Race in our society is always seeing as an issue among individuals, because our judgmental does not allow us to know people before judging them. While I was watching the video, Race and the power of illusion I noticed that people are being judged based on their skin color. In addition most of them think that race are related to biology, which I agree, because, we are just people. Our genes do determine whether we are black, white, and yellow etc. however, I think the physical appearances determine our race more than the biological does. The fact biology is based on genes and that your genes do not clearly identify this, so we based our assumption on the physical characteristics, because we judge the external part like the skin.

By judging people on their skin tone, we definitely develop racism internally and externally. Believing that one race is better than another race is totally wrong. People in power always exaggerate by determining whether if one is wealthy or poor. Therefore, if even the class one belongs to shapes your racial characteristics.

I found the video interesting because it was discussing the reality many people faced in their daily lives. Its explain how the hierarchy of society rank people regarding their race.

sex,sexuality, and gender

Gender and sexuality lecture was of those interesting and hilarious class we had on Thursday.  Professor Battle vividly explain how gender and sexuality interact and what are the two term in a sociological based life. He explained the social institutions as a GREEF, which stands for Government, Religion, Economics, Education, and lastly Family. Its seem like all these are associated with our social norms which means anything among these are not considered.  To be honest, all of these were new to me, because we do not pay attention to these little things that impact us in everyday life. As Prof.  Battle claims, Sexuality is influenced by the interaction of biology, psychological, social, economic, political, cultural, ethical and legal. The three standards of sexuality are sexual desire, sexual activity, and sexual identify. These 3 standards give a sense of sex, sexuality, and gender: it involve physically and emotionally, the behavior and sense of self as being heterosexual, bisexual, lesbian, gay, and homesexual.

The details he gave us about sexuality, gender, and sex was clear and factual. Since sex refers to the biological characteristics that make up females and males. Whereas gender refers to the socially constructed expectations associated with women and men. In addition, people who experience no sexual attraction for anyone.  When the professor gave an example of a students that said, “All men are interested in good, easy, and new”. i definitely agreed with him that men are usually interested in those domain about women.

 

 

 

class and inequality is leading us into conflict

Class inequality is reflected in the episode 512 “House Rule” of this American Life podcast.  The episode explains issues that regard racial segregation about school and housing.  First, it started with a 15^th year old girl name Jada who was kicked out of school by administrators because Jada’s mother  used her grandfather’s address in Copley , a wealthy neighborhood, instead using her own address in Akron in a poor area. As a result, Jada couldn’t continue her education in the Copley-Fairlawn school. The administrators were imposing class and inequality against Jada.  Since Jada was not from a wealthy family she cannot go to a school where upper-class kids can attend.  Therefore, Kelly Williams, Jada’s mother was sent in jail for 10days because of her giving a wrong address to enroll her child in school. This shows that class is not just perceived as been rich but also as being black as well. Since Jada was black the school administrators see her as an underclass individual. Since education determines our class then the class we belong to affect our education as well, because the more money a person’s family has the better educated that person would be.

The second point in the episode about renting an apartment in areas that are considered wealthy neighborhoods. Elbe, a black man wanted a one bedroom apartment for his family. However, the super of the building denied him of the apartment, because his black. Even the tone of the super sounded racism he lied about the rent of the apartment thinking that the black man could not afford that price. However, when a white lady came to see the apartment the super sounded very nice and didn’t mention the same price he told the black man. It was $1150 while he told Elbe a price higher than this. All these attitudes showed racial segregated in concern where we also choose to live. He was experiencing classism in term of his skin color. Even, if the black man had that amount of money, the upper wouldn’t let him have the apartment because of his race or ethnicity, educational background and behavior are all factors class-based status in the social life.     

This issue continued throughout the conversation in the episode. Many black people were denied of the apartment they pointed out to rent. While each time a white person comes for the apartment the super have a different view and responds to them. They were discriminated against. Until, when the fair housing laws in 1968 was passed. George Romney, the former governor of Michigan was fighting to end racial on housing. He wanted to eliminate racial segregation in housing. However, President Nixon didn’t like the idea of Romney changing the ways of the social structure of segregating housing based on race. Nicole emphases that the public transportation is also perceived in the racial issue. She points out that when the bus get to a certain neighborhood all white people get off from in a specific area or town when almost half of these people are white. In the case, I too have noticed that whenever the train gets to 72 street and 96 street all the white folks get off and only colored ones stay ride the train from those stops throughout the Bronx.  I noticing this made me think that even where we choose to live is influenced by our class. Most part of the Bronx is perceived as poor areas, whereas, Manhattan is seeing as upper-class areas.

