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?

Race is a Social Construct

I asked students to classify these balls into different categories. Two things happen:
1)Some students pick a trait such as size or color to classify the balls or, 2)Students classify the balls based on the sport of each such as basketball, soccer, etc...
This is a metaphor for race and how we classify people. 1)First, we choose to use traits such as skin color to classify them, but the divisions between these traits are arbitrary divisions. If you lined up all of the people (or balls) in the world according to a trait, the divisions would be less obvious. It would look more like a spectrum that changes gradually blending into one another.  Here is a post from soc images that displays the spectrum of human colors.

So why all the fuss about skin color? Nina Jablonski explains the significance of skin color in her Ted Talk here: The article Skin Deep by Nina Jablonski and Chaplin from Scientific American explains the science behind skin color and how around the world, skin color would look more like a spectrum than distinct groups.2)Second, when we categorize the balls into sports or people into races we are constructing a social category that only exists because we say it should. Ask students to define what a basketball is.  The only true definition is "any ball that society says is a basketball."  The same is true for race. Whatever the society says is a distinct race, is a distinct race in their eyes.   Race, like sports, are social constructions.  Here is more about skin color.
What's the point? Click here to see why there is no way of biologically separating people into "races." Race doesn't exist in any scientific sense. This is a difficult concept because I think that race is a biological hegemony in America - that is, it is so accepted that we never question it. For more info you can checkout the April 22, 2005 episode of Odyssey, a radio program that used to air on Chicago Public Radio. This episode about the genetics of race and if you listen carefully to the caller segment, you can hear a very interesting high school sociology teacher commenting. [Listen the program here (the good part is after 35:26)]

Here is an explanation about how genetic diversity spread out over time and how that led to varying populations of diversity but not distinct groups. 


Jefferson Fish also explains how race doesn't make sense in the article title Mixed Blood from Psychology Today, 1995.


What are some assumptions you have had about race? Have you learned erroneous information regarding race? Why is this not a part of curriculum in American schools especially in light of the profound impact the idea of race has had on this country?

Social Class Post

Sorry kids,  I got hit by a nasty virus Saturday night and spent all day Sunday in various degrees of sickness.  I was too sick to get on my plane ride home Sunday.  Im flying in Monday morning but I doubt I will be in class.

Your assignment for the today is to do the social class blog.

Go to the previous Monopoly post and read through it.  Reflect on how the game played out for your group.  WATCH the TEDtalk at the end of the post that describes a study on how people play the game.   Did your experience replicate the study?  How so? Why do you think that happens?



For this unit,  we looked at all of the components of social class that shape an individual's possibilities and problems.  Some things to consider for this post are: How do the following characteristics affect Social Class: Wealth, Education, Income, Power/Prestige, and Location (lecture notes)? Do you see how social class is played out at SHS? Where do you see class conflicts in the community? How do you see social class playing a role in your own life? How has your family's mobility been? Are you growing up in the same social class as your parents? How about from your grandparents? Where do you see your future in terms of social class?
How are you affected by it? How might someone in poverty be affected by it?   You must include your reflections and thoughts on the following sources: SPENT the game, People Like Us documentary discussion questions, Coin Flipping activity, the Ted Talk about Monopoly and the Monopoly Activity.  Due Monday April 3.

Sociolopoly: Class System in America

Monopobility

Yesterday we played monopoly with rules that more closely affect the real rules of the US class system. Players started with different amounts of income and different amounts of property; the upper-upper class started with the most, and the working class the least. They rolled the dice to see what class they were. I told them them not worry about who "wins" the game, instead just try moving up to the next level of class. Playing monopoly according to the rules of the U.S.'s class structure should have some revealing insight about the state of mobility within the U.S.'s class structure.
From the Brookings Institute:

Recent studies suggest that there is less economic mobility in the United States than has long been presumed. The last thirty years has seen a considerable drop-off in median household income growth compared to earlier generations. And, by some measurements, we are actually a less mobile society than many other nations, including Canada, France, Germany and most Scandinavian countries. This challenges the notion of America as the land of opportunity.

And from the New Yorker,
“Social mobility is low and has been for at least thirty or forty years.” This is most obvious when you look at the prospects of the poor. Seventy per cent of people born into the bottom quintile of income distribution never make it into the middle class, and fewer than ten per cent get into the top quintile. Forty per cent are still poor as adults....The middle class isn’t all that mobile, either: only twenty per cent of people born into the middle quintile ever make it into the top one. 

Mobility in America tends to be within the middle classes (from working class to uppermiddle class). The wealthy class tends to stay wealthy and the impoverished class tends to stay in poverty, especially in comparison to other most developed nations.

