He Can Speak Well...

While driving to school this morning, I was listening to a segment on NPR that really caught my attention. It was titled “The Questions People Get Asked about Their Race” and, basically, NPR asked participants on Twitter ‘What’s one of question you’ve been dying to ask another race but never do because of the impending ‘THAT’S RACIST’ aftermath?’

Here’s a link to the segment, I highly recommend taking a look at some of the other questions/comments people posted. They are a bit alarming, to say the least!

Anyways, one comment, tweeted by J. L. Reed, caught me way off guard…

This comment is just SHOCKING. First off, the use of the “exclamation point” implies how surprised this person was that a “black guy” could speak well. You wonder, why is he so surprised?! Well, he is clearly making a generalization that all African-Americans are incapable of speaking “well”, whatever that even means, and extremely ignorant considering that we do have an African-American president. This claim just continues to support how Americans have not progressed towards achieving racial equality.

But what is most frightening is the second part of the comment, “Do you have any white in your family?” This person automatically assumes that if a black person is able to speak well, than it must be because of the influence of a white person, basically implying that, he thinks, African-Americans are inferior to whites. AGAIN, highlighting the lack of progress America has made towards attaining racial equality.  

Numbers Lie

A recent statistic was posted on NPR that stated “a record of 40 percent of all households with children under the age of 18 include mothers who are either the sole or primary income for the family”. This number was then compared to the 11 percent of moms in 1960 who were the so called bread winners of the family. This post was noting the great progress we have made towards achieving gender equality considering that 40 to 11 percent is definitely a dramatic shift in numbers, however, have we REALLY progressed?

From further research, I found that, currently, women hold only 91 out of the 535 seats in Congress! This means 444 seats of Congress are held by men, this is just startling. And within the growing business world women are only 3 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs. However, the most noteworthy statistic of all is that only 18 PERCENT of leadership positions are held by women, the other 80 percent of American leaders are dominated by the male population (Center forAmerican Women and Politics). These numbers make a pretty clear argument that women are still not being viewed as equals, and history has not progressed as much as the numbers suggest.

Interestingly enough though, the lack of women leaders is not due to women being seen as incompetent but rather because they are not seen as both “nice and competent” according to a gender bending experiment conducted by Heidi Roizen, a successful entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. As part of the experiment, a professor at Columbia University took a case study Heidi had written and copied it word-for-word, altering only one detail, he changed Heidi’s name to Howard. The professor’s students read each case study and found Heidi and Howard to be equally competent. However, people tended to like Howard more than Heidi. Sheryl Sandburg, author of the novel Lean
In, explains this is because when a “…woman is competent, she does not seem nice enough. If a woman seems really nice, she’s considered more nice than competent”. As such, the dilemma is not that women are incapable of such a task, it is because people fail to accept that a woman can be both nice AND competent, two traits that are deemed necessary for an authoritative position!

Do you think Americans will ever be able to view women as both “nice and competent”? Are women judged, or looked down upon, for being more competent than nice, and if so why?

Have You Forgotten About Sweatshops?

Time and time again we hear these horrid stories about how our clothes are made. How these inexpensive shirts we constantly buy are being made by these poor workers who have to work for more than twelve hours a day, receive little to no pay, are constantly beaten, and overall just treated as less than human. In 2006 there was an article, discussing just that, the dismal working conditions of factories located in Jordanian.  "[Us, Jordanian workers,] used to start at 8 in the morning, and…work until midnight, 1 or 2 a.m., seven days a week," exclaimed Nargis Akhter, a worker at the Paramount Garment factory just outside Amman. Now you would think, seven years later, that time has progressed, and we, as Americans, have addressed this problem.

However, just this Sunday, an article posted in the New York Times, was illustrating the exact same issues as the above article did in 2006. What is surprising is how shocked everyone is about the news. Yes, the numbers are definitely shocking, thousands of garment workers are being killed each year due to these awful working conditions, but haven’t we heard this all before? And, as such, shouldn’t we do something about it!

The thing is, just as Layna Mosley, a political science professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, shares “U.S. retailers probably think that this is in the news” for now, she said, but that “the dust will settle and it will go back to normal.” Mosley’s point seems very familiar in American society. For the first couple of days American consumers will be concerned about the types of clothes they purchase, but soon the news will “settle” and people will carry on as they were, and forget all about the horrid working conditions, well until the same story appears again a couple years later. 

This continuous cycle portrays that progress has not been made. People seem to just forget about what has happened in the past. Are there other stories within American history that share similar patterns to that of these on-going sweatshops? 

