SOCIOLOGY Final Blog

           When I first made the decision about taking a sociology class I didn't know what I was signing up for. I didn't know what the subject was about, I didn't know weather or not I was going to have a great professor or a boring one, I didn't know what was the class about period. On the first day of class that's when I found out all about sociology the systematic study of the relationship between individuals and society. That when I realized that this class was going to change my entire outlook on life itself, I was very happy i choose this class. Not only choosing the class was a great opportunity but also professor Applewhite was a great teacher.
            I learned that we are who we are not because of ourselves but because of the people around us. A lot of people go around saying that they are independent and they are the reason why they act, dress, talk the way they do. Taking this class I realized that their are so many thing that we do that we didn't just picked up ourselves but we were taught to do it. For example, my mom always taught me to take off my shoes whenever I go in our house or anyone else's home. One day I went to my friend house and immediately I took off my shoes without anyone telling me and i didn't even think twice about it. Our society determines the  people we brought up to be. Our parents, teachers, bosses, professors, friends and families. Our social norms plays a gigantic part in who we are.
             Sociology has taught me that I should look at my own situations alone but to broaden my territory and expand my circle with the whole world instead of just myself. Other cultures, races and classes have different values, beliefs, norms, mores, structure, functions, power, etc. Until we stop and understand what goes around us we will never fully understand the world. What might be normal for me and where I currently live might not be the same for someone else living in another part of the world and unless get educated on things that are not only in our interest.
             I really liked this class, I didn't really say much in class only because I was just observing what was being taught. The energy in the classroom was very high and everyone was eager to state their own opinion and views on each topic we discuss. I just feel like whatever I was taught in this class I would be able to use it for the rest of my life. Most of my other class I can not say the same. The time flew by so fast in the class because we were just into whatever was going on. I would recommend this class to anyone whose taking college classes. I also enjoyed making my own blog, I see myself using it in the future as well.

The Hispanic Dropout Mystery: A Staggering 30 Percent Leave School, Far More Than Blacks or Whites. Why?

          The dropout rate for Hispanic students nation wide is 30 percent nearly three times the rate for white and twice the rate for blacks. What's even more disturbing is that the rate for children of American born Hispanic is even higher than for those to immigrants, suggesting that the longer a family lives in the United States, the more entrenched the problem becomes. The Department of Education whats to raise awareness to the Hispanic dropout. The New Mexico Sen. spent $100 million on preventing the dropouts of other children. The Hispanic is surpass blacks as the nations largest minority group.
          Hispanic students say that they drop out of school for the same reasons as other ethnic groups, they're failing, they're bored, they're working to support a family. The most populated reason among the Latino are because they say that the public schools marginalize them, disrespecting their culture, neglecting their language problems and setting standards so low that kids cant help but reduce expectations. Hispanic dropouts are foreign born, and many don't get special language help. Most of them were born here and speak English fluently. One third of Hispanic children live in provery and they enter into school with a disadvantage that most American children have since they were born, English specking parents.
          Many parents in Mexico and other Hispanic countries don't put a demand on their children to get higher grades than whites or blacks do. Being smart and having good grades in school was considered being nerdy and "Anglo" as an Hispanic. DeAnza Montoya, a Santa Fe teen went through school without worrying about her future because she was simply doing what was expected of her. The solution of dropout should come from the school. The black's dropout rate decreased once the school got involved.
          Teachers may have to speak spanish and have conferences around parent's jobs. There also need to be more Hispanic role models. Shileene Martinez, 14, is thriving at Colorado High School in Denver, her classes are a lot shorter to accommodate her job. If none of these work, administrators document which states students will have to sign that states that " By signing this, I realize I will not have the skills to survive in the 21st century", if they wanted to drop out. Sandoval, a students who wanted to drop out threw the paper to the principle's face but the principle welcomed him back into school.

          We have to take responsibility for the next generation, even if its working longer hours, finding a diversity among teachers, changing conference meeting with parents, and so much more. Whatever is necessary we need to fulfil it and than we can say we gave it our best shot. I liked what the educators did in this article, they saw a problem and tried their best to fix it and we as society should look at each problem like how those teachers did. In life we have to learn to find solutions to not only help our self but others around us.