When someone changes social class within their lifetime, this is called intragenerational mobility.

1. Was anyone from your group able to change classes?  If so, who?  What class?  If not, then who was the closest to moving up or down?

2.  Does your groups' mobility reflect the findings above from the Brookings Institute?

Social class mobility might also be  intergenerational mobility or structural mobility.   Intergenerational mobility means that the children of one group will have a different class than their parents.  This is much more common than intragenerational mobility.  My own family's history reflect this as well.  How has your family's mobility been? Are you growing up in the same social class as your parents? How about from your grandparents? Where do you see your future in terms of social class?
 Structural mobility is when the structure of society changes in such a way that a group is moved up or down.  For example, many people in the 1950s and 60s were able to finish high school and go right to work in a factory.  When those jobs moved overseas, many of those people were thrust downward.

3.  Tell the group about your family's intergenerational mobility.  Did they go up or down or stay the same?

4.  Using the monopoly game yesterday, what are some ways that we could exemplify intergenerational mobility and structural mobility as part of the game?


A second way that we can look at this simulation is in how players react.  Below is a TED talk about how people react to playing the game.  Think about how that reaction might show up in everyday life.

Can you survive?

  Play a simulation game of trying to survive on a minimum paying job.  Can you avoid being dragged down below the poverty line?  Try to honestly answer the questions.  At the end of the game it will ask for a donation. You are not expected nor would I donate to it.

The simulation is at:   playspent.org

Feel free to play a few times by taking the other jobs.

What surprised you about the simulation?  What did you learn about life near the poverty line?

People Like Us

The past few days we've watch parts of the documentary "People Like Us".   The film gave us insight into various stigmas and indicators of various social classes.  

The WASPs, the Black Middle Class, the Working Class and Poverty like Tammy.

In the movie People Like Us we met Tammy and her sons from Pike County, Ohio. (Watch the videoon youtube here or watch it on mediacast here.) They live in poverty. Tammy was from a family of 22 kids and she grew up in poverty. She wants to be a teacher. Her son wants to be an architect or a lawyer. Will they be able to achieve these goals? What are the factors that will hold them back? What will their life chances be? One of the ways that Tammy’s son copes with his situation is by trying to dress preppy and act preppy. He cleans the house so it looks better and he tries in school, winning awards and succeeding in sports. Can these actions move him up to a higher class or is he kidding himself? What are the chances he succeeds in the "American Dream"?If you want to help Tammy and her family, here is a link to how you can help.

Deviance Blog Post--March 22

For this post, explain the concept of norms (mores and folkways) and deviance and how it is relative.  Discuss the unjust problems that relativity in deviances causes.  You may also explain how deviance labels people and creates a stigma as well as how it is connected to social class. How is deviance positive and negative.  Can you relate to being positively deviant?  Examples? Reflections on the action?  Some sources we looked at that must be included are Saints and Roughnecks, 30 days in Jail, Power and Violence Chicago Tribune article, and the John Oliver's look at Criminal Justice System. What do the sources reveal about our criminal justice system(CJS)?  How is the social construction of reality present in the CJS?  

Due WEDNESDAY March 22

The Criminal "Justice" System

Sorry I am out today.  The lake effect snow in Chicago was pretty gnarly this AM. I had to drive Luella to grandma's house and the traffic at 5 am was already over an hour which meant the roads were atrocious.  For her safety I didn't want to risk the chaos that is Chicago streets in a windy snow storm.  I hope we are all doing most excellent though!



After viewing and reflecting on the 30 Days in Jail episode and the problem of recidivism, I want you to watch a couple video, albeit humor ones, on the sad state of the justice system.  One that needs to be fixed to truly help make America safer and more just.


1) Go to the website at the end of the instructions after you read all the instructions.
2) Each person at your table should watch one of the following videos but do not watch the same video as you will be discussing with them the issue that your video dealt with.
                One person at your table should watch the video on: Mandatory Minimums.
                One person should watch: Public Defenders
                One person should watch: Prison Reentry
                One person should watch: Bonus Segment on Prisons

3) After watching your video discuss the issues of the video with your table.

HERE IS THE LINK: https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/12/18/john-oliver-s-year-in-criminal-justice#.JIO3Hx1PT   Please use headphones!

Warning: There may be some swearing in the video, the video is also uses comedy to look at a difficult and problematic issues, although things he say may be funny the sad reality though is disturbing and problematic.

Cycle of Poverty and Violence

Read the following and look for explanations of why there tends to be a cycle of poverty, violence and deviance in the economically depressed neighborhoods of Chicago.


http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/glanton/ct-poverty-violence-glanton-met-20170309-column.html

Roughnecks, Saints and Deviants

Deviance: Saints, Roughnecks and Patriots?

