Race

This week we started to learn about race. I think the major thing I learned was that race is not biological, but because of our history we have been brought up to think that way. Race is a social factor, it is not the color of someone's skin or their features. One day we had to look at a group of people and classify them into what group we thought they belonged to. Out of I think 16 people, we only put 4 into their right group. Many people will look at someone and automatically judge what group the belong to. You see someone who is black and they are just black, but that's wrong because they can be half Jewish like Lenny Kravitz as seen in the Dave Chappel video "Racial Draft". This video intrigued me because I am currently dating someone who is black and if you never got to know him you would not know that he is part Portuguese. Race is part of people's culture not what color their skin is, and unfortunatly most people don't think that way because they have been brought up to think people with dark skin are bad and people with white skin are good.

Rags to Riches

The past couple of weeks we have been talking about social class, and this week we were finishing up a movie about the classes in America. They showed the "very wealthy" in the Hamptons of New York who were wealthy because they have old money like money from the Vanderbilt estate, or Rockerfeller estate. There were two ladies who commented about a new house that was built, and that the person that lived in it was "nevo" or new, as in they were not born into the money, they had to work for it. It's the American dream, the rags to riches, which is what most celebrities today are, their "nevo". Everyone wants to be "in" with those in their social class, but the people with money cannot accept the people with new money because as said before, they were not born into it. This goes along with Monopoly- the social class version that we played this week in class. Everyone was a certain class and the idea was to see if we would move up or down. I was the upper class, and I was more interested in seeing if the poorest and the blue collar workers would move up in class as oppose to me moving up in class because I'm use to hearing the "Rags to Riches" story. Social class is a major part of the American society no matter how much we don't want to think about it, it's always around us. At school, especially high school and high school girls, people always judge where you get your clothes or what label they have on them, or if you have higher grades you can afford a tutor for your ACT and get high scores. Your life depends on your social class, because most of the time you will always remain in your social class unless you pursue a dream and go from rags to riches.

Social Classes

Living and growing up a certain way is all part of being classified in a certain social class in America. Being brought up in a highly populated suburb near Chicago the average income is about $90,000. When someone from a trailer home in Alabama thinks about someone who makes $90,000 a year, they have their stereotypes as to what those people are like, as do the people making that much money in Chicago have their stereotypes of those in trailer parks in Alabama. People say you can never change the social class you're in and in a way I think it's true. Watching a video in class on social classes, a middle class woman wanted to try to go out with a wealthy man. With training and a makeover she looked the part, but still looked out of place and awkward at an art gallery, even looking uncomfortable because she had not grown up in that type of atmosphere. I think it's unfair that people are looked at by social class but in reality when you see someone's house or car you automatically say they have money or don't. When you talk to someone for the first time, the first question you ask after their name is "what do you do?" which relates to how important Americans think social class is.