Race

So in class, we have been talking about race. Race is different from place to place, from society from society. We also learned the biology behind race, that there isn't any! this may come to a shock to a lot of people because we almost assume there must be something genetic involving race, but there isn't. One of the many problems I see with this is, we should be taught earlier that race is made up, not when we are 17 or 18. We have made up our minds about most things by now. I think a lot of people will have a hard time believing it even if a great teacher like Sal says so, which is unfortunate. i like to think that we come from a more tolerant area but racism is everywhere and even then, without hate, we still acknowledge race all the time. African-American is the "politically correct" term for black, when you can be black and be from Australia or Brazil. We generalize people in our attempt to be less racist, that cannot be the case in our quest for equality among all colors, religions, cultures etc. We aren't as different as we think and need act accordingly.

Monopoly

In class we played Monopoly, but there different rules! These rules were made to better simulate the class structure of America. It did a good job with the wealthy not only starting out with more money, but already having property. The had next to nothing and had really no chance of moving up. Though the game couldn't show the entire process of moving through the class system, it did a good job to show the difficulty. I mean life isn't just buying property and hoping people show up to pay you, but that would be one complicated simulation. I think this sort of simulation can be an eye opener to how different the wealthy are from the poor and all that is in between. It also shows the possibility of the middle class moving up in the middle class rankings. A person can move from middle-middle to upper-middle in a lifetime. This somewhat possible unlike lower to lower-middle or upper-middle to just upper. Wow that was a lot of hyphens. I do think through generations of hard work and smart decisions can allow people and families to move up in the ranks of society. This may be to long for some, but I think the longer something takes to do, the more worth while it actually is.

Wealth in America

We talked about the inequality of wealth in America. A small percentage of Americans have the majority of wealth. Some would say his isn't fair or equal, but life isn't fair. America promises equal opportunity, not complete equality. The Soviet Union promised complete equality, so everyone was poor. do we really want that? Much of the wealth worked their way to their position, sure many were born into but their parents worked hard to get there and benefit their family. Many will say that there isn't really equal opportunity in America, I say that's a lie and an excuse to fail. It's easier to dwell in your own self pity than to work yourself out of your situation. An example from my life is my dad. He grew up in Nevada, Iowa. There was about 1000 people living there and no one went to college. My dad worked 2-3 jobs at a time starting at the age of 13 till the end of high school but he couldn't pay for college by himself. So he joined ROTC Navy and the Navy paid for his college. He got his Bachelor's Degree and served our country, then came back and got his Master's. He worked hard and made sacrifices to improve his situation. It's not impossible to be well off in America, but it does take some actual work.

Saints and Roughnecks

In class we read an article about social deviance. The article provided too classes of people at a high school. The saints and the roughnecks. The saints were rich, white, "good" kids that were allowed to break the rules. when they did break rules and laws it was just considered "boys being boys" or they were just acting out. The roughnecks had it the exact opposite way. They were expected to be bad and eventually were bad. The key point of these was the groups economic back round. The saints had money, the roughnecks didn't. It is as simple as that. Money was the main factor on how society treated them. I would agree that wealth is the overwhelming factor in how our society views people. We expect the poor to break the rules and the rich to uphold them when they want to.

There are definitely kids at my high school who would be considered saints. Without any names, kids with rich parents who play sports, mainly lacrosse and football could be considered saints. I'm not generalizing all athletes, as I once played football myself, because our teams are very diverse. But the richer the kid, the better the kid is at that sport, the more they can get away with. I find that most of the time, the deviance isn't even hidden. It's blatant and no one cares or the people who do, don't matter. The kid's parents can turn a blind eye to such antics.

I would not say everyone is saint, if everyone was a saint at a high school, I do not think it could function. Things would become too much of a problem where no one could ignore it or it would become extremely bad. But the higher income of the school district, the more saints and we live in a very high income school district.

