Failure to transform

This section is talking about homophobia within the black community. I thought it was interesting that the author herself is a black woman who is also a lesbian. She first explains that homophobia within the black community cannot be blamed on the whites. She believes it is the responsibility of the black community to admit their faults and choose to transform. She explained that African Americans after WWII began rejecting all “white values”. Manlihood or male supremacy was one of the white values that black people held onto. This can be seen as on of the reasons for homophobia. The author feels it is wrong to view homosexual lifestyles as a threat to the continued existence. Although homosexuals cannot reproduce with each other, most of them are still raising children. She also doesn’t think it is right to say the ultimate goal of families is to reproduce. I do agree with that. People should be able to do what they want to. Although I would not choose the homosexual lifestyle, I don’t look down upon those who do. I thought it was really interesting to hear the perspective of a black lesbian woman. I don’t personally understand why women choose to be lesbian so I liked reading about her viewpoints.

How men have sex

The little story at the beginning about the creatures who were many different sexes was really weird to me. It was crazy when he author explained that the creatures he was describing were really us. It is hard for me to understand the concept because I thought most human beings were distinctly male or female at birth. John Stonlenberg explains that instead, human beings are a mulitsexed species. Another thing that caught my attention was when he explained that the idea of the male sex is not real. The male sex is nonexistent. It has been socially constructed not chosen by human nature. I like how he addressed the issue of rape by questioning why “some of us with penises” feel they can do it. He explains one reason for sexual violence by men is because they have to prove their manliness so the lie of the male race seems true. I don’t agree with everything he says, although some of the points sound convincing. I do believe that there is a male and female sex and that certain people do belong in these categories.

opression: marilyn fry

When we as color people are not cheerful are smiling, we tend to scare people away. But we as color people always have to put that smile on just to get by because if we don’t, we won’t get by. I really enjoyed her writing because I feel that the author tells it how it is. Throughout the chapter, she challenges the thought that you do not have to be a person of color to be oppressed. She states that “human beings can be miserable without being oppressed and it is perfectly consistent to deny that a person or group is oppressed with denying that they have feelings or those that suffered”. The way that she put that opened me up to different views of oppression. Later on in the chapter she breaks down the word oppression into the word press. When she did this, the word oppression started to make a lot more sense to me. Another good quote that moved me was when she said that “it is often a requirement upon oppressed people that we smile and be cheerful”. I agree with that statement 100% because

occupied america

In this chapter the author talks about how everyone has it bad in the U.S but Chicanos got it the worst. I understand where he is coming from and why he feels that way. Everyone knows that no matter what people say, this land belonged to Hispanic first regardless of what is going on now. Throughout the chapter he really dwells on how bad Chicanos have it now a day and that it is not fair to them because they should not have to fight for what is there’s. A quote that really made a lot of sense to me was when the author said that “those who seek power are deprived of their humanity to the point that they themselves become the oppressors”

Privilege

Alison bouley describes how important it is to understand the role of privilege to truly understand what oppression means. When explaining oppression, I liked how she wants us to focus on the pig picture. Many people look at individual acts of oppression and are unable to see the true systemic cause of racism or sexism. I also liked how she clarified the difference between oppression and harm. “All persons who are oppressed are in some way harmed but not all persons who are harmed are oppressed”. Sometimes white students think black students have privilege because they get minority scholarship benefits and they may feel harmed by that. It upsets me when people say we are privileged because of the scholarship programs for minorities. I personally know what it feels like to be discriminated and denied certain opportunities because of the color of my skin and there is nothing I can do about it.

homophobia

The thing that really grabbed my attention in this section was when the author mentioned how a gay man was beaten and stabbed to death by ten teenage boys. It reminded me of the extreme racist acts performed by groups like the kkk. The author explains that there are different terms for being “anti-gay and the 2 most common are heterosexism and homophobia. Heterosexism is dealing mostly with the protection of heterosexist rights and privileges. He uses homophobia to refer more to “physical abuse and strong verbal, economic and juridical abuse against gays”. He does explain that both terms are political terms and are used differently in different situation. I really liked the statement “homophobia is a product of institutional heterosexism and gendered identity”. This again reminds me of racism because violent acts of racism can also be seen as a product of institution racism

gay sexism

I have never thought gay men were sexist against women. I always thought they loved women and wanted to be like them. The author talks about 3 ways that gay men can be sexist. The first is by ignoring them. The author says that gay men can ignore women easier that straight men because they are not attracted to women. The second way is mocking women’s attractiveness. One way gay men do this is dressing as a drag queen. I always thought it was just something that they did for fun. The author explains that drag can be a put down for women. The last type of seism he talks about involes gay men calling other gay men feminine names. I don’t really agree with his ideas of gay sexism. From my experiences, it has always appeared that gay men respected women more and can form better friendships with women.

