Blog 5

Blog 5

I have not been in the military, but I believe there would still be some racism.  I’m sure it is not nearly as bad as it was back during the days of the Tuskegee Airmen.

I believe things have changed a lot since Martin Luther King gave his speeches and was assassinated.  I think that African Americans still do face racism at work and when they are hired.  I think that this too is better than it used to be with equal opportunity employers and the non-discriminatory hiring.   It is still an issue today though, everyone is judged on how they dress down to the way they present themselves at interviews.

I believe that African American’s are still treated with disdain when they speak Black English.  I remember seeing a skit on Saturday Night Live about eight years ago that talked about ebonics, so it is still something that has been talked about somewhat recently.  African American’s have their own slang just like Caucasians and any other race or culture has their own slang that is usually used by that culture.  For some reason it strikes a nerve with some American people when African American’s speak Black English and it shouldn’t.

Bibi was facing challenges that were completely different for the most part from Karen.  They were polar opposites but yet they were both Chinese.  Bibi was rebellious from her parents and was struggling with all of the choices she had, where Karen had her life planned out for her more and respected her parents.  Bibi was also struggling with fighting being the stereotypical Chinese woman.  She permed her hair and was loud and energetic instead of quiet and timid.  She struggles with being born Chinese but culturally American.

I believe that there are some colored people that face similar challenges like Kanye West.  He seems to have trouble with a lot of award shows not giving him or other artists enough awards because they are colored.  He makes quite the spectacle of himself when he does talk about these issues.

Blog Topic 4

The play that I am going write about in my blog entry is Wedding Band/A love hate story in black and white.  It was interesting to read about an interracial relationship and to hear them argue about stuff.  It was also interesting to hear what the mother thought of her son loving a colored woman.  His sister was not really too excited bout Herman loving Julia either, until he started to explain himself.  Then she sounded like she wished she had found love like he did too but it never seemed like she accepted what he was doing.  The mother admitted that she had never known love so you would think she would be more understanding of her son.  The mother even seemed to admit a little bit of remorse when Julia shut the door in her face at the end of the play also.

It was different to hear about how much hate and disrespect people had for colored people back then.  Miscegenation was another thing I didn’t know about, I knew it was taboo too mix whites and blacks but I didn’t know there were laws about it.   Even the African Americans were talking bad about the Asians and telling the kids that they would cook them up and eat them if they caught them.  So it’s not just white people being racist to other cultures, this was and is a problem with all cultures. 

It was tough to read the conversation between the bell man and Nelson when the conversation got heated.  They were both firing back and forth racist remarks and the bell man even threatened Nelson’s life by telling him to be careful or he’ll end up hanging from a tree.  It’s hard to believe that there was that much hate back then.  I guess I am not around that kind of racism so maybe things like that are still being said today. 

Another conversation that was tough to read without being uncomfortable was the conversation between Herman’s mom and Julia when they were fighting when Herman was sick.  They were firing back and forth a lot of hate and racial slurs.  It was interesting to hear about how even the Germans were being slammed also with racial insults.  I guess being German myself I have always thought that Germans were one of the original nationalities to settle here so I didn’t think they were discriminated against also.  I guess the Native Americans were here before anyone else so I guess it is safe to say anyone is susceptible to racism.    

Just from reading this play I learned some new origins of racism and some new earlier racism that I wasn’t aware of.  I have reached a new understanding of how much racism is spread out through a lot of cultures and this was just from one play.  

Blog 3 post

What does it mean to be a racist?  This is another tough question but I believe to be a racist you would need to feel like you are superior to other different cultures. Being a racist involves some hate or disrespect for another culture also.  I believe that being racist is always a negative label.

After watching the link for Racism in America, I wasn’t impressed with either side of the interviewee and interviewer and the secretary.  They were all just fueling the situation. The secretary and the interviewer both made the situation more awkward by pointing out that the guy was colored and they wouldn’t let it drop. I thought it was kind of smart that the man being interviewed turned the tables on the interviewer by playing the racist card, but it was also a form of blackmail.   I didn’t really like the fact that he was falling into the stereotypes by saying he would call up his cousin who was not so well spoken and threatening the interviewer.  That really didn’t help fighting the stereotypes that the interviewer and secretary were putting on him. 

I don’t think that if we laugh at racist jokes that it means that we are racist.  I have laughed at all kinds of jokes but it doesn’t mean that I believe or support what their punch line is.  There are many jokes that I laugh and cringe at at the same time because they make me feel uneasy depending on who’s around when they are told.   I think that movies are created for our entertainment and though they are not real, we watch them to keep entertained.  Jokes are like this too, sometimes we know they are just to laugh and we don’t need to support the message behind them. 

With the Native Americans they were talking about how they were getting thrown in prison a lot in Minnesota because half of the inmates were Natives.  That is sad to me, because white people already forced them into their reservations and now they are locking them up a lot too.  I’m not saying that it was always unjustified; it’s just odd that there are so many locked up and half are Natives.  The natives aren’t the only ones being discriminated against being put in jail there are other races that are targeted also it seems like.  It is unfair that they are targeted at all.

