Do It For The Culture

In our last section of class, we learned about culture. We focused on American culture, because that is what most in our class were familiar with. We looked at how Americans viewed our culture, and how foreigners view our culture. We learned about culture shock. Culture shock is the lack of understanding associated with being introduced to a new culture.

We all can and have likely experienced culture shock, maybe not national culture shock, but generally the discomfort associated with being introduced to a new culture. In our everyday lives we can experience culture shock when we order food from a restaurant that we’ve never been to that has a procedure to order that is different from the McDonalds that we are used to. We watched a film in class about a group of Sudanese boys that referred to themselves as the Lost Boys, and we followed their journey as they became assimilated with American culture. I could relate to their lack of understanding in many ways because as a kid, my family imigrated from Cameroon. We weren’t as shocked as the Lost Boys were because back home, we were wealthy enough to have been exposed to many aspects of western culture, so we didn’t make mistakes like confusing mayonnaise for food. One thing that my family did face when coming to the US, much like the Lost Boys, was ethnocentrism in America - the belief that American culture was better than others. I remember getting questions like “do you feel more free in the US” or is “the food better here”. To most those seem like very objective questions, but to me as a foreigner, I feel like those questions have a subtle tone of superiority. To clarify, it often comes off as though the people asking those questions believe that their country has all of the answers and that their national values are more valuable than those of others. In Singapore for instance, citizens value their restricted freedoms and see greater privilege in that as opposed to a “free America”. Not to say that either of these views are correct.

In this section we also talked about material culture and nonmaterial culture. Material culture is obviously the tangible aspects of culture, and nonmaterial is generally the ideologies associated with culture. We read an article about a foreigner's perspective on American values. This would fit under an analysis of our nonmaterial culture. After some discussion it became clear that much of what we think of ourselves is inconsistent with what outsiders think of us. This is where ingroup and outgroup biases come into play.

"Post Racial America"

Most people that know me would not hesitate, if asked, to say that I am black. Some try and be politically correct referring to me as African-American, or of African decent, but one thing most if not all of the people that I interact with on a daily basis would agree on is the fact that I am black. That is my "race", that's the box that I check off on any government form that I sign, and that is the basis on which people make assumptions - good or bad - about the type of person I am before I ever get a chance to open my mouth. It wasn't always like this though. I remember growing up in Cameroon and almost never considering that I was a black kid. Then again, I was just a kid, and issues of race didn't really concern me. Nonetheless, I didn't ever consider the fact that the color of my skin could have such an impact on how people interacted with me.

In this unit of class, we learned about the concept of race. We came to learn that race did not exist biologically, but was rather a construct of society. To strip every individual down to their most superficial layer of un-melanated skin, and you would not be able to distinguish between an asian man and a european. We came to learn that in fact, that a 5'2" white man and a 5'2" black man have more in common biologically, then a 5'2" white man and his 6'0" white best friend. Many throughout history have tried to find countless ways of distinguishing races, but modern day science has proven that race does not exist. It is really silly to think that we live our lives as Americans for the most part, operating on something that doesn't exist.

Our social understanding of race is a classification in accordance to skin tone. This in itself is so flawed because no two places on earth have the same organization of race. We use words like black, white, mixed, asian, and hispanic to describe a variety of things. Our classifications are contradictory because you have black and white hispanics. You have children born of dark and fair skin, yet born of the same parents. It is hard to say that race is a set thing because there are so many possibilities. Our American system of race classification seems complicated, but has no match for the system established in Brazil. In Brazil, the order in which you were born is a factor that is taken into consideration when determining your race. This means that in Brazilian culture, race is not limited to the color of your skin. This fact alone means that there isn't a consistent definition of race.

So if race doesn't exist, why do we still use it?

We use race for the same reason it was used in the 1700's. We use race as a means of implicit and explicit racism. We create in-groups and out groups, and judge others based on whether they fall in the in-group or not. America was shaped on prejudice and discrimination - prejudice being the negative attitude that people held against those in the out group, and discrimination being the means by which people act on that prejudice. Given that we all understand the current classifications of race, we simply place people in those categories based on how closely they fit our mental set of a given race. This is simple enough to understand.