Cost of Tuition Crushes the American Dream

For the past couple of days we have discussed some indicators of social class, such as, the crime rate, population density, and income rate of different types of town. One indicator that we have continually noted is the level of education people within a town achieve because, to many, a higher education is seen as a sign of success within American society. Typically, those with a higher level of education receive a higher paying job, thus, being able to fall under the so called "upper-class".

However, achieving this higher education has become EXTRMELY expensive, around $40,000 in tuition for four years, and this cost continues to increase each year (Coast of Higher Education). As such, the middle class families continue to struggle to try and send their kids off to college. While, the wealthiest are automatically guaranteed a spot in attaining a well respected level of education, thus continuing to be placed in the upper class.

Therefore, the rich continue to stay in the upper class, while the people of the working class continue to struggle in trying to send their kids to college, while trying to maintain a standard form of living. As this repetitive cycle continues, the "American dream", the ability to move up the social ladder within American society, has become far from a reality. The gap between the rich and the poor will continue to grow, and mobility up the social ladder becomes almost impossible. With this in mind, why do Americans continue to believe in the "American dream"?

Be Like Daisy

This Friday I saw The Great Gatsby in the theaters. Personally, I was not a huge fan of the movie, probably because we just finished reading the book, and books tend to be better than the movie. However, something I found quite unsettling about the film was the way they portrayed the character Daisy. Within the book I thought it was clear that Daisy was in love with Gatsby, not for who he was, but rather his money. As such, putting Daisy in a bad light for being so materialistic. Yet, in the movie, I believe, Daisy was seen as an innocent character that does nothing wrong, and so everyone should always side with her.

For example, within the movie, the scene where Daisy expresses her love for Gatsby to Tom truly highlights this innocence of Daisy. During this climatic scene, Gatsby loses his temper for a moment, and so Daisy becomes frightened and crawls back to Tom. By doing so, the audience feels bad for Daisy, also making it seem like did nothing wrong. This differing perception of the character of Daisy in the movie makes it seem that Americans idealize her and want to be like her. Do you believe Americans praise the idea of the character of Daisy, the materialistic, upper-class personae?

Quite the Advantage

After discussing in class about the main factors that show a strong correlation with test scores, I came across this article that discussed a “so-called perfect” school called Avenue, located in New York. Within Avenue, as early as nursery school, kids are immersed into either the language of Mandarin or Spanish. By kindergarten, all kids are given an I-Pad, and eventually these students will get the opportunity to study for a semester in either Sao, Beijing, or any other of the twenty campuses the school has set up around the world.

As I was reading about this extraordinary curriculum, I was thinking of how this advanced education, costing one $43,000 in tuition, will obviously show a positive correlation with test scores. These students are automatically being given such a high advantage in the world. However, what about the rest of the children in America that cannot afford this elite education? Does the rest of the country have no other option but to just fall behind?

All of this concentration of effort and money, 70 billion dollars, is being put into this one school yet, it is only directed for such a negligible number of people. And according to the authors of “The Manufactured Crisis”, “the great majority of schooling standards have not improved over the past twenty-five years”. As such, why does our country choose to create this one perfect school for such a select number of people, instead of trying to spread the effort in trying to improve the overall schooling systems?                                  

Tip-toeing Around Evoltion

Recently, "educators unveiled new guidelines...that call for sweeping changes in the way science is taught in the Unites States" according to this article in the New York Times. Apparently these new guidelines take a firm stand on teaching evolution to students. My first thought was "yes, progress!..more students will be taught the threory of evolution". However, as I expected, the idea of teaching such contreverical subjects, like evolution and climate change, has already drawn hostile commentary. Additionally, while many states are expected to adopt the new guidelines within the next year or two, it will still take several years before schools translate them into thier curriculum. As such, schools will continue to postpone the teaching of evolution.

The thing that struck me the most, however, was how Judith Luber-Narod, a high school science teacher at Abby Kelly Foster Charter Public School, was hesitant about teaching a controversial subject so she thought, "how can you teach the environment without talking about it?". I found this very strange because I was skeptical to how a teacher was supposed to teach a topic, without ever actually talking about it directly...

Mrs. Luber-Narod came up with an experiment to try and stimulate global warming. She explained nothing about global warming itself, and only told her students to watch the experiment and come up with your own conclusion, as such not actually talking about the subject. While these students were exposed to the topic and forced to come up with their own opinion, do you think that is enough to substantially educate these students?

