Its a Wrap

Sociology was a class that challenged me yet at the same time opened my eyes to a lot of new ideas, terms, and ways of thinking. I started off the semester a little confused trying to learn and figure out the way you need to think in this class. When I say that I mean that starting off in this class I learned that the world is not "the world" we know. Our world is beyond ourself and our personal experiences. A lot of times people judge and base their opinions not only on facts but on the way they were raised, the way they grew up, or on any personal opinions on certain subjects. Learning that the world was far beyond just " You & I" there is a whole world out there was something I was getting used to. In this class you needed to use your sociological perspective and your sociological imagination because that was a key skill to have. I think for me that was the biggest lesson of all and I will carry that lesson for the rest of my life throughout my life.

Sociology was a class that made me feel like I was able to go around the world and learn about the way people live without actually having to do so.  I got a better understanding of why people act the way they do and I learned not to be so ignorant. Im not going to lie before this class I used to be just like many people we know, and I would judge others as much as I didn't like it, it came natural to me as a human. I remember asking myself why certain people would act, dress, or even raise their kids a certain way. After taking this class I realized that the social and cultural norms for one may be different for another. Norms were something that definitely differed from culture to culture and played a big role in sociology. What may be normal to people in America can totally differ in South Korea or Africa, so therefore sometimes we cannot judge because people were raised a certain way and that is why we need to use our sociological imagination.

My favorite part of all during this whole semester was when we talked about the video called "Killing Me Sofly"  I felt like I really connected to this video and thats what helped me really understand it because it is so relevant in todays society. The pressure for people to want to be socialized or to fit in is all of what todays society is about. Young girls trying to look like what is called "beauty" and boys trying to fit a certain image of being "manly" or "tough". Often times I find myself fall into this trap of trying to "fit in" by wearing the most modern clothes or doing my hair a certain way, buying the newest phone out. I really liked how this video made comparisons to how society views women a certain way and how men expect women to look. This video was a great example of how THE MEDIA SOCIALIZES US!! I think this video was a great lesson to men and women and everyone should watch it. That was one of the major ideas in Sociology because the media is everything! From depicting class to depicting beauty, the media is the biggest outlet for false interpretation of things and that is why people grow up to think things are a certain way or should be a certain way. The media socializes people to think these things.

One of the big ideas in sociology was Class and Life Chances. I always grew up thinking I was middle class just because of the fact that I felt that I wasn't poor and I always lived a pretty comfortable life. After being in this class I realized that I wasn't in fact middle class. It wasn't till my mother lost her job that I had realized we were working class and had always been working class. We always did survive based on the earnings my family earned from there jobs. We did not own any property, had no money invested in stocks or businesses, nobody had a college degree and so then I started to come to realize we were in fact working to lower class. I never knew so many things came into consideration when determining what class one is in.

This semester has been an extremely enjoyable semester for me. Although it was hard and challenging Professor Applewhite and the classmates in my class made everyday fun and interesting and there was never a day where I didn't learn something new. This goes to show you Professor. Applewhite did an excellent job teaching the class because I will take many things with me in my life, things I didn't know about before. Its a wrap, good luck in the future to all! :)

Article 2-Race and Discrimination

Reading this article I must admit I wasn't surprised. The world is still filled with hate and racism as well as discrimination that I found nothing suprising when I saw that people are more likely to stay away from neighborhoods that are largely populated with African American. Apparently according to the article many whites say usually areas populated with a lot of African Americans have poor schools, and higher crime rates now this can be true in most cases but not in all. The article had stated that many people just use the schools as an excuse not to move into those neighborhoods and I have to admit I agree! I don't think its only poor schools, and high crime rate that hold them back from living in those areas I think it just has to do with whites not wanting to intergrate with African Americans. This is just one of the many reasons why life chances plays a strong role in your life in allowing you to succeed, and better yourself something you cannot change such as race can play a big role in the opportunities you get in life.

Hunger For More-Ch 9.

Everyone in society these days has the hunger for more. The strive for success and wanting the best for themselves and  their families. Not everyone has an equal opportunity to do so which is unfortunate. Our struggles to move classes and deal with our life chances sets us back. In chapter 9 Weber talked about our life chances which is the likelihood a person has of obtaining valued economic and cultural resources. Life chances can be education or the lack of it,  experience we have which can increase our likelihood of getting a certain job, all of these come into play when we are trying to be successful. Not everyone has the chances to move up a class and usually hardly ever to people move from the lower class to the capitalist or upper class. People think because people are poor it was their fault or they didn't work hard enough as the article "Media Magic Making Class Invisible "stated. Even in the video People like Us it shows you how the rich judge the poor and how the poor judge the rich and the stereotypes that come into play. Its amazing how the media portrays the poor as being as oppose to the rich. Many times the media ignores the poor and doesn't even acknowledge them. When the media does show the poor they often show the poor as being African-American and they show them living in the projects. In chapter 9 it was shown that statistics showed that most poor people in the United States in 2009 were white which equaled to 68.5%. I believe not all poor people are poor because they are lazy or they have no drive it may be true for some people in some cases but in most cases it is mainly because they don't have the resources to do so. Some people can't afford a college education or may not have the certain connections they need to get a specific job. This article definitely made me realize to keep my eye on the prize and get that degree! There may be a lot of things holding me back as far as my life chances and the class I was born into but I plan on changing that and doing the best I can for my family and I.