PEOPLE LIKE US: social class in America

     This video started off with two pictures, one with an middle aged man in his pants and shirt, hes in front of his house, with a shade in front of the door and immediately people in the video are stating that he is lower class or working class. Another picture came up right after that one was a couple well dressed and was at, what seems to be a studio of some sort that takes out professional picture. A person in the background of the video said that "Oh they're definitely upper class" he went on to saying that the man looked like he inherited his money from his parents and now lives a worry free life with his wealthy wife. Its a wonderful thing that humans could just look at other humans and figure out what class they belong to, just by how they look. This just goes to show how we were brought up, we know what right and what wrong and we also know whose rich and whose poor.
    Joe Queenan, an author in the video said that parents wanted their children to go to private school to avoid race and gender, now they send them to private schools to avoid poor people. They want their children to get into great schools and that can all be done by the right amount of money. In order to figure what what a person's class is you have to know what they surround themselves with, it could be how big your house is, what you use to cook your food with and what utensils you use to eat with. Even knowing another language is a privilege to the upper class because the working class is out working but the upper class as time and money to spend in learning different things. Queenan says that the difference between upper and working class store are when you go into a Walmart you are able to identify whatever you see, but in an upper class store you would see things that you didn't know anything about. Having money is the ability to shape ones life style only if it goes with the norms of that particular class. But even than you don't have the ability to be free because you have to live up to other's expectations, you have to be sure you wear and have the right things.
     Giene Polo Sayles said that she didn't like how social class made people feel, a sense of limitation, less than, ignorant eliminated by just a class. She married a millionaire and now is a consultant to others. Sayles goes on to say that for you to attract certain people you have to look a certain way, talk, walk, speak, all in a certain way. You must know never to be intimidated because that the way poor people act. She took a working class woman and did a makeover, not only with her appearance but with the way she acts. According to the American dream everyone can move up but it takes alot of effort and it can be very tricky. Dan Rodricks stated that blue calour people like to put lawn ornaments on their lawns and to other white coalour people they find things like that tacky.
       Its all about material things in my popint of view. I mean, yeah the big house and the brand new car can be a wonderful thing but who are we trying to please ourselves or others. Some people I know have no self vaule over their own lives, jsut because others tell them that they should do this or say that, they run and do it jsut to please others. I would never live my life like that, I will always try to make myself happy and satisfie my need. People need to put themselves before others and stop wasting their times trying to make others happy. Many people in this world are so called upper class but they are not happy, not even money can bring happiness and I feel like people forget about that all the time.
 

POSITIVE FUNCTIONS OF UNDECEIVING

Positive functions of the undeserving 

Poor: uses of underclass in America 

By Herbert J Gans 

Poverty is analyzed as cause which can be studied in terms of functions, these functions can be positive and negative depending on their nature, people and interest affected. The poor class are mostly involved in activities which threaten their safety, failing to work, bearing children at a young age and being dependent on welfare. Judgement of the poor are not based on evidence, but derive from a stereotype. Gans discussed five positive functions, they are microsocial, economic, normative-cultural, political and macrosocial. Two microsocial function are risk reduction and scapegoating and displacing. Three economic functions are economic banishment and the reserve army, supplying illegal goods and job creation. Three normative functions are moral legitimation, norm reinforcement and supplying popular culture villains. Three political functions are institutional scapegoating, conservative power shifting and spatial purification. Lastly, two macrosocial function are reproduction of stigma and the stigmatized and extermination of surplus. Changes need tone made in America, in society in our everyday norms. We need to look at situations from not only our point of view but from the worlds view. 

Media magic: making class invisible

Media magic: making class invisible 

The mass media shapes the way people think about each other and the nature of our society. The media provide coverage that is often distorted and misleading towards the poor. The poor and their problems are hidden from most Americans and the attention that they do get offers a series of contradictory and portrayal. The poor are faceless, they are reduced to a number when the yearly Census Bureau is released. The media will portray a person associated with welfare cheat, drug addicts, and greedy panhandlers almost always urban and black. Than they compare these images with a middle class person who are tax evaders, celebrities, wealthy businessmen who are mostly white. When the media tells a story about the poor it is usually through a middle class point of view which makes them seem that they are an inconvenience and an irritation. The media always thinks that the poor people have themselves to blame, that they are they're own faults for being the way they are. This is what William Ryan has called "blaming the victim. The world according to the news media is divided between the "underclass" and everyone else. The information provided form the news media is usually for the upper and middle class, for example the news relating to stock exchange. Not everyone owns them. The Times magazine once concluded that " we are all middle class", " and we all share the same concerns" but this is so untrue. The wealthy worry about investments but the others worry about jobs. Americans can't think straight when it comes to class because the mass media is neither objective, balanced, independent or neutral. We have to know who we are because we have the ability to change if we want to. 