It is true that class is not just about the wealth, it includes many other crucial issues that make up our social life. Such as education, work, lifestyle, health and even politics all are part of us which determine our class. However, it does also bring conflict of inequality between classes, because the upper-class may see themselves as superior and more powerful that the lower-class which leads to discrimination.

    

Social class

 

In Marx’s Analysis of class claims that people have to meet basic needs in order to survive in a society where everything is about class itself.  As Marx argues a person’s economy is the system that help one determines an individual social life. The major dilemma our nation is facing currently is the economy status. Many people think that the wealthier people are more that than the poor ones in the country. Well this is wrong! There are more lower class people or even underclass those who are not employed have no wealth, they were probably born into poverty are more in the country than the upper class individuals. Our society is divided in social classes: The capitalist or upper class, middle class, working class, and the underclass or lower class. In addition, within these social classes there are upper and lower as well based on capital, knowledge, skilled and unskilled, and the chronically unemployed. Therefore, there is all kind of class in America. This is what differs us from one another and sometimes this creates discrimination among us, because many people may abuse their power by making themselves inferior to the less privilege. Then, this may lead some to think they won’t be able to move from one class to another. However, the class system allows some class mobility if one has an available occupational change.

The reading class conflict: Tuition Hikes Leave College Students in Debt and Torn Between Paid work and Course Work claims the education is an example of class mobility, because many people believe that education is the key the succeed in life. In additions, if a person is educated is has a better chance of acquiring a better paying jobs than a person who is not educated or have lower level of education. However, this is driving many students crazy because tuitions are been cut down which means students have to work long hours to be able to pay for college expenses. On top of this, we the students have lot of assignments to do and prepare for exams etc. the institutions just demand the bills to be paid, while students are fighting hard to meet their needs for both survival and educational. Most of these students are from lower working class families to the poorest families are struggling hard to maintain a level of education. As the article illustrates a student name Brigit M. she faced hardships while in college to pay her fees. This is significant for students from working class families, because they have to work more hours to meet their college needs and other expenses.

             From my understanding class is everywhere in the world. Social class is what makes us different and creates inequality among people. The wealthy keep their wealth and the poor still stay poor or even worse. The fact that class is related to education, lifestyle, health, work, and even politic affect us in general. We tend to ignore class sometimes, because it seems not vivid to see we are leveled based on it. For example, a person tends to marry a partner with the same class as him/her. We mingle with friends that belong into the same class you belong to. It’s all about class.

 

 

Beauty as a pride

The video called “Killing Us Softly” by jean Killborne was interesting for me. However, what caught my interests was the view she put together to portrait mostly women as decorative objects not human beings. In her video she discussed one of the most important agents of socialization “The Media”. The Media is taking over our lives that many of us cannot control it because the roles played in it are bigger than us in general. Because this so called Agent of socialization is so powerful that it is almost harming us without knowing.  Jean explained how women learn the value of beauty at an early age by becoming beautiful at all cost. I mean many of these women tend to think that beauty is all about being thin or white to become attracted to the men around them. However, what she was more focused on was the health problems surrounding this “Beauty” ideal. She also added that among these women on either the advertisement or real life tend to lack of self-esteem if they happen to fail to become beautiful as they portrait it shiny or thin. Jean as well emphases that Men are mostly not judged by their body images than women, because the stereotypes are different. The way men are viewed in our society is different to how women are viewed. Further, jean goes on to clarifying that these women may go through depression and eating disorders as a result of becoming too thin to fit in the category of beauty. Being said that she also claimed that the norms are been changed which is also affecting the public health as beauty changing the environment.