U.S empire and war

In the opening statement the author talks about how people could not believe 911 “but the notion that terrorism only happens in other countries makes it difficult to grasp that the U.S is built on a foundation of genocide, slavery and racism” I thought that quote was very powerful because a lot of people do not understand that. Later in the chapter the author talks about how the U.S would test their nuclear bombs on native land and on native people. Just when I thought I heard it all about how the U.S disrespected Native people, I read that they are using them as live targets. Another shocking situation was about the Shoshone people and the low level flying planes. These planes where leaking oil and other substances over the Shoshone land and also scaring a lot of the animal’s way. When the Shoshone people suggested that the planes should fly over the field of cattle they told them it would be inhumane to the cattle. I could not believe that they said that. They basically chose an animal over a human life.

boarding school

From what I read it seems as thought the native people could not escape the Europeans because every where they turned the Europeans were there. It was sad to read about how the natives were stripped of their religion and force to basically be another race. It stated in the book that they were forced Christianity onto them and there children where forced to be shipped off to boarding schools. In the chapter it stated that there were 25 boarding schools off the reservation and 157 on the reservation. There were no possibilities for the natives to escape anywhere with those circumstances and on top of that those who did not let their kids go to these boarding schools were killed. I thought it was unfair and cruel of the B.I.A to let some of the native kids get sexually assaulted and not report it. It was even sickening to read that when Terry Hoster (a sex offender) applied at one of the boarding schools after being arrested for sexual assault, he was still hired. The native people basically went threw hell and the sad part is that they went through it for nothing.

Better dead than pregnant

God blessed women to be able to give birth to a child and for someone to try to sterizile a woman is total disrespect to God. Not only is it disrespect to God, it is aginist human rights. The government is always trying to play God for some reason and this is killing our country. Another upsetting situation that happen was that women were being strilized without being told that it was irreversible. The government was really trying to get rid of native and people of color the best the could for no leggit reason. I could not believe that they were even tricking and basically forcing people to be streriziled.

When I read this, it reminded my about when Ms Tamez was talking about how the millitary was going to the homes of the native people with guns forcing them to sign a paper that gave up there land. This is basically the same thing expect these women are signing over there kids. Another thing that made me upset is when they gave the black woman an option to either take norplant or get 4 fours years in prison. Who would want any of those options? That is basically a lose lose situation and also unfair.

Rape of the land

This chapter made a lot of issues between whites and natives more understandable to me. It is clear that greed and selffishness are charteristics of white people when these issues where going on. In the chapter it stated that a government offical stated that “ to leave them in possesion of their country was to leave the country a wilderness”. The key word I pulled out of that quote was “their”. Last time I checked, people could do what ever they wanted with what belonged to them. It just goes to show how people with power like to pick on and basically bully those of lesser power.

A quote that mad me upset was when another government offical, John Eidsmoe said that “native people did not privatize land and since these communities had not been established by God, Europeans had a right to seize the land”. This man had the adasity to bring God into this to justify the wrong doing that the Europeans were doing. An to top it off, later in that same pharagraph he basically amitted that christianity was forced on Native people but “millions of people are in heaven today as a result”. Wow was the first word I said out loud in my room after I read that. To me, he just made the genocide that happen to the native people seem like a big joke.

Sexual violence as a tool of genocide

In the opening statement of the book it stated “rape is nothing more or less than a concious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear”. I would of fully agreed with the statement if it said some men. To me it slandered all men because it used the word “all’. It made it seem like if men wanted to they could just go out an rape any women. Besides that statement the rest of the chapter was very interesting. One qoute that caught my attention was the comparison between the “dirty Indian” and a prositute. It talked about how a prositute could never be raped and in relation, an Indian basically had just as much respect as a prositute.
As I read this I could not believe some of the things that were said. Before this class I never knew that white people had that much hate for Native people. Even people that are suppose to be looked at as leaders in the public eye were talkin bad about native people. For example, the finance minister Jim Flaherty stated that Native people were not real people. When I read that I thought to myself, “that didn’t make any sense at all”. It just goes to show how ignorant people can be sometime. As the chapter went on it began to talk about people from austrailia called the Aborignal people.
I personnally have never heard of these people before, but after I read about them I rather not learn anything about them. These people think that rape is traditional and morally correct. When I read this I could not believe what I was reading. It is sad to know that there are people in the world that live like and think this way.

