Blog #4

From reading all the different materials so far in this unit, the one thing that has really stood out to me was the role that upbringing plays regarding race. The video clips and questioning beliefs worksheet in class were really strong supports of this as well.  I really enjoyed the video clips because I believe that brought up a lot of issues and made me think about things that I just never really thought about such as “white privilege” and how while whites work hard and get ahead they assume that everyone can, when in reality it is much harder for a black person to get ahead even though they may work just as hard. This is due to the many problems with race in today’s society.  Also, from the questioning beliefs worksheet in class, the statement “Hatred is learned” really stood out to me as being true. You do not come into this world already knowing who to hate and who to love. That is something that is taught to you over time. Children look up to those who raise them as their role models and they want to be just like them.  They are obviously going to believe what is taught to them.

One question raised in the video was about if racism will ever be brought to an end. I thought that was an interesting question and it made me really think about the present issues.  I think that many people want to put an end to this, but it all depends on the attitudes of those raising each generation. If activities are done with young children, such as the activity in A Class Divided, to show the power of discrimination and how it is not a good thing to have then I believe it could be eventually talked about less and less. Also, the younger these activities are done the more positive of an outcome it will have because the older that people get in life, the more they form their own beliefs which are then harder to change. I think that was one reason that the activity was harder to do on adults because you are not going to change what they have been brought up thinking and based on experiences they have already gone through. I think race will always be an issue that is seen however because you can’t change everyone’s views in life

I think that your personal beliefs do play a role however in how you interpret the texts and information about race in general. Depending on what you were raised to believe, you might think that race isn’t a big issue today if you didn’t hear a lot about it growing up or vice versa. In my case, I wasn’t raised in a racist family and was brought up to believe that everyone is equal and that you shouldn’t judge any person just because of their physical characteristics. I think that this is one reason as to why I didn’t really think of Steve in Monster as coming in worse than anyone else because I never singled him out thinking “Oh he’s black”. I looked at it from an equal playing field.