I definitely I agree with Jean’s video and what she said in the video about women being sexual seeing as objects rather than human beings. I admit that the world has changed to the extents that every person wants to be on the top which is impossible to me, because one can only be the best at a certain time. Like in the article “Retro Wife” describes how women are nowadays embarking on a journey of taking men’s position as the Bread Winner than men typically do as society and culture demand. It’s also mentioned how women are good when it comes to nurturing their kids than would men do, because there is bound that connects a mother and a child biologically. However there are other women too who do not care for their children due to several reasons, I guess.  Whereas there are good fathers out there doing just fine as nurturing their kids than a mother would have done it. So, in this case I think both parent can play a role in this particular case. Moreover, I see all these in the sense of values, Beliefs, and norms associated within our society.

 

this shows how some males are dominant over the others.

All of them almost have the same weight.

 

 

 

 

As I was reading the article “Parent’s Socialization of children” I directly saw the category where own parents stand at. The article presented three types of parenting, authoritative, permissive, and authoritarian parenting. In my own view my parents are authoritarian parents. The demand obedience from us and impose their rules that we should follow in order to avoid punishment. However, my parents were applied this type of parenthood because of our culture and the religion we practice. They expect us to behave as well as one can imagine to avoiding breaking the norms. Even though, my parents were little forcible but we the kids have benefited from it because we respect our elders and have no issue with outsiders and even mood. Although, it says that children of authoritarian parents tend to be fearful, moody, aimless, unhappy, etc. However, this is not in our case. We are very happy for the fact that our parents did enforce their power of parenting on us. I must admit if they had not parented us in this manner many things would have gone wrong in my family. This is why I am saying that parenting is associated with religion and culture. We knew this was what our culture and the authority in our religion expect our parents to raise us. Therefore, we didn’t question it or objected it. As the article implied, society expect parents to take full responsibilities to nurture their children.   

I did enjoyed reading the articles and watching the video.  I found all these connected in some way around to the chapter and the class discussions we have been doing lately in class. It is true, that when we experience more things your identity change as you move from one place to the next. Socialization is very crucial in our life because we all have rite of passages that are unique for every individual which also tend to shape our life based on the norms, beliefs, and values. Women having their sense of self about beauty is alarming nowadays one should love and appreciate what he/her has as a gift. Trying to objectify yourself can lead a person into serious effects.    

 

My observations in the Mosque on the breaching experiment

I decided to test what is the appropriate way to dress to enter the mosque. On Friday I went to the mosque wearing tight clothes, which is breaking the norms and rules of the mosque. When people saw me on my tight pants and a small top they were looking at me with strange faces. When men saw me they were saying, “Haram” which means forbidden. On that Friday, I saw all kinds of faces looking at me. I felt like the whole world was staring at me at that moment. But I didn’t care because I was there to test something, which I will explain later after my observations of intentionally breaking norms that are highly respected.

First of all, when a person enters the Mosque, he/she needs to greet first by saying, “Assalamouallakoum” at the same time remove the shoes and place them on the shelves. Once, this is done then everyone has to do the clean-up which is called “Hoodoo”. This involved watching the hands, the mouth, the nose, the face, the ears, the head and the end the feet, As soon as they finished taking the “Hoodoo” then they may either pray or touch the Qur’an to read it. This process goes for both males and females in the Mosque. Mosque is divided into two sections: Males section and the females section. In the males’ section they’re separated into status, roles, and classes. For instance, the Imam is the person who leads the prayers as a status. However, to acquire this status the person has to be very educated in term of the Qur’an in which people are convinced to make him their leader. In other words, the Imam is considered an achieved status, because it was his own efforts that made him in that position. His actions concern the social institution as well. Therefore, people expect him to behave normal as a role. This man is given the most power to lead people through prayers and to advice the followers.

            In the males’ section, people site by class. The rich men site in the front lines after the Imam, who always sites in the front line in the Mosque, because They to donate large amount of money to help the poor and sick individuals in the community. People are very quiet in the mosque. They do engage into conversations but in between little groups or when they are reading the Qur’an. I noticed that females do not go into males ’section, especially if they’re inappropriately dressed up. Women should only wear lose clothes and a hijab which covers their heads.