America seems to still be in the belief that although slavery, jim crow, and all of the other explicit forms of institutionalized racism that existed have been abolished (de jure), we still live in an America where the aftermath of those laws is still felt (de facto). To claim that we no longer experience racism because we have had a black president would be completely ignorant of the fact that in Florida alone more black people were shot by police than where white (consider that whites outnumber blacks by 3 for every 1white). To claim that the reason for this disparity is a result of blacks "looking for trouble" is ridiculous because in the same study unarmed blacks shot by police outnumber unarmed whites 2:1. This ration caries through with the tendency of blacks to be shot after being pulled over for traffic violations or while being thought to be "reaching for a weapon" but was just reaching for a drivers license. Blacks were even three times as likely to be shot for minor crimes like smoking marijuana or shop lifting. These are a few of the countless statistics that indicate that there is an obvious difference in the way that people are policed based on race. The law is said to be blind, but those that enforce it aren't. These numbers are even further skewed when we look at the treatment of blacks across the nation. This is only looking at the plight of black america. For those who blame black america for their "culture of not wanting to succeed", I haven't even started to discuss the challenges that blacks aspiring to be higher ups in corporations face. All of this comes to show that we do not live in a post racial america.

Blog Post #5

In this section, if class we learned about norms and how those who deviate from societal norms are ridiculed and looked down on. We also looked at cases of how different people who deviate from the same norms are differently based on where they are in the class system. Specifically, we learned that those of the upper class who deviate are generally more accepted by society because of the fact that their class acts as a shield in preventing them from facing the consequences of society. Class can be a shield of consequence in that money can be used to cover up mistakes. Wealthy people often have the money to pay for attorneys that help them win cases when that deviance is brought in question with the law. Those of the upper class are also given the benefit of the doubt more than others because they are presumed to be good and honest people because of the fact that they have a lot of wealth.

One specific instance of how class plays a role in society's treatment of deviance that we looked at was the case of a group of north suburban football players who were caught buying drugs near a CPS high school. These students were buying pills from a 15-year-old boy. The football players were seniors in high school. The boy selling the drugs was sentenced to 15 years in prison while the football players were charged with a misdemeanor that would be removed from their record when they turned 18. The question that we were forced to debate was whether the respective punishments fit the crimes that were committed. On one hand, selling drugs is a legal deviance and rightfully so, but so is buying drugs. Both parties took part in the exchange and neither would exist without the other. Had the football players not sought the drugs, the dealer would not have customers to sell to, and had the dealer not provided the drugs, the football players would not have access to them. Most of the class was pretty decisive on the fact that both parties should have been punished equally. One thing that no one could pose a logical argument against was the fact that the system ruined the life of a young boy trying to fend for himself while letting an equally guilty party go, and the class history of the two parties played a role in the punishments they received.

In this section of class, we also looked at the reading "Saints and Roughnecks". This reading was done by a researcher who followed two groups of high school students across several semesters, observing their social habits and how others perceived them. One group consisted of lower middle-class kids who spent most of their time out of their houses hanging out near grocery stores and in the main town center. These kids were by no means the best dressed and they didn't focus much on how others perceived them. They got into their fair share of trouble specifically fights and petty theft. The other group of kids came from the upper middle class and lived in the nice neighborhood of the town. They were the popular kids that everyone wanted to be or be with. They were well respected in school and within the community. Despite their esteem, these kids were apparently more mischevious than their lower-middle-class counterparts. The only difference between the two groups was that the wealthier kids had cars that allowed them to travel further away from the town they lived in to do the bad things they did. The kids with less money were seen doing the bad things they did by those they lived with and were therefore associated with deviance.

Blog #4

Recently in class, we have been exploring how socialization affects males and females, and how we perceive each other based on expectation. We also talked about how those who deviate from those norms, experience hardship.

In this unit, we learned that sex is the biological factor and gender is relative to culture. Sex is the biological chromosomal pairing. This leads to physical characteristics that we can see, muscle definition, primary, and secondary sex organs, etc. Gender on the other hand, is how we feel. We feel masculine or we feel feminine. Though some of us embody all of the norms associated with either masculinity or femininity, a majority of us live in the middle region, demonstrating characteristics that tend to lean towards either side while demonstrating some traits of the other.

We say gender is a cultural construct, because it is truly a thing respective of culture. Some things seen as masculine in some cultures may be categorized as feminine in others. Some traits seen as feminine in some cultural, may be categorized as ambiguous to gender in others. The combinations are endless. In american society, a man seen crossing this legs is seen as feminine and, and most would jump to the conclusion that because the man is crossing his legs in that way, he must be gay. In Europe, on the other hand, crossing legs is not a sign of masculinity or femininity. It is simply a sign of comfort. 

