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.

Milestones

In class, we talked about all of the different milestones in our lives as Americans. One thing that I found very interesting was that we saw the mile stones as more of a process that comes with age. Instead of thinking of these ideas as important improvements in our life such as learning how to talk or walk, we saw it as events that come with age such as getting a licence. This tells a lot about our lives because I feel that events that we see as important are the events in which we gain privileges. This can really be seen as far as ideas such as getting a licence at 16, being a legal adult at age 18, and being able to see R movies at 17. However, we do not have any physical gain in being able to walk so we do not see it as an important milestone. Overall I see the milestone project as a reference to when we talked about the importance of materialism in our society.

how we should be

In class we have been watching videos telling us of how the media influences how men and women should act and how they should look. I personally feel that as far as women go they definitely feel the pressure from the media. I always notice that girls have to wake up much earlier before they go to school just so that they can make themselves look better with makeup. Not only is this a waste of time, but it is also unhealthy because they are depriving themselves of sleep. However, I found the ideas about men to be quite contradictory to how I want to be. I personally aspire to be like the people in my favorite bands. Many of these people however are not super jacked like the movie said men want to be, and many of them do not use a lot of violence as the movie talked about. I personally aspire to have a sort of out of shape yet thin body like the people in pop punk bands. Also, I do not want to be a violent authoritative person, but instead a person that is very care free and joking. Therefore, I feel that the pressure on women is much heavier than the pressure on men.