abstract

Disrespect

Intro

In society today women are taken for granted and are used as sex symbols. It is sad because our younger generation is already feeding on these ideologies that are being portrayed on music videos, movies, and media period. As a man I am embarrassed by the way some men are representing us men. Men today are looked at as “dogs”, assholes, and to some women perverted. It is time for us men to wake up and realize what are doing to our women and look at the image we are creating for our younger men growing up. I picked the word disrespect for the title of my paper because when I look at these music videos, movies and the media, disrespect is what we are doing to our women. Us as men need to look at the big picture instead of adding to the picture. It is sad that women today have accepted the fact that it is ok to promote their body on television and in magazines for the public to see. I was always told that a woman’s body is secret and special, but the media has destroyed that ideology and made women think that money makes it ok. For women to get back the respect that they deserve, it has to start with us men first. Until us as men step to the plate and be the man that we say we are, women will forever be disrespected. For my final project I am going to put together a power point explaining and showing how we are disrespecting our women today. I will have movie clips and interviews of my peers to get their thoughts, perspectives and opinions on how we treat women today.

Books

Conquest
Oppression

Videos

Boyz in the hood
Menace to society
Baby boy
Interviews

Settler Societies: Introduction

From what I could understand from the reading, it seems as though the introduction is basically proposing an argument about who were really the first settlers in the U.S. So far this book is a tough read for me, so I really could not get a grasp on anything that I could relate to or elaborate on. One thing that did catch my eye was when the author talked about how women in these indigenous societies had lack of power.

The author stated that "social scientists of European origins have tended to view the gender division of labour in indigenous societies through Eurocentric and sexist lenses that refracted womens lack of power in the punlic sphere". This quote has great relations to how women in the U.S are viewed today. There was a quote in the book that had me confused because I could not understand what the author was trying to say. It seemed as though the author was trying to credit people of color/minorities, but at the same time it could have been the other way around. The author said that "migrant women and women from racial and ethnic minorities have historically had greater rates of labour force participation than longer-established or ethnically dominant women".

When the author talked about nation and state, I agreed with his definition and focus of what "state" was. He said that state "variously focus on its legal-juridical and institutional composition, or its role with respect to capitalism, class, gender and race relations". To my understanding, I feel asthough he hit all the major points within a state.

