Final Reflective Essay

In sociology I learned many things including not judging something from what I have heard or see, that everyone is equal, and that you can be who ever it is you choose to be. There are many key concepts that I have learned in this class that I will be able to take with me through out my life and make myself a better person in turn. This class has taught me to look at all possibilities, to think deeper into different situations, and to always keep an open mind. From this class I feel that I was able to take many different things and put it into my every day life. I have found that many of the things we have learned about I was guilty of doing and it has definitely changed my opinion on many different parts of life. Many different concepts that we were taught in the class are extremely useful in life, it is important to keep an open mind in what ever it is you do and after my experience in this class I know that now.

The definition of Ethnocentrism is the ” view of things in which one’s own group is center of everything, and all others are scaled and rated with reference to it” This was said by W.G. Summers. When thinking of what I have learned, Ethnocentrism being one that I have personally learned from. This term means that you have a sense of “superiority, invincibility, and infallibility” but all of these are false because in many cases what you are thinking either where you live or what you have is better is actually not the case.

It has been said that to some degree we are all ethnocentric, whether it be with your culture or even religion. Instead of judging, however, it is important to keep an open mind and really see if what you think is better truly is. Our study guide says it really well when it reads that we should “not judge,but analyze” because when you judge you are not able to have a fair opinion. We learned that we are able to have pride in our country and be proud of that because we all should be proud to live where we do, but what is not okay is to believe that ones own country is superior to another. In reality all countries have positives and negatives that are different from each other and to fairly say one is better is nearly impossible.

I feel that I have greatly benefited from this term and what it means, I am from Canada and I always believe that we were one of the best counties but because of our over all learning in Sociology I learned about countries like Ghana who have many valuable resources like the  coco bean and how they are a profitable country and not poor like I and many other people believe about African countries. Overall, this class has been very beneficial I learned many key terms that I think has led me to become a person that thinks before I react, and to contemplate the future of the choices that I choose to make.

Social Justice Event Blog

The event that I decided to go to was in the conference room at Kwantlen, throughout the event multiple speakers came up and talked about their experiences in Ghana and what they had learned on this trip. The also talked about how their stereotypical mind-set of Ghana changed when they went their and saw what was really there.

With their trip to Ghana the student and the teachers learned many things about themselves and the people they lived with. They were able to do volunteer work and many of the students talked about how they were not able to teach the people as much as they had wanted to but instead learned quite a bit themselves. The people who went on the trip were able to find themselves in a new way of life and having to adapt to what is there for them. Through her entire trip she believe that she was able to do a selfless act and gain knowledge, friendship, and an everlasting memory.

The first person that talked to us was Natalie, her biggest surprise was that all the things she thought she knew about Ghana or thought she knew changed drastically when she got there. The theory she used was Cultural relativism, her mind had already been set on something without actually experiencing it personally. Natalie was able to go to a school       and her biggest surprise was that no matter how much money or how little money you had the children were able  to attend. One major difference then in Canada was that the school didn’t even have enough money for a pencil sharpener, in stead they used razor blades.

And like Natalie, Jenna, discussed stereo types and how people learn from what they are told but not what the see with their own eyes. One stereo type that she did keep was that people from Ghana are very friendly and real. One that did not follow through was that all places in Africa is a safari.

From her trip to Ghana Jenna was able to gain a sense of knowledge including being able to look at many situations and have an understanding for them.

From this event I was personally able to take quite a bit from it, people who are Canadian but have traveled to a different place telling the audience about their travels and that stereo types can be broken so easily. I showed me that keeping an open mind is very important and just because we hear or see something it is definitely not something that I should base my opinion off of. It has also inspired me to travel some where and to gain memories and experiences of my very own. Over all I really enjoyed this Social Justice event.

Participation

• I contributed by saying how things like tv shows as well as tv actors and more are all ways of secondary socialization in which a person can be influenced into who they are.
• We were talking about twins, the two boys one placed in the sea the other on land, and my idea was that although they are twins and share many biological factors, because the did grow up in varying environments it would cause a change in multiple things including how they would react and their views on society.
• We were talking about the ” Looking-Glass self ” and I said that because someone tells you something so many times eventually a person will give up on having a different opinion about themselves and come to the conclusion that what they are being told is true
• I also said that a person who is a Generalized other would be someone like a teacher or a class mate and a Significant other would be a family member ( or someone close to you )

 

Video Blog

“danger of the single story” by chimamanda adichie

Affective Reading

From this video it shows how from what people see and here and read ever day makes an impression on the person and in some cases makes you believe things that are not true. The woman speaks of how when she was young she would write books about stories with only white people in them, how they would eat food and drink things she was not accustomed to, but she did this because it was what she knew. From what she saw , being books about white people, it left and impression in her mind and was quite vulnerable to it. As well as how people who are not from Africa believe it to be a very poor continent where in fact she believe the same thing when she went to visit their house keep to find what she had been told about them, being poor, was actually not true. Although because of what she had been told, her view on them was very hard to differ.

 

After watching this video I feel as though it is true that because of single stories we hear or read or are told, it only allows us to have one view on other places such as Africa. We are told things of this continent in most cases from people who have never stepped food on the land before and recite things that they have been told over the years. I feel that it is not exactly our fault for having these minds sets because, like Chimamanda Adichie says, we learn from things that only let us see it as one way.

