My Assessment of Popular Cultural

Pinterest Board on Pop Cultural

This board really shows how I believe popular cultural shows race, racism, and the gender binary. Click the link above to see more!

Young Americans Don't Fight Back

8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back

For the most part I really agree with AlterNet article by Bruce E. Levine about 8 Reasons Young Americans Don’t Fight Back: How the US Crushed Youth Resistance. A lot of the points made in this article were very though provoking and some of the points I have thought myself. The sections which really stood out to me were television and the parts about schooling.

I agree with them that television is a dream come true for the authoritarian society which we live in. The fact that we spend some much time on TV, the Internet, cell phones and iPods exposes us to a lot of media. For example, while reading this article on the side of the site there are ads of apartments available in Spokane, WA. What is truly weird about this is I am currently looking at jobs in Spokane and subsequently looking at the cost of living. So not only are we being exposed to what the people who pay for the ads they also know what ads would interest us.

I also like the part where they state TV isolates people from each other and therefore are not communicating with others to form resistances. By isolating ourselves we are not only losing communication skills, but we are also lacking critical thinking skills so people end up believing everything they watch. For example, a young girl may see over and over again how great relationships with boys are in a movie or TV show and then expect to have their relationships to work out exactly the same way; except that is not reality of most relationships.

However, the topic of school which the author brings into the argument really stood out to me. This is the first reason they brought up was the fear of student- loan debt. According to the article two-thirds of college graduates will have student debt and it ranges from 25,000 to 100,000 dollars. The reason they claim the youth will not fight back is because they are too worried about keeping their jobs so they can pay their bills; so they will not fight back in fear of losing their income.

The next section about relating to school points out the fact schools only teach children how to obey rules or orders. Even though teachers teach about democracy their classroom are not democratic. I had a teacher when he talked about democracy in my history class would always reminds us this classroom is not a democracy it was a dictatorship because what he said was the final say. This limits creativity and can make it hard for students to voice their opinion when they believe they do not really matter.

Then this article brings in a political act called “No Child Left Behind”. Personally I have never understood nor agree with this political act and in my opinion I really believe it should be removed. This policy, along with “Race to the Top”, is essentially standardized-testing which create fear. Why? Because it constantly demands teachers and students focus on the results of these tests because they could be the reason students do not move up in school or teachers losing their jobs. This fear also results in the loss of curiosity, critical thinking, questioning authority and challenging illegitimate authority.  I especially agree that teachers should be evaluated by asking students, parents and a community if a teacher is inspiring students in the areas that standardize testing creates fear.

This article really caught my attention because I agreed with what was written. I just wish people who make the laws would read these articles and help create a change on how we approach raising our youth. However, this would require the law makers to be okay with the American people acting out against them and the laws they have created. I remember once in high school my teacher told us that Thomas Jefferson thought we would a revolution every x amount of years because he believed that the American government would become corrupt and violate peoples rights and there would be a need for change. I believe this article has the same thought that Thomas Jefferson did. We need people who are willing to fight the facts stated in this article so there can be a change. 

White Privilege

I have always known some people are more privileged than others, but I usually thought about it in terms of gender then the ideology of race. For example, I originally thought I was going to have a hard time getting college scholarships because I am a women and I am labeled as white. The reason I thought this is because society always told me if I was part of a minority I would have an easier time paying for college, which made sense to me because there as been a big push for minorities to go to college. However, then I realized that being white alone was the reason I would have an easier time going to college because this is what was expect of me from my race. Below is a chart from the journal The Chronicle of Higher Education in 2010 what the racial representation among college students was. 

Racial Representation Among College Students

As you can clearly see white make up 61% of students who are in college. This does not mean that other races are lazy or whatever else people would like to say there are. This just means I was born into a privilege where I get the opportunity to (more than others) to attend college.
Then if you look at financial aid given to college students it shows a similar story. According to The Distribution of Grants and Scholarships by Race written by Mark Kantrowitz and posted on finaid.org more than one million white students were scholarship recipients; as you can see below in the chart. Although, the average amount of scholarship money received is the highest for Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander; which receives 4,900 dollars compared to the 2,368 dollars whites receive which is the second lowest; whites are still being given more scholarship opportunities.  
 