Review: Crash

Many people fail to accept the unfortunate truth that racism still exists in our current society. It shows up in many different forms and situations. “Crash” is a movie that accurately displays different ways racism is played out in our culture.
Issues of race cause a group of strangers in Los Angeles to physically and emotionally collide during the movie “Crash”. It brings to life the real issues of discrimination that occur daily and are often overlooked. The movie includes several characters that are all somehow involved in discrimination. Some characters fall victim to racism while others commit acts of discrimination. Throughout the movie it becomes clear that each character is related in some way and how discrimination affects them all.
Graham is a police detective whose brother is a street criminal, and it is painful for him to know that his mother cares more about his thieving brother than him. Rick is an L.A. district attorney whose wife, Jean is very discriminative against people who do not share the same skin color as her. Jean’s worst fears of minorities come to life when her car is stolen at gunpoint by two African American men. Anthony is one of the men who assisted in the car jacking and he hates Caucasian people as much as Jean dislikes people of color. Anthony’s partner in crime was Peter who is also Graham’s brother. Cameron is an African American man who has earned a respectable living and is fairly wealthy. While driving home from a party, Cameron and his wife, Christine were pulled over by Officer Ryan and humiliated. Officer Ryan’s new partner, Officer Hansen watches in disgust while his partner inappropriately searches the couple. Daniel is a Mexican American, hard-working locksmith and dedicated father. However, many people don’t trust him because of the image he displays. Although he is an honest man, his ethnic background combined with his tattoos is enough to make people suspicious of him. Farhad is a Middle Eastern store owner, who fails to trust most people. Due to his lack of trust, and his previous experiences of being discriminated against, Farhad feels he needs a gun to protect himself. These characters were all interconnected and it were all in some way affected by the racism and hatred around them.
When watching the movie Crash, feelings of anger and frustration were brought to the surface. It was upsetting to see people act with such hatred and discriminate against people solely based on race. It was even more frustrating to accept the idea that similar situations occur in real life. Judging and stereotyping people according to their ethnic background is unfair and wrong. Although they were too blind to see it, every person in the movie was a part of the same race; the human race. Each person was different, unique and special in their own way. Some of the characters in “Crash” failed to recognize the ignorance of their racist beliefs and the negative effects it had on people. For example, Jean was so biased against people of color that she didn’t even trust the locksmith that was hired to change her locks. The locksmith, Daniel was a trustworthy man. However, Jean could not look past his outside image to see this.
To further emphasize this point, Daniel had to go through another similar situation in the movie. Farhad, the Middle Eastern store owner, didn’t trust Daniel when he told him that he needed to fix his door not the locks. Because of Farhad’s ignorance, his shop was broken into. He blamed Daniel and retaliated by trying to kill him. There is no way that Farhad could justify what he did. He was wrong for not listening to Daniel and blaming his own ignorance on someone else because he was blinded by hate.
A part of the movie that was extremely disturbing happened when Peter was killed by Officer Hansen. Throughout the entire movie, Officer Hansen was trying to be fair to people of all different ethnic backgrounds. He was portrayed as an understanding young man with the potential to see both sides of a story, regardless of race. However, I believe all the hatred that was occurring around caused Officer Hansen to become corrupted. Although he wanted to trust Peter, Officer Hansen couldn’t help but think of the stereotype that has been formed about African American men. When Peter was just trying to show Officer Hansen a figurine they coincidentally shared, he shot him, thinking Peter was pulling out a gun.
Overall, this movie did an exceptional job of accurately portraying racism. Each character in the movie shared some kind of special link and it was very interesting to find out how they were all related. “Crash” is a movie that forces people to use their intellect and causes realization of what goes on our culture today. It displays a powerful message that is almost impossible to ignore. Racism is wrong and discriminating against people solely based on their ethnic background is ignorant and can only result in negative outcomes.

Gloria Yamato

This article was about people of color dealing with oppression. The author argues that no matter what, people of color will always be oppressed. She gives solid information and backs it up with examples. The authors concerns are how will people of color ever overcome oppression and be equal. In the opening statement she states “racism- simple enough in structure, yet difficult to eliminate”.

This quote made a lot of sense to me when I read it because not only is it true, it is reality. People know so much about racism but when asked how do we end it, the answer you here is an excuse. Another strong point that the author makes is her forms of racism. I agree with all her forms of racism except unaware/self-righteous. In her explanation of unaware/self-righteous she discredits white people that try to help people of color as if they are only trying to help to pay back what they have done to people of color.

I appreciate any white person that extends an arm out to people of color. It is bad enough that us people of color have a hard time getting by on our own because of are skin color. Besides that, I felt that the author was very educated and a great spokeswomen for people of color.

Tough Guise

They movie Tough Guise was a good movie that young men should watch and focus on. The video shows how media and certain images corrupt society today. The main ideology that is being corrupted is the image of a “real man”. As a child growing up I was always thought that a “real man” was someone who takes care of business, and his family. These days, the ideal real man needs a gun, he needs to sale drugs and he needs respect. Where I grew up at, this is ideal real man is who everyone wants to be like and that is sad. But what can you do when there is few positive role models these days and to top it off, the media makes it even worst by glorifying the bad guy.

When I seen the title of the movie I thought to myself, why is guise spelled that way? Before the movie came one I though it was “Tough Guys” instead of the other spelling. After watching the movie I realized why it is spelled that way. The media is portraying an image that is a disguise. Half of these “tough guys” that you see on TV are not so tough when the cameras are turned off. This is bad because kids actually think the world of these “tough Guise” and the worst part is that these kids often imitate what they see the tough guys do.

A strong quote that I took from the movie was when the commentator dwelled on the topic about how pop culture glorifies respect. Most tough guy movies portray the image that you will only get respect by disrespecting someone else. This alone has gotten many teens killed and harmed. Another good point that I received from the movie is how there is very few movies that display vulnerability. I feel that this is why this country is so violent because all you see is violence. It is sad because when a man shows his vulnerable side, he is considered a “faggot”, “queer”, or less of a man which forces men to always put this tough guy disguise on.

