Week 8 Assignment:

Queetion I wrote:
Do you think some females become gay because they are raped?


Question I answered:
What does the author mean by the phrase 'stone butch lover'?

Answer:The author says stone butch lover because a lot of these women have been hurt in their past. They have been poked fun of their whole. In a sense, they are used to pain and eventually they become numb to it. Numb in the sense that it still hurts them, but it is not something out of the unusual. They are lesbian lovers who are real women who look like men and act like men.

Week 6 Assignment:

My three questions:

When economic times are tough, why do you think prejudiceness and discrimination biases are more visible?

People hold many prejudices against people's sexual orientation, race, etc. What do you think lies at the root of all these?

The jury instructions are a type of new stipulation where the juror is told to put their biases and prejudices to the side, so that the case can be handled with purely facts. Do you think that this actually works?


My answers:

1.)

Subject:Question 3) | Posted by: Nguyen, Marie Helene | Date: October 1, 2006 11:14 AM

Educators play an important role in helping to stop sexual prejudice. What specific things can schools do to teach respect for the gay. lesbian, bisexual and transgender community?

There are many things educators can do to teach people to respect people with different sexual orientation. I believe that by actually making it seem normal and teaching kids that people who have different sexual preferences are no different than heterosexuals, that this obstacle will be overcome. Ofcourse there is a right age for this. I believe in Sex Ed classes it should be a topic covered as well. Maybe a chapter or two out of thier textbook.

2.)
Subject:Question 2 | Posted by: Benezra, Maria | Date: September 30, 2006 1:02 PM

According to Stewart’s article, homosexuality was widely accepted in the early Greek and Roman Empires, but with the emergence of Religion this changed. How is it possible that Religion gained so much importance that it made us change our set of beliefs about homosexuality?

Religion has a huge significance in people's lives. It is a way to conduct your life. Before religion, there were no guidelines as such, but with the emergence of religion it gave people a save haven. They were taught that if you believed a ceratin way (ex: Christianity, Judaism, etc.) that you would be save from all evil in you afterlife. The people who were not mentioned were the so called sinners, such as gays and lesbians. This made them the so called "minority." With a vast majority of people being heteroxual, they were named the dominant culture and others were shunned.

3.)
Subject:Question 3 | Posted by: Ortiz, Ricardo | Date: September 30, 2006 4:14 PM

Does lesbianism have better social acceptance because there is no intercourse between the two women?

I believe that is true. But there is also another reason why lesbians have more acceptance and that is because with most men it is considered attractive to see women touching each other, and it is somewhat encouraged. Rarely will you ever see women gauking at men when they are engaged in sexual intimacy. I believe that is another reason why lesbians are more accepted or rather not so attacked by others.

Journal Question Week 4

1.) The reason his publisher gives him for his books for not selling is that it is very offensice because of how he has written and it is basically attacking almost everyone in some sense.

2.) The objections that he has is that it is too ghetto. Basically it is so common. It is expected. He believes that the book is written just to sell and that it just reinforces negative or rather racial stereotypes in which he is against.

3.) To be honest, I dont know why he wrote this book. I think he wrote it as something that could be looked as something totally opposite of what he believes people should write. I was kind of confused on why he wrote it, but in my opinion it reinforces many stereotypes that are given to african americans. He says himself he would never read a book like that. I also found it to be quite disturbing.

4.) He uses a pen name because he does not believe in writing like this, which again is that part that confuses me. Also, he believes that many publishers believe only black people can write like that so he does not want to reinforc the stereotype.

5.) He accepts the money because he needs it and in the end to prove to people that this stuff sells. By this stuff sells, I mean that stuff with strong racial content or rather racial stereotypes always sells.

6.) People think that My Pafology is a good literary piece because it shows the real ghetto with real characteres. It just goes to show that when other people type up books which reinforce something they already think it sells.

7.) He fails to meet the professional colleagues in the academy because he does not write the typical works of literature that African American people are expected to write. The same thing with the literary community. His friends, which he doesnt have much of, just believe that he is too critical while his family were all doctors, he became an artist (as his father stated).

8.) The social constructions that he faces as a black man is that he does not fit into the stereotype. He is not a writer of "typical" black literature but rather his pieces that he writes under his name are found quite offensive to most people. The social constructions of "the balc man" that are addressed in My Pafology is how he is stealing, sleeping around, and always cursing. The fact that he has four babies with four different women also just fit the social constructions typically given to indentify many ghettos. Nothing positive is written throughout the book.

