Crash- Implicit & Explicit Racism

This week in sociology, we watched a movie called Crash. Crash presented the extreme cases of racism that people encounter on so many occasions. I enjoyed this movie a lot, because it really opened up my eyes about racism, and how it affects everyone. What I liked most about Crash, was that it wasn't just black and white people. It had a diverse cast from many different minorities like Hispanic, Mexican, Asian, and Persian. which gave a really good perspective of race from different points of views. In the movie, there were many examples of both implicit and explicit racism. implicit racism is based on judgments, it is from your brain. You don't realize that you're racist because it is in the subconscious part of your brain, and it's not intentional. Explicit racism is extreme racism, where you know and realize that you are racist, and it is your intention to be that. In the movie, one example of explicit racism was when the Persian family's store was broken into, and it had racist remarks to 9/11 and Arabians, when they were not even Arabian. One example of implicit racism was when sandra bullock kept telling her husband to change the locks, when she saw the locksmith was Mexican. In my opinion, I think that explicit racism is worse because the person's intention is to be racist, its not an accident. As much as I wouldn't like to, I think that I could be implicitly racist, and I think that everyone in some ways or another is. It's very easy to pass quick judgment on someone just because of what race they are or what race they look like. We can't help that because society has taught us these things. I think the best thing you can do is to realize that you are being racist and try to prevent it from happening.

Race

I never realized that race has always been a social construct. Biologically, race does not exist. There are no biological traits that can identify with "races". The first time that I actually learned that race was a social construct was in my US History class. When I was asked, "what does race mean", I would always respond with the obvious response. I would say that race is the group that you belong to based on your biological features. However, that is wrong, since race has no connection to your biological makeup. What I learned about race in sociology, was that your race can easily change depending on where you are. Like what Sal said, you might be one race in this country, but if you fly over to another area, like Brazil, you would be considered a different race. So, even though race is not real in regards to biology, I still wonder why people are so obsessed about it. I myself have always wondered what race I am. Technically, people would say that I am Asian, but I feel like I am not like other Asians, I have a different skin tone, and different features, so what really am I? I have ultimately realized that it does not matter what race I am, because race does not define me, and race can change. Watching the video in class today about the Brown vs. Board of Education and the dolls, broke my heart. It was so sad to see these little girls, who were probably only about 8 or 9 years old, think so badly of themselves, and put white people above them. That really proves how much people still obsess over race and hopefully, one day it will change, and people will not be put down because of their races.

Social Class:Monopoly

This week we've been discussing poverty, and social class. In order to represent the concept of social class and its role in our society,  we played monopoly. While playing this, each player had to roll to see what class they'd be in. This is kind of in a way like how it happens in real life.  Like Sal said, you don't get to pick your class. You get it by luck, or by being born into it. When I rolled, I ended up in the upper middle class. While playing, instead of getting 200,000 dollars everytime you pass go, you only get what your income is. As I was playing,  I started to realize that the higher class players had a huge advantage to win the game. They were able to start buying properties right away since they had the money. Then, everytime someone would land on the property,  people of the lower classes had a hard time paying.  As the game went om, eventually, all the money I had was slowly decreasing and I lost all of it and was put on welfare. Once I was put on welfare, I realized that I was stuck. I think that this was an important lesson because it taught us how certain people of certain classes have a huge advantage of getting more and more money, while people at the bottom get nothing,  and they are stuck there, holding onto whatever they can. This unit has really me alot. Many people could ignorantly say that people in poverty put themselves in poverty and don't try. However, people are literally stuck at the bottom, and its extremely difficult to make it up a class. This unit really opened up my eyes about things Ive never had to think about. Even though it was just a game, I realized that people that are actually in a situation where they are on welfare feel hopeless. I didn't even want to try anymore to try to win the game or make more money because I knew that it was just not possible with the rules.

Social Class

This week in class, we discussed social class. We learned that social class plays a very significant and huge role in shaping who we are, and the things we do or don't do. We looked at specific graphs and data. One thing we looked at was how family income and wealth affects our lives. Our family's wealth and income determine things like where we'll live, what kind of houses we buy, the people we hang out with, the quality of education we receive and other things. While we were looking at the different graphs, one thing I realized was kind of shocking. A very tiny percentage of people in the entire country owns most of the countries wealth. The rest of the people fall in the middle, which is the middle class. Then, at the way bottom is the lower class, which is a really large percentage. This showed how there's a huge gap in the distribution of wealth in our country.  The coin wager activity that we did, did an excellent job of showing how wealth is distributed and how certain people have advantages to earn more money. I have never thought about these things. I realized that the way I'm shaped, is largely determined by my family's wealth and income. These things affect who I create relationships with, how I do in school and where I go to school. I think the most important role that is affected by social class is education. Many people say that it is easy to go to college, find a great job, and make "new money". However, many people have certain advantages which may make it harder for others. People often blame people in poverty by saying that they choose to be there, however, you need some advantage in the beginning to start your life. For example, you need money to make it to college and earn a degree, and it takes a lot of investing. I realize that I am lucky for the education that I get. It was only luck that I was born into a financially stable family, and I am lucky enough to get the chance to get to college.