CRASH

Crash was such a good movie. Unlike so many other movies, Crash had a message and there was something to be learned from the film. It really is a piece of art. One part of the movie that I noticed especially was the relationship between Shaniqua Johnson, the cop, and the rest of society. Toward the beginning of the movie, the cop got into an argument with Shaniqua. He implied that she was an outsider, saying things like "your people." I feel like he's implying that African Americans aren't a part of the predominantly white society in America. In this scene you can see the racial tension that exists, and how differently the two races treat one another. However, at the end of the movie a Hispanic man crashes into Shaniqua's car. She starts yelling at him and when he tries to respond (with an accent) she tells him that this is America and we speak English here. I thought it was ironic that somebody who is treated like an outsider will go and treat others the same way. It's like an endless circle. You'd think that somebody who understands what it's like to be treated that way would try to stop it, not promote it. I thought this contrast brought the movie full circle. It connects everybody in that each character in the movie committed an act of racism, implicit or explicit. I think that we can take a lesson from this movie and try to stop the endless circling of racism. Even at our school you see that the different races tend to separate themselves. Racism does not benefit our society in any way, so we should all that we can to stop it.

Race

So this week in class we've been discussing how race doesn't actually exist biologically or scientifically. There's nothing in our genes that determines our race. Society has made up this idea called "race." Skin color was determined by where you lived. If you lived near the equator, you had dark skin. If you lived up North, you had light skin. The problem with race is that people will automatically stereotype someone based on the color of their skin. When a person doesn't act like their race is 'supposed to', they are considered outsiders. People can't be defined by the color of their skin. Take Barack Obama for example. People refer to him as our country's First Black President, but he's just as much white as he is black. Skin color is merely a physical characteristic and shouldn't be used to define somebody. However, it's very difficult to avoid doing so. I can relate this to my life by looking past someone's skin color when I first meet them.

Social Class and Mobility

Playing Monopoly following the rules of the U.S class system was interesting. It supported the idea of people generally not moving up (or down) in social class that we've been talking about in class for the past few weeks. I understand that it might be really difficult to move up in social class, but I don't think it's impossible. My family and I immigrated to America when I was five years old. We didn't come from a background of wealthy people, so we basically started off with nothing. We lived in a small apartment in the city for about two years, but then we were able to move into the suburbs. Now we live an upper middle class lifestyle. I've never been able to understand how people who were born in this country and had way more advantages than my family did aren't able to move up in social class. Maybe my family is just the exception? I'm really not sure.

Tammy

The movie we watched this week in class featured a segment where a woman named Tammy was interviewed. We learned that she lives in a trailer with her four kids, doesn't own a car, and walks 10 miles to her job at a Burger King. I felt really bad for Tammy and her family. To me it seems like Tammy is trying so hard to make something of herself, but she's not really succeeding. That's kind of a difficult concept for me to understand because I've always been told that if you try hard enough, you'll be able to achieve anything. Apparently that doesn't apply to everybody. I don't know if Tammy will ever be able to achieve her dream of being a school teacher. Her kids have a better chance at achieveing their goals, but it will still be very difficult for them. Even if the kids succeed in moving up to a higher class, they will still be known as the outsiders. They won't truly belong. I think the son will be able to achieve his goals. He, unlike Tammy, doesn't really have anything holding him back. He doesn't have to care for others, he only has to worry about himself, which makes it easier for him to move up a social class.

Drugs and Deviance

       In the United States, drugs are generally considered deviant. Punishments for drug possession are so harsh in some states. In one state (I forget which) you can get a life sentence for selling, even if it's your first offense. That's at the same level as serial killers and rapists. Some rapists/murderers actually end up serving less than their sentence and getting out. Should drug dealing really be punishable at the same level as killing somebody? I don't think so. There's no direct harm occuring when drugs are sold. If somebody wants to risk taking the drug, then that's their decision. The dealer isn't forcing them to take it, so why would someone who sells face such a harsh punishment. They're just trying to run a business. In reality, it would actually be really convenient for the government to legalize certain drugs. Imagine all the money they would make off of the taxes. It would reduce a substantial amount of our country's debt.
       Also, it seems that only the lower classes are busted for drug possession, use, etc. It's something that all classes do, so either punish everybody or punish no one. Punishing the impoverished people does no good. If law enforcement really wanted to stop the usage of drugs, they should go after the heads of illegal drug selling operations. Those are the guys who bring it to the people in poverty. They're the ones causing the so-called problem, but because they're wealthy they're overlooked. Drug usage goes on in all different kinds of neighberhoods, but only the lower class areas ever get busted. I can definetely see that going on around where I live.