The American Holocaust

First off I would like to say that after reading about the American holocaust I became very frustrated and disgusted with the government officials that represent America. To be honest I was not that educated on the history of the native people but I guess you can blame it on the school system that blinded me with the “greatness” of Christopher Columbus. To read about all the gruesome things that were done to the Native people sadden me tremendously. Having your limbs chopped off, burned alive, and hunted for game is the highest level of disrespect if there is one. What really frustrates me is the fact that we as Americans are basically celebrating these horrible acts on Columbus Day.

I know that we can not teach our children this in elementary but there has to be a time other then college were this needs to be learned. This goes to show how corrupted this nation is because everyone does not get a chance to go to college nor do they get a chance to learn about many other horrible things this nation has done. It is also sad that we have to take a test like the SAT to go to college and find out the truth. We are basically paying the government to learn the truth. Another thing that frustrated me was how all these government officials and politics had the nerve to over look the situation as if it never happen. Native Americans had there land raped from them for nothing basically.

The book stated that some of Native American land was used to dump “toxic waste”. So basically (It sickens me to say we) we killed million for land to dump toxic waste and greed. J.H Elliott had the nerve to say that the use of the word genocide to describe what happen to the Native Americans was basically inappropriate. Just to read what he said frustrated me because I could not believe he could say something like that. I honestly want to know what other word you could possibly use to describe what happen to the Native American but the word holocaust.

Racial Formation

Racial formation to me was another way to try to organize the way we look at race. The book said that from a racial formation perspective, "race is a matter of social structure an cultural representation". The quote its self is full of stereotype to me because if your going to figure out what is race based on these two aspects you will have to be judgmental an you will have to stereotype. Social structure to me is questioning how you live your life and who do you associate with. Cultural representation to me is questioning where you are from, you background and your nationality.

For every race there is a stereotype comment that can be said and that is sad. I feel that race should not be judge it should be evaluated.
Every white person you see is not a racists and every black person you meet does not steal. I feel that every individual has his/her own race and it is on them to determine how they want to represent it. If you are ignorant that is how you will be judge and stereotyped. In the book, Charles Murray said that “race is not a morally dismissible reason for treating one person differently form another”. I disagree with that quote for the fact that people do not just wake up in the morning and decide to dislike or question a certain individual based on his/her race.

Another line that is frequently used by many people including myself that the book stated is “funny, you don’t look black”. (Black can be replaced with white, Asian, Native American, etc.) I can not count how times I have used this line and never knew that I was stereotyping what a certain race is suppose to look like. Who gives anybody the right to define what black or white person is suppose to look like? I never looked at it in that perspective when I used to say that but now I see.

Sexism in the gaming industry

Before I read this atricle I never really looked at video games in this sense. It is true that women are exploited demoralized in video games. The only video game that i can think of that has a woman in power is Tomb Raider but if you take the article into consideration, you can point out numerous things about the game. First you can look at her outfit; short shorts with a shirt that shows alot of clevage. This adds arusal to the game. Another game that degrades women is Grand Theft Auto. In this game they have prostitutes that are walking down the street saying demoralizing things. The game even allows you to pick them up and go to a secluded area to have sex with them. This is one of the most wanted games in America today and in the article it states that games like this are teaching children that this is they way that women are looked upon in real life. Im not trying to be a hipocrit because I play these games too but I do agree with what the article had to say about video games these days.

5 Faces of Oppression

After reading the five faces of oppression, I can truely say that I agree with alot things that Irish Young was stating in the reading. I feel that the faces make solid arguments and back them up with soild information. Exploitation to me made alot of sense because people of color an the working class have been exploited for a while now and it is becoming more obvious every day. A statement that stood out to me was when young said "where ever there is racism, there is the assumption more or less enforced that memebers of the oppressed racial groups are or ought to be servents". I agree with this statement because this is how people of color have been looked upon ever since the slavery days and even after that. When I read about marginalization it reminded me of people that cannot go to college because of the SAT. Marginalization talks about blocked opportunities an that is exactly what the SAT does to minorities. I know too many people that could not get a college education because of the SAT an in result they had to be a "nonprofessional" as young would call it. I think that powerlessness ties into marginalization because they both talk about blocked opportunities and how people of color suffer from being a nonprofessional.

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