            In the other hand, women are very social in their section. Although, they site in group when reading the Qur’an or eating a meal especially, during Ramadan. But that’s part of being socially bound.  Now, the breaching experiment was entering the males section with my tight pants and top, and most of all, without my hijab. The Imam and the other fellow Muslim’s men were surprised at my behavior. They were wondering why I went the mosque dressed in that manner. I knew the questions on their minds when we were looking at each other on that scene. However, one of them asked me, what I was doing on the men’s hall without my hijab and wearing tight clothes. But then, I explained to him that it was an experiment, And that I was just testing their behaviors about breaking the norms and the rules of the Mosque.

The social culure that shapes our daily lives

 

We live in a society where social institutions are part of our daily lives. People know how to behave in different settings within the Social structure because the rules, norms, and the beliefs are obvious. Therefore, we are expected to behave according to the social structure we are part of at a particular movement. For instance, the way a person behaves in a party with friends is not the same way he/she would behaves when in a meeting with a lawyer or an interview for a job. However, someone may challenges the social structure of a work place such as coming late to work and not doing the job properly. This person may not have accepted the norms, believes, and rules of that job. Therefore, he/she decided to violate it by not coming on time and doing the job right.  In other words, we only respect our social institutions when we agree about the rules, norms of the social structure.

Social structures vary depending on the culture it belongs to. As we know, we all belong to a particular culture that makes us significant in way or the other because we have different sets of believes, values, norms, and behaviors that the society we live in expect us to comprehend. For example, in my culture society expects women to get married at an early age than what American society expects from their women. The marriage institution is taken seriously in my culture than most cultures do around the world.

Statuses and Roles play an important thing in our lives. Status defines who we are and our positions in the society. For example, I am a student, a daughter, a classmate and an employee within the social structure I participate in, whether its school, work, and family.  So, the roles I adopt while I am in these structures shape my behaviors towards each status. Like being a daughter, you’re expected to be respectful to your parents as well as other individuals. It’s obvious that we adopt roles as quick as we get involve in a social structure. We do not need to be told that the rules we just understand them how to obey or disobey if we choose to reject the norms or rules of that institution.

As a human being in a society we interact with different people every day in our lives. These interactions are associated with people we mostly have similar activities that we can share together as a society. As the book said, sociologists use two methods; such as ethnomethodology, as a way people understand one another during their daily activities.  In other words, social structure could be put in different types of levels; Micro level, the Meso level, and the macro level. Now, all these help us interact to each other within the social structures of a daily life.

 

 

The qu'ran is a non-material culture,because its include some group of people's beliefs and values. Through the qu'ran muslims navigate their view points of the world by understanding the message that has been transfered. using this holy book also make it easy to behave appropriately. For instance, how to dress by not exposing their body for both men and females.

this kids value eduaction in term of accumulilating knowledge of the real world. Its a public school that helps poor people in the society to become educated.

 

This cola nuts are traditional obejcts that sybolized our ideal culture. We use this nutes to show respect to the elderly people, especially in ceremonies like weddings, babyshowers, founerals etc.

 

 

This house represents material culture in Guinea. Most houses in the capital look like this image. However, people are nowadays designing it with more colorful items.

This is a subculture group of females in a small town that adopt the same lifestyles and values and above all speak the same language called"Foulani".

 

 

This masdijd is the symbol of Islam. it could also be a material culture that represnts a group of people who practice the same beliefs. i also see it as dominant culture in my coutry, because it permeats indivuduals to practices the religion they are part of by those in power.

 

this house exists only in the country side of guinea. Our ancestors used to live in houses like this one on the image. its a material culture as well because this kind of house still exists in my village. It was left for the new generation, although its litle modified now but very similar because the culture is meant to be alive.

 

 

 

Artificial objects in guinea. These arts represent tradition and culture in guinea,especially in a subculture of mandingo people. They ussually live in the west-East of guinea. Its could be also High culture.

 

 Musical objects seeing as material culture. People are still using these instruments in the musical industry.

 Traditional dance, its part of a subculture in guinean society. They have the same lifestyle,and values.