Its a mans world....or is it?, Chapter 6 Socialization

Ever tried imagining how it would be to live on a deserted island? Try picturing the movie Cast Away as growing up without being socialized in your life. You would slowly start to go crazy being alone because you don't know what it is to interact with others and you only have yourself, although humans adapt to every situation a human alone on an island would end up in a mental hospital. Imagine for example with Hurricane Sandy how people had no internet or cable or transportation and felt like they were in a third world country rushed to places like Starbucks or shopping malls to charge their cellphones and computers etc just so they can feel connected again. In the reading " What does it mean to be Human?: Human Nature, Society, and Culture" By Joel M Charon it states that humans rely on being socialized as apart of growing up and surviving. One quote the reading stated was "Others are important not only for fulfilling our needs, but also for teaching us how to survive."   That basically meaning that if we weren't socialized we wouldn't know how to survive besides our basic survival skills but we wouldn't know how to adapt. That was very interesting to me because once we become "socialized" or "cultured" we are then shunned or made fun of in society for not following the norms such as men who show emotion or show signs of weakness were told they weren't manly or they would get made fun of or be mocked as the video "A Call to Men" showed. I can't deny it in my family if a young boy cried all the time members of my family would complain that they were a cry baby or a mommas boy or that they were too spoiled. Young girls these days are growing up faster and faster and I see it first hand with my younger cousins all the time. The internet being a gateway for loads of information ends up potentially harming the youth these days because of all the information it contains and how easy it is to access this information. Girls are constantly trying to emulate these models, actresses, singers, etc trying to dress look and even act like them. My younger cousins are always talking about how "fat" they are or how they wish they were "18" so they can dress like Kim Kardashian meanwhile these little girls are 11 and 9 years old. I was not surprised to see in the video " Killing Me Softly 4"   by Jean Kilbourne how much advertising does affect us and I always knew it did and how society sexualizes women and tries to perfect women in photos to make them seem flawless.  Women try to emulate these images that are put into our head of what the perfect woman should look like and that should't be the case. Being cultured according to the reading is 

1. A being who is cultural in nature, who inter- prets the world according to what he or she learns in society, and, therefore, a being whose nature is not fixed by biology but who is tremendously diverse.
      If being cultured is apart of being socialization and we are expected to be diverse how can we do this if we are constantly being told how to act and are constantly learning from society they way a man should act which is unemotional, strong and dominant and the way a woman should look which is most of the time thin, light skinned and just damn near perfect!

CHAPTER 5-POWER

Power has always been something that has been thoroughly apart of our lives. Whether it be your mother or father having power over you, a teacher, or even a political figure it shows us that power has been instilled in us since a very young age. You were taught to obey or listen to the person who had power over you. Chapter 5 speaks about different forms of power where one form of power is the "power to" approach this is basically what empowerment is all about. Not only to people have power over you but you have power over yourself and control your own actions. By empowering yourself an example of that would be motivating yourself to finish a race. There are many other ways of empowerment such as education, organization and networking.

Tyrants, dictators, political leaders, bosses, teachers, and mothers those are examples of people who have or have had power over you. As Robert Dahl said in chapter 5 "A has power over B to the extent that he can get B to do something B would not otherwise do". In the Milgram Experiment video you see how certain people proceeded with the experiment despite the fact that they were inflicting extreme amounts of pain on someone just because they were being persuaded by a "scientist" who was telling them it was a must that they complete the study therefore some continued. The results of the study were shown that 65% of people continue because they believe that they must continue because they are following an order.

In the reading The 5 Faces of Opression  it basically speaks about the 5 ways that people can make others feel like they are less then them or make them feel less human by possibly treating them in a dehumanizing way. The 5 faces of opression are exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, culture of silence, and violence. In the Milgram Experiment as well as the Stanford Experiment the form of opression used was powerlessness and oppression. In the Milgram experiment powerlessness was used because the participants felt they had to follow the order of the scientist and that was that and as far as the Stanford experiment exploitation was used because the guard treated the prisoners as if they were not human and they were less than them.

Chapter 4 Social Structure

Everyday we wake up in the morning brush our teeth, and get ready for wherever we have to go whether it be school, work, anywhere. We do things day by day in a routine because that is what we have learned and grew up knowing.  Those are just the social norms we know and continue to live by.  The world works in an orderly fashion for the most part and we live and are surrounded by "Social Structures".  Basically meaning we do things almost by default. An example chapter 4 used was how we knew what to do on the first day of class because we are familiar with the social structure of the classroom which is true. Everyday I walk into class take out my book and pen and wait for class to begin its just something I am accustomed to.