Teens in America

So our society is considered a discontinuous culture. Our entire life we are told not to do certain things and then at certain ages we can suddenly do it. Can't drive till 16, vote till 18, drink till 21 etc. This makes it very difficult to grow up as a teen. There are so many mixed signals we hear as we grow up. Now the whole system cannot be changed but some of it definitely needs to be. We are too large a country to have the same systems as Samoa. We do need a driving age but we can lower the permit age so teens have more time between not driving and driving. And taking the pressure of having to drive also needs to happen. If a kid isn't ready, a kid isn't ready. Simple as that. I do not and will not ever understand why the drinking age is at what it is currently at. Twenty-one years old is a random number that is to high and does little good. Sure it helps keep alcohol out of high school, barely, which is a good thing. But kids that actually wait till their 21 are at an extreme risk of danger. It becomes a shock to their system and they act irresponsibly and can be seriously harmed. The drinking age needs to be lowered and applied similarly to Germany's law. Where if you act the age and can be responsible, you can drink. I can't believe our government would trust me to drive a 6 million dollar tank in the army, but not to drink a beer, not that i would ever do that before I am 21. It is the law.

Masculinity

So the last couple of days we have watched videos in class about masculinity, or a least what men in America think masculinity is. These videos say that men think violence, not talking about feelings, treating women like objects and many other negative actions and thoughts represent masculinity. They blame these misconceptions of masculinity on the evil media. Movies, TV shows, ads, and music, especially those rappers, are making men terrible people. I cannot see where some of these ideas come from.

In the film, Tough Guise, the man talking throughout the film as obvious problems with how the media portray men. He brings up an example about action heroes through out recent history. From James Bond to Rambo. He talks about the size of their guns and how they increase. He also criticizes the violence in movies such as Rambo, the movie about a man on revenge in Vietnam. I would just want to ask the critic, What should Rambo do? This ACTION movie about WAR should not be violent and Sylvester Stallone is too ripped. His body gives false messages to men that they need to be strong and violent. I agree, being strong and violent in war is no good. Instead i think we need to remake Rambo. We keep the same setting, but instead of uberjacked Stallone, we get David Spade and instead of a gun, we will just have Rambo talk it out. Jokes aside. It is a movie! It's for entertainment, how can not only a person but a whole culture take a movie an say it is what makes them a man?

Even if these films and shows make men think they need violence to be a man, these men in the movies rarely harm women, children or the innocent. Tough Guise showed clips from the film Raging Bull, a classic about boxer Joe LaMotta. In the film Joe beats his wife, it's a horrifying and powerful scene where you see the how screwed up LaMotta was. But this is based on real life... What should the director do? Make Joe a nice loving husband when in reality he was a cheating, wife beater? No. and he is not glorified in this film. He dies a criminal, low life, with no family or friends. No one walked away from that movie saying, "I wanna be like Joe!" Tough Guise, in my opinion, took many scenes of films out of context.

We also watched a short piece on Disney. This was a very biased film that did not hide from its disdain from the company. Now while I agree with all things the film had to say about Disney's portrayal of women in their movies, I noticed their weaker argument for their portrayal of men. The claim was that Disney pushed the male character as a dominant, strong, fearless individual who is the superior o women. I do think that Disney makes the female character weaker and dependent, which is wrong and terrible for young girls to look up to. But the film's main character to prove all these qualities? Gaston. The vilain of Beauty and the Beast. Unlike the female characters who are the heroes toward young girls, the male characters that influence masculinity are the villains? That doesn't make sense. When I watched The Beauty and the Beast, Gaston has all these qualities of big and strong and arrogant, but he is the bad guy. I don't look up to him. I look up to the beast. He gets the princess, he is kind and caring. He is the hero the idol for young boys. Another criticism of Disney was how the hero needed to be physically strong. The film's example, Hercules. The half god half man who, in Greek mythology, is the strongest man to ever walk the Earth. So Hercules should have been a scrawny weakling to better suit reality. Once again these films are fantasies and in the end parents should dictate what "normal" is.

A father should teach his son what a real man is. Real men can still be tough but the definition of tough needs to be more clear. Tough doesn't mean using violence whenever possible. Women, children, the innocent, should never have violence used against them. So when I hear about two boys in high school shooting up a school full of innocent boys and girls, and then the "experts" like Jackson Katz saying it is because of the culture in our media. I don't understand where that logic comes from. Sure there is violence in media and the heroes of our movies par take in violence, but where is the movie glorifying the psycho who kills his classmates, or rapes a woman, or beats his girlfriend? There aren't any, if anything it is the opposite. The bad guys of our movies commit those acts. I think it's time to stop blaming the media for every bad thing in our world and culture and start looking at the parents who raise these "men" and what we need to change about how we nurture and raise our children.

