The Last BLOG! Culture May 23rd

For final post, please post about American culture.  We began by learning about how we react to different cultures with culture shock and ethnocentrism.  We also learned that sociologists seek cultural relativity when understanding other cultures.  We then learned about the different components of culture: Material culture, and non-material culture: gestures, language, norms (folkways, mores, taboos) Using your sociological imagination, you can explain how living in the United States might affect someone.  We especially focused on cultural values.  Then using your sociological mindfulness you can post about how you might be affected by American cultural values and how you might want to make changes or fight against certain values that our culture promotes. Be reflective on your life. How has living in America affected your decision making process or how it affects your life.  What might be some specific examples in your life that you acted due to those American norms or aspects of your life that are controlled by American values.

Don't forget to explain the connection of some sources to sociology.  We have looked at Kohl's The Values Americans Live By, Stefan Schirmer's Bemused in America, the video I Am or  Thrive by Dan Buettner, God Grew Tired of Us.

Terms: material culture, nonmaterial culture, culture shock,  ethnocentrism, values, value contradiction, real v. ideal culture

Remember to write properly.

Culture Shock

Today in class we examined how people react when they come into contact with different cultures. Culture is essentially all the rules we learn about how to live our lives. We played a card game that illustrated this. When we are exposed to other cultures and we see such different rules, we are sometimes in shock of how different the other culture is (culture shock). If this shock results in our judging a culture based on the rules we have learned that is called ethnocentrism. Instead, sociologists try to usecultural relativity when examining a culture.

 Another metaphor for culture that we use is a fishbowl. All of the stuff in the fishbowl is material culture. But what you can't see (the water) is just as important (if not more so): the ph value of the water, the temperature, whether it is salty or not, etc... This is called nonmaterial culture. Additionally, the fish has never known life out of water just like we have been surrounded by culture from the moment we are born. And lastly, the fish must look through the water to see the world just as we always look through our culture to understand the world. We are limited and shaped by our cultural experiences. If the water in the bowl is blue then the whole world looks blue to the fish.

Here is an example of the negative aspects of some Material Culture.

Thrive...Paths to Happiness

https://sites.google.com/a/d125.org/frantonius/sociology

Go to the site above and click on the PDF Thrive.


While reading this excerpt think about the following questions:


1.  What are three ideas from the reading that either surprised you or that you want to keep in mind as you get older? 



2.  For you or your parents,  how is your life currently structure to not let you "thrive"?  What specifically will you do differently in your life?

God Grew Tired Of Us

We watched a bit of the movie "God Grew Tired of Us." (Click here to watch the movie via mediacast) My mom happened to meet and talk to one of the lost boys in the film and she recommended it to us for sociology. I'm so thankful to her for that. Anyway, in the movie we see numerous cultural differences.  Here is a website dedicated to the Lost Boys of Sudan in Chicago.
To speak about culture in a more measured way, think in terms of the way sociologists might break down culture. Culture is made up of material culture as well as the nonmaterial: gestures, language, norms, values.  Describe the cultural differences that the Sudanese men experienced using the terms material cuture, mores, folkways, values?  Have you ever met anyone from a different country? Did you notice or discuss any cultural differences? What component of culture (from the terms above) did those differences fall under?

I also like the contrast in cultural values in the movie between communal society versus individualistic society. We see the Lost Boys in the United States have food, shelter, jobs and schooling but they feel lonely. They miss their culture because they are so used to communal culture. That is being together with their friends and family, rather than living nearly alone in an apartment. This is an important revelation that our culture sometimes de-emphasizes to a fault; we need other people. Humans are social and communal beings. Do you see how this individualist way of living and thinking shapes our lives? How can we work to change that and satisfy our inherent needs for connecting with other people?

Finally, I like watching the movie with our community service in mind. We have so much to be thankful for in our culture. We live in a culture of abundance. We must be mindful of our bounty and mindful of those who have so much less than us. One way to create this mindfulness is through community service. By finding ways to serve others we become grateful for what we have rather than ignoring those who need help and taking for granted all of our bounty. Perhaps you know someone who is able and willing to help them find a job or donate to their cause - here is a list of ways to help.

Here is the foundation created by John Bul Dau from the movie:
http://www.johndaufoundation.org/ 

Here is a follow up story about Panther Bior:
http://www.sudaneseschool.org/panther-bior/

Update - March 2016
Sudan broke apart into two nations; Sudan and South Sudan.  South Sudan is where the Lost Boys in the movie returned to. Unfortunately, South Sudan faces a new civil war within itself.  Here is a March 8, 2016 report from NPR:
http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/03/08/469502071/nothing-is-going-right-in-the-worlds-newest-nation

Unarmed and Shot.