9.) There are actually parallels. While Van Go does everything to fit in, Monk does everything so that he can be totally opposite from the typical black man.

10.) The dominant message is that racism and social construction is everywhere. Monk does everything to stay away from it, while his pen name does everything to fit the social constructions given to black men. Racism and social construction only get reinforced when books like that are written and in order for it to disspear you must challenge it like Monk did. In my opinion Monk seemed confused on what position he stood in.

Journal Questions-Week 3

1.) Social construction is applied to power dynamics and politics by setting certain standards. When I looked up social construction on wikepedia.com, it basically said that it is a certain set of reactions or behaviors which people do in their everyday life, and if noticed and learned by enough people it becomes a way of life. In a sense, certain social behaviors become the norm. This is be applied to power dynamics and politics by allowing them to control certain behaviors of people. If they show enough people that a particular action is going to benefit them, even if it may not be right, people will start to follow their pattern and this can be used to help people win certain political positions and maybe even make people follow certain rules without much persuaion because everything becomes "accepted."

2.) My little brother
Friends
car
money
hair
make up
clothes
computer
grades
reputation (for the most part :) )
dental health
nails
weight
religious committment

3.) We as human being stereotype others because I believe it gives us a sense of belonging. If we have categories then we also must fit in somewhere. Also I believe stereotyping is natural. It may not be right, but if we see a certain number or rather kind of person doing the similar behavior, our mind automatically turns this into a normality and we start to expect this from certain people. This ties into social construction as well.

4.) I believe people discriminate against others because it makes you as a person feel better. I believe when you discriminate against others, it gives you a power high, when in fact, in my opinion you might be the person who has the problem.

5.) I believe humans oppress other people for power. When a certain group is oppressed, it gives you a chance to rise to the top. I believe using race, gender, sexual preference, etc. is an excuse for people to oppress so that way they can get what they want without struggling too much. Oppression also oppress certain groups because of the past sometimes. I think it might be related to getting revenge because a few of the oppressed people might have done something bad to the oppressors, and this in turn leads to a war or huge battle over getting them back.

6.) Ok, being a muslim, I remember I used to watch the news a lot. Actually I was into politics and my minor is asian studies. I remember I used to watch the whole Palestinian/Israel conflict and think what are they doing to my people. Right there I just stereotyped, and I just noticed while typing...... Anyways, I used to have this grudge against all jewish people and I used to think that all of them were just out to get muslims. After that I had an internship with a jewish man, we became really close to me and we discussed all these issues at hand. When we talked about it openly I realized that both parties, the muslims and the jews, were both fighitng over something that could be resolved without hating each other and that jews were actually so close in their beliefs to Islam. Also, I learned that holding a grudge only builds hate, but by realizing that we are all the exact same, it can be overcome.

7.) A person who influenced the way I see Others is my brother definately. He actually is prejudice in his beliefs against a certain kind of group ( I wont mention that group, bc I dont want to be controversial, but rather have a intellectual response). Whenever we would see these people on TV or in public he would make a comment. It just seemed so ignorant, and I feel like all that time he spent hating, could of been enjoying the little perks of life. When it comes to otherness, I do not agree that it should happen. I believe it is wrong, but this is idealistic. In the real world, it happens all the time. But I also believe that professors like you can help peole realize that it is actually not so natural. I actually used to think it was a natural thing, but then after going though this class answering the journal questions, I realized awareness may be the best form of education, and may help people overcome categorizing people based on materialistic things.

8.) hair color, eyes, weight, height, clothes, car, sorority, fraternity, your major, college/university, labtop you own, friends you hang out with, language you speak, political view, how confident you are, how much make up you where, how you keep your living quarters (clean/dirty), job, what kind of family you come from, MONEY, your boyfriend/girlfriend (how attractive they are), how attractive you are, sexual activity, how active are you in your religion

9.) They are all part of social construction because somewhere in the world, each of these categories has been used to talk about someone else, because it was different then what they were used to.

Assignment 2

1.) Race is heredity and skin color. Race is something that is often used to judge someone based on physical attributes mainly.

2a.) After reading the definition off of dictionary.com, I believe race is what I thought it was before. My definition of race was pretty accurate to what is what in the dictionary other than the fact that they are "so related."

