The kidnapped.

So I was sitting here watching E! and they were showing women that were beautiful and were teenagers that had went missing over the years. What caught my attention is that all of the women were white. This made me think about all the major public missing persons cases and how they only show white cute kids or any white person and you rarely see any other race and we all know millions of people, in every race, go missing everyday, but yet  these are the only people that we see. It’s quite hard to imagine race is a factor but everything in this world seems to be.For example,  look at all the attention Elizabeth Smart got when she went missing. Did the fact that she came from a very affluent family have anything to do with it?  What do you guys think??

Stererotypes among Hispanics

So the other weekend I was at my friends’ apartment having dinner and enjoying a poker night. It was a group of about 9 or 10 of us that are all Hispanic and at one point my friend, who I have known for years, begins this rant about Puerto Ricans and all these negative preconceived notions she has about them. We were a pretty diverse group of Hispanics that included being Cuban, Chilean, Nicaraguan, Colombian, Argentinian, and one friend who was half Cuban and half Puerto Rican. When my friend began trashing Puerto Ricans, I was never so embarrassed and ashamed to be around her. First of all, she was being completely racist against Puerto Ricans and second of all we were in the company of people who we did not know that well and I am sure they also have Puerto Rican friends. I was so shocked and disappointed with her but I did not say what I wanted to because I did not want to embarrass her in front of company. Because I am also Cuban she incorrectly assumed that I felt the same way because there has always been some tension between certain Cubans and Puerto Ricans. This just made me think how unfortunate it is that even among minorities there is still so much racism that occurs.

Law & Order

I was watching Law&Order: Special Victims Unit last night and there was a segment in which they discovered that the rapist was a black man raised by an Asian women, in an all-Asian community.  They concluded a form of social neurosis that he raped Asian women based on the fact that he was raised in an Asian community and not accepted by the women of his known culture (i.e. He was used to being around Asian women all his life including his own mother, but they weren’t interested in him because he was black so therefore he only took out his anger (rape) on Asian women in their 20’s).  The psychologist (who happens to be Asian as well) in the show mentioned that this community was brought up to be very inclusive: “The women of this particular generation don’t date black men because they’ve always been taught they shouldn’t, if my sister had brought home a black men…let’s just say my parents would have been less than approving” While I was watching the show, it made me think about all the unspoken social norms among different racial groups that we’ve been talking about lately and I couldn’t help but wonder: was it really just that generation? probably not. I think many of these succinct “rules” we live by are still in place whether we want to admit to them or not…I don’t believe acceptance is a new-age way of thinking; I think we’d like to believe it is but as depressing as it may be, we haven’t changed much at all.

If you look, we don’t all look alike…

I went to help a good friend of mine (who is white) with a project for her sorority and I went to their house for the first time. On the walls in all the downstairs rooms there were large photographs on all the walls of all the girls of that particular school year dating back very far. I couldn’t help but notice that there was not one single non-white face. Not one. Finally I found one Black face in this years group and as we were leaving my friend remarked that her sisters and the other people in the house didn’t notice that I wasn’t her Black sorority sister. This made me think of what my mom and I were talking about with our experience of the way that SOME White people tend not to look at the faces of Black people to recognize their facial features but only see color. Often times White people who I consider myself really good friends with walk within inches of me and they don’t notice me until I call their name. Does this happen often to anyone else? Perhaps people wouldn’t think all African-Americans looked alike if they would take the time to look in our faces instead of just our skin.

Other Countries and Racism

I know that the title of this book is called Minorities in American Society, but Im hoping or at least would like it if we could also look at racism outside of other countries. There are specific race problems in countries of Europe, Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Australia. As I mentioned in class one time KFC was criticized for airing a blatently racisist advertisement in Australia. While I know that we also live here and see the effects of racism, I would like to see how our treatment of minorities in American Society compares to that of others. If our “colorblind” system is being utilized in other countries or if there is more full blown racism. Again I know that it probably won’t happen since the point of this course is to study minorities in American Society, But I think it would furthur our understanding of the concepts discussed in this class by looking at other aspects of the world.

what if..

As we’ve been reading “Racism Without Racists”  you see respondents continuously say one thing and do another. I began to analyze my own life and my relationships. I have no problem dating people outside my race, but I have problems bringing guys, of any race home to meet my parents. I started to wonder what my parents would think if I brought someone home to meet them who wasn’t white. I asked my mom and she did as many of the respondents in the book did. She paused and then attempted to be politically correct. She fell into many of the same traps that society has lead us to believe are ok. My favorite part was when she tried to act like she would have no problem with it and that my dad was the one I needed to get passed. I think my mom, like so many other people in our society do, projected her feelings onto another person to protect herself and avoid sounding racist. She then proceeded to tell me that bringing a hispanic guy home was better than bringing a black guy home. I was shocked, and then angry. How could my mom, of all people, be saying this to me? Shouldn’t she just want me to be happy? What makes someone’s skin color so important? It doesn’t change the person.. I can’t believe it took me 18 years to figure out that my mom, and potentially my dad, weren’t as accepting of people as I thought. This makes me realize how easy it is for parents to raise their kids  to be prejudice, even if only as a subconscious level.

?

why?

Type of school depends on race

After living in Gainesville for 3 yrs I always found it strange when I’m out somewhere like at the mall or even at work and people ask me if I’m a student here. When I reply yes and they then ask what school I attend, before I can answer they always tend to answer the question for me. People always assume that I’m a student at Santa Fe instead of UF and I feel that this has something to do with race. When I do tell them that I go to UF they look shocked. At first when this happened I didn’t mind so much but now I find it kind of offensive. I even asked a guy who did this to me why he assumed I was a student at Santa Fe and he couldn’t give me a response and I was thinking maybe it was because of my race.  Uf admits both African American and Caucasian students so why would race determine the school I go to. It’s not like Sante Fe is a school for African Americans and UF is a school for Caucasians.

All White Basketball League

Wow!  that was my reaction when I read this article. Apparently, the commissioner of the ABA American Basketball Association is considering starting an all white basketball league. He claimed that there is nothing racist about the fact that he wants to start an all white basketball league. He says that the league will be there for white players to play fundamental basketball which they like. This is just ridiculous starting a league for white simply for them to play fundamental basketball. This doesn’t make any sense to me due to the fact that it can be implied that the commissioner is saying that the other races that plays basketball doesn’t know the fundamentals of the game or the NBA for that matter is not fundamental basketball. Also some people argue that this league is not racist at all because blacks are more athletic than whites and this league would help those white players who have the talent but cannot make it to the NBA because of the black athletes. That’s even more ridiculous because there are many whites in the NBA and many of them have been very successful in the league. This is wrong because it will bring a lot of negatives to the game of basketball and the game doesn’t need that.