Entry Seven

Now that I have escaped the swirling vortex of doom that was this week of mid-terms, I have arrived to grace you with my most profound thoughts. Just kidding.

Self-Reflection

The section from last week on classism was extremely difficult for me as I had expected. I felt myself turning red and feeling heat on my face during class discussion. As I'm sure you have surmised, I grew up in a very poor household and that has had a profound impact on the person that I am. In some ways I'm very grateful for some of the experiences I had and lessons I learned as a result. For example, I can entertain myself with almost nothin' for hours. I know how to feed myself and I know how to work hard. In other ways, my class background has influenced some character flaws that I am working on. I tend to be judgmental of others who I perceive as having more resources than I do. I have been startled to see in myself over time the very same behaviors towards higher classes that I was afraid they would have towards me. The only person I have ever truly and for an extended period of time disliked in my lifetime was a girl I knew when I was in early adolescence whose family happened to be pretty affluent. She made some comments to me that made me feel poor; I guess I never really got over it. How petty of me.

Reading Response
The textbook chapters on classism kind of put research behind my furious yet generally unexplored political leanings. I especially was interested in how indebtedness keeps people in a cycle of poverty. I had a very angry reaction to the portion on pawn shops and cash advance loans. It is unconscionable in my mind to take such blatant advantage of others who are in a desperate circumstance. That ties into the message of the documentary we watched last week. I had seen Wal-mart: The High Cost of Low Price before, but since I tend to fall asleep during movies I missed a lot of the captions, which I found during this second viewing to contain a lot of particularly important, shocking and relevant information. So on this go-round, it really hit home. I have lived in a community in which small business have been destroyed by Wal-mart. My boyfriend (Andrew) was a Sam's Club employee for about a year, and I can verify that everyone was treated poorly. Andrew and his friend were both fired when they had a disagreement with a supervisor over their hours being tampered with. Sam's used the friends absences as an excuse to fire him, but his only unexcused absence was for the day his wife gave birth to their first child.

Solution?
I am a solution focused, goal oriented individual. I related well to the TED talk from Monday's class. Generating ideas for solutions to social problems is one of the primary ways that I experience a sense of self-efficacy. Although I think it is important to prioritize issues, I think that the corporate culture of wal-mart is shown to be detrimental to many people the world over. I would like to find out if any kind of consumer petition has been circulated to apply pressure to wal-mart executives. It may also be beneficial to write Op-Eds to major newspapers in order to garner publicity. I am a big believer in consciousness raising. I think if more people are aware of the issue and perhaps boycott walmart products, it may lead wal-mart to re-evaluate their policies. I personally don't think I will be shopping at wal-mart in the future. I just can't continue to support them in good conscience.