A Solution to Segregation in Texas? (SumBlog 7)

This week in class we talked about how to solve the problem of segregation within education.  More specifically, we discussed how class, race, and ethnicity are not necessarily equally represented in different school districts.  One of the biggest factors impacting the predominate race and social class represented within an individual school is the economic opportunities for the families within that district.  The general trend is that the higher the class of a neighborhood, the better the test scores of the students in these districts will be.  It has also been found that in areas that face economic disadvantages, the students are predominately racial/ethnic minorities.  This, in turn, has led to a system in which our schools remain segregated (which was described in our textbooks).  Also, it has led to a system of inherent inequality.  However, one county in Texas thinks that they have the right solution to this problem.

A solution?

The theory behind this counties attempt is that if all of the schools have equal monetary resources, they will all be just as successful academically.  However, this is not necessarily true.  According to class material, funding makes little difference in test scores.  Diversity, on the other hand, makes a much larger impact on the test scores of students in public school districts.  Just because students are given more academic resources in the working class, cannot change the fact that they are from the working class.  Families in this class generally do not put the same emphasis on education as the middle and upper middle class.  However, by diversifying the student population, students could gain from the positive influence of their peers.

I did not pick the video that I chose just to say that it was not valid.  I simply picked it to show one real-world attempt at solving an obvious flaw in our education system.  I also chose to share the link because it demonstrates how complicated changing institutions in our country can become.  This was made evident by the fact that both parties are suing the state over the matter of the proposed change.

Defining Exploitation in America(SumBlog6)

Video Link: Walmart Strike

This week we spent a considerable amount of time discussing Karl Marx and his theory of exploitation.  I believe that a lot of times when people think of exploitation, they think of sweatshops in third world countries.  This is a valid thought considering how terrible the conditions are in many of the factories that produce our clothes and technological accessories.  However, there are also examples of exploitation right here in America that should be considered.  I chose to include the above video because it demonstrates how exploitation occurs here too.  This domestic example may not be as severe as those in third world countries, but that does not mean it should continue to be overlooked.

Exploitation, by definition, is a rather complicated thing to understand.  The first important concept involved is that employers purchase our labor through our wages.  However, they also gain from our labor through the capital that they gain from the finished product.  In the end, the employees are being exploited because they are not gaining the full benefits from their labor.  Also, many people end up giving free labor to their employers because the employers get more profit out of their employees than what they pay them.

Walmart is a department store that has yearly fiscal revenue in the hundreds of billions of dollars.  Yet, according to this video, many of their full time employees make below the poverty line (of a two person household).  The video clip attached to this post shows a group of employees that feel that they are being exploited by the corporation that they are working for.  Even though they make above the federal poverty line for an individual, they argue that they deserve to be paid more due to the immense profit that Walmart makes each fiscal year.  I like the perspective of this video because it shows exploitation from a way that most people don’t see it.  People can still be exploited without being poor or working in terrible conditions.  All it takes to be exploited is a system that demands a specific number of hours of labor that results in the employer making more capital off of each employee than they are paying that employee for their services.

Giannis Antetokounmpo and Double Consciousness (SumBlog 5)

Since very few people know who Giannis Antetokounmpo is, I will begin with a little biographical information.  Antetokounmpo is a 6’ 10” 205 pound rookie forward for the Milwaukee Bucks (yes Milwaukee still has a basketball team).  He was drafted 15^th overall in the NBA draft out of a second tier Greek basketball league (more on that later).  Giannis was raised in Greece but born in Nigeria, which has caused a case of double consciousness.  We defined double consciousness in class as a phenomenon that occurs when people from minority groups have multiple identities that can be very conflicting and thus create an identity issue.

According to a recent interview with sports illustrated, Antetokounmpo has always seen himself as Greek. He had been raised in Greece, so it was natural for him to identify with that culture.  However, the natives viewed him as dark-skinned, and therefore as something other than Greek.  Thus, his personal identity did not match the identity that the rest of society had given him.  This led to social problems throughout his younger years.  Antetokounmpo never felt like he belonged due to the racism and inequality he faced growing up, yet he was unsure of what he could be other than Greek.  Regardless, his lack of citizenship led him to be ineligible to play on club teams regardless of his talent.  This ineligibility to participate also explains why he went from a second tier team in a foreign country to being a first round draft pick here in the states.

