Last week in class we watched a movie called Crash, that depicts racism and how it affects people with all kinds of backgrounds and pretty much everyone all over america. The part of the movie that really hit me hard was with the mother who was so worried about the guy changing her locks. she was so scared that he was gonna sell their key to his "amigos", just becasue of how he looked. Little did she know he was a protective father and a sweet husband, with a tiny little girl at home. So in this case she was wrong about the man, and shouldnt have let racism get the best of her. But on the other hand, she was upset because of the two African Americans that mugged her and her husband,a nd she had known by instinct to be scared of them, but didnt say anything or turn around because she didnt want to be racist.. and then they proved her right. Its sad when people of all races decide to live up to their stereotypes automatically instead of forgetting them and being who they really are. So in this case , her racism technically coudl have helped her out. The movie shows these two sides to racism, as well as many more with the other characters in the movie, but her character definitly shows two distinct sides to whether racism is right or wrong. However, racism is most definitly not a black and white clear cut split. Therer are many complications with it because there are always exceptions, which makes it a difficult elemetnt to eliminate from our culture.

Racism

In class we did a couple of websites that are pretty much designed to prove that almost everybody has racism set in their minds, whether they want to or not. One game was interesting that had you assosiate good and bad words with African American and European American, and based on the amount of time you took to answer somehow it is able to tell you if you have a preference to one side or not. Ill admit, if i took that game i would probably end up having some instinctual preference, which I wihs i didnt. but im sure its built into me. All i can do now is try to break from that, and if more people took that test or payed attention to racism maybe they could try to eliminate it. Another game we played was categorizing the people into these boxes of races. Its really funny that out of like 30 people we got liek 4 right. It shows that you cant tell a person just by looking at them, and its sad when people judge other people by their race

Social Classes

America is known as a land of opportunity.. right? Well the 30 Days episode where Morgan and his wife live off of minimum wage for a month shows the true story behind American lifestyle. Sure, some lucky .00000001 percent of America may make it big, like the Angelina Jolies and Ray Krocs of the world, but in reality, most of America isnt succeeding to this extent and are barely making it by! Our country has been completely taken over and become a land of Franchises and Monopolies and large coorporations. Yes, America used to be the land of dreams, with examples of people.. such as Ray Kroc who dropped out of school in like 8th grade, became the owner of McDonalds, and made it by with a little luck and suddenly is a trillionaire. He dropped out of school and broke the American mold and bakc then had a chance of beomcing a huge wealthy success! These days however, such dreams are no longer even a possibilty. Life is a mold, and the only chance of being succesfful is to make it all the way to college and hope to get the best job you can. If you break away from the mold, either you try to start your own business or find a way to put yourself out there, or you wind up working at Burger King or McDonalds or any other large coorporation for minimum wage. And even if you do try to start a small little restaurant or clothing store, you get taken out by the chains of McDonalds and run out of business! Then you end up working for them anyways, so theres pretty much a rare chance of breaking away unless you get a degree of some sort. Its horrible that this becomes the fate for most americans, because as they showed in the episode living on minimum wage is not easy at all-- and unlike in the show, people living on minimum wage dont get to go back to their nice homes and all their comforts after 30 days..

Tammy's Son

After watching the video about Tammy and her son and their way of life, I think it was truly amazing that her son has such high aspirations and wants to do something successful with his life. Usually parents are a key role model, and whether you like it or not, a lot of people wind up having a similar lifestyle as their parents. This video shows one of the rare times when the child wants break away from the life that was given to him and the social class that he was born into, and hopefully he can succeed. Although he knows his mother works hard and has to walk a long way to Burger King just to get by on minimum wage, and seems to apreciate her efforts, he strives for more. She was a role model in a small wayby showing him what its like to put your all into whatever you do and keep pushing your limits. Its inspirational to see all of his efforts as he tries to work really hard in school, wears nicer clothes, and wants to go to college--- All of which his brothers give him a hard time for. Instead of making fun of his dreams and his clothes, maybe they should learn a little from their brother and try to be optimistic. Maybe then they would have better futures.