Stumbled upon this on the internet, enjoy!

Visit this link for more on what not to do around men. How nice.

http://www.retronaut.co/2011/10/tips-for-single-women-1938/

Entry Eight - Religion

I think what hit me hardest out of all the readings on religious intolerance and discrimination were the chapters on antisemitism. One of the most disturbing things was the table on page 260 which listed how Christian canonical law had set the precedent for Nazi measures that oppressed the Jews. Some of the canonical laws were almost identical to Nazi measures. For example, a canonical law from 1267 prohibited Christians from attending Jewish ceremonies, and a 1941 Gestapo directive prohibited any friendly relations with Jews.

On the heels of these readings, came the news of the recent shootings in France. The first shooting involved three soldiers, two Muslims and one of Caribbean descent, and the second at a Jewish school where a rabbi and his two children ages 4 and 5 were gunned down along with a 7-year-old girl, the daughter of the school's principal, as they arrived for school. This kind of senseless violence is deeply troubling. French police say the bullets from both shootings came from the same gun and that the shootings appear to be racially motivated. I started thinking about how to prevent these kinds of things from happening in the future... How can we raise our children to embrace differences and discuss disagreements in a peaceful way? Why do people resort to these measures? Is the perpetrator clinically insane, or just hateful and convinced of their own superiority?

I found an article on the website tolerance.org, which contains classroom activities on tolerance, research articles, essays, op-eds, and news clips that highlight issues of diversity and difference. The article I saw that I think might help us to start thinking about solving this monumental problem of intolerance is titled: "One Nation, Many Gods." It discusses how the current generation of students will face an increasingly pluralistic society as adults and that addressing issues of intolerance should begin in the school system: '"Schools are the one place where all of these different religions meet," said one educator. "It follows that religious diversity must be dealt with in school curriculum if we're going to learn to live together (One Nation, Many Gods, 2007).""

The article went on to describe a pilot program for addressing intolerance, a 9th grade level course on world religions with a prescribed curriculum. It went for a test run in the bible belt town of Modesto California, and researchers found that students who had taken the course were more tolerant of others and more willing to defend other's rights to their own religious expression than they had been in the beginning. I am, therefore, officially on the world religions requirement bandwagon! Wouldn't it be interesting if we could influence the school district to require a course on religious diversity? And for any of you who are wondering, it is legal to teach about religion in public schools.

Do you think this is a valuable use of a student's time? Of the school district's limited funds?

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.

Entry Six

This week, I just want to say how touched I was by all of the culture boxes that were presented in class on Wednesday. It was really beautiful to see a few intimate aspects of each life. I think it went along well with this week's work in Human Behavior talking about spirituality. Even though I do not consider myself to be religious, what I drew from that was the interconnectedness of each human being. I am excited to see everyone else's presentations next week! Similarly, the presentation by Ms. Mathis on Monday helped me to connect with how damaging a culture and environment of racism can be.

More later..

Entry 5

So here's something I haven't spent much time in my life thinking about or considering: Racism against Asians. Perhaps I am hopelessly out of touch, but in the past I have been much more concerned about racism against African Americans and Hispanics because I suppose those issues are brought up the most. However, recently in studying the history of racism in the United States and that of undocumented laborers, I've realized that as a nation we seem to have a very deep-seeded nationalist fear of anyone who doesn't fit into our homogenized box. With a history like ours, I'm really curious as to where the whole "Melting Pot" and immigration friendly idea came from.

The statue of liberty inscription reads:

Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses, yearning to breath free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

We obviously don't mean that. Our hostility to non-native groups is historically documented. The California legislature required Chinese and Latin Americans mining for gold there to pay a special tax not required of Whites called the "Foreign Miners Tax," in the 1850's, and also in California a group of Whites murdered 19 Chinese immigrants in a vicious hate crime in the 1870's. Racism against the Chinese was again institutionalized in the Chinese Exclusion Act passed by congress in 1882 which prohibited the Chinese from immigrating for ten years. The Chinese Exclusion Act was only finally repealed in 1943.

