Final Blog

Looking back at the blog that I wrote at the beginning of the semester, I do feel as though my mindset has changed. When I go out I see things more in depth than I had before. My sociological imagination has evolved since I learned about what it was at the beginning of the semester. I see how people are connected to each other in the world. This class helped me study my surroundings and myself a lot more. It made me take a deeper look at who I am. I liked learning about cultures in this class. That has always been an interesting topic to me. At the beginning of the semester, I wasn’t too interested in cultures. It really intrigued me to learn more about the different cultures in the world and how they interact with each other and live their lives. People in China live different lives than we do here, in the United States. I know more about that culture because my dad goes to China a lot for business. What I like about the American culture is that it’s one big melting pot of different people. Anyone can come here and live here, it doesn’t matter your race or religion.

I still believe that my family is my biggest influence on my personality and my view of the world. This is because I live with them and have grown up with them and learned their view points before I was able to learn my own. Because of that, I am the way that I am. I don’t have a problem with my view on the world I just wish that there was no more racism because it has evolved so much since the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Racism now covers not just skin color, but sex (male or female) and religion. These things then change the way people socialize.

When I was doing my service project I realized that little kids socialize differently with their peers than adults do with adults. If they didn’t get what they wanted then they would cry and complain and scream until they thought they would get what they wanted. We, as the teachers would then have to threaten to send the kids to the office if they didn’t listen. I hate being the “bad guy” but sometimes it’s necessary. I also learned that in different countries people greet each other and use different hand motions when talking. Like in France people greet each other with one kiss on each cheek, in America we wave to each other and say hello.

I definitely have a much different out look on life after taking Sociology this semester. I really wish this was a full year class! I feel like this class has helped me get ready for college next year. What I’ve learned has made me feel more comfortable in my own skin and the environment in which I live in. I’m really sad that this class is overL

crash

Crash is an amazing movie. I had seen it once before becuase my dad had reccommended it to me. I was really excited to watch it in class! This movie does a great job at showing racism in this decade. Like how the cop, Matt Dillon, was terribly racist towards anyone not white. He treated everyone differently if they were minorities, like the african american couple he pulled over in the SUV. What he did to that woman was degrading and terrible. Then there's Sandra Bullock's character who's terribly racist too after her and her husband get their car stolen. Every time she was communicating with someone of a different race she would use a rude tone ofvoice because she was scared. Also, Ludacris' character was kind of funny because he was showing the "black" view of L.A. How he sees the world and that all the black people there should be afraid because they're are so many white people in that area, yet all the white people are still afraid of the blacks. It's so strange how different the world communicates with eachother. I hope that one day racism can totally disappear because it would make the world a much safer place to live.

Implicit Racism

Racism occurs everyday in our society whether we realize it or not. I feel like we are all bias against eachother based on skin color. But there's nothing that we can do about it, that's just the way that we are programmed. The test that Sal took in class the other day, I've actually taken before in Political Thought. It was crazy the results that it ends up giving you. Like I didn't think I was racist, but the results I got said that I was. It was shocking. You may not think you are racist, but in the back of your mind you may have those thoughts. Also like the pic on Sal's blog with Lebron James, they portay him as King Kong almost with the expression on his face and body image. To me, that doesn't portray African Americans very well. This goes back into the whole body image topic we discussed in class and how women are portrayed badly too in the media. Racism comes out a lot in media, whether they mean to or not. I think if the media looked at their photos and captions before they were published a little more, maybe we wouldn't have such bad racial issues.

private preschool?!

I really think it's obnoxious for parents to go through all the steps and interviews to get their 4 year old into a private preschool. They are crazily expensive, and in my eyes just not worth the money. But it seems now that all parents are concerned about are the friends that their children make growing up. They have to be in the "in" crowd, or in a higher social class. But when you really think about it, the friends your children make at age 4 probably won't be the same as when they turn 12. So what's the big deal? I would not go through all the trouble to try and get my child into a private preschool, I'd jsut enroll them in the district that I live in at the time. Seriously parents, save your money for something better and more meaningful for your child later in life!

social class

I do believe that everyone is treated differently because of their social class. As seen in the video we watched in class, higher social classes don't like to acknowledge people below them, only the ones just like them. To be honest I really don't understand why we do this, it's just a part of our culture. Whether you realize it or not, you judge people by their class. It would be like getting lost in the city and ending up in a really poor area. Most people would want to get out of there immediately becuase it's more dangerous and the people look "scarier" than they do in an area like we live in. People in our class, higher middle class, tend to want to try and move up into a higher ranking since they're almost there anyway, but that doesn't always work out. People who grow up middle class can end up living their life in poverty as an adult, or can end up very wealthy and successful, it all depends on what you do with your life. The one thing I wouldn't want is to be in a class that doesn't accept me for who I am just because I didn't grow up the same way that they did.