Racial Stereotypes

The Harvard video of the doll experiment was very interesting. Especially since that experiment was first conducted many years ago, and then conducted again recently. This means that the racial stereotype of black people hasn't made much progress. It was also sad to see that there are such extreme racial stereotypes within a race (dark skin, light skin). It just shows that society feels that we have to keep seperating people into certain categories. The last thing said in the video I found very dissapointing. The girl said that people don't know what their culture is based from, but we allow society to decide what kind of person you are. Although she was talking about her race in specific, I think the statement applies to all races. There is so much we don't know about each and every persons past and present life, yet we allow society to judge how someone is supposed to act. But not even that, we also allow ourselves to givin to the stereotype. We allow ourselves to be whats expected of us from society. Although that's a very intense way of looking at the subject, the situation of racial stereotypes may become more serious the more people take apart and divide races into certain expectations.

monopoly

Playing monopoly in class really did show how hard it is to move out of your social class. By the end of the game, each player was about where they started. Since moving to a higher class is so difficult, you probably have to go through extremes to get there. Both of my parents had grown up in an upper middle class like I am now. I didn't realize till I asked them, but it does show how classes tend to stay the same throughout generations. I'm not sure what class I see myself in in the future because I plan on doing something very different then my parents. In fact, among my sisters and I, we all are going a different path although we'd like to be successful at whatever we're doing. My oldest sister is an artist and has been trying to work her way up the ladder of art production, set design, murals. This profession doesn't have a set salary. You get paid job by job, which is very different than what my parents do. My other sister, Melissa, is studying to be a nurse. She would very much like to be successful at it, and is actually thinking about being a surgical nurse. Depending what kind of nursing job she'd like to do, may determine what "class" she is in. I'm thinking about foreign affairs nursing, or international development. So if I plan on traveling for an open amount of time, I might not even own a house.

Tammy's Story

I find Tammy's story...going no where. and its frusterating. They have to continue moving in that cycle. They can't move away to a different location where she would have more oppurtunity, b/c they have no money to transport themselves. She just has to keep doing the same thing everyday. What's also very frusterating is that she doesn't want her son to break out of the cycle. It seems like she doesn't want the best for her son, but maybe she thinks "the best" is staying to your roots. Its unfortunate that we accept the stereotypes of different classes, especially when these classes have no other choice