Because I have been thinking about racism towards Asians recently, I was especially touched by the essay in our Diversity and Social Justice Readings by a Korean American girl, Olivia Chung, titled "Finding My Eye-dentity" in which she explains that the way that American society defines beauty excludes people of color. She writes about pressure from her mother and friends for a cosmetic surgery to add a crease to the eyelid to make her more beautiful. As a white female, I am pretty familiar with our society's strict definition of beauty, but I never thought about how the availability of beauty products for White women is a great example of white privilege. In her essay, Ms. Chung describes her experience reading Seventeen magazine's eye-make-up tutorial and realizing that the instructions were only available for people with an eyelid crease. A quick google search using the keywords "white privilege and beauty products" will return a gazillion articles and blog posts on this problem.

I also wanted to include this video, which is a great example of how racism/nativism is NOT dead. During the Super Bowl this year, Pete Hoekstra (R), who is running for a Michigan senate seat against incumbent Debbie Stabenow (D), ran an incredibly offensive political smear ad featuring an Asian-American girl riding her bicycle through a rice paddy and speaking in broken English on how Stabenow's policies are ruining the American economy and sending all the jobs and money to China. It is pretty ridiculous, and should make everyone uncomfortable. It is shocking to me that somehow a group of adults decided together that this would be a good idea in some way. Here's the video link :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrbdXUWryXk&feature=related

It is really sad and strange that there is all this nativism that can be exploited by political candidates. It really is fear-mongering and desperately needs to be publicly recognized as such, so that this particular kind of politics loses it's power.

Entry Four.

So I have FINALLY caught up with the class on our "a People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn readings. May I just comment that this book is not like a normal history book? It absolutely drew me in with it's candid descriptions of life as it was known by "the people." Last semester, I took US History II and our class focused primarily on the labor movement. Because of that, many of the names and events described this assigned section of Zinn's book I was already pretty familiar with.

I loved the quote about socialism by Eugene Debs during his imprisonment after attempting to assassinate Frick, the manager of the Carnegie steel company in Homestead. He articulated a thought and position I have long held but have not been able to express. On page 281 of Zinn's book it reads: "The issue is Socialism versus Capitalism. I am for Socialism because I am for humanity. We have been cursed with the reign of gold long enough. Money constitutes no proper basis of civilization."

Does anyone agree with me? I often feel pretty lonely in my revolutionary leanings. I don't condone attempted assassination, but I'm 100% on board with bringing the reign of gold to an end. Is the almighty dollar really the most gratifying pursuit? Is living in complete luxury more desirable then a sense of fulfillment at having done right by the world and humanity?

I hope not. I really believe that if every person reflected on what it is that would truly bring them peace, money would have nothing to do with it.

Thoughts?

Critical Race Theory

This week, I've been thinking a lot about the Critical Race Theory article. The ideas that were discussed in that article helped to solidify my understanding of race and oppression. While I had heard of Critical Race Theory before, I really wasn't familiar with it as sort of a perspective or paradigm from which to view social problems concerning race. The discussion of the multicultural or cultural sensitivity model of teaching about race or ethnic differences and it's inadequacy in addressing social justice problems of race on a large scale was something I had really never considered.In contrast, Critical Race Theory approaches the problem of institutionalized racism directly. One of the most interesting principles of critical race theory to me was Differential Racialization: "Dominant social discourses and people in power can racialize groups of people in different ways at different times, depending on historic, social, or economic need." The article goes on to give an example of differential racialization using Asian American groups, but personally I thought it relates really well to the way Mexican Americans and undocumented workers are treated. A couple of semesters ago I studied the history of immigrant labor in the US and learned that the political rhetoric condemning immigrant laborers of color occurs in a very predictable cycle: Economy grows-> Cheap, undocumented labor is exploited and even encouraged by business and political interests->Economy stagnates->Undocumented workers become the scapegoat of joblessness and a struggling economy.

It just goes to show that race is definitely still a prominent, ugly issue.