2b.) It was the same since I thought race was basically what it said in the dictionary.

4a.) I believe you ask us to read the article about the background so we fully can understand the article that you gave us to read and how it was composed. Some of this can be very opinionated and biased since it is coming from many sources and have different views.

4b.) Some folks disagree because race is so broad and general. Classifying people again can be very opinionated and since any visitor can edit its contents and race being such a controversial issue, race can be very hard to use as a classification. Some people can be two races, so where do you put them?

4c.) Race is a social construct becuase it is used sometimes as a classification system. Just like back in the day, when colored people were considered to be under white people. There are many ways race can classify people and judge people in a social hierarchy.

4d.) Race theorists were oppresive because it was used as a judging system, basically telling people where they stood in the social ladder.

5a.) I think the method used to compile this information was very interesting. I believe it was a good experiment to see what popped up when using google. It was different. This relates to the idea of literature by showing what people actually think when talking about different races and this is what shapes some literature and how it is influenced. This in turn usually is a good reflection of our culture.

5b.) The thing that surprised me was how it was all so related. Whenever a certain race was pulled up, similar things would pop up, showing that people are always stereotyped.

5c.) I believe it was not so randon because the way the races are listed are from the more prominent ones to the least ones.

5d.) Humans are known for......
1. brains
2. ability to think
3. emotions
4. ability to feel for others
5. nuturing
6. educated

5e.) White

6a.) I believe that dividing the contestants amongst race might be promoting racial divisiveness despite what the producer said, but I do believe it is not a bad social experiment. I think if people just take it lightly and take it as a TV show that is trying to get its ratings up, it should be that bad.

9a.) Language is racist because when you hurt someone based on their race it makes it racist.

9b.) Yes it does matter because you always have to think how it could hurt other people.

9c.) I believe that the N word is very subjective. Again it does depend on who says it because if you are black it is not a big deal to say it, but if you are another color then it is a big deal.

10a.) Yes he does.

11a.)
nigger
a word primarily used by blacks as a means to keep racism alive

I do not agree exactly with any of the definitions, but this one is close, by saying that it is keeping racism alive, but I do not agree that blacks use it soly for the purpose to keep racism alive.

11b.) After reading the article it is obvious that this word is very controversial. There are many issues that are brought up just be the word. Some of them are who can say it and why it is still said. Some people believe that black people are ignorant that is why people actually call them a nigger because black people are literally ignorant. Another issue that is brought up over and over again is that people who in my opinion are really racist say that "nigger" is used for people who are lazy and represent certain kind of animals and that why black people are called such names. Another issue that is brought up is slavery and how it was a derogatory name used back in the day. This word in my opinion should not be used at all since there are too many negative connotations attached to it and in that sense as long as who ever says it, it will continue to keep racism alive.

Journal Questions

1. The relationship between literature and culture go hand in hand. Culture influences literature and vice versa. In other words, they have the power to shape each other. Culture has a huge impact on literature in the way it is written. Usually the author of the piece of literature is influenced by his surrounding and culture. On the other hand, literature can shape some cultures if the piece is taken sincerely by the public reading it. It has the power to influence its readers if the material is powerful enough.

2. I am a very genuine person. I believe I take things to the heart very much. I have a tendency to wear my feeling on my shoulder and take what people say to me very seriously. Sometimes I think that I care too much what others think of me. I also am currently in love with someone who has stolen my heart and I love him dearly. I am tall and I believe it is an asset to me in today's business world. My major is marketing, but my passion is teaching.

3. I believe other people see me as very intelligent and a quick learner. I believe people think that I forgive easily and sometimes that they can run over me because I give in too fast sometimes. They see my as conservative, but open minded at the same time. I am not quick to judge and I love to socialize. I am outgoing and integrate well within different cultures.

4. Religion

5. Stereotypes are definately a bad thing. If you are stereotyped, then people expect you to be a certain kind of person. If you different then what other people expect you to be, then you are considered wierd. I believe that stereotyping leads to discrimination and this only leads to hate and violence.

6. I went to Texas A&M and I was sitting in class. This was shortly after 9/11 had occured. My professor brang up the topic of muslims and how they were being stereotyped all as terrorists and then asked the class to share their opinions. One boy told the class how they all stink and that all muslims are terrorists. I ended up arguing with him and the professor made him apologize to me.