The coolest concept I chose for this week is Racism. Race is a social construct based on unequal relationships between ethnic groups and not on biological types based on superficial features. I think race is the coolest concept of the week because it’s very interesting to learn how different people are categorized into different racial groups, even though we are all the same beneath our skin. My article about two British twins that have different skin colour clearly explains that we are all the same and our skin colour should not identify our race. It helped me in understanding the issue on race because it explained how humans really are just one race. Just because our skin colour hair texture, etc. are different than others, we still belong to the same race. This article surprised me because if two twins can be so closely related, but have different skin colour that makes me realize that everyone is the same. The concept of race is socially constructed by society and is only based on people’s physical traits.
Today we had a class discussion about race. Everyone in the entire class was asked about what race they classified themselves as out of the nine geographic race. The races ranged from Amerindian, Polynesian, Micronesian, Melanesian, Australian, African, Indian, European, and Asiatic. Majority of the class either belonged to the European race or the Indian Race. One group couldn’t exactly classify themselves because it was too complicated, but they chose European race. Some people were cross breeds of the Indian race so they were considered to belong to the Indian Race. We discussed how Indians are thought to be Caucasian, but society doesn’t want them to be classified as Caucasians because they are darker. Because of this, they cut Indians out of the Caucasian category. A few people in our class also belong to the Asiatic and African race. Majority of our class being brown, as well as myself, belongs to the Indian Race. We are also considered partly Caucasian. After having this discussion, we learned that it is easier to classify people this way rather than using one’s skin colour hair texture, etc.
The coolest concept I have chosen this week is race. Race is considered to be biological and social. People that argue race is biological explain that there are subpopulations within the human race and one sub-group may be distinguished biologically from another. Race is also a social construct that is based on socially selected physical traits. This argues that human species have no subgroups and genetic traits are continuous so it’s impossible to state where one group beings and ends. I think this is the coolest concept of the week because it explains how race is viewed upon by different people. The article I chose was about the Obama re-election. This article showed how Obama won “93% of black voters, 71% of Latins, and also 73% of Asians,” where as only 39% of the white populations votes. This shows how race does play an extremely important role in any situation. Also, compared to the 89% of votes Romney won, Obama only won 56% of votes from whites. This helped me understand how race plays an enormous role in society and what impact it has on different people. Race is hard to explain and the only way to understand it is to be open-minded.
Today we started the class off by having a discussion about why Obama won the presidential election. One group explained how they believe it was because of his looks. A lot of people did not know Obama was half white and half black. This meant that his black heritage was stronger than his white heritage, so he is known as black. Another group imputed that race played an extremely important role in why Obama was elected. We discussed how most Hispanic and black citizens voted for Obama, where as mostly white citizens voted for Romney. His struggle with Bush’s mess for 4 years was another reason brought up as to why he was elected as president. He handled Bush’s mess in America for a long 4 years quiet well and he always put people first. My group and I shared how electing Obama would show evolution in the country. This meaning that compared to how black people were treating in the past, there is progress in the country by electing a black president. It is a historical event that showed change and evolution. After having this discussion in class, we thought of many reasons as to why Obama may have been re-elected as president of the United States.
My in-class participation/contribution was about the social construction of reality. As a class we had a discussion about this concept and we discussed many examples. The first one was to do with Olympics and our national pride. What we tend to do is focus on our own personal national pride and ignore that of the others. Another example would be the childhood of boys and girls. While growing up, kids of both genders are exposed to certain things. For example, girls play with Barbie’s, where as boys tend to play with cars. This shows us that boys are meant to be more macho and girls are more emotional and compassionate. We also discussed ontology, which is hearing something such as rumors. Also, beliefs and religions are formed on the “beauty in the eye of the beholder.” An example of this is Christians seeing Jesus as God, where as others see him as just a normal man. The self-fulfilling prophecy is described as seeing a situation as real, and eventually that situation becomes real in ones consequences. For example, calling someone stupid would eventually cause them to believe they truly are stupid. The example my group and I contributed had to do with life events. By this we meant certain events like a 16th birthday. It really isn’t a big deal because it’s just another birthday, however we treat it as a very important day in someones life compared to any other birthday.
The coolest concept of the week was feral beings. Feral beings are human brings who were abandoned by their parents and animals found then and took care of them. To me, this was the coolest concept because it indicated how strongly we rely on not only others in society, but our parents as well. After reading Harlow’s experiment on his monkeys and artificial mothers, I had a better and more clear understanding of how feral beings cope. Harlow’s experiment explained how like the monkeys he studied, humans are interactive and social and being separated at birth has severe consequences for sociable and behavioral development of humans. This helped me understand how much we rely on society and how it gives us human qualities. Socialization experiences in normal environments are required for all human beings, that is why feral beings can not fully develop. I think this was the coolest concept because it made me realize as much as a person is “independent,” they will always need society to survive.
The concept I have chosen this week is Racism and Sexism and Development of Sociology. Specifically, I found Jane Addams Hull House very interesting. This article about the Hull House is reflected on sexism and development of sociology because it explains that the Hull House was opened by a female, Jane Addams, who helped new immigrants integrate into American society. She made this possible by offering classes, such as cooking and language, and so on. The ‘coolest concept’ of sexism and development of sociology I have chosen describes how only Euro-American men were considered to be founders of sociology, which excluded women and non- European thinkers. This meant that women and non-Europeans were not thought to be founders, which resulted in being an act racism and sexism. This article ties in with development of sociology because Jane Addams helped new immigrants become aware of American society and made it easier for them to fit into the society, which resulted in development of society. She also opened the Hull House to help her less fortunate neighbours and because of this, she was awarded a Nobel Prize. I believe this is the coolest concept of the week because this movement by Jane Addams really proved that women should be considered founders of social thought and not as inadequate. This article helped me in understanding the subject matter because it explained exactly what the Hull House was opened for and how she helped less fortunate and immigrants, which developed society.