Saints vs Roughnecks

The study done by Howard Chambliss about saints and roughnecks was really interesting to read about. The results of it, however, were not that suprising. It's only logical that the kids with money will get away with more stuff than the kids without money. The kids with money have influential parents who will be able to get their kids out of trouble. It's not that big of a deal for them to hire an expensive lawyer who will make the problem go away. On the other hand, roughnecks don't have the money to hire a lawyer who'll make the problem go away. They have to face the consequences of their actions. Also, the kids with money have a place to go to be deviant and they have means of transportation to get them to that place. Roughnecks don't really have a place to go to be deviant, so they're more likely to get caught. I think our school is definetely personnified by the saints. We live in an upper middle class neighberhood. Most families here are wealthy, meaning the kids in this neighberhood have places to go to be deviant. If somebody is caught, then parents can pay off a lawyer to make the problem disappear. I'm sure there are some roughnecks at are school, but they are overshadowed by the saints. Not everybody at our school is socially deviant, but of those who are a majority of them are saints. Because I go to a school where so much deviance occurs, it's almost a social norm for me. Not that being the "good kid" is deviant, but how can rule breaking be deviant when everybody does it? Wouldn't it just become a norm for our community?

Teens and Society

There are many different expectations for teens. Mostly, though, teens are seen as irresponsible. We can't drive a car until 16, and we basically can't make any personal decisions until 18. We can't vote, we can't drink, we can't even see R rated movies until we're 17. I've never understood where these age limitations came from. Just because I'm 17 doesn't mean I all of a sudden gained knowledge about the world that makes it so I can see an R rated movie. What I don't get most about age limits is at 18 I can go join the army and die for my country, but I can't have a drink. What? I'd say joining the army requires a lot more responsibilty than drinking. And when I turned 16, I didn't all of a sudden figure out how to drive a car responsibly. Age is just a number, it's more about maturity level than anything else. I know adults who shouldn't be trusted to drive a car, and I also know younger teens who could drive a car responsibly. By setting these age limits, society shows that it doesn't trust teens to perform certain tasks. Society says that teens are suppose to be dependent and irresponsible, but when we gain the ability to drive a car, or vote it's not like we became independent and responsible at that moment. It has to be learned and society's not teaching us. You can't expect someone to live a carefree life for 18 years, then on their 18th birthday give the person a bunch of responsibilites. The person won't know how to handle it. Society makes it really difficult for teens to adjust to adult life. Studies have been done that show the age of actual independence is going up to the late 20's. I see this all around me. So many of my friends depend on their parents for every little thing. I can't really sympathize with that because from a young age, my parents have taught me to be independent and responsible. As I get older and older, I've been given more and more responsibilites. I know that when I start living on my own I'll be able to take care of myself because I've already been doing it.

Tough Guise

This week we've been discussing gender roles, more specifically male gender roles. We've been talking about how guys are taught to view their roles in society, more specifically how they're taught to be tough and masculine with no room for vulnerability. We watched a video called Tough Guise that had a lot of interesting insights about this problem. However, I found that the article we read about school shootings was more important to what we were discussing because it talked about the negative effects of raising guys with this expectation of masculinity. I thought it was really interesting how the article disproved all the claims the media made about possible reasons for the shootings. I also thought it was really interesting that when these shootings were reported, the headlines never said boy shoots up school. It was much more general. The headlines were more like student shoots up school, or teen shooting occurs. The media is completely ignoring the obvious fact that all the shootings have one thing in common: they were all boys. At the end, the article discussed ways to prevent these shootings from occuring. It's really important that society becomes aware of this problem, so it can prevent school shootings from happening again.  

Giving Back to the Community

In soc we've had this ongoing project of community service. When it was first assigned I though it was gonna be just another project and that I should get it done with as soon as possible just so I wouldn't have to worry about it later. I finally found a place where I could volunteer and after spending almost two weeks turning in forms I was finally ready to actually start volunteering. I chose to volunteer at Condell Hospital. I hadn't realized how seriously the hospital took volunteering. I had to sign patient privacy forms and I also had to get a TB shot. The entire time I kept thinking all this trouble better be worth it. Well, I volunteered for the first time on Monday and it was definitely worth all the trouble I had to go through. I worked at the front desk, which is part of the guest services department. My main job was to sign in visitors and show them the way to the patient's room, but I also had to deliver flowers and cards, deliver mail to certain departments, and show patients to their rooms after they had registered. The patients who had just registered into the hospital had different responses to me. Some tried to start a conversation, while others were quiet. I remember one of the patients I helped, who was older, tried to give me advice about how life is. He told me to live life to the fullest because it flies by. Volunteering was a great experience and I'm excited to come back again.

