a semester in reflection

Over the last semester we have scratched the surface of topics ranging from race to social standing to ego centrism. This class has most definitely opened my mind to many different aspects of human nature. Many common sense reasons for poverty and racial discrimination that I once believed to be true I now view as falsely interpreted. The main positive aspect I can confidently say about this class was that it showed me the thousands of job opportunities that are available to people that understand sociology and can use it to exploit the business world. This class has also given me a new view on other cultures and how to go about interacting with them. In addition blogging about the subjects that we discussed allowed me to do a great deal of self reflection and I understand my personal core beliefs better now than I did going into this class on the first day.  

I believe the lessons that were taught and discussed over the past semester are vital to the curriculum of a modern student if there is ever to be head way in the subjects of race and poverty. I also believe that these lessons should be taught to every student not just the few that decided to take this class. Of the lessons that were taught in this class I believe the most important of them would be the lesson that we as humans base ourselves completely upon society and as future elders of our society we need to make sure that we create a society that promotes the productive ideas so that future generations will profit. This class has most definitely effected my life and hopefully I will be able to use them in the future. 

"colorblind"

Humans are an interesting species. We have a need to group and categorise things. Everything must have a place so we can compare it to something else. Our brains work through seeing the similarities and differences between different ideas, colors, and objects. The reason that we see race is because of the way our brains work, we see differences. But just because we see differences doesn't mean that we have to act upon them. In theory we could judge race by any other feature say eye color, or hair color. But why don't we base race off of those factors? There are two main reasons. First of all the society we live in once enslaved African Americans and created a prejudice against them. Secondly skin color is the most noticeable difference between humans mainly because it is usually accompanied by different hair and different eye color. Interestingly enough people tend to associate themselves to people similar to them. In an experiment at a grade school parents dressed their kids in either blue or red shirts regardless of the color of their skin. The children would prefer the company of the children with the same color shirts as them compared to the children with the opposite color of shirt regardless of race. In addition to preferring the children with the same color of shirt the children would say negative things about the other children with shirts of the opposite color once again regardless of their race. So what does this experiment show us? It shows us that for some reason, people discriminate against people that are different than them regardless of the reason. So now that we know that people discriminate against others for minuscule reasons we need to figure out a way to stop discrimination. Many people believe the way to do that is to be quote on quote "color blind" and avoid the issue of race at all costs. Forgetting about race would seem like a good way to get ride of the concept right? But no, contrary to the belief that being colorblind is the best option, talking about race and understanding it is the best way to go about dealing with race. In surveys of many younger children found that parents that talked to their children about race in a productive meaningful manner raised children that were much less likely to discriminate against others compared to children who were raised not to talk about race or be "color blind". When children were introduced to stories in which a commonly accepted white figure was changed to a African American figure children had a hard time adjusting. But after they had time to think about the difference they came out of the situation more friendly to other races than when they were first introduced to the idea. People are most afraid of what they don't know. That's why so many people are afraid of the dark, or afraid of other cultures. They don't know enough about them and therefor act hostile towards them. If people understand race, and how it is only skin deep then people would be more open to others of a different race. But the only way people are ever going to be able to put race behind us is if we have cooperation from both sides. Now I'm not talking about Republicans and Democrats, I'm talking about African Americans and other minorities and whites. Leaders from both sides need to come together and agree to certain ideas. Ideas like equality from both sides. Whites shouldn't call blacks demeaning names nor should blacks call white demeaning names. The NAACP shouldn't make companies feel obligated to hire the minority candidate over the white candidate based only on the worry that they will be sued if they don't. It creates feeling of hatred towards the African Americans because the white person feels that they were cheated out of a job. They need to create equality, and equality is not taking the rights away from some and giving them to others, equality is giving everyone the same rights. And until that happens there will always be inequality.