Archive for date: September 19th, 2015

Happy Saturday!

I just started working on my notes for the quiz Monday and it got me thinking about the readings we had this week.

I’m really enjoying the Sternheimer book; she takes some interesting perspectives, most that I wouldn’t have. I liked her discussion on the meaning of childhood and how it changes from generation to generation. Her idea that “popular culture often challenges adult control” (p.27) was funny to me. I don’t know how true that is, unless her idea of an adult is someone without access to media. Both of my parents are pretty up to date with the going ons in pop culture. They don’t necessarily care or find it interesting, but they do follow it. I guess this statement made me wonder who she thinks is actually consuming media.As Sternheimer asked us to define childhood, I would really like for her to define what an adult actually is.

However, I did like her point that “Perceptions of childhood now reflect adult anxieties about information technology, a shifting economy, a multiethnic population, and an unknown future,” (p. 37). I think every subsequent generation will cause the former generation concern if only because the future truly is unknown and the developments that come with it are up in the air. Are you concerned about the future generations based on the state of the media?

The Cortes article was also interesting. I always thought that generalization and stereotype were interchangeable, but clearly there is a difference. As a future teacher, I would like to incorporate media into my classroom and the readings we have had have helped form an idea of how to do so. I liked that Cortes emphasizes not to give students an assignment where they have to find stereotypes because they will have no idea what to look for (p. 159). It’s really important, I think even in our class right now, that we have a full understanding of what we are saying and what we are looking for. This way, we can have a better understanding of media stereotypes and be able to look for these stereotypes much more accurately. Did you guys agree with the idea that we can’t automatically go looking for stereotypes if we don’t know the correct definition and the difference between a stereotype and a generalization?

-Maddie

“Struggling with Stereotypes: Users and Abuses of a Critical Concept”

This article was an interesting read to me for multiple reasons. In this article the author starts with explaining how certain words “can lose their power through overuse”. I thought to myself how true this is in everyday life. So many people say slang words or joking insults without really even knowing the meaning of the word to begin with. However the word is said so often so it seems socially acceptable. The main topic of this article was to dissect the meanings and issues revolved around generalization and stereotyping. This article surprised me in the way that it was not at all trying to say that these two topics need to be erased or looked at as a problem and nothing more. In fact the author flat out disagrees with the idea of getting rid of labels and generalizations. The author is more concerned with the public being able to make educated decisions when looking and interpreting at the world. The article gave great detail how the media is a huge factor to generalization, as the creators don’t believe they are stereotyping, when they essentially are creating a “group stereotype”. Meaning an individual could cause a label for the whole of a group of people when that is simply not the case at all, since everyone is different. The author also did a good job at not just blaming schools for the negative sides of generalization and stereotyping, instead he spoke about the difficulty of explaining such topics as they have grey overlapping areas. Another part of the article I found very interesting was when it talked about how group knowledge needs to be open to change. It sounds easier than it actually is, because people don’t like to change, if they have a particular view since they were little then they are pretty set in that thought process for the future. Labels, generalization, stereotyping etc. are a part of our world that will never go away. However if more people where open to looking at change, not necessarily accepting it but understanding it, I think it would make a difference. The article also concluded that when studying these concepts in the media it is important to look at patterns to understand just how the media causes “group generalization”.

Prepare for interviews by using http://t.co/1p3D5EAcNk. I highly recommend looking into the Data Structures and Algorithms domains! #GHC15

— Kristen Godinez (@kzgodi) September 19, 2015

On March 15, 1965 a man from Giant Oaks California by the name of James J. Sloan wrote a letter the Congressman Harold T. “Bizz” Johnson urging support of the Civil Rights Bill. Which entailed for the most part the abolishment of the prerequisites required to vote, as well as the discrimination against minority groups when voting.

Mr. Sloan then progresses throughout his letter and continues to give support of federal troops in the south or “whatever means taken to guarantee the safety of individuals of whatever color.”  In bring this statement up he was referring to Bloody Sunday which had taken place in Selma, Alabama. Bloody Sunday is the name referred to the events that took place on March 7th where over six hundred SNCC and SCLC activist marched to support The Civil Rights Act. Where they were held to a stop by the Alabama State troopers a demanded to turn back. Once they had refused they policemen then open fired with teargas and beaten with billy clubs, leaving over fifty people were hospitalized.

The letter then precedes to urge the congressmen to pass the bill explaining it is the right thing to do and it would extend America. How simple this may all sound It is not the only thing I had stumbled upon. After going though simply one other folder I found a completely different radical view than what Mr. Sloan had expressed.

No more than three years later another letter was composed by Eugene P. Bayliss on the date of March 20th nearly exactly three years later from the first letter. The tone of everything changed, the two new big bills were the Civil Rights Act of 1968 and Title VIII.  Both the Civil Rights Act of 1968 also known as the Fair Housing Act and Title VIII were laws that prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental, and financing of housing.

Bayliss throughout the letter is completely against the passage of both these act and actually  insults America and trashes African American remodels. She even questions exactly whose Civil Rights the government is fighting for stating “Whose Civil Rights…the phony civil rights of the Stokely Carmichaels, Rap Browns, and Martin ‘Lucifer’ Kings.” She urges the denial of this “un-American bill”

What is startling to me is that the general public of California in 1965 had been pro-civil rights and had wanted the African American citizens to be able to vote, but in a short time span the citizens would be totally against Title VIII. It leaves a total unanswered and real question of is discrimination an segregation really over even after fifty years or is it only others thinking on the behalf of their own good?