Between Barack and a Hard Place

This week I listened to an interview from Tim Wise about his book called "Between Barack and a Hard Place". His book discusses the relationship between Barack Obama and racism in this country. i really enjoyed this interview, and heard a lot of interesting facts and commentary. Wise talks about a post racial America. We are more racially acceptable to blacks and to other races than we were fifty years ago, although we still have a long way to go. Wise categories fifty years ago as being racism 1.0. The old southern and racial slurs and nonacceptance that many white male people had against blacks. There are still people who are discriminatory to blacks, but significantly less than back fifty years ago. Racism 2.0 is a different type of discrimination. Part of the reason that Obama became president was because he was very educated. He went to Harvard and speaks so intelligently. People need to stop thinking that every black person is as educated as Obama was. Wise talks about how George W. Bush was not as educated as past Presidents, and he was still able to get elected for two terms. In the future, it will be interesting to find out if another black person runs for president, if they have mediocre college experience. Wise calls this "breaking the glass celling", which is a term used for women and equality.   Wise also talks about the importance that even though we have a black president, we are not done. We have come a long way from fifty years ago, and since Brown vs. Board of Education. Today, we saw that states and counties are trying to suppress the minority vote by creating harsh voter id laws as well as stopping early voting. Wise also says that it is important that if we start talking to the targeted, we will get a better sense of what what is going on, as well as trying to solve these problems. This reminds me of one of the first activities we did this semester, SCWAMP. He gives an example of talking to the disabled to find out if there is discrimination, and not knowing because of being able bodied. As I was watching the election last night, I couldn't help but think that by President Obama being re elected, that this is a push to further accept minorities, like we do whites in this country. I found this article talking about protests happening after Obama was re elected from the University of Mississippi. This school has has been in the news lately because it has been a very racial school because it was founded during the civil war, when the south separated it self from the rest of the country.
Our education system's history is on the back of racism in this country. When Brown vs. Board of Education won it's case, it was clear that racism was not over yet. We have a long way to go yet. In the article " Separate and Unequal" by Bob Herbert, he talks about racism and education in this country. We are segregated more due to poverty and school systems now, then ever before."Ninety-five percent of education reform is about trying to make separate schools for rich and poor work, but there is very little evidence that you can have success when you pack all the low-income students into one particular school".  We see this with many urban school settings today. In providence, there is a large number of poverty and all of these children are put in these school systems, no matter what. I see this with my service learning classroom. Most of the kids come from this one neighborhood, however there is many different learners in that classroom.I think as the country moves forward in these next four years under President Obama, we can try to improve the racial inequality, so that we are more unified.          

Obama vs. Romney: Afghanistan

I decided to write about Afghanistan because it is an issue that is not talked in the media about as much as other issues such as the economy or even social issues. The United States has been in a war with Afghanistan since 2001. Since then, over 2,000 men and women have been killed. This war has been the longest war in our history. I was surprised at this fact because I always assumed that we  had been in Vietnam longer. It is important that voters are knowledgeable about all of the issues before they vote just ten days from now. Just recently both President Obama and Mr. Romney talked about their foreign policy positions and plans last Monday night at their final debate. President Obama's view on Afghanistan is that he plans to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan by the end of  2014. The troops will be transferring power as well as train  the Afghan security forces. About 30,000 will withdraw this year. This 2014 deadline was reached by both President Obama and the Afghan President Hamid Karzai.  Mr. Romney has not had a clear position in Afghanistan. Late last year, Mr. Romney called the withdrawal from Afghanistan an "electoral expediency" and "weak". In other words, President Obama was withdrawing so that he could be re elected. He has since changed on his position and agreed with President Obama at the last debate and said that the troops will be out of Afghanistan by the end of 2014. Most republicans agreed that the United States should not leave Afghanistan. However Ron Paul, who also ran for the Republican ticket  last year said that we should leave Afghanistan and not get involved with any other wars or conflicts.  
   Many people have agreed that Mr. Romney does not have the foreign policy experience, however that was one of the greatest criticism for Obama when he ran for President in 2008. I think that we all need to pay more attention to what is going on in Afghanistan and around the world because our  troops are serving to protect this country  from harm against other nations.   