The irony of the situation is, now that Antetokounmpo has become a serious contender for the NBA rookie of the year award, Greece has recently granted him citizenship.  Apparently now that he has achieved some fame his salient identity is now that of an NBA star rather than a minority.  This has led him to gain the privilege that has so long eluded him and his family.  Now Greece can feature “their” budding star on their national team.  It seems that Giannis Antetokounmpo has multiple identities, and that they will continue to develop and change as his career and life course continue.  It’s rather impressive to me seeing Antetokounmpo refuse to let any identity issues hold him back from his dreams.

An interview has been included for any of you that do not know anything about the Buck’s new star, or for those who are simply curious about his quick rise to fame.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8I906fd_6ww

The Land of Opportunity? (SumBlog4)

I am just one person, an individual, and therefore my life story is unique.  I have chosen to do a personal narrative because the topic is something that I am very passionate about, and something that people should be exposed to while they are still relatively young.  I think that everyone, especially those raised in a privileged social class, could benefit from the perspective I can provide.  I have several traits that have led to privilege in life. I am a young, able bodied, white protestant male.  These factors led to a relatively oppression free lifestyle.  I was also raised in an upper middle class household for the majority of my childhood years, which allowed for me to achieve a college education and to gain a good summer job.

Like a lot of people in my hometown, both of my parents worked in unionized positions at the local paper mills.  This allowed for me to have an exclusive opportunity to work at the mill during the summer in a vacation relief position.  This was a high paying job that was only offered to the children of mill employees.  Because of this restriction, there were a lot of individuals hired that had little to no work ethic or motivation.  They were given a privilege that they essentially did not earn or deserve.  This privilege was granted to us that allowed us to make a considerable amount of money, which in turn furthered our opportunities.  The company suffered from the sub-par performance of their employees’ children, yet they did not change their policies.  This is just an example of a nationwide structural issue: those that come from privileged families are given unfair opportunities to become privileged themselves.

These summer jobs paid for many of our educations, yet I always struggled with the fact that there were people out there that could do so much more with the opportunity than many of my coworkers.  There were a lot of kids in our community that would have killed for an opportunity to work in a job that could essentially pay their way through college.  I found it incredibly unjust that these kids were not even given the opportunity that we were to get the summer jobs working at the mill.  As a direct result, many of these kids were unable to attend secondary school.  I feel like this happens too often in our country, kids who are capable of great things are often held back due to a lack of opportunity and the oppression that coincides with it.  There is a romanticized view that our country is the land of opportunity.  However, in truth, this is only the land of opportunity for those that are already privileged

Religiosity (SumBlog3)

In class this week we discussed the concept of religiosity.  From my understanding, religiosity is a basic term that refers to various concepts surrounding religious activities and beliefs as they apply to different individuals.  We discussed the three B's, or the three basic concepts that make up religiosity.  Belonging, the first B, is best described as whether or not a person identifies or belongs to a specific religion.  Believing, the second B, involves whether or not an individual believes in a religion they belong to, or just any religion in general.  The third B is behavior, which describes the extent to which an individual participates in or practices their religion (one can also lack any sort of religious behavior).
I grew up in a protestant church and was always taught that one had to attend church in order to practice their religion or to belong to the church.  However, as I have grown older I have come to find that this is not the universal law of religion that it appeared to be at that time.  If you are like me, you will find this hard to believe, and that is why I have included a link to a video made by the pastor of a church in North Carolina.  I chose this video because it hits on all 3 B's.  I also chose to share this video because it best describes my opinion concerning church services.
I currently do not belong to a church, yet I strongly believe in Christian values and I try to practice the Christian religion to the best of my abilities.  Some would argue that this means that I cannot be a true Christian, but I do not believe that that is the case.  Essentially, they are arguing that in order to have a sense of belonging I must belong to a specific church or congregation.  Some would also argue that in order to be a practicing Christian I would have to attend services at a formal church.  However, I would argue that I can accomplish all three B's without ever stepping foot in a church.  I have found through my own personal experience at churches that they do very little toward strengthening my relationship with God.  I personally have discovered that I most identify with my own Christian faith when I am out in nature or when I am studying the Bible alone rather than when I am at church.  Similarly, I have found that I better practice morals and ethics taught by the Christian religions when I have had more opportunities to spend time in nature.  This poses a very important question that contradicts what most of us have been taught since birth: is it possible to be religious without ever stepping foot in a church?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elsfFUcw06M

