How sociology has changed me

In  sociology on the first day I honestly didn't really know what to expect. All I really knew was that I didn't need to take a final for the class. Also, at the time I was not the most sociological mindful person. However, I feel that I have gained a lot through this class. Unlike my normal classes, I do not feel like I have gained a great deal about an academic subject, but instead I have learned about how the world works and how others perceive information. For example, throughout the course of the movie 'Crash,' (possibly my favorite part of the year since I love that movie) I realized through the characters how I have a starting perception of people before I even talk to them. This can be seen through my recognition of how they are deviant. For example, when I see people who are in wife beaters, I quickly make the assumption that they are part of a gang. However, in the movie, the lock fixer in the wife beater seemed like a really good guy. While I do realize that I may still have this perception, I will now be more likely to give a conscious effort to treating them like everyone else when I meet them. I also realized that the way I dress could give my teachers a specific perception of who I am out of school. Therefore, I think I need to make sure when I get to college that I dress in an appropriate manner so that my professors see me as a studious person and not a complete slacker. In addition, I feel that the lessons about  the importance of beauty for girls was a great learning experience for me. Prior to this class I never really payed attention to how much girls use products to give themselves a deceptive outer appearance. However, I have been paying a lot more attention to this, and I am starting to realize important makeup and physical feature are to girls. One great example of this is in my gym class. In this class, I know 3 sophomores. Out of these three girls, 2 of them have had plastic surgery (one a nose job and the other got her ears tucked back). I personally find it to be ridiculous that these girls feel so awful about their appearance at such a young age that they have to get it changed. I as a boy realize that I have in my opinion large ears but I'm not going to get plastic surgery for it. I think of it as a unique feature that I possess. Therefore, I feel that sociology has probably affected my life more than any academic class ever could. It had a great change on how I perceived the world and the people I meet.

Crash

In class we watched the movie Crash. I had seen the movie once before in my English class but Sal told me to watch it focusing on the importance of race.This made me focus on how many people in the movie based upon their race. For example, the Latino man in the movie was typically stereo typed as a gang member so when he would change peoples lock he was not trusted. Also, when the middle eastern family was in the gun shop they were stereotyped as Arab terrorists despite the fact that they were not Arabic. In my everyday life, I think that race still plays a large role in how people get treated however, I think the way you present yourself also plays a major role in this. For example, many times police will be much less harsh on white children than black children when it comes to dealing with drugs. However, I feel that if these white children were dressed like gang members then they too would receive a harsh punishment.

My Own Twist on Race

Yesterday as I was watching South Park, I saw an episode that really related to what we are doing in class. In this episode, Cartman hurt Token who is black. Because Token is black it was labeled as a hate crime. Therefore, instead of only being reprimanded for his actions, he was sent to juvie. Then as the episode continued the Stan, Kyle, and Token went to the mayor and petitioned for Cartman's release because they said that by creating hate crimes they were actually discriminating against the minority group by saying it is because they are different that they were hurt. I feel this is very true because in some cases people are driven to hurt others because of a disagreement but then others will say it is because the other person was a minority. In the end they ended up convincing the mayor that all people were really quite the same and that there are always disagreements. I also saw an episode of the Chappelle Show. In this episode, Dave was acting as a member of the KKK, and he took off his mask. When everyone stared at him and told him that he was black he was furious and said that he always thought he was white. I felt that this was similar to our class discussion because in reality your race is not really what you look like but instead your daily cultural actions and how you see yourself. For example, I personally see myself as an Eastern European, but as Sal said in  class, I am also technically Asian because of my Russian roots. However, in the end of my episode of the Chappelle Show, Dave divorced his wife for being a black sympathizer.

Monopoly

In class we did a monopoly project in which everyone started in a social class and they played to see if any one moved up in social class. As the Lower Upper Class (New Money), I found it to be quite easy to maintain my social class, but I could not move anywhere near the wealth of the Old Money because they owned so many spaces on the monopoly boared to the 4 or 5 that I owned. However, I did find that in the end of the game I nearly doubled my money so I did earn a slightly better life style. However, I also noticed that the people in the lower classes had a lot of difficulty earning money because they had to constantly pay money for landing on spaces that were already owned by others. Therefore, our person in the Lower class ended up having a negative amount of money. After their first or second trip around the board and they ended up with more money in the negatives than the amount of money they began with in the positives. I personally found it to be quite amazing of how difficult it is to change social classes and think that it is also kind of sweet that I was lucky enough to be stuck in a social class that will provide me with a happy future since I go to such a highly ranked school.

Classes of America

In class, we have been talking even more about how society is effected by social classes. One point that I found to be very interesting was that many minorities feel a pressure to remain in lower classes. As an upper middle class white American, I have always been taught to strive for bigger and better things. I could not imagine how it would feel to be mocked by my peers in a effort to better my life. Therefore, when the video was talking about the upper middle class African American family, I thought it was awful how other African Americans were saying that they sold out and they said that the family 'acted white.' In my life I have noticed how prevalent this is because at our school which consists mainly of upper middle class children, I notice that there is not a large presence of minorities. I think that this could be largely a part of the pressure that minorities put on each other to stick together and stay in the same lower classes of America.

Jail system

In class we have been focusing on the crooked jail system in the U.S. I personally feel that it is very sad that the people in the jail have to live in such a poor living condition for most of their life. I also feel that there is a flaw because of the large amount of convicts who get sent back to jail after they are released. One large issue I feel is that while some jails like the one in the 30 days video work on teaching people in jail how to get over drug addiction issues, they do not work toward making the convicts in to functional members of society. One key example of this is the convict George in the video. George was very anxious to be released from prison and had high hopes for his future. However, he was still sent back to prison when the movie was finished. I personally found this part to be very sad but it just goes to show that actions speak louder than words, and it teaches us how difficult it is to put a stop to a life of crime. In addition, I think it is awful that our jail system favors the more wealthy people. This is mainly because we see the payment of money as a way to relieve a person of their wrong doings. However this is unfair because it gives people with money an advantage in the court system. This can be seen if the Good Charlotte song, Life Styles of the Rich and Famous, when they say:

"well did you know when your famous you could kill your wife
and there's no such thing as 25 to life
as long as you got the cash to pay for Cochran
and did you know if you were caught and you were smokin crack
and McDonald's wouldn't even wanna take you back
you could always just run for mayor of D.C."

This tells of how the people who are wealthy have a huge advantage in courts and their punishments are not nearly as bad as those of the poor. Therefore, the jail system to day is greatly flawed against felons, and it gives wealthy a huge advantage.

saints stuff

In class we have been talking a lot about the saints in society. When we watched the episode of freaks and geeks about this topic, I thought it was quite obvious that Lindsy was one of the saints. In out school, I realize that there are many saints. This is mostly because we live in an area that is upper middle class. It is because of this money situation that these kids are seen as acceptable members of society and they therefore, are able to live an easier life. In addition, since nearly everyone on our school goes to college, if any one at our school is caught for any illegal activities they will be judged much less harshly. This is much contrary to the rough necks who in freaks and geeks were represented through the druggies. It was because these kids were seen as failures in society that they got judged very harshly when they were caught with drugs, and they, unlike the saints do not have the ability to 'play the game' with society.