How Implicit Bias can lead to Explicit Racism and Death

Tampa Bay Newspaper Report
Implicit Bias and it's consequences.

Why cops shoot?


White Privilege

White Privilege is real and measurable.


Macklemore Songs about White Privilege, Black Live Matters and being white at a Black Lives Matter rally, the hypocrisy/responsibility of white rappers, success in hip-hop without having to go through the struggle of the foundations of hip-hop, Is he just Elvis?, and other important topics revolving around race and identity in America

Macklemore-White Privilege

Macklemore-White Privilege II

Panel discussion with Macklemore/Ryan Lewis and others about the song....optional


Race Post.  You must discuss about the social construction of race (Here is a great recap that articulates the myth of race as genetics and why it is a social construction http://www.vox.com/2015/1/13/7536655/race-myth-debunked ),
ingroups/outgroups in concerns with race, explicit and implicit racism as well as white privilege. 

Apply it to your own experiences, you might want to think about: assumptions you have had about race (esp. biological), experiences you have had with other races and/or racism, and how privilege affects you (negatively or positively). 
You MUST include evidence of watching/reading: White Like Me (Tim Wise documentary), Tampa Bay Newspaper reports, Yes, You Can Measure White Privilege article, and reflect on the Macklemore songs.

White Like Me-Tim Wise

Tim Wise is a sociologist and anti-racist educator who has spent his career writing about race and speaking out against racial injustices.  His latest video is called White Like Me.  You can watch it here on media cast.

Wise's video reinforces much of what we have done already this unit:

Explicit Racism is still an issue in the US despite having elected a black man to President.

White privilege has helped many whites while blacks have not received the same privileges such as mortgages, jobs, and loans.

Implicit racism subtly and subconsciously creates discrimination and racialized attitudes such as when whites receive government assistance it is simply helping them reach the American dream, but when blacks receive similar assistance they are considered leeches of society.  Whites never have to think about their race so race is not a big deal to them, but minorities constantly are aware of their race and how it affects their treatment.

Our goal is not to create white guilt but rather to make everyone mindful of the effects of racism on society and on individuals.  In becoming more mindful, hopefully we become more understanding and appreciative of each other as humans having a unique experience.

Racism

Even though race does not exist biologically, it does exist as a social construction. This means that people believe in it and act on it even though it is not real.  One of the ways the construction of race has shaped people is called explicit racism, or directly and consciously believing that one's own "racial" group is superior to others. Another way that Americans have been shaped by "race" is prejudice and discrimination.  Prejudice is having a predetermined attitude about a group of people usually based on a stereotype.  Discrimination is an action or behavior that results in unequal treatment of individuals because of his or her perceived "race." However, over the last few years, the  United States has elected its first black/ mixed-race President, there are more black actors and actresses on network television, and the cultural norm is that it’s wrong to be racist, SO 

(Please jot down a response to this)

 Is racism still relevant? Should we still be concerned about racism or have we moved past racism?  




Checkout these recent events in our country:
Here is a post about racist tweets from the 2013 Miss America pageant.  

Here is a post  about a 2013 racist incident in an unlikely place.

The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education has an ongoing list of racist incidents.

A college student from Queens got more than he bargained for when he splurged on a $350 designer belt at Barneys — when a clerk had him cuffed apparently thinking the black teen couldn’t afford the pricey purchase, even though he had paid for it, a new lawsuit alleges.
“His only crime was being a young black man,” his attorney, Michael Palillo, told The Post.



During the Healthcare debate in 2009, Representative David Scott of Georgia had a 4foot swastika painted over his office sign.


The Southern Poverty Law Center identifies hate groups in America. This link will show you a map of all the hate groups in the United States.   Is this surprising?  Is this concerning?


This article from the Mail Online, A British online newspaper: 

And with Mr Obama reportedly receiving more death threats than any other American president - 400 per cent more than those against his predecessor George Bush, according to a new book...A black U.S. Congressman had a swastika painted over his office sign after he yelled at allegedly racist protesters at a Southern town hall meeting, it emerged today.

In 2012, Joel Ward, a black NHL player scored the winning goal in the NHL playoffs and he became the target of racial slurs.

 Fraternities and sororities hold racial-themed parties that display very directly the racialized stereotypes that persist in the United States. Does this surprise you?  How would you feel/react to a party like this when you go to college?

 Jeremy Lin is an example of the racial stereotypes in sports and how stereotypes can be more or less permissible for different groups within a society. Here is a post explaining that dynamic from the society pages.  Here is a clip of the skitfrom the daily beast.  Have you seen or heard any explicit racism in your own life?