So in class we've been discussing what happens when people don't get enough social interaction. The extreme cases are that of feral children who act more like animals than humans. While it's unfortunate that these kids were abused or neglected, it shows how important interaction with others is. A lot of the kids who were discovered began to show improvement after being exposed to social situations. We've also discussed children who live in orphanages and how these kids don't get enough social interaction which causes them to be less successful than those who do get social interaction. I thought the article we read about human nature was really interesting. Especially the part that talked about children in orphanages being separated, some being put in the care of mentally ill adults and others left in the orphanage. Those who were cared for by the mentally ill adults ended up being more successful than those who were left in the orphanage. Any kind of positive social interaction leads to children becoming more successful adults, it doesn't matter who the attention comes from.

What's Wrong With Doing Nothing??

We've recently been discussing how Americans don't accept doing nothing. Every moment of your day has to be filled with activity. It's socially unacceptable to do nothing. When I tried doing nothing, I did it at school when I was sitting with all my friends. Because I was sitting with my friends, nobody really noticed that I was doing nothing. It just looked like I was following along with the conversation going on between the people I was sitting with. While I didn't really experience the social stigmatism of doing nothing, I did have the chance to reflect on what was going on around me. People are kind of set on auto-pilot. They just do what they do without really thinking about it. Sometimes it's nice to step back and really consider where you're headed. Are you doing something because it's what everyone else is doing and because it's socially accepted or are you doing something because it's what you actually want to do. A lot of people go through their lives without asking themselves that question. I think this connects a lot to the movie we watched in class, Tuesdays With Morrie. I think Morrie would agree that people don't really pay attention to what's going on around them. They don't stop to enjoy the simple things, but the simple things in life are what bring you the most pleasure.

American Culture

This week in class, we've been studying culture. More specifically, American Culture. We dicussed whether or not America had its own unique culture, or if it was more a mix of all the cultures living in America. We used what we had learned in the previous week about culture (norms, folkways, mores) to prove whether or not we thought America had its own distinct culture. I believe that America doesn't really have its own culture. There are too many people living in this country that come from different cultures, there's no way that all of these cultures could mesh into one. Even in different regions of the U.S, we have different cultures. The South has a lot of different values than the North. We don't even speak with the same accents. The other day, we read an article that stated America has 13 aspects that make up its culture and that every American abided by those values. While reading the article, I found that I had some similar values as the article stated, but I didn't value all of the things the article mentioned. Your values really depend on what your cultural background is and since this is a country of immigrants each person has a different set of values.

Culture

For the past week in class, we've been discussing culture. We've referenced the term culture shock a lot. We did an activity involving culture shock in which we played a card game as a class, but everyone got different rules. Because we weren't allowed to speak, it made it more difficult to understand why the other people in your group weren't following the rules. I remember thinking during the game why are my group members playing wrong? Didn't they learn the rules? It never occurred to me that we all learned different rules. These sorts of issues are seen between different cultures around the world. A lot of times, one culture assumes that another is incorrect in their customs when in reality they aren't. They all learned a different set of rules growing up and we don't always realize that because of our ethnocentrism. When I went to France, I experienced this a lot. One night, me and the french family I was staying with had pizza for dinner. I hadn't thought that there would be anything different about eating pizza, but it turns out the french put mayonnaise on their pizza instead of tomato sauce. I was really confused at first. I couldn't figure out why they would put mayo on a pizza. That's not how pizza was made. In this situation, I experienced that same culture shock as I did when we played the card game in class. It's important to be aware of other cultures and realize that just because something may seem bizarre to you and your culture doesn't mean its wrong.

