  This just goes to show about where some people still stands on the issue of race in today’s society.  Changing is hard thing to do, but if we don’t change nothing will ever get better.