Community Service Part 1

When Sal told our class in the very beginning of the semester that we have to figure out a way to do 10  hours of community service before the end of the semester I felt like it would be really hard to find time to fit it all in and I felt kind of overwhelmed. When Sal said there was an opportunity to go with him and a group of other  students to the St. Thomas soup kitchen downtown and volunteer there for 5 hours I was very excited but also nervous. On our way up to the soup kitchen I felt uneasy about the kind of people that might come there. I have never volunteered at a soup kitchen before and i was somewhat scared to have to be there for 4 hours. When we first arrived, a very nice woman took us to the back of the kitchen where we put our coats down and got our aprons on. After we got ready, the owner of the place sat us all down and went over what we were going to be doing. He said that are 2 basic rules: to be safe and to be kind. He said that this rarely happens, but sometimes people try to steal some food or are just misbehaving, but that we should not deal with that ourselves, instead, let him handle it. We were then assigned jobs- i was in charge of walking around with pitchers of milk and serving it to whoever wantes some aswell as greeting anyone that came in and asking if i could help them with anything. Once we ran out of milk and people started to leave, i was in charge of handing out granola bars, apples, and leftover soup at door and wishing everyone a good night. Over all it was such an amazing experience and i would love to go back there and volunteer more. I think it truly changed my way of thinking about people and how some people are unfortunatly put in a situation where they cannot afford a nice hot meal every day. The people there that influenced me the most and i will never forget was a mother with two of her daughters and they were such sweet little girls and surely did not deserve to have the life that they are living and it made me so happy to be able to at least brighten up their day a little bit with something as small as a glass of chocolate milk.

Race

So this week I learned that race does not exist... As teenagers in America, we have always been taught that your race is an identifier to who you are and where you come from, but that is not necessarily true. your race can change based on your social and cultural environment. We had an activity where Sal lined up 7 balls with distinct characteristics and had us put them in groups based on these characteristics. I divided mine by sports: basketball, baseball, football, and soccer. Easy. As time went on he kept adding more and more balls that didnt always necessarily belong to a certain group I had already established so it was hard to classify them. The lesson learned was that much like we feel about people, we felt that the balls all should be able to somehow be grouped and put with others of its kind, but once more balls (or people) are added it is a much broader spectrum of differences. People all around the world are different. They look, feel, and act different so instead of treating each "race" as an individual, we should all just focus on the important individuals that surround us no matter what society classifies them as.

Coin Flipping = Social Deivance?

A few days ago in class we played a somewhat simple game, where you had to bet on a number of pennies, then flip a coin with a partner, call heads or tales, and whoever called the right thing wins the other person's pennies. When the game began, no one in the class thought anything of it. We all figured it was simply a game of chance and there was a 50% chance that you will win, but as the game went on and people moved on to play with other people who have previously won, we saw a pattern beginning to form, and we saw that the people who were winning the pennies, kept winning and it seemed as if the game was favoring them. At the end of the game, the class ended up being VERY separated, with one person have 51 pennies, one person having 18, and the rest did not have any left. Salituro compared our penny game to the economy in America, because many people are very very poor, but then our elite are extremely rich. In the past 20 years the gap between the richest and the poorest people has drastically increased and it just goes to prove how self centered our society is and how the fact that the "middle class" is not anywhere near the middle between rich and poor.

Deviance- Saints vs. Roughnecks

A few weeks ago we started to study deviance and how it varies from one person to another. For homework, we had to read a short story about a town where there were two groups of teenage boys, one group, "The Roughnecks," were the "bad boys" from the poorer side of town and were typically associated with crime and illegal activities such as stealing or ditching school, so when they performed those acts of deviance, it was expected from them and they were punished for their actions pretty harshly. Meanwhile, in the richer and more respected part of town, lived "The Saints," a group of boys who came from wealthy families, so everyone in the society expected them to be perfect and do no harm, when in fact, they were just as trouble making as "The Roughnecks" meaning that they ditched school and did things that were just as bad  as the roughnecks, but they, unlike the other group of boys, did not get in trouble for doing what they did because of their status in the society. That story goes to prove that deviance definitely depends on who you are and where you come from, not necessarily just what you do. I think that although it is sad, it is the truth in our society that if you come from a more "well-off" community, you are not as likely to get targeted as a bad person even if you are just as bad- or even worse- than someone from a lower class community.

How Consumerism Affects Children

Yes, our genes do in fact contribute to our futures. They reflect in the way we look, our voice, maybe what we like to eat, or our natural talents, but most of what we are comes from our surroundings and the people and things in our lives. Much like the baby in the above photo, we are branded when we are very very young. Companies have logos and jingles that get stuck in our heads and are repeated over and over to us from the time we are young children up to our adult lives. The people in our society just want money and influence over us and will do anything they can to get it. Leading companies use inviting media and appealing images to get kids to beg their parents to get them that new toy or new device. In a movie we watched about child consumers, it showed that even things that may have been marked as inappropriate in the past, are now no longer marked as that. My brother and his friends, who are 9 years old, play violent, and very expensive video games, and my parents don't really think much about it, and i did not either, until i realized how this could affect my brother. Kids obviously know that the games and movies are fake, but it is still embedded in their minds that it is somewhere acceptable to behave in such a violent matter. For girls, unlike boys, the media teaches young girls to be sexy and vulnerable which leads to them feeling dominated and inferior to boys their own age.

Masculinity

"Strong" "Manly" "Tough" "Powerful" are all words that our society has taught us to believe should describe males, but is that really what being a man is all about? No. Being a real man isn't all about masculinity and strength, but that is what as children, we are taught. From media to toys to music, boys feel like they always need to be powerful and in charge, but those beliefs that our society forms can lead to violence. We read an article about school shootings, which stated that most of the shooters are average, white boys that are seeking revenge but are too "scrawny" or "geeky" to defend themselves, so they take it to the extreme in order to prove to everyone that they are just as powerful and strong as their bullies. Really, being a man is just about being thoughtful and respectful.

Femininity

Recently we have been learning about femininity and how our society affects girls and femininity. Throughout our lives, we have all been affected by the social construction of our environment and it has in a way, taught us how to behave "properly" according to our gender. As a girl, I was always taught when i was young that i have to like the color pink, and to play with barbies, and to want to grow up and be able to wear makeup and high heels, and people may have found it weird if i didn't follow my gender role. Our society puts an immense amount of pressure on girls to be perfect and while watching "Killing Us Softly" I realized how much larger the effect of media on our actions than I thought it was. I always thought that if I just ignored ads and commercials because i knew that they were not real, they would not affect me at all, but little did i know that being exposed to all of these gender construction media ads when I was younger really has affected how I view myself and others. Girls are taught to be thin, fragile, and pretty, and when they aren't all that it's considered wrong.