In The Service of What?- Connections

In the Service of What by Joseph Kahne and Joel Westheimer is about the politics of service learning through the past decade in the United States. One point that the authors made was that service learning can improve communities in need, as well as providing a rich experience for students and community members. Funding for service learning began in the 1990's under President Clinton's National Service Trust act of 1993. The article also looked at two cases in which two different classrooms used service learning. One class directly went to places in their communities such as soup kitchens, or hospitals. The other classroom first studied the issues going on in their communities and how service learning could help both students and the community. Both these approaches are different but one is not wrong or better. 
Service learning is a great way to service the community that you live in. It also opens up the volunteer's eyes to what is going on outside of their own school. I found this video, that talks about service learning in their school and how it has been a positive experience for all of the kids there.
I connect this article with other articles we have read over the course this semester. I can first connect this reading with McIntosh's piece called "White Privilege" because of the general concept of that article.  Urban school children do not have as much privileged as white children who go to suburban schools. Most schools in the urban schools do not have alot of money; although they do get some money from the state as well as grants. This article reminded me of the backpack of privilege that McIntosh talks about. Having service learning in urban school's gives underprivileged schools and children a chance to have a backpack of privileged for a least a little while. 
I can also connect this article to Delpit's article "The silenced dialogue". Many of these articles that we read this semester can be related to Delpit. She talks about the culture of power that everyone in society follows. School especially follow this everyday. Children in urban school systems around this country are underprivileged, and therefore do not have the power. Having a chance to have service learning in their school has ultimate benefits to both the students, teachers and the surrounding communities.           
 

Sexism, Strength and Dominance: Masculinity in Disney Films

Cinderella Ate my daughter- argument

"Cinderella ate my daughter" is an extension of what we talked about in class last week. This article was written by Peggy Orenstein. She writes personal experiences between herself and her daughter. Although this article was interesting, I found myself disagreeing with her a few times. I understand that Disney movies portrays a bad image for girls. They will grow up waiting for their prince,not become independent and have a bad image about themselves. The problem I had with this article was that her child was in preschool. I think at that age they are not going to understand that Disney is bad. I think the girl would feel like an outcast if everyone else was talking about Disney and Cinderella and she had no idea what they were talking about. The ideas that come out of Disney is important to teach kids, but I believe it needs to be when they have a cognitive understanding, that there is a difference between reality and these fantasy worlds that is Disney.


 

GLSEN- Ready, Set, Respect

From the GLSEN website I chose the "Ready, Set, Respect" tool kit. This was interesting to me because it talks about  teaching respect within the elementary schools. Elementary school is the time where kids begin to learn how to respect each other, and to learn good and bad behaviors. If teachers teach young children what is good behavior, it will most likely stick with them throughout the rest of their life, if it is taught right. Elementary school children are young and naive, so there are not so many labels being said in school. I also believe that young children don't see color or difference as older children and adults do. The tool kit includes different activities that helps kids respect each other as well as provides different activities that shows kids that everyone is different. I can connect to this tool kit because when I was in elementary school, my school was involved in a program like this. Volunteers would come into classrooms and do some of these same activities. I can remember one day, the teacher would say "who likes peperoni pizza" and those kids would go  into one corner of the room. This activity was teaching kids that everyone is different. I really liked this tool kit, and I feel it could be used many times in elementary schools around the country.    

Aria- Reflection

I read Richard Richardo piece on bilingual children, called "Aria". I really enjoyed reading this because I thought it was very insightful. I also thought that the title of the chapter was very appropriate for what Richardo was going to discuss in this particular chapter. An Aria is a very beautiful piece written for voice, that is usually written in Italian (where aria's originated). In this piece, Richardo talks about his personal struggles with speaking Spanish at home and having to  learn English. English is a very difficult language to learn even if you come from a home where it is spoken all the time, like me. I can not imagine knowing one language and having to learn English as well. One point I really liked that Richardo made was in one of the first paragraphs, where he talks about if he was taught  English later on in his schooling, how delayed he would be. He talks about if the teachers talked to him in Spanish he would probably have been more open to the teachers and his other classmates. I think that if teachers would take that approach to bilingual students it would make the students feel more open, however I think that students would want to keep speaking their language and not want to learn English. Many people in this country feel that people that emigrate from other countries should know how to speak English before they come here, and that English should  be made  the official language. I think that it should not be the official language because America has always been known as the melting pot because of the different types of people that has come to America since the start.
Another point that I really found interesting was when the nuns came to his house to tell his parents to help their children to speak English by speaking it at home more often. I think that that is the problem bilingual children have is that they can barley understand English, and when they get home they are speaking their native language to their parents because the parents only know the native language. Richardo says that after dinner, they would all practice their English and make it like a game. I don't know how many parents would sit down with their children and try to make them learn a language they themselves didn't know very well. When I took Spanish in high school, my parents had no clue what I was saying if I was speaking Spanish to them after dinner. Richardo calls English "the public language" because English is so common around the world that everyone speaks it. It is not necessarily a beautiful language like the romance languages. In the end of his chapter he talks about how his family was not very close when the children learned English. His father who did not know English was kind of pushed to the back and his mother became the head of the household because she knew English. His family lost a little of their closeness. If an Aria was translated from Italian to English, everyone would be able to understand what the vocalist was singing about, however it would loose it meaning. I think that even though English is a public language, other languages need to be spoken to maintain diversity here in America, but also all over the world.