We All Need a Savior

Religion is a very powerful influence on people's lives. It helps dictate your beliefs, thoughts, and morals. It also helps create traditions, friendships, and even enemies within a community. As such, when I found religion is a key factor to why many Americans choose not to believe in evolution, I was not at all surprised, according to this article only about 39% of Americans believe in evolution. I was more curious to why religion and evolution are not compatible? Well the obvious fact is that the theory of evolution clearly contradicts the book of Genesis. In the catholic religion, it is said that God created humans and the earth was built a little over 10,000 years. While evolution argues humans descended from primates and the world is billions of years old.

While there is a clear contradiction between the two, an article in the New York Times brought up another interesting aspect to why religion and science often butt heads. Within this article, Paul Brown, a Republican from Georgia's 10th congressional district, shared that "Evolution is lies to try and keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding they need a savior". The work savior intrigues me a savior is seen as someone who can rescue you, such as God. And once you believe in evolution, some would argue, you will no longer have a savior.

However, the Pope John Paul II wrote that, "there is no conflict between evolution and the doctrine of the faith". If the Pope, a highly religious figure, sees no issue with the theory of evolution, than why do you think others continue to not accept it? Is it solely because they think they will lose their savior? Or is it more because they are ignorant to what evolution is? Either way, what are other reasons to why so many Americans choose not to accept the theory of evolution?

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Social Media

Last Sunday, a disturbing article found in the  

 New York Times was posted announcing that two male high school students were found guilty of raping a sixteen-year old girl. Almost all of the incriminating evidence came from YouTube videos and Facebook pictures taken by the perpetrators of the victim naked and passed out from too much alcohol. The evidence also included the boys’ text messages exclaiming that having sex with her was “like [having sex with] a dead body.” The word “dead” certainly destroys any argument that this was consensual sex.    

YouTube and Facebook sealed the boys’ fates in 2013.  In 1983, without the benefit of social media, the trial would have been the boys’ word against the girl’s and would have contained some flavor of the boys claiming the girl was looking for it.  Today, social media essentially prevented any use of the age-old defense that “the victim is to blame.”

While social media helped get justice, on the one hand, it also glamorized these boys and their victim, on the other. Once the incident went viral on YouTube and Facebook, a heinous crime became (at least temporarily) an alluring event with the parties to the act becoming reverse celebrities. Why does social media have the ability to glamorize awful events that if seen in person would cause us to look away?  

4 Pics 1 Word

 Many people have either seen, heard, or currently play the game 4 Pics 1 word. Just as the name connotes, this game portrays four images that represent a single word. While playing this game, I began to notice that each picture that contained a person was white; there were no colored people within this game. 

What are we suggesting when African-Americans are not included in these images?

A word functions as a principal carrier of meaning. As such, does this game imply African-Americans do not hold enough "substance" to represent that word?

Continuing on, in class we discussed how popular T.V. shows choose to have a majority white cast in order to please the overwhelming white audience. For this reason, is this game choosing to do the same, exclude people of color as to please the white users? Would this game still be as popular id African-Americans were in the pictures?

"(White) African Queen"

Over the past couple of days in class we have discussed how much, if any, has American society progressed in reaching equality. A majority of the class felt that while there have been signs of progress, such as an African-American becoming our president; we are definitely still not at the state of complete equality. Recently, a CNN video, posted that Numero Magazine contained an add titled “African Queen”, however, instead of an African-American modeling for this add, they hired a white 16-year old girl for the job, and painted her body with brown make up.

As you can imagine, this add received quite a lot of attention for its hypocrisy. However, one surprising comment that this article received was “Why hire a black model, when you can just paint a white one?” The use of the word “just” is very interesting because it is implying that the white model is the better choice, even though you are painting her skin to look exactly like an African-American model!

Another shocking fact is that the overwhelming majority of models are white, about 82%. While, only 6% of models are African-Americans. Models are seen as figures that society wants to copy or imitate. By choosing a white model to act as an African-American model, this magazine company is basically expressing that we should follow or be like white Americans, instead of an African-Americans. Why do you think that is? Or why choose a white model if she will just end up looking exactly like an African-American model? What do you think this add is saying about race in American society?

The lack of equality is truly being expressed within this magazine add, highlighting the fact that American society has still a lot of work ahead to reach a state of equality. 

The Accuracy of Argo

Last week Mr. O'Connor brought up an interesting fact about the movie Lincoln. O'Connor announced that Lincoln knowingly expresses misleading information. In the movie, it supposedly states that Connecticut voted against the 13th Amendment, while in reality Connecticut was in favor for it. Just as Lincoln displayed false information, the movie Argo did as well. 

According to this interview on CNN with Jimmy Carter, Carter states, "that ninety percent of the contributions to the ideas and the consummation of the plan was Canadian, [however] the movie gives almost full credit to the American CIA".