I think that in order for people to have a better understanding for places other than where they live stories , tv shows, and books must reflect such places in different ways. Adiche believed that where the boy who looked after her home as a child was from a very poor place. But this was only because it was what the had been told and not gained this opinion on it from her own experience.

I believe that for people to be able to have a wider variety of knowledge for places they are unfamiliar with they should not strictly listen to things they have been told. Adiche at one point went to Mexico, and already she had her mind-set as to what she would find there. And was quite surprised that instead of finding people sneaking across the border and being arrested she found that they were traveling to work and laughing and smoking which let her realize that she had been ” immersed in the media coverage of Mexicans. ” So I believe that it does not matter who you are or where you come from, people will have already been judging other places without their own knowledge.

I know that it is hard to keep an open mind-set on the world around us, that the media does put certain images in our head that they expect us to believe. But in a lot of cases what they tell us is not often true. And I know that if we are told one thing for most of our lives it is hard to see something as what it is and not what we have been informed.

The Phantom Of The Race: The Myth of Race And The Reality Of Racism

1. Why is it that race, being something that is a defining fact of different people is not just left as so but turns into racism and makes being different into a negative thing ?

1. Racism has been formed out of reason that make no apparent reasons. although with out having different races you would not have racism, although it is said that race is just a figment of ones imagination according to the scientific sense.

1. Racism is seen everywhere, people have been brought up to judge. Decades ago people were taught to put down people of different colors and that reasoning has not been destroyed yet.

2. If people believe and say the term ” Our differences are only skin deep ” Why is it that that is not apparent ?

2. Although people say things like this term, according to the text this phrase is said but not meant.

2. Many people everyday say things that they do not mean. In some situations people say things only because they believe it is the right thing to do or say not because it is what they truly believe.

Who Will Liberate Liberia ?

Marissa Majchrzak

October 20^th 2011

Paraphrastic Reading

 

In the reading it tells of how money is used to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. The US offered 50 million dollars for the heads of Saddam Hussein and his sons but people in Iraq live on less than one dollar a day. Money is used poorly in the world, it is used to bring people down like Saddam Hussein when not even half as much as he is said to be worth would help millions of struggling people all over the world. Bush spent 4 billion dollars a month to defeat international terrorism when that same money would be sufficient to give basic health and nutrition for half of the world’s population. In the text it say’s that “ eyes see only what eyes want to see. “ meaning that people see things that they think are there are not at all but are blind to the visible, and problems that the world has.

 

Our world has been made to believe that spending 200 billion dollars on a single person or everyday resource for example, Bush spending millions for Saddam Hussein and Iraqi oil. Over all the sum of democracy will always be more important than restoring a fallen Iraq. And as America everything gained by the war. And later on ethics and empathy will come.

 

I chose this segment because I thought it was unbelievable how people like Bush are willing to spend billions of dollars on a single person and resources when millions of people could be helped with that money. Instead of getting rid of a single problem the government would be helping so many more people instead. And the decency of ones self is being put to shame from the choices people are making.

September 11th: Forgiviness is not part of the lessons learned

SourceURL:file:///Users/marissamajchrzak/Documents/Affective%20reading%20forgive.doc

Marissa Majchrzak

October 20^th, 2011

Affective Reading

 

This reading is about how people use forgiveness as a word with no meaning behind it, and even the word itself is used sparingly. After the attack on September 11^th people were not willing to forgive but instead have “ a eye for an eye.” US President George W. Bush was said to have been no better then the terrorists themselves, he did not believe in forgiving and forgetting, his plan was to get revenge. And in turn, killing and hurting thousands of people as if enough people were not hurt from September 11^th. If people learned to forgive then there would be a lot less cruelty in the world, wars would not be started because countries would have no anger between each other. Although because September 11^th happened to people in the United States, and according to that country those people’s lives count more then others, Bush found it a necessity to inflict pain on others.

 

From this reading I feel sadness for people like Bush, forgiving people is a very important part of life. Not only is it bad to keep anger with in you, it only ends up being worse for everyone. Americans have been inflicting pain upon so many people all over the world for years, and I am not saying that what happened on September 11^th was right in any way, but I feel as though it was just another country standing up for itself as the United States has been doing for so long, another country could have been tired of feeling vulnerable so they acted, and because it happened to the United States it was wrong according to Bush.

 

From the reading I think that if not everyone is willing to forgive like Magabe is willing to do. Magabe wants to forgive and forget and he is able to do so with out killing hundreds of people to do so. He has a point and it is stated. I think that people must learn from our past and see all the heartache and pain that has been put upon the entire world. Becoming a peaceful world will never happen if a person is not willing to do so.

 

I believe that everyone is just as important as the next person, and just because you live in the west and have white skin has no significant factor to a person who lives in any other country with any other skin colour. We are all people, and no one in any way has a more significant meaning. An innocent person never deserves to die because someone made a foolish mistake, an error of one person will never make the killing of thousand okay.

 

I know that ethnocentric people will always be around, and someone on one half of the globe will most likely favor their culture over the other side. Bush is the President of the United States and in turn he will most likely cherish his country over any other, but just because that may be true it does not give him or anyone the right to decide who will live and who will die. I know that when a person dies, it affects a few. But when many people die, it affects a way of life. Killing to have revenge will never be an advantage in the long run, because it will only come back and you will end up losing.