What Can We Do?

In order to change the world, I think first I have to change myself. I have to get rid of all the stigmas that I have learned throughout my life and start to think about what’s wrong on the media and society. Once I have looked into my own prejudices and privileges, I can start inspiring people by doing what any other person would do. Work hard so that my community could prosper and try to think of the consequences of my actions and words before I act on them. And not wait for somebody else do the work for me. It is true what June Jordan said: “we are the ones we have been waiting for”. We can make a difference.

If all of us would do that, then there would be no discrimination and no oppression. But we think that is just wishful thinking. That not everyone is going to do that because humans are greedy by nature. Even if that might be true, we can still do something to change things for the better if everyone gives their support, as little as it may be, as long as it helps our society. Just as Angela Davis said, “please get involved, please try to make a difference, please try to turn this country around”.

A Class Divided

Ethically, I have mixed feelings on the way Jane Elliot tried to demonstrated how racism was present in the kid’s personalities. She claims that when she did this experiment, the kids grew up to have more respect towards people of color. The problem lies in her not consulting this experiment with their parents. One would say that if the kids would have told their parents about the experiment beforehand, the parents would not want to get their kids involved in it because they would ask questions on how hard is Jane going to on their kids. And if they knew they would be put down and feel helpless, most parents would not want their children to feel that way.

When looking at it like that, Jane had no right in using the kids in this experiment. But if we look at society at that time and place, people living there did not need another lecture of how racism is wrong. They were already experiencing the social rights movement front on. What they needed it their society was a more aggressive and effective lesson on racism. So Jane tried this experiment and from what I see it, it was a success. But I really couldn’t say a total success because I don’t really know how all kids, now adults, turn out to be in society now.

Interesting thing about racism...wait I mean...

Reverse Racism. I recently discovered this phrase with my new view of things. Before that I thought it just meant the same thing as racism, expect reverse, or I should say that I quite didn't know what it meant so I usually ignored the word, but I found an blog post about reverse sexism and I think talks about how gender, power, and privilege relates also to reverse racism.


http://thegenderblenderblog.wordpress.com/2009/04/13/another-101-fact-there-is-no-such-thing-as-reverse-sexism/

The Racial Prison Experiment

My reactions towards this video by placing it in the context of racial difference are not that much different from what this video originally showed me. Originally, this video made me think of how power can change the way normal, or should I say “good people”, act on an evil environment, in this case a prison.

In the video we see that the guards at first were following their beliefs of how a guard should act in these kinds of situations but it became harder and harder for them to get a grip of reality and ended up believing their situation. And so did the prisoners but in a different way. They started to rebel against the experiment because they knew it was an experiment and them being treated as nothing upset them. But the guards were started to oppress them so hard that the prisoners gave up and felt that they are actually prisoners. In the middle of the experiment, it turned out to be physically and emotionally damaging for some that they had to cancel it.

Now when we see the video in racially directed terms, one can see that in the US, white is the dominant race and the other colored races are still being discriminated against and being oppressed in different ways than our ancestors did. And this is related to how when one group of people has the power, it corrupts them and makes them think they are better than the group that’s different. And also when you see somebody else making the same mistakes that your parents did, or when somebody takes over and starts discriminating against colored people, some tend to stick with what they were told you were suppose to act. And at the end, the prisoners give up their hopes and accepted their position in society and so do the guardians even though they know that they can do something about it to change society.