Beauty in America

In class today we looked at how women and girls are marketed at to look "beautiful". The media and marketing firms of companies have convinced our young girls what beauty is. "Beauty" means you are unrealistically thin, covered in make up, perfect white teeth, etc. Girls think they need to me perfect. They are given a goal that is impossible to obtain. It's wrong. Completely wrong. Beauty is subjective and should be based off physical appearance but more importantly, inner-beauty. No one person can decide what beauty is, especially a marketing firm. These unobtainable goals lead to psychological problems for these young girls. Parents need to start teaching their children at a young age that all the magazines and commercials are fake and are not active representations of what they should stride for. And on a side note, the media and marketing companies deserve blame but the models who participate in these shoots and allow themselves to be edited and photoshopped.

Gay Rights

In America, we are going through another civil rights movement, but this movement is different. This movement is an almost silent protest for gay rights. There may not be giant parades and marches, but they are protesting. The gay community of America is gaining support and it needs too. Sexual orientation should not limit any citizen in our country. Our gay and lesbian citizens can gain even more support by teaching our children to be more tolerate. It is ingrained in our minds at a young age that "gay" is an insult and kids to this day still use as so, maybe not even realizing how offensive that term is in that context. We need to stop teaching our kids that "gay" is wrong and we need to teach to be accepting of others.

Nature vs Nurture

As humans, we are born with certain instincts. Even though we have natural ways of doing things, nature alone does not make us human. Nurture is key to being human. We need human contact to grow up. In class we looked at cases of feral children, kids abandoned or neglected and raised without human contact. They do not develop they way normal children do. They become severely disabled and have an extremely hard time living a normal life. It is essential that all people are raised in a nurturing environment.

Americans on Death

I would say that most Americans are afraid of death, not all though. I wouldn't say death is a taboo subject though. People can talk about death, in some cases. Discussions about loved ones passing away can be difficult but also healthy and people even make light of historic people's death. But when talking about our own death, now that can get tricky. I think it has to do with our materialism. Us dying means us losing.We don't like to lose what is ours, in this case our life. But you can see that the wiser and older people get, that materialism fades and people realize that death is inevitable and not something to fear.

Language

The non-material aspects of culture are very important and can be even more important than material aspect. Language is so important because it allows us to express our culture and explain ourselves and our beliefs. We saw how difficult different culture can be without language in our card game exercise. There were different rules at each table but without being able to speak, we could never learn the new rules. This reminds me of the time i visited the Czech Republic. I did not know a lick of Czech and the area we were in had very little English. It was hard to find basic things like certain restaurants and even the bank. These things didn't look like they do in America so we needed language. We eventually did learn some basic words for certain things and places.

A Bronx Tale

The last week of class we watched the movie a Bronx Tale. It follows the life of Collogero in an Italian neighborhood. The films depicts a lot of hidden sociological themes. These themes include, micro-macro dynamics, groups, social construction of reality, and sociological imagination.

The micro and macro dynamics in the movie cover racism. Why is the neighborhood racist? Some micro forces would be being raised by racist parents. With parents passing down prejudice to their kids, it is no wonder the kids will be racist. In the movie, "C" says, "We hate these people, well I don't hate them." He looks at the group that is his neighborhood and identifies their hate and automatically associates the hate with himself. Even though he does not hate black people. Some macro forces would be government building low income housing close to the Italian neighborhood. This causes minoities to have to drive through the Italian neighborhood. This causes more racial tension.

There are many groups and even sup groups in the movie. The main groups would be the Italians and the African Americans, but within these groups there are more important sup groups. Especially in the case of the Italians. There is the mobsters and there is "C"'s family. C belongs too both. He is a son in his family and friend/associate to the mob. In the beginning of the film, C's master status is a son in his family. As the movie progresses he leans toward the side of the mob, but in the end remains loyal to his father and family. I think throughout the movie his master status remains being a son. There is also a small group within the mob. This would be Sonny and C. They are in a friendship that lets them look out for each other and advise each other. In this group, C is a friend and student in a sense, learning life lessons of the streets.

The social construction of reality in the movie and neighborhood is based off the mobs rule. The unwritten rules of the neighborhood are enforced by the mobsters. These rules include no snitching, no disrespecting a mobster, no disrespecting the neighborhood. Especially no argueing over parking spots, that will get you killed. But all these rules are made by the mob and the people of the neighborhood accept as if the government made the rules. That is just how things are done there. They accept tha way of life because it seemingly as always been like that. They have made there own rules based off what their society has told them is right.

