Classism and Poverty in America's Schools

Hey Everyone ! As we all know this week's discussion was about different Immigration laws and Classism in America. In class on Thursday the we mainly discussed low class or rather I say working class. Throughout class we discussed the underlining issues American's in poverty have with many things such as better job opportunities, education and better resources to be able to provide a better life for their family. We also discussed how middle and high class have better access to receive better opportunities, resources and education for their kids. In chapter two of bell hooks she explains how she is coming to realize class consciousness when preparing to attend college for the first time.



 "When I was choosing a college to attend, the issue of money surfaced and had to be talked about. While I would seek loans and scholarships, even if everything related to school was paid for, there would still be transportation to pay for, books, and a host of other hidden costs. Letting me know that there was no extra money to be had, mama urged me to attend any college nearby that would offer financial aid. My first year of college I went to a school close to home. A plain-looking white woman recruiter had sat in our living room and explained to my parents that everything would be taken care of, that I would be awarded a full academic scholarship, that they would have to pay nothing. They knew better. They knew there was still transportation, clothes, all the hidden costs. Still they found this school acceptable. They could drive me there and pick me up. I would not need to come home for holidays. I could make do."(bell hooks, pg. 25)



I decided to rewrite this part of the book in the blog to state that although bell hooks and her parents were aware of all the hidden cost, the white-women recruiter may have been oblivious to the hidden fees, transportation costs, books and other host hidden fees. Just like in America today many kids who live in low poverty areas are in dyer need of help as far as transportation cost, new books and other hidden fees it takes to make a school in a poverty area run successfully. When a child is living in a low class area it is very hard to have self motivation to get out of poverty when they are older because they have little or no resources to educate them on how to better themselves for the future. Poor or old resources go to low class areas because this is all these areas can afford causing thousands of kids to get behind or no education at all. Many people in high and middle class think negatively about low class people. Terms such as "welfare-queen", irresponsible, stupid and other low terms are tied with low class people but most of the low class people work three to four jobs and still struggle to make ends meet.



Due to living in a toxic environment it plays a big role in kids living in poverty. Kids in poverty are less likely to be develop high self esteem and never truly receive attention from their parents because they need to work to provide.Here above is a video I found on YouTube that really discuss the importance of bettering schools in low poverty areas. Although America would like to believe that everyone has the same opportunities at life it is pretty clear in this video that, that is impossible. I believe low class children do not, but after watching this video what do you think ? Does everyone have a fair opportunity to succeed in life ?

Debunking Myths

An Economist debunks 3 Anti-Immigration Myths

A Girl Like Me--Video Clip

I was unable to show this in class...during our discussion of Privilege and Microaggressions
A Girl Like Me

The harshness against immigrants

       So this week in class we focused on undocumented immigrants and societal groups that formed against them. Groups such as The Minutemen Project, Vigilante groups, Exceptionalism groups, Minutemen Civil Defense Corps, Mothers Against Illegal Aliens and so many more that have formed against immigrants. Whenever societal groups perceive a threat to their security a sense of emergency is generated and with it a willingness to take extraordinary emergency measures (Doty 13). I want to focus on Mothers Against Illegal Aliens and on the goal they set out to achieve because it was the group that caught my attention the most. MAIA is a group that claims "the enemy" not only includes the illegal alien themselves but also the children of undocumented migrants, regardless of the fact that the children are born right U.S citizens (Doty 39). It appalls me how a group like this could exist, the founder of the organization describes immigrants as a mass invasion of unintelligent, disrespectful, criminals while targeting her message to women and families. She focuses on immigration as a threat to american children and denigrates the values of immigrant families, branding immigrant children as "dumb". This group seems as though it traces back to that deeply rooted love that they have for their country that they express that love in forms of hate (Ahmed 42). These groups see immigration as a growing crisis that has to be stopped and feel they need to take matters into their own hands.
       Even though more groups form around states that border Mexico, many groups are forming in states that don't like Arizona. More laws are also being placed in states to make the lives of immigrants difficult at all cost, for example HB 56 bill that was attempted to being enforced in Alabama in 2011 scared the lives of many immigrants because it was set out to be the strictest immigration law. The bill would block many things not allowing immigrants to do anything. Here is a link speaking further on the bill two years after it was made and some of the things it would have blocked if it would have been enforced.
http://blog.al.com/wire/2013/11/hb56_two_years_later_constitut.html
I want to share with you guys a documentary of two undocumented immigrants sharing their background stories and how they felt in regard to the HB56 bill. The documentary was made by my brother, a film major, because he wanted to give an inside scoop to those who had never tried to put themselves in the shoes of an undocumented immigrant. This goes hand in hand with the group MAIA because everything this group is against, the children of undocumented immigrants, is everything immigrants strive for which is a better life for their children.