Categories

The other day in sociology, we read a poem called, "The Cookie Thief." It doesn't seem like this poem would relate to sociology, but it actually does. The lady in the poem was quick to judge and believed that the man she was sitting next to was eating all of her cookies. At the end of the poem, we find out that in reality the cookies the lady was eating belonged to the man and the cookies the lady bought were in her bag the entire time. In this situation, the lady was quick to judge somebody and it turn it made her look foolish. This poem suggests that maybe we shouldn't be so judging of others, especially if we just met them. A lot of times, we find out something that we were unaware of that completely changes our perspective of somebody. I've dealt with being judged incorrectly before and it's really annoying. My family is Russian and my parents speak with Russian accents. A lot of times people automatically assume that my parents don't understand any English and end up speaking to us really slowly. In actuality my family and I have been living here for more than 12 years and we understand English just fine. I don't really face this stereotype because I don't have an accent, but I've witnessed my parents be stereotyped multiple times. People assume ridiculous things about my parents. One lady actually thought that they didn't know what cell phones were because of where we came from. People are always going to categorize others, but they need to do it in an intelligent way.

Gang Leader for A Day

In the novel, Gang Leader for A Day, the author sets out to study how it feels to be black and poor. After realizing that asking the residents of these neighberhoods general interview question wasn't working, the author decided it'd be better to  hang out with the gangs in order to understand them better. Quantitative surveying is important when gathering data, but qualitative surverying allows sociologists to experience firsthand whatever it is they're studying. This is how the author of Gang Leader for A Day gathered most of his research. By spending time with the gang, the author made himself seem more relatable to them. Asking interview questions distanced himself from the people he was trying to study. The first approach the author used clearly set himself apart from the gangs. The second approach, however, allowed the author to be a part of the gang, which in turn gave him more information on their lives than interview questions ever would. If someone wanted to study our school, they should look at quantitative data like drop-out rate and percent of students who go on to college. They should also gather some qualitative data by speaking with students about the school. In addition to speaking to students, you might want to speak with some other groups, like the teachers. What is their opinion of the school? What kind of students go there? These different types of gathering information are playing very important roles in my life right now. I'm in the process of applying to colleges and in order to decide which school is best for me I'm looking not only at quantitative data, (rank of the school, percent that get employed after graduation) but I'm also looking at qualitative data (talking to students who go to the school, visiting the campus).

Freaks and Geeks

So in class the other day, we watched the pilot episode of a TV series called Freaks and Geeks. It was actually a really funny show and I don't really understand why the NBC network chose to cancel it after only one season. I think it could have been a really big hit. The show definitely hit on some of the sociological theories we talked about in class. According to the functional theory by Emile Durkheim, people are always a part of different groups. The show Freaks and Geeks really stressed the many different cliques at a high school and which people are part of them. There was a group of nerds (Sam and his friends), and a group of smokers (Daniel and his friends). These groups interacted positively with one another. Each gave the people in the group an opportunity to find a zone in which they are most comfortable. Also the conflict theory by Marx was mentioned in the episode. The teachers, counselors, and parents had power over the students/children. They had the power because they provide for their students/children, and if the students or children disobey them they can punish them by stopping providing them with an education or a home. Finally, symbolic interaction was also discussed in the episode. The main character, Lindsey, wears an army jacket that is meant to represent her new found rebellion against what her parents and teachers expect of her. I can definitely relate to an object symbolizing something about myself. My car represents that I'm independent and no longer have to count on my parents to drive me everywhere.  

Technology Today

Technology has become an essential part of our lives. It's used in schools, the workplace, and many other places. As technology becomes more prevalent in society, more and more people begin to depend on it. Our culture today has very solid roots in technology. Communication is an important part of our culture and it's made easier by the availability of technology. As a teacher, technology should be encouraged. There's really no way of avoiding it, so it's better to embrace it. Technology is good up until a certain extent. Too much of a good thing can become bad. Those who overuse technology become detached from the world. They live in an alternate reality inside their computer. Yet, there's nothing wrong with using technology to stay in touch with friends as long as people use it in moderation. In fact those who don't use technology at all are also detached from the rest of the world. It's all about finding a balance. Technology is a really important part of my life as well. I use it to help me with everything from homework to keeping up with friends. With technology being such a prominent part of our society it's difficult to stay away from it.

Who Am I?

Hey there. So I'm Ally. I'm a senior in high school. Its been a long four years, so I'm really excited to graduate. Senior year should be fun though. It's the first year of school that I've actually gotten to choose what classes I'm taking, so at least I'm not being forced to take a class I don't want to take. I'm kinda bummed that summer is over. It was really nice not having to worry about school for a few months. I spent my most of my summer lifeguarding, which was fun. It was my first job. I travelled a lot this year. I went to France for Spring Break which was amazing! Then in May, I went to Miami for a birthday party. I got to miss school, which is never a bad thing. After school ended, I went to Ukraine for two weeks. Spent a lot of time on planes this year. So that's me.  

Sociology 2010

Hellooooooo