C's story shows a lot of things on the surface, but with a sociological imagination, we can see more to the story. C's life is not uncommon. Many cities have similar situations with organized crime. This is rooted in life before America. In Sicily, there was the origin of the Mafia and it came to America with Italian immigrates. At times it seemed alright for these men to break the law in order to protect the neighborhood. It eventually became normal. No one would challenge the mob, but more importantly no one would challenge the way of life everyone had come to known, good or bad. Because it was normal. This is why C is so influenced by these men, because their society had them above everyone else.

Quantitative vs Qualitative

Our school of Stevenson is its very own society. A society that many other schools wish to mimic. So much that other schools across the country come to visit and see how things work. These other schools look at the quantitative stats. The test scores, graduation rate, college admission rates, etc. Never do they ask the students exactly what we think of the school. I would think that most Stevenson students would have mostly positive things to say, but qualitative observation would offer much more information and really allow a visitor to see what Stevenson is doing right and what they are doing wrong.

Most students would mention the quantitative things that visitors already know. But they would also offer information that surveys and statistics cannot. Students can tell you how easy it is to reach a teacher outside of the classroom, how much fun the athletic events are, and how great the relationship between student and staff is.

Quantitative study can also reveal negative things that qualitative study can hide. There isn't any stat that tells how many classrooms have working air conditioning and lights on the opening week of school. ;)

Community Service

So, instead of a formal multiple choice final in sociology, we do community service and write a paper on our experience and how it relates to sociology. When I was a freshman we had to do community service for English along with a final test. We had to do 8 hours then. This year for sociology, we do 10 hours. As a freshman I found this mandatory community service as a waste of time. Now as a senior, I still don't look forward to doing it, but it beats a final and offers many opportunities. I am not completely sure what I will be doing but I am interested in a retirement home or some sort of food drive or soup kitchen. I think it would do a lot of good to help the less fortunate and see how other people live when they may be apart of another society, like a retirement home or the inner-city. Seeing how they live can affect how I live my life.

Though it cannot be done now, but in years to come, I would love to see how many people participate in community service after high school and college after being forced to to take part of it in high school. In my opinion, you should volunteer because you want to. Forcing student to do it, I think, may actually cause them to resent it later in life. A similar example would be reading. People on average tend to stop reading after schooling. One case could easily be they have grown resentment towards the idea after being forced to read things they didn't want to read in high school and college. Reading is another thing I think people should do because they want to, not because they are forced to. This is just an opinion, but with a sociological imagination and stepping back to look at the issue in years to come, we could really see its effect.

Though I am also being forced to volunteer, I will still put forth 100% effort and look at it with a positive point of view. I know that I can learn from this experience and also socialize with my friends and people I may never have met before. All in all, I cannot wait to start planning my community service.

Shhhh....

What a great way to start off the year. first period of the the first day! Complete silence. I was running on 45 minutes of sleep at the time, so I think i appreciated it a little more than most. Thanks Sal =] But i see the point our teacher was trying to make. We as students our so used the nature order of all things school. Especially as seniors, we have been through the drill for 13 years of are lives. That's crazy! In all that time, I personally have only had 2-3 teachers that don't teach with that common system. Stand in front and tell us what to know, what to memorize. We rarely actually learn, like our teacher said, we get "schooled". It is quite worrying, but it is our responsibility as the next generation, the future leaders of our country and schools, that we change this system. One way Mr. Salituro strays away from this system of memorization and telling is blogging. At first, I must admit, I was skeptical of this idea. But only after the first week of school I can see how beneficial it will be on our semester of actual learning. It was allows us to share ideas outside the classroom,  or in my case, after 8 o'clock. I look forward to more blogging and hopefully some more akward silences!

Hey there!!!!

Hello I'm Alex! I am a senior in high school and only plan on attending one semester. I am graduating early because four years is way too much. I cannot wait to get out of here. I plan on getting job for the second semester and going to the local community college for a semester. After that i plan on going to a four year school with interest in business. Besides business, I love history and sports. I played football and watch it regularly. I'm also a huge fan of mixed martial arts and watch it whenever I can. I cannot wait to blog about everything sociology hope to have a great time in the class!