Please answer the following:

1. Describe the Saints.
2. Describe the Roughnecks.
3. How does money play a role with the Saints and Roughnecks?
4.  How are they affected in life after high school?
5. Are there Saints and Roughnecks at SHS?  Who (no names, please) and why?



Besides time and place, deviance is also relative to perception. Deviance must be perceived to be real. And in a capitalist society that values money, perceived deviance is related to social class. This is one revelation in William Chambliss's study called "The Saints and the Roughnecks" Chambliss argues that money was a key factor. If you have enough money it helps you cover up the deviance. Do you think this applies to kids at our school (no names please). Who is deviant? How do they hide it? Does money play a role? Is everyone at school a "saint"? Another important revelation in Chambliss's research is that the kids who accept the label of "deviant" then act upon that label. In other words, if I think that everyone expects me to be deviant, I may accept that as the truth and then I act deviant. Once you are labeled as "deviant", that becomes a stigma or a badge of disgrace that you carry with you. Sociologists who study this perspective call it the labeling theory.


A second way that we see this relativity in drugs depends on who is getting caught using them. In a landmark study, The Vicious Circle, the Chicago Urban League wrote about how a Chicago Police drug sting operation was handing out felonies to impoverished minorities busted near the projects, but upper middleclass white kids from Naperville who were being caught there (instead of being given a felony) were having their parents called by the cops, or in some cases having their license suspended, but then they were released with no felony on their record. Dr. Paul Street of the Chicago Urban League writes,

Perhaps nothing reveals more dramatically Illinois authorities’ penchant for waging the War on Drugs in…disparate ways than the state’s enforcement of two 1989 bills mandating that a 15 or 16 year-old youth automatically would be prosecuted as an adult if he or she was charged with selling drugs within 1,000 feet of a school or a public housing project. Under the state’s Automatic Transfer laws…youth who have been convicted as adults can be transferred to adult prisons upon their 17th birthday and are automatically transferred on their 18th birthday….Of the 393 young people automatically transferred to adult facilities in Cook County from October 1999 to October 2000, 99.2 percent of them were minorities….
These findings are disturbing in light of evidence that white youth use illicit drugs at the same or higher rates as youth of color. They are doubly troublesome in light of recent reports on how local and state criminal justice authorities have chosen to deal with the rising number of ‘young [white] suburbanites’ purchasing heroin and other illegal narcotics on the city’s predominantly black West Side. In August 2001, The Chicago Tribune reported that city police and DuPage…drug cops… had selected a rather mild sanction for the suburban offenders. ‘Officers,’ the Tribune noted, ‘have seen teens make drug buys, traced the license plates of their cars and notified the registered owner, often a parent, where the vehicle has been.’
Last June…Cook County prosecuters and police had increased the level of punishment for the young suburbanites, threatening to impound their automobiles and suspend their driver’s licenses. William O’Brien, Chief of Narcotics for the State’s Attorney’s Office gave the following rationale for this ‘new crackdown,’ which contrasted sharply with the prison sentences faced by 15-year-old inner city youth caught selling narcotics next to a public housing project; when it comes to young and automobile centered suburban kids, O’Brien explained, ‘driving privileges may resonate more…than the threat of jail.’
The Vicious Circle by Dr. Paul Street, The Chicago Urban League, 2002. (pp.13-14)

Some other examples of how this applies to life beyond high school are the ways in which our society focuses on street crime as opposed to white collar crime.  Most of the news each night is spent on street crime: murders, burglary, robbery and rape.  The popular media likes reporting on these because they are action-oriented, personalized and fearful.  Each crime is presented like a mini-drama story.  However, white collar crime is far more costly and perhaps more dangerous.  White collar crime includes tax evasion, bribery, embezzling, negligence.  For example, a department store defrauded poor customers of over 100 million dollars;  tire company executives allowed faulty tires to remain on vehicles despite recalling the tires in other countries - 200 people were killed before the tires were removed; an oil company skirted safeguards which resulted in an explosion and environmental disaster killing 12 people and costing billions of dollars.  In each of these cases, there may have been fines imposed on the companies involved, but no one went to prison.  No one received a felony record.  I bet you cannot name an individual person involved in the incident because no one person was labeled as deviant.
Another example of this is Freaks and Geeks episode 13 is an example of Chambliss's thesis. Lindsay is experimenting with pot but she does not get caught, but her freek friends get caught. They are expected to be deviant. They may have even accepted the label of being deviant and they now see themselves as deviant and that influences their actions. 

HOMEWORK:  READ THIS INTRODUCTION TO COURTROOM 302.   CLICK HERE