When we learned about gender norms and societal expectations, we mostly focused on the United States. We looked at an excerpt from Michael Kimmel's "Manhood in America",  where he talked about the development of our sense of masculinity in the United States, and how it reaches far beyond the confines of barbershop and locker room talk. He talks about it starting on the playgrounds of grade schools, where you can start a fight amongst a group of boys by simply asking them to identify who the "sissy" of the group is. Boys and girls are taught to police gender through "games" like the finger nail test. At a young age, all of this really seems like just fun and games. But we see the effects that the cultivation of a gender based society has on it's citizens when they get older. 

In class, we had the opportunity to hear several members of our school's LGBT community speak about their experiences growing up and coming out as an LGBT youth. The panel itself was diverse beyond the various gender's and sexual orientations being represented. We had the opportunity to ask questions and interact with the group. I took away a lot from the experience and being able to connect what we learn in class to real people with real experiences.

I would investigate the factors that determine how many AP courses a student in Stevenson takes. I think that the most important questions to ask in this type of study would be about family income (quantitative data), family education (somewhat quantitative), and student life goals (qualitative). I think that family income is important to look at because i think that students who grew up in affluent households tend to be able to afford the tutoring that may be necessary in succeeding in an AP course. Family education history would be important because depending on how far your relatives took their education, students would be more or less encouraged to take challenging classes. Though life goals aren't quantitative, they would probably be the most influential factor because I think that kids who want to go very far with their education would be more encouraged to take challenging classes. I wouldn't be able to create a causal conclusion because there wouldn't be enough quantitative evidence to support my conclusion, but my results would be an interesting observational study.

Blog #2 - This week in class, we talked about our sociological imagination, or the societal factors that contribute to making up who we are. The things that I wrote about in my first blog post about what made me unique, were all a consequence of my sociological imagination. Not to say that I personally didn't have any say in what I like and dislike, its just that I grew to enjoy things like playing sports and community service because of the environment I grew up in. We also talked about sociological mindfulness. Sociological mindfulness is about self awareness and our understanding of how our actions impact those of others around us. For example, we've all had the experience of a very moody substitute teacher. In an ideal situation where every student in that class is sociologically mindful, we would all understand that the teacher might just be having a bad day, and we would do everything in our power to not make it worse (being rude towards the teacher). But because we are not always sociologically mindful, we tend to react in a way thats very self centered and beneficial to our personal interest. This leads us act harshly towards the sub. This is an instance of how sociological mindfulness can impact others. In class we watched a few clips, but the one that stood out the most in capturing the essence of the show was Freaks and Geeks. The biggest take away from the show was that we each have our own person "gigantic drum set". That drum set is a result of how our environment has helped to shape our views.

Blog #3 - This week in class, we learned about how different groups (specifically the ones we belong to) and how our roles within those groups, shape how we view the world. We looked at one document, in particular, an excerpt from the book Gang Leader for a Day, by Sudhir Venkatesh. In the first chapter of the book, Venkatesh describes his upbringing and how because of having never been exposed to an environment like the projects of Chicago, it was difficult for him to understand essentially "how the other half lived". After graduating from the University of Chicago, he decided to study the inhabitants of the then Robert Taylor Homes in Chicago. He believed that he was trying to put truth to some of his beliefs about an outgroup (people living in the projects) as a member of an ingroup (privileged Americans) when in truth, he was trying to become part of the in-group. I can relate to Venkatesh's desire to understand a society that is outside of what he knows. It reminds me on a much smaller scale, of how at one point in my life I did not understand football or why the fans were so in love with it. I could only make generalizations that often lead me to believe that all football fans were hyper-aggressive and savages. It wasn't until I decided to actually watch a game for myself, that I began to understand the incredible athleticism required to play the sport and the incredible team spirit that each player on that field demonstrated, and it was only a matter of games before I found myself screaming at the TV and becoming a "hyper-aggressive savage". I was so in love with the sport, that I decided to sign up for the school football team myself. In class, we also looked at different research methods for studying sociology. Sociology is best studied through observational studies - researchers observing groups of interest in their natural habitat. This type of study is usually associated with qualitative data - data without numbers. This is a good way of establishing association, but it is hard to draw conclusive information from a study like this because it lacks numbers and statistics. If researchers were to take quantitative observations, then they might be able to say that a certain event is not due to chance and is a causal relationship.