http://vimeo.com/80023503

Hope this moves you as much as it does me! Enjoy!
           

Hey you guys I know I'm late with this post but obviously as you guys seen in class my philosophy is better late than never. Lol. Any-who the readings we had last week were great picks. Because only white privilege was discussed in the readings (although that may over-shadow any other privilege) it left me wondering why. Or lead me to think about if there were any other races that experience privilege. When I thought about this I thought about the infamous light skin vs. dark skin battle among blacks.

After watching the video above it really made me think tons of things. If light skin African Americans receive privilege aren't they just as guilty as whit people or is this something they learned that just makes living better for them? Are they(light skinned A. Americans) oblivious like whites to their privilege? Just like race, gender, and class, privilege cannot be contained cause it seems just as complex.

Hello everyone, hope you all enjoyed your weekend.

This past week, we started off with Peggy MacIntosh introducing us to white privilege. When we think of a privilege, it is something that is unearned and is an advantage given by birth or being apart of a specific group. In her article, she gives us many daily examples of how her whiteness gives her an advantage in life. Other than giving the many examples, the most important statement she made to credit to white privilege is that she "was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on [her] group." This statement is why white privilege still exist today. White people do not believe they are apart of the racist problem because they do not act out extreme racist behavior. Although acting racist adds to racism, white privilege and the nonrecognition of its existence adds to it to. Because whites do not know they are actively participating in the dominance of whiteness, by microaggressive behavior, racism on the non-systematic level continues to flourish.

Microaggressions are brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults toward people of color. These acts occur on a daily basis because whites do not identify these acts as being racist because white americans think of themselves as good, moral human beings that believe in equality. Thus, it's hard for them to believe they have biased racial attitudes and may participate in discriminatory behaviors ("Racial Microaggressions in Everyday Life"). These aggressions contribute to the white dominance because these insults make minorities feel less than and it separates whites from the other races.

Although this university is making many strides to better diversity and to accept their past and role in race relations, I have been a victim to many microaggressions done by people here. For example, I work for Crimson Tide Productions, which is in the football stadium. One day I was walking to work and a white male came up to me and asked if I was a kitchen worker and could he have access into the kitchen. I felt very disrespected, but I nicely replied to him," I work in the media center, not in the kitchen." Even though I work hard and attend this university, I am still assumed to need money and work in the kitchen. His act of microaggression put me at an inferior status as a worker to his superior white status as a food sales rep.

Now that we know that white privilege and microaggressions exist, how can we change that and make people aware of what they are doing. Although it is very hard to change something that is "invisible," the first step is to make whiteness and white privilege visible. One person who works to help whites understand racism, how they contribute to racism individually, and help whites understand what minorities feel like is Jane Elliott. Elliott is known for doing her brown eyes vs. blue eyes experiment to give people the opportunity to find out how it feels to be something other than white in this society. In the attached video is one of her many experiments. I want to know what you feel about the experiment and do you think it is effective? Can you spot out how privilege may hinder the blue eyed people from understanding what Elliott is trying to prove?