If someone were to do something that was not apart of the social norms and decided to come into class and start singing loudly or walk into class backwards while moonwalking that would be looked at as abnormal. I would personally think there was something wrong with the person if they would walk into class moonwalking. One way that society keeps everything together is by using SOCIAL CONTROL .  Social Control is a way to input fear into people because if they don't do whats expected or what is normal they they will get fear of being shunned from society as Peter Berger mentioned in "The Meaning of Social Control" he basically spoke about different ways of social control as well as social structure and social institutions. An example I can think of for social control would be a student not cheating on a test with fear they would caught by their teacher and be looked down upon a teacher doesn't have to tell you dont cheat on this test or I will punish you for it, you already know in your mind there will be a negative outcome from cheating. Another form of social control is through violence. For Example a parent may reprimand their child for doing something bad and smack them for it, that it a form of violence to keep social structures normal and balanced.

Chapter 3 & Body Ritual Among the Nacirema

Not everyone in this Earth is understood. What can seem completely outrageous to you is absolutely normal to another. What one may consider "weird or absurd" another may find nothing weird about it. 20 years ago Professor Linton brought to the attention of Anthropologists the ritual of Nacirema. The main belief of the Nacirema culture is that they believe the human body is ugly and filled with disease. In these households they all have shrines and rituals. Some of the rituals discussed were pretty harsh for example when they see the "Holy Mouth Man" and he gouges out their teeth when they are decaying and puts in hog hairs and other magical powders, it sounded like a dentist but imagine going through all that pain without any medicine to numb you or anything. Chapter 3 states how there are different cultures we are surrounded by and like I stated in the beginning what can seem completely outrageous to you is absolutely normal to another. We must not judge although we all do it is not our place to say that these rituals are completely crazy because what my morals may be aren't the same morals as those people. I think the article was well researched and followed many of the guidelines that is required.

Quiet Range- "The Stanford Prison Study/Experiment

The Stanford Prison Study/Experiment was an experiment that was conducted on August 14th, 1971. This experiment was a voluntary experiment for college male students that was set to be a prison environment. The study paid $15 an hour. An ad was placed in the newspaper for a prison experiment and 24 healthy, normal, middle class men were chosen to participate in either being a prison guard or prisoner in a "fake prison". This experiment was set up by Professor Philip Zimbardo, he wanted to see how people would go through psychological changes trying to adapt to this experiment of being a prison guard or prisoner.

The experiment was set out to last 2 weeks but due to the psychological effects it was 6 days long. Those 6 days seem short if you thought the experiment was pleasant but instead it was 6 long gruesome days for the prisoners. The guards were told they couldn't hit prisoners but can have them feeling powerless and basically verbally abuse them. At first the guards didn't have any authority and the prisoners rebelled but then soon enough the guards were taking control and this experiment ended up getting way too realistic. Everyone in the prison ended up thinking it was reality and that they really were in a prison.

Carl Prescott was one of the men chosen to be an expert for the experiment he had been 17 years behind bars and was a parol officer for the experiment. He himself started to psychologically believe he was a parol officer and he started acting like the parol officers he dealt with in prison that were cruel and didn't allow bail or any privileges. Guards began punishing prisoners, and the prisoners felt totally helpless. Prisoner 416 went on a hunger strike, 4 of the prisoners broke down and left and even outsiders played into the role making it seem more realistic, parents, priest and the public defender all played into the role.

The experiment had gone too far even the Professor himself got lost in the reality of it that he forgot it was an experiment aswell. He believed himself that he was apart of this "Prison Enviornment". The experiment definitely taught everyone something about themselves and how real everything seemed. I believe myself that it went too far and if I was put in that position I would believe it was real too because thats how they made it seem.

Who am I?

Just a young girl from NYC. The "CITY THAT NEVER SLEEPS".

Residing in Queens, I've seen a lot of diversity over the years. I live in a very urban area. I have a lot to learn and I'm willing to do so.  Filled with flaws but nobody is perfect. Eager to learn. I can be somewhat hardheaded. I have a few traditional morals because of the way I was raised but I am more or less liberal. Love to dance, love to have a good time and LIVE LIFE TO THE FULLEST !. Middle class, I come from a loud opinionated Puerto Rican family but a lot of my family is diverse being mixed with other cultures. Blessed to have a very tight knit family and I always believe "FAMILY FIRST".  My role model would have to be my grandfather. No matter what obstacle he was faced with he conquered it. He is the true meaning of what the "ideal man" should be. Never in my life have I met a man like him smart, responsible, caring, and many more. 

My biggest influences in my life would have to be my mother and father and I am a believer of GOD. Although I don't like to admit it I value their opinion to the heart and find myself somewhat lost if I don't get at least one of their opinions. Although its a pretty complicated relationship my mother is the biggest influence of all because she is what keeps me grounded and level-headed. I have faith in God and that's what helps me get through everyday. I was raised in a Catholic household but most of my family including my father are Christian on my fathers side so I am open to both religions.

In life there are many things I want to accomplish in life. One of my short term goals would be graduating from BMCC and moving on to a 4-year school. Hopefully I can study Marketing or Public Relations and become an event planner. Another goal of mine is hopefully when I make enough money donate a large sum to the Ronald Mcdonald Foundation for Mcdonalds because they truly helped my family in a time of need when my little cousin was in the hospital due to the fact that he had cancer. Those are my goals for now.