 

This flag's colors symbolized essential thing the country. Red, presents the blood that had been shed during war in Guinea. The yellow symbolized the natural resources that the country possesses which was the reason of the war. The french people did not just colonized us but they rather seized our natural resourceses. Whereas, the green represents the view of the nature. as you can see in this picture.

the most troubling in Teenage Wasteland

The section I found troubling for me was when people in Bergenfield were still referring the dead kids “troubled losers”. As the author said, even after they were dead. This section makes me wonder why they were referred by this. Were they really trouble makers or innocent kids? This seems unbelievable how four kids could die together and for the same reasons, because I believe that there are great reasons behind their death.  These kids in this particular town possessed evil among them which was controlling them through their last breathe.

The situation was widespread because of the tragedy that has happened in Bergenfield. The fact, there are many suicidal case among Kids in other towns, but the four kids altogether in Bergenfield was alarming to the community. No one could place a finger at any one else, because these particular kids were labeled as bad kids. Their behaviors had affected even in death, because people in the town do not seem to care about their deaths. Although, there were few people who dedicated songs for them but still this has nothing to do with who is responsible for the suicide. What I understood from the reading Teenage Wasteland, by Donna Gaines was that these kids were part of gang group which lead them to die together.

Gang group have rules to follow, principles by which they make judgments, beliefs, symbols that represent them and above all norms, what they’re expected to abide appropriately. Perhaps, language as well for this group to communicate among each other, however, the question still stands why would four kids decided to end their lives at the same time and same place. Because I do not believe that any culture could bind people to die together. There must be a secret behind this dilemma. Therefore, it is important to choose the kind of friends we mingle with.

 This caught my attention because it the main issues many people are facing nowadays, but they seek for answers and solution to end it. However, in this reading the reason behind the tragedy did not seem to be revealed because there was not much evidence or maybe since the kids themselves were trouble makers people seemed to care less for investigating the case. For instance, find their backgrounds, what culture they belong to, were they religious and what lead them to die together on that faithful day. All these questions could be investigated to find the true in this case.  

 

 

Who am I?

I am a west African student, from Guinea Conakry with full of dreams and ambitions. I decided to pursue my education with the hope to make my dreams come true. I landed in this country seven years ago without any english. However, i struggled to learn as much as i could back then just to be able to communicate with people around me. As a child, back then i realized nothing is impossible in this life. Moreover,if other people can speak the language why shouldnt i speak? i was determine to used the opportunity i have to engage my self in reading books in my classes.I challenged myself to throughout my High School years, which i found beneficial to me ever since.Knowing that where i came from lack of so many opportunities a person could have.

 I decided to continue my studies in order to achieve my goals, because i believe without an education a person looks just like an empty bottle which will always make noise. Curently, my major goal is to complete my studies here in BMCC and go for a career in human services. I chosed this field because i love helping those in needs. Further, i feel that my country is not a well develop country which means there are many people who need help but they are denied to have the help because of who they are or where they came from. Therefore, me, taking sociology this semester will help to understand why human beings behave in certain ways to a fellow human. i believe, it will not just give me this concept of human behavior but also deeper imformations of how we react and see the world in a better sense.

In Peter Berger reading, "Invitation to Sociology". He clearly explains what is sociology and how sociologists should engage themself in the field to become a good sociologist. In our society, people see things differently. In other words, we have our own individividual perspectives when it comes to see the world. For instance, some people may thing that Slavery was a good thing to become rich. while others think it was totally wrong and inhuman practices to become rich.

Well, i believe my biography is being influenced by something in history, because as an African in this country people usually treat you by your skin color or by the language you speak. People may discriminate you in any for that fact that you're from a different race. However, one have to learn how to live with it especially in this country. If the native Americans and Africa Americans had endured it all the way from the begining to the end, why won't someone else endures the same discrimination? People tend to judge you even if they do not know you. this is why we should know human behaviors and why we do act that way in order to fully be able to judge one another. This is exactly what good sociologists do as explain in the reading of "Invitation to Sociology". The tend to dig deeper for information about human beings.  they use scientific method to convey knowledge and evidence to the society. Therefore, i think any one can influenced history, it just depends how one sees it been part of a society.

We, humans tend to ignore things that we think is little. However, if we analyzed everything or atleast few of these things then we will learn more and better. Having said that, i sometimes ignore things that i surely know is interesting, but once i sit back and about it then i realized how crucial that was. The only different between a sociologist and another profession is that sociologist are interested in even the things that many people find boring. They like to have as much information as they could to advance in their research.