First off, I understand that directors choose to "alter" aspects of history in order to add drama, however, I wonder to what degree is it considered ok for directors to knowingly change facts of history?

To add, I also find it interesting that, as Carter mentioned above, the directors of Argo chose to give credit to the Americans, rather than the rightfully deserved Canadians. Did the directors choose to divert the attention to the American CIA for merely the affect of drama? Or are Americans not inclined to watch a film where they are not shown in the most positive light possible?

This reminds me of another discussion we had in the beginning of the year about how the government chose to only show clips of the Vietnam war that illustrated progress and success, instead of showing that there was very little progress or success actually being made. Just as the U.S. government chose to not tell the whole truth, do you think the film-makers of Argo had the right to stretch the truth in order to appeal to the audience, why? If you were the director of Argo would you have chosen to do the same thing?

The much success of "Downton Abbey"

           Over the weekend I heard about a T.V. show called "Downton Abbey", appparently a very popular show. Anyways, I asked my friends about this show and recieved many positive comments about it. Not only were my friends  hooked onto to this show, but many parents are big fans as well. One of my good friend even mentioned that her dad left a dinner party to come home and watch the finale of "Downton Abbey".  After hearing all of the commotion about this show, I started to wonder why was "Downton Abbey"so well-liked?
          From only watching one episode, I could not tell you a whole lot on what it is about. However, from this article I learned that this show contains "stories [that] are about emotional situations that everyone can understand” and "it deals with timeless themes such as, social rankings, money,  and homosexuals". 
      Many of these "timeless themes" mentioned are big themes practiced in American culture, and as such, I wonder is that why this show has become so accepted, because Americans can just connect with it? Hoever, the show does take place in the 20th century in Britian, so how much can Americans connect with it? 
      In any case, what do you think makes a T.V. show become so popular in America? What must it contain to make it well-liked? Are there any common themes between "Downton Abbey" and other popular shows like "Modern Family" or "Homeland"?

What is the Calvin Kline Commercial Really Saying?

Over the weekend, I went to my cousins house to watch the Superbowl. While I was excited to watch the game, the commercials are something I always look forward to seeing. I find the commercials to be quite amusing, however, in class today we looked at commercials more closely, and not just their entertainment value, specifically the Audi commercial. After this thoughtful discussion, I began to think of other commercials I could further analyze. The one that immediately popped into my head was the Calvin Kline commercial.

In this commercial there is a man, with the "perfect body", modeling Calvin Kline underwear. What struck me most about this commercial was that it was appealing to a woman's audience. During the Superbowl, about every other commercial was directed towards a male audience, such as, the Ram, Bud Light, and M&M commercial. My question, then was, why was Calvin Kline trying to persuade Women, and not men, to purchase Men's underwear?

The only logical explanation that I had was woman are buying the underwear for men.

As such, with this reasoning in mind, I wonder does America view women as the ones who just do the shopping? The ones who take care of all of the domestic needs, like clothing? The ones who's sole function is to take care of their husbands?

Pentagon Ban is Lifted

        Over the weekend I saw the thrilling, action packed movie, Zero Dark Thirty. As most of you know this movie is about Osama Bin Laden and how he was captured. While the whole movie was beyond intriguing, the part that struck me the most was that it was a WOMAN who discovered the locations of Bin Laden.
       While I was thrilled to learn that it was a woman who figured out the 10 year long puzzle of Bin Laden, I was skeptical to the fact on why I did not know this sooner. It could just be because of my lack of attention to the news, however, my mom, a pretty heavy news follower, did not know it was a woman until I recently told her. In that case, was it because of the lack of coverage about her?
     Whatever the case may be it reminds me of the lift of the Pentagon Ban that occurred this past week. The Pentagon Ban, "prohibited woman from serving in special operations, or fighting on the front line".  This ban limited the career options for many woman involved in helping to defend our country. And even when woman did engage in warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan the military, "did not officially count their actions as combat, and their battle field experience went unrecognized". Many woman were left with the feelings of anger, rage, or just pure disappointment.
         Clearly lifting the Pentagon Ban is heading in the right direction towards gender equality. Yet, I still wonder why the ban created in 1994 was lifted now, over 15 years later? Or why it took so long for it to be lifted? What convinced Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta  to lift it in the first place? And lastly, how do you think this change in rules, that allows woman to fight in combat and advance in their careers, will affect the military?
    