Chapter 8

      It's amazing to me that we still have this problem in our society. Racial segregation has been an issue as long as I can remember. I've been thought about this since I was in elementary and somehow we still see it around us to this day. If someone said to you that there was a robbery at a corner store, the person had on baggy pants boxers showing, they had on a sweater with the hoodie over their head and sneakers on their feet. Is the person your imagining black or white. We have so many issues going on in this world we live in and I don't know when this particular one will change.  
      In the article "Race and class in the American criminal justice system"  David Cole says that our criminal justice system affirmatively depends on inequality. In this article he uses the O.J Simpson case in Los Angeles where Simpson was convicted of a double murder of his ex wife and her friend. There were two groups of students in the court room observing the case. One group of students were white and the other  was black, when Simpson was found not guilty the white group of students were very socked and the black group of students were happy and cheerful clapping for joy at what had happened. They weren't clapping and cheerful because of the winning of the case but because they had thought that the justice system was unfair to the African American race. But then the issue of class came in. 
     Cole thought that if Simpson didn't have the amount of money he had to get a well experienced educated lawyer than he would've been in jail to this day. He also said that a a defendant who cannot afford a lawyer one is provided for them but a wealthy person who could afford a lawyer would never in their live hire the lawyer that was used by an unwealthy person. The lawyers provided by the state are over worked and under paid, they aren't even hire by people who could afford lawyers which seem really unfair to the lawyers themselves and also to defendants who cannot get their own lawyers. 
      This is where class and race plays a huge part our society. We can be the nicest person with the most education you could ever think of but if you don't have money and don't have the right skin color you can't get no where in life. Some people have to work much harder than others to make half of what the wealthy is earning. It is sad to say but, so many people die because they don't have insurance or money to pay for their medication but the wealthy can just pay their way to getting strong and healthy. Don't get me wrong, I know some people work their butts of to get where they are in life but I'm talking about the ones who inherit their wealth and just glide through life without any cares and worries, thinking that the whole world is just at their fingertips. 

CHAPTER 6 SOCIALIZATION

WHERE DO I BEGIN!
  
    When I looked at a man it never occurred to be how difficult they had it in life. They had to be the strong and dominate one. They were taught by their fathers not to cry or not to show their feeling but just to " be a man". Any slight chance of showing weakness would be a disgrace to them or their father. Tony Porter, the main speakers in "A call to men" spoke about how men where taught to be strong, stuff , no pain no emotions with the expectation of anger. He discuss a demonstration he called the man box which was so discussing and disturbing. He even said that when his daughter would come to him crying he would baby her up, but when his son came to him crying he just gave 30 seconds to collect himself and be a man about the situation and talk to him like a man. One heart breaking story he told was that when his brother died his father didn't even what to cry in front of the ladies of the family. And while his father was crying he was apologizing to him for crying. That was just upsetting to be to know that men are embarrassed to cry in public.
       After seeing "Killing Us Softy" by Jean Kilbourne I concluded that women equals sex. Women were just objects, sex slaves. Women had to look a certain way, dress a certain way, think a certain way. Kilbourne talks about the ads around us that advertises women a certain way which has a lot of effect on women themselves. Fashion magazines models keep getting thinner and thinner, some of them even have to retouch some photos to make them look like they have some fat. She goes on to say that women now thinks that looking like little girls is the new sexy. This having them wearing little dresses and degrading them to a lower level. These different advertisements go on to say that women shouldn't eat, or gain weight but she must always be on diets to make herself feel good.
     I can not believe how our society has come to this. We should let people be who they want to be. People in magazines don't even look the way they look in the magazines. When women look at these magazines they feel ugly and can never look like models. I'm glad that our society is kind of coming back to their senses and letting people be who they want to be without any judgement.