Conscious Thinking

While surfing AOL's homepage tonight, I stumbled upon an article about a new study done about sexism. I clicked on the article just to see what it was about and if it had to do anything with any of our previous class discussions. It did. Instead of relating to class in the obvious way though, it related to the concept of our class as a whole. In one part of the article, a researcher stated, "If you document [sexism] and are confronted by a group of instances of sexism, then people start to see the unseen." This idea reminded me of my thoughts after a few weeks of American Studies class. I kept thinking that, after talking about an idea or writing a blog about a topic, I would notice things having to do with American Studies all over my life. In my meta-post for the first quarter, I even talked about this concept, writing, "About halfway through the quarter, I started seeing blog posts in everything. I even had to edit down my ideas because I would end up with 10 or 12 after one weekend because I was thinking about it all the time." I think this is true about anything in life. If you document something, you will be more conscious of it in your everyday life. Have you ever experienced this in your life?

A disaster is a disaster... or is it...?

News programs are always filled with different types of disasters; killings, natural disasters, scandals, and economic disasters. Even though the news focuses on each of these stories equally, it seems like the level of compassion from the people of America is different for each situation. The question that keeps popping up over and over again in my head is "why do Americans empathize with victims of natural disasters and help them as much as possible, but don't help victims of economic disasters equally?" I have no hard and fast answer to this question, but I have thought of a few possible reasons.

-Relatability: For most Americans, it is probably easier to imagine a tornado coming through your town and destroying their life than imagining losing their job and becoming homeless. This could be one of the causes because it is simply easier to relate to the tragedy of a person in a natural disaster.




-The Uncomfortable Factor: For some reason, homelessness makes many people uncomfortable. Even though people generally try to pretend to be sympathetic towards homeless people sitting on the street, most people truly feel uneasy when in the presence of them. Obviously, people would rather donate time and funds to something they feel comfortable thinking about instead of an issue that makes them feel uneasy.




I truly have no idea what the answer to this question is, but the above ideas are just some guesses. Do you agree with any of these ideas? Do you have any other possible answers to the question?

The (not-so) Proud Family

A couple days ago in class, Mr. Bolos brought up the idea that says, "If you don't know your history, it's like you were born yesterday." When he said this, it reminded me of the time I heard that exact same phrase when I was in about 4th grade, watching a show called The Proud Family on the Disney Channel. Here's the theme song for the show...

While reminiscing about this show I used to love and watch all the time, I realized that it is the perfect example of racial tokenism on TV. I would say that The Proud Family was the Disney Channel's token show for the time it was around. Almost every character on the show is African American or Hispanic (except for the one white, red-headed friend and the ambiguously colored purple girls...), so it was probably used to make the Disney Channel to seem racially diverse while still keeping the rest of their TV shows that have almost exclusively white characters. Do you think it is a problem that Disney used The Proud Family as a token program, or do you think the reasons don't matter as long as the diversity is shown?

The Food Revolution

      While taking a break from writing my final paper, I decided to watch the latest episode of one of my favorite shows, Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. This show is based on Jamie Oliver's (a British chef) mission to change the type of food we eat in America. I really recommend checking this show out here because it will present you with staggering facts about the terrible food the majority of Americans eat. The moment that hit me the hardest was when Sophia, a seventeen year old student at a LA public school, told Jamie in tears that both of her parents and her ten year old little sister all have type II diabetes. I immediately realized that this relates to the topic of my final paper (inequality between the classes).
      Though food doesn't necessarily seem to relate directly to the disparities between class, when you look a little deeper you can actually see the connection. In both seasons of Jamie's show, he has worked to change the food in school districts located in primarily low-income areas. Many of the people he spoke with admitted that they only eat fast food and unhealthy frozen food because it was easy and affordable. For example, many of these people could not afford shopping at Whole Foods (or "Whole Paycheck" as some people say) every week. Because they don't have money, they are limited to eating fast food that is terrible for their health and the health of their children. Jamie is making a huge effort to change this and I think his mission is amazing, but he surely can't do it alone. What do you think Americans as a whole can do to improve this gap and make healthy food attainable to everyone?