Distribution of Grants and Scholarships by Race

After looking at both of these charts I realized I have been born into and been given a privilege where if I go to my class I can identity with my "race" and I would not feel as though I was in the minority. I have noticed it a lot at Washington State University being able to see a lot of "white" people. I am originally from Connecticut where there are also a lot of "white" people, but I spent most of my life in New Mexico where I felt as though I was the minority in my high school. Yet, even though I felt like I was the minority back home there were still more "white" children who graduated then anyone else. This is where I have seen a lot of my "white" privileged come into play.

I was really struck by Peggy McIntosh article and her list of privileges she realized she had. I know most of these apply to me and people still portray my race in the same ways in which she expressed. One of the privileges she spoke I have had witness first hand which is why it stood out to me. The one where it says "I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed." I work at Burlington Coat Factory in New Mexico one summer and I cannot tell you the amount of times I was told to keep on eye on certain customers because of their racial identity. What made the situation worse was not only were the "white" managers telling me to do this, but also the "Latino" managers as well, but they never told me to watch "white" people, but they told me to watch every other race. I would not change any part of her list, but rather I would add onto it.

For example, if you expand her list to not only include race, but sexual orientation you could add:
I can comfortably kiss my significant other in public and not be judged.
I can get married in all 50 states in the United States.
I do not have to be afraid of losing my job because of my choice in sexual partners.
I can be pretty sure I will not be bullied because of my choice of sexual partners.
I can have a child with my partner without the help of science or adoption. (When I though of this one, I shocked myself, this sounds so harsh that I did not want to force myself to think more about the privileges based on sexual orientation).

The lists could go on and on. This just proves we are born into privileges and how we choose to use those privileges to help ourselves and others will determine how this world will turn out.
 

Blog 1

Find a clip on a popular video sharing site (YouTube/Vimeo) that exemplifies the descriptions of Color-Blind ideology exposed by Bonilla-Silva & Dietrich, Winant, and Wise.  Unpack the major themes in the clip.

After researching some of the worst television commercials I found an article which had clips of the commercials and a description underneath them. I found the ever popular Lucky Charms commercial was on this list and this really shocked me. I can remember when I would see these commercials and thinking I want to ride the magical rainbow or the red balloon. So after the shock wore off I read the description below the clip. The blur said the common stereotype is that the Irish were greedy, selfish, superstitious, perverted and thieving.  Well as many people know the mascot for Lucky Charms is a leprechaun. I decided to watch the short commercial again and kept this stereotype in mind and sure enough I found the portrayal of an Irish man (Lucky the Leprechaun) playing with little children (perverted) withholding the marshmallows (selfish/greedy) and he makes them look as though they are magical (superstitious). Then when the children go to eat the marshmallows he steals them back and says they are mine and runs away (thieving/greedy). 

The clip I have inserted on this blog is not the original clip I watched. The reason for this is because I wanted to know if they still made the commercial and if they still had the same stereotypes in there and sure enough they did. Even though this ideology was formed in the 1800s, when the only reason the Irish came to America was to have the freedom to practice their own religion and to find better work, it is still being shown through the media in the late 1990s through 2000s.

I believe this relates Winant article about Race and Racism: Towards a Global Future when it talks about the five themes of racial global formation. The one I am specifically looking at is The Nation and its Peoples which talks about citizenship and immigration. As Winant explains the United States was perceived as a white man’s country. However, this is interesting with the clip I chose because Lucky the Leprechaun (before he speaks) is perceived to be white. Winant continues in this sections talking about frequent nativism was being directed against immigrants. This is true today and it was true back when the Irish first migrated to America. 

Finally General Mills the company who makes lucky charms could state they are being inclusive of every race by mentioning they have a boy who appears to be black, a boy who could either be of Asian or Latino decent and a girl who is white. However, this is the prime example of being Colorblind and Bonilla-Silva and Dietrich would argue this is Abstract Liberalism which they believe provides a discourse for white people to appear reasonable and equal because they are including all different types of backgrounds.

Still General Mills is bringing back a stereotype which supposedly was only prevalent in the 1800 and as we can see in the commercial this is not true. 

The link to the article where I found the 25 racial commercial is http://www.adsavvy.org/25-most-racist-advertisements-and-commercials/