Racism and discrimination go hand in hand.  Racism leads to discrimination, because the hate leads to separation of cultures.  Then just like the link showed, people try to overcorrect for the racism by being too friendly and making the situation awkward and asking too many questions. 

It’s going to be tough to call the United States the melting pot of the world when we are continually being racist in our country.  It is something that will take a lot of time to extinguish since we are making such slow progress trying to get rid of racism.  

Blog 2

This topic seems to be a little tougher to talk about since there really isn't an exact answer.  It is mostly an opinion based question because there are so many variables to take into account.  It really depends on how well you know the people around you at the time and what they consider funny and acceptable to joke about.  It also depends on what you are comfortable saying that doesn’t go against your own morals.

I believe that the role of people that are not in the particular culture or ethnicity when it comes to humor is to first of all know the people you are around.  This will help you to know what is offensive to them and who is sensitive to each kind of joke or to know if you are better off just not laughing at all. 

I also believe that if you are telling a joke or laughing at a joke to watch the slang words and comments.  Like the link was saying it wasn’t alright for the white guy to jump in and use slang that the African American guy was saying.  He shouldn’t have just jumped in and acted like he was comfortable with the conversation he was in.  He also shouldn’t blurt out stereotypes like “grape soda” and other things when the guy wasn’t even talking to him, and he shouldn’t have chimed in at all.  Another thing in this link that is a sensitive subject is saying “you people” this is another way that humans separate cultures and we really don’t need to.  Most of the jokes the white guy was saying were inappropriate.  The African American guy was in no mood for jokes in the first place so I’m sure he definitely wasn’t in the mood for racist jokes.  This is just a good way to get someone fired up and start up violence and this is the last thing we need. 

I think it is ok to laugh as long as you are within a close group of ethnically mixed friends that have known each other for a while, or a comedy club with racially charged jokes. This is a place that the comedian is saying jokes against her or himself and knows that this is a place that if you don’t like the jokes, you are able to leave if they get too offensive for you.   There is a place for these type of jokes and there are places where they shouldn’t be laughed at or said like work or other important places.   

I believe humor does perpetuate stereotypes to a certain extent, but at the same time it can also break the ice in the right situations and lighten the mood as long as you don’t take it too far.  The bad thing about humor is it makes it easier to keep stereotypes going, because jokes that are funny get passed around and told to other people.

I think the biggest thing is to know the people you are with before laughing or trying out racial humor, or just don’t do it at all if you’re worried about reactions.

Blog topic 1

I believe that stereotyping for the most part affects our society as a whole negatively.  For each of the four different cultures covered in the first four chapters each stereotype had a negative impact on each culture by making each culture over simplified. 

For the African Americans it was negative because in the minstrel plays they were portraying slaves as being happy to serve their masters, and made it seem like slavery was fun.  For these plays Caucasian people were painting their faces black and portraying African Americans.  For the reversal minstrels plays, African American  people were painting their faces white and making fun of the minstrel plays by exaggerating the stereotypes of blacks even more.  In the video for “Day of Absence” you could hear people laughing at how extreme the stereotypes were of the white-faced actors talking to the black actor that was portraying a slave.

For the Latino and Mexican stereotyping it was definitely a negative impact, even though it portrayed some of the people as very hard workers, they were trying to sell them like cars in “Los Venditos”.  The clip also portrayed them as being able to live anywhere, even in the worst neighborhoods in the most dilapidated buildings.  It was also very offensive to me that the college students were dressing up as Mexican janitors and wearing names like Pedro and Sanchez in the representations of the media clip.  This does not make our colleges look very accepting of other nations and is just ignorant to me.

For Native American stereotypes, they were almost always portrayed as villains in the older movies, that’s why it was nice to see a movie like “Dances with Wolves” when it came out.  It finally was a movie that showed that white people may have been the ones that were the villains.  After watching the clips of the “White Shamans and Plastic Medicine Men” I felt bad for the Natives and Indians because they are right it is wrong to try to profit from pretending to be healers, especially when true healers don’t charge for their “services”.

For the Asian-American stereotypes, they seemed to have the most positive ones but, this still is a way of making everyone seem the same.  When some people might be good at math while others aren’t and excel at some other subject, just like any other race or nationality.  The idea of the obedient woman with Asian culture made it seem like Asian women and Indian women were like robots and would just do what their husband said.  Which, no matter where this idea came from it is not fair to say this about anyone, it kind of makes them sound like they don’t have a say in what they do.

The media just spreads these stereotypes faster and is not helping us to break the stereotypes any time soon.  Certain movies don’t help either like “A day without a Mexican” that was a prime example of stereotyping with all of the low end jobs being empty since all of the Mexicans were gone.