Caster Semenya (SumBlog 2)

In honor of the on going Olympics, this blog will focus on a controversy that rocked one of the shining stars of the competitive track and field world a few years ago.  Caster Semenya is a female intermediate distance runner from South Africa who burst onto the scene by winning a World Championship gold medal in the 800 meter in August of 2009.  After a drug screening proved negative, competition began to question Semenya's gender due to both her sudden success and her muscular build (amongst other things).  The IAAF ordered a gender test to be done in order to end the controversy.  The results showed that Semenya was indeed a female, but that she was also a male.  In other words, the tests found Semenya to be a hermaphrodite (she had both male and female organs).  Semenya was born with no womb, ovaries, or penis.  Instead, she has had internal testes since birth as well as three times the "normal" amount of testosterone for a female.  Upon hearing the results, many thought that she should have her medal and her winnings revoked and that she should be banned from competing against women.  However, Semenya was raised as a female and has always considered herself to be a female regardless of the test results.  This case caused a multitude of controversy surrounding ethics and sex in sports.
We learned in class that sex is the "biological distinction between females and males."  Regardless of what the definition implies, sex as we understand it is socially constructed.  Biology does not support a bifurcate model of sex, rather it supports a spectrum with male on one end and female on the other.  Individuals like Caster Semenya are perfect examples of the middle of the spectrum.  However, our society is so entrenched in the idea of someone being either female or male that the concept of anything in between makes most people uncomfortable.  It is important for this naivety to stop, regardless of how engrained it is into our culture.  People that don't fit the current model are often socially marginalized in far more serious ways than just athletically.  In fact, doctors often pick the gender of children that falls in the middle of the spectrum (creating a sense of undesirability surrounding being a hermaphrodite).  For being so advanced medically and technologically, our society has a long way to go in terms of social acceptance. 
In the end, Caster Semenya was allowed to continue to compete as a female in the 2012 Olympic games.  She went on to rise above the controversy and adversity to win the silver medal in the 800 meters.  Though she is still shrouded in controversy, allowing her to compete as whatever sex she personally identified with was a big step in the right direction.  The fact that she was allowed to compete as a woman gives hope that we may one day have a more accurate model of sex in society.  I chose Semenya's story because it provided a rather uplifting story in a topic full of dark and upsetting stories.


Photo of Caster Semenya:
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/assets/120808074115-semenya-story-top.jpg

Social Construction of Reality (SumBlog 1)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXbuzD5bunE


Dear Volkswagen:






Thank you for your super bowl commercial that has challenged the popular beliefs about race in our country.  Your "C'mon get happy" commercial is representative of all three aspects of the construction of reality: externalization, objectifization, and internalization (not necessarily in that order though).






The video starts out with a "white" man named Dave speaking "rasta," which comes across as very peculiar and comical to viewers.  This plays on the fact that our culture tends to assume that only dark skinned Jamaican people should speak with a rasta accent.  Objectifization is the process of the prescribed meaning of something being taken for granted and becoming a social norm, which is exactly what has happened concerning our understanding of the rasta accent.  We have come to the point as a society where the rasta language as a communication norm is associated with only Jamaica and its inhabitants.  However, this is not a law of human-nature, rather it is the meaning that our culture has prescribed to the rasta accent.






As I have previously stated, we have determined that "rasta" is a language spoken only by native Jamaicans.  This occurrence began with the process of externalization, which is the act of the initial prescription of meaning to something.  This process is exemplified again at the end of your commercial, when it becomes suggestive that your cars make everybody happy.  Essentially, the commercial implies that rasta is spoken by anybody that is happy, rather than simply by Jamaicans.  This is a heroic attempt to attach a new, previously unrecognized meaning to anyone with a rasta accent.






At one point about half way through the commercial you chose to feature one man asking Dave where he is from, to which he answers "Minnesota."  The man that asks him this question is clearly trying to point out that Dave should be talking in a different way than he is.  This exemplifies internalization because the man believes that Dave should be following the communication norms of everyone else in Minnesota, rather than speaking with a rasta accent.  Internalization is defined as what occurs when a prescribed norm is practiced by both individuals and groups in any given culture, influencing their personal beliefs and actions.  Thus, the man's behavior is due to his internalization of the cultural understanding of rasta.






In the end, I find your video to be an excellent visual example of the social construction of reality and it's three different stages.




Thank you again for the application of this difficult topic,
Dillon