The Great Debaters

So i’m sitting here watching this incredible movie and I just can’t believe how blacks were treated in the early nineteen hundreds. This of course is not the only movie that exemplifies this ridiculous treatment toward blacks but it just made me think if the generation of blacks were to switch places with black people today, would our history therefore be the same?  Honestly, would we then have a Martin Luther King or a Malcolm X?  Would we have made the same difference they made overall? We always say that we could not have put up with this but because of this attitude, unlike our famous civil rights heros which who did, to an extent of course to better things, we probably would have had a much different outcome. I don’t know,  just hypothetically speaking.

Hate Crime

Recently i was watching a video of a woman in Boca Raton, Fl who was 65 years old and was beaten by two men. The woman was black and the two men that beat her were white and hispanic. The woman had done nothing to the two men but was fishing at a golf club when she went to go use th bathroom and was beaten by the two men who she says were yelling racial slurs at her telling her that she didn’t belong. Watching this video was really hard because you could see how bad the men had beaten the elderly woman and what made it worst was because of the color of her skin. It is really sad to see that hate crimes like this still occur and that two men would take their hatred to that extinct. For them to tell her that she didn’t belong shows their ignorance and in due time they will get what is coming to them. I have heard about numerous hate crimes but this one was probaly one of the worst because of the fact that it occured to an elderly woman. It just shows that we still live in a world full of hatred and of people with no heart.

Happy 1st week of Black History Month Everyone

Today marks the end of the first week of Black History Month, a month that is not just for the benefit of one group of Americans but for all of us. It allows us to stop for one months time, and reflect on the past mistakes that our forefathers have made, some of the ones that we are discussing right now in class. It makes us focus on the problems we have now, oppression, discrimination and basically the unfortunate fact that there is pure hatred in this world. It also allows us to look to the future. I know that we talk in class about the discrimination that continues on through our “color blind” society, but I hope that all of us can take the time out of this month to try to find a sliver of hope for a more tolerant future. This month honors the horrors of the past and celebrates how far we have come to in the present. But, I think that if we continue to make strides in eradicating today’s problems, our world would be a happier place. So as we finish the first week of this month, I pause to take in the moment, I hope you do too.

Hitler Lives On….

If there is something for people to hold on to, they will. The same way Martin Luther King Jr. fought for the civil rights of african-americans, Hitler fought for the civil supremacy for the aryan nation. These great leaders have effected a number of generations beyond their years. There is a gang in Portland called Volksfront. They are modern day Nazis and are worst than the KKK. These fellas are draped in swastika tattoos and they make it known they they are white supremacists. I was watching the History channel and I saw this gang. Their initiation proccesses to get in the gang includes all kinds of haneous crimes against african-americans. The president of this gang said, “The hatred that I have for blacks is equal to the hatred a cancer patient has for his or her cancer cells”. In this day and age, I can’t even fathom how this many people have this much hate in their hearts for another race, JUST BECAUSE OF THEIR SKIN COLOR! It disturbs me to even think the way they do, which makes me think they themselves are less than human. There should never be an instance where you hate anyone, but how do you hate someone you don’t even know? How do you build a gang or coalitian based off of random hatred against a group of people? I never want to go to Portland.Volksfront Gang

“Why do Black/asian/whites…”

Apparently people believe racial stereotypes a lot more than we’d like to admit it, and even look to google to help figure out the answers to why certain races do things. If you go to google.com and type in why do ______ and insert any racial group, some very interesting most popular searches come up. Some are normal, like why do mexicans celebrate day of the dead. But some of the other top searches, like why are white people superior or why do black people love watermelon or have weird names show that our society still has a long way to go in the way it characterizes human beings.

Racial Profiling

Recently a Melbourne police officer, Frank Carter, was accused of racial profiling. He’s under investigation for pulling over African-Americans and accusing them of committing traffic violations they did not commit. In one case he pulled someone over for not having their headlights on and it was still day time. Police officers are expected to uphold the law and make every feel safe but instead of doing this some officers are abusing their power. I think that it is good he was caught and arrested because this shows other officers that racial profiling is taken very seriously and you will be punished for discriminating against others.

George Lopez

I was watching George Lopez the other day and in the episode, the airplane company was going to get a government deal of some sort, so Jack Powers (the head of the airplane company George is the manager of) told George that there was this one employee named Hasni who was middle eastern looking and had taken flight classes (only because his dad was a pilot and passed it on to him) that George had to demote him to filing paper work so they could get the government deal. George had invited Hasni to dinner before knowing he had to demote him. At dinner he finds out that Hasni is a nice guy and there’s no way he could demote him, but Jack powers insists and Hasni gets demoted. I am pretty sure things like this don’t happen solely on tv shows. Do you think its right to racially profile a person and demote him based on assumptions? (flight school and middle eastern = terrorist)

Poverty in America

For my Poverty sociology class, I have been reading Kozol’s Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools. Just in the first chapter that discusses east St. Louis you get a good idea on how people in America are living in absolute poverty, lacking average necessities that we take for granted. They do not have a properly working garbage or waste system, so garbage bags and trash pile up in peoples properties, which then attract huge rats and insects that will then transmit diseases. The nicest building in the area was termed a “whore” house. They do not have a nearby hospital and the schools often flood with waste. The schools are very very segregated, there are are one or two white children that go to schools in that area, others go up hill to a better neighborhood. One of the children commented that they hear about Martin Luther King Jr. and see posters but that in reality he was just a black man that spoke about nice things, dying in vain. This comment hit me very hard because I would never expect someone to say that but after reading about their life conditions and lack of everything, I realize that the idea that black children and white children can go to school and play together is just not a reality for these children. They have absolutely nothing. If interested I highly encourage you to read this book. It is very enlightening!

I stumbled upon

There’s this website you can go to that brings up a bunch of random links, webpages, and posts basically to entertain yourself when you have nothing better to do. They call it “stumbling.” The category I picked was humor and I was shocked to see some of the “joke”s that people thought were funny. Honestly, before taking this class, I would have written it off as people doing whatever and moved on. Now, however, I’m completely offended. The jokes ranged anywhere from racist to anti religion to anti homosexuality. Why does our society think that these racial slurs and such are funny? More importantly though, what are we doing as a society to facilitate these things? In being able to ignore these things in the past I suppose I helped warrant such jokes, not knowing when to say something was wrong regardless of one’s right to freedom of speech. I think it would serve Americans well, all Americans, to take a look at what they’re putting out there, or encouraging others to put out there.