White Privilege

Hey guys!
Seems like this is the only we can communicate since class has been canceled and we haven't seen each other! This past week we learned about white privilege and the power it has within white people. Everyday, unconsciously, white people express their power in daily activities because unconsciously they know they are the supreme race. But, who can really blame them when their background history showed nothing but dominance over other races. It is as if whites see their privilege as something invisible that they are never really supposed to know they do have dominance still in today's time period. Tim Wise who wrote of the articles we read last week "A look at the Myth of reverse racism" does many speeches on racism and inequality. Here is a clip from one of his speeches on white privilege and how it came to be, you are more than welcome to watch the entire hour of his speech. The link to hour long speech is available underneath the video clip once on the page. He is very moving and very into his speeches which automatically makes you want to listen up and hear what he has to say.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-eNS_UCh9A

Why is it though that white people still feel this privilege today? Aren't we supposed to have already been past this racism issue today in the 21st century? So many questions that are so hard to answer. It is as if racism will never end until people find racism in their consciousness instead of always having it in their unconscious state. Some people think if you are even slightly aware of someones skin color you are automatically racist. That is not the issue here of course we notice skin color! It is being unaware of what a certain race can bring to society and thinking negatively of their race that is the issue here. We need to learn to love other races and their culture to rid of racism and until then it will always exist. However it is hard to think that racism wont exist one day because it has always been an issue. Do you think racism will one day be gone?

Here is another clip, this one is a little more fun because it is a song my Macklemore a very popular white artist in today's music industry. The song is called White Privilege, enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdVRlM-kSx8

Privilege and Microaggressions

Hey again everyone! This week’s readings on privilege and microaggressions really revealed just how many everyday advantages white Americans are afforded in contrast to people of color. I found Peggy McIntosh’s use of male privilege to identify and criticize her own white privilege particularly interesting (1). It becomes clear as the list of privileges goes on and on, that our culture is still very much damaged by racism, and these daily advantages predisposed to whites perpetuate those ideas. Similarly, whites’ (as a whole) failure to recognize their own privilege serves to create a further hostile environment in American society.

Aside from the daily effects of white privilege, microaggressions aid in the oppression of many individuals due to race. Like the article on microaggressions explains, these instances of racism tend to be subtle, and therefore difficult to eradicate from our culture, but still remain highly dehumanizing to members of different racial backgrounds. I think microaggressions, and the generally more elusive nature of racism in modern society is very damaging to social progress and equality. One of the most important ideas I gained from the McIntosh article is that in order to create social change, be it against sexism, racism, etc. an awareness of one’s own privilege and an active effort to lessen it are crucial to social change efforts because these systems of oppression are so intricately related.

The link posted below is to a French video (with English subtitles) I stumbled upon about a week ago on the topic of sexism.  The video is a hypercritical commentary on how women are oppressed in society, presented in an unusual way by flipping gender roles. While sexism is the central issue of the short film, the video also revealed some racial and cultural microaggressions, such as the main characters’ interaction with Nissar (1:54 in to the video) by asserting that he must feel “more trapped” by cultural dress customs. Additionally, the video criticizes the justice system similarly to #11 on the list of “Common Racist Attitudes and Behaviors” (3).  While the video is technically a commentary on sexism, other forms of privilege not related to gender become very clear in the film.

Do White People Understand White Privilege?

Do White People Understand White Privilege ?

Heyyyy everyone, so this week we are all posting a blog and I hope mine is cool to you all. This weeks reading The Invisible Knapsack written by Peggy McIntosh gave a list of privileges whites receive. I must say, I never really noticed how much of a disadvantage other races receive because they are not white. Of course, many people are aware of the privilege whites have and their own boundaries based on the responses they have always gotten out of certain situations but to see it on a list gave me a different outlook on how many blacks raise their household differently from whites because of these known privileges. Reading that list was upsetting because it is reality and other races have to teach their children to be aware of the stereotypes placed against you while whites are truly living life freely.      