The Divide - Final Exam

         This image, titled “On the Edge”, photographed by Alex S. Maclean, an American photographic artist, is an important American contemporary photograph because it connects to the themes of social class, race, and realism and idealism.
         In this image I automatically notice the road that divides the two towns. On the left side, there are large, white houses, surrounded by healthy, good, looking landscape. Each house looks similar to one another, with its equal spacing, shape, color, and size. On the right side of the road, I see the lack of polished looking landscape, and I notice more defined looking houses, with their unique colors and shapes. This made me wonder how such two distinctly contrasting towns could live just right across the street from one another.
          This sharp contrast of towns reminds me of the field trip we took to the south side of Chicago. The left side of the photo, with its pristine and bubbled life, represents us, the North Shore, while the right side of the photo symbolizes urbanized Chicago. During this field trip we were supposed to take note of the different environment we were in. Elisa Hillman made an interesting observation. She noted that, “The people in Chicago are more individual” than the people of the North Shore. The word “individual”, meaning single or separate, is very intriguing considering that the North Shore, I would argue, is the complete opposite of that. The North shore is enclosed within this conformed “bubble”, with its identical looking houses, while Chicago contains a more uncensored town, with its different colored houses, and unusual landscaping, creating a more “individualism” environment.
          As I mentioned above, there is a clear divide between the two towns. As such, the title, “On the Edge” seems very suitable for this photo because each town is at the edge of one another. However, I read the title more as the citizens within each town are at the very edge of crossing it and stepping into new boundaries, but fail to do so.
           This incompletion of a task reminds me of the Emancipation Proclamation. During class, we observed the flaws associated with this document due to its incapability of freeing all slaves. This document, as Foner explains, “did not liberate all slaves- indeed…it applied to very few (494).” Yet, just as the citizens are at the very “edge” of their town, this document was touching the margins of slavery. Here Foner explains that, “despite its limitations [of the Proclamation of Emancipation], …[it] set off scenes of jubilation among free blacks and abolitionist in the North and “contrabands” and slaves in the South (495).” Looking at the word “jubilation”, meaning the feeling of triumph, conveys the idea that these slaves or free blacks thought the U.S. was, again, on the edge of heading in the right direction to abolish slavery.
           Another characteristic I notice in the photograph is the absence of people, however, it may just be because I cannot see people from the angle at which this photo was taken. Nonetheless, I am curious to why there is not heavy crowd of people trying to cross over from town to town. Is it because these people are not able to, or is it because they just choose not to? Ultimately, this observation reminds of Rachel Hoying’s blog post - “Modern Abolitionist”. In her post she describes how people automatically say that if they were alive during the Civil War they would all become strong abolitionist. Even so, as Rachel points out, “…there is a form of slavery going on in our own country right now, and very few people have been doing anything to stop it”. Are very few people becoming modern abolitionist because they are just not aware about modern-day slavery, or is it because they just choose to stay within their town, and not want to face the overwhelming reality.

Tico Time

         Over the break I went on vacation to Costa Rica with my family. Adjusting to the warm weather and nice beaches was not a problem, however, Tico time, an aspect of the Costa Rican lifestyle, was a bit harder of an adjustment. Tico time  basically means one can show up to an event 30 minutes, an hour, or even two hours behind the scheduled time. My family and I would always scramble to try and be ready by the designated time, yet we would always be waiting 20-30 minutes for others to casually arrive. As we got used to this "Tico time" I noticed our overall moods became slightly more relaxed. Tico time is used mainly with social situations rather than business dealings. The idea of Tico time is not just practiced in Costa Rica, but also in many European countries such as Spain and Portugal. 

          This slower paced and more relaxed lifestyle is a sharp contrast to the fast, uptight attitude in America. Americans value time greatly, and don't enjoy wasting it, or in other words, over work themselves. For example, at least 134 countries have laws setting the maximum length of the work week; the U.S. does not. To add, the average American works more than 40 hours per week, while in Germany it is around 35 hours. As well, according to the ILO (International Labor Organization), Americans work 137 more hours per year than Japanese workers, 260 more hours than British workers, and 499 more hours than French workers. With more hours spent at work, it definitely leads to more stress. Stress is the number one cause of health problems in America-mentally and physically. I mean just the other day my mom, a lawyer, did not come home from work until 3 in the morning because she was finishing a brief that was due the next day! As you can imagine, the stress level in our household was quite high that evening.

As such, I wonder what would happen if a thing like Tico time was brought to the U.S.? By that I mean, a relaxation on deadlines, or amount of hours needed for work, etc....Would Americans benefit by decreasing their stress levels, thereby creating a better quality of life? Or would it have the contrasting affect because Americans would feel lazy and undirected if they had this extra time on their hands?