Even though whites are stereotyped as well, whites have never been stereotyped in a harmful way. Many white stereotypes or racial comments are perceived as rude or harmful to whites emotional feelings but never jeopardizing their power, intelligence or freedom. After reading McIntosh article along with the other readings I began to wonder how whites feel about having this privilege or even if they are aware of this privilege.  Here below I have a video that I found on YouTube of a group of women discussing white privilege. I thought it was interesting and something worth sharing. Let e know what you guys think, it made me think of privilege from all perspectives.

Of all the chapters in How Race is Made, Chapter 5 was one of the most interesting to me. It looked at the mind of black southerners and how they absorbed and perceived the stereotypes that were forced on them. Since many of the Jim Crow rules and regulations prevented blacks from participating in everyday social activities and interactions, blacks began to accommodate to these sensory demands made by white. As stated in the book, “as children, blacks learned to not ‘look at white folks in de eye.’” Blacks began to live in fear and adapted to their fear of whites by training their eyes in particular ways. In so, in addition to black being careful about the watching eye of whites, blacks learned to watch whites with precision.

Not all blacks adapted and changed the way they lived to accommodate to the sensory demands of whites. Many middle and upper class blacks began to have less black qualities and antagonizes the lower class black who exemplified them. These upper class blacks believed they were superior to the lower class because they did not participate in the sensory demands associated with blacks, they became agents of whiteness. Upper class blacks began to demonstrate that he/she “’possesses the attribute of breeding,’ but also divorcing himself from ‘the inferior type of Negro.’” From this, the upper-class harshly criticized the lower class as being “rough and common nigguhs” and a degradation to society.

As I think in modern times, this mindset of blacks trying to separate themselves from stereotypes reigns true today. Acting “less black” is deemed to be better and more respectable, especially when it comes to females. In my opinion, the term “acting ghetto” is the new way of expressing black stereotypes. Many blacks try to stray away from the “ghetto” stereotypes and if another black person acts in this manner, they are harshly criticized and deemed inferior.

Here is a short video of what “acting ghetto” is:

 

 

I want to know what you all think about “acting ghetto” in relation to what we have learned and read about in class through the senses.

How Race Is Made Post

Hello group! Well I know this week was cut a bit short due to the snow, but I did my best to pull together a relevant blog topic from this weeks readings and our time in class that I hope everyone finds interesting!

http://soundsofslavery.com/2.html 

The reading this week, How Race is Made by Mark Smith argues how white southerners used not only sight, but a full sensory experience to dehumanize slaves and justify slavery. Using more senses to determine race helped perpetuate racism in the south by creating the illusion that difference between people was more innate than basic skin color.  Especially as skin color lines began to blur among people in the south, these different means of classification became even more important. Despite the complete irrationality, the colonially developed concept of race was able to remain prevalent in southern society for extended periods of history due to these socially developed sensory differences.

           

One of the sensory differences white southerners used to create difference between them and their slaves was the sense of sound. Despite the rich culture slaves developed among them, specifically through music, whites often dismissed these cultural developments. Rejecting black musical expression as “unrefined” allowed southerners to deepen already present stereotypes. While many southerners acknowledged the strong emotional quality of this music, southern racism became so unquestionable, this value in this music was negligible to most at the time.

The link I included in this post lists some quick links (under the "music and video" tab at the top) to songs and spirituals developed by slaves living in the south. The links also include some narratives, but if you read the brief descriptions under the player it's easy to tell which are songs. The emotions are obvious when listening to any of the selected tracks and certainly highlight the characteristics many southerners observed as the readings explain. While you’re welcome to reflect on the tracks however you want, the main factor I found interesting is how musical expression contradicted the sensory stereotypes of the time both in the ways slaves heard, created and used it to change the hostile environment of the south and how whites interpreted (or ignored) it. Additionally, an interesting point to consider may be how these songs/ individuals' interpretation of music and sound affects popular genres today. Feel free to listen to any and as many tracks as you like!