Today's class period was very eye opening and I learning at lot more about myself as well as our society as a whole.
First, I enjoyed the small group discussions, even though it was hard to admit and bring up situations in which I have oppressed someone or a specific group of people. Before learning about oppression, I had no idea there were different kinds of oppression and from this exercise it made me see specific examples that I have committed. It was hard to think in that way and open up and share those experiences, but it made me see how I can change with my actions in everyday life situations. The first step I think is just recognizing and being award of your actions. Once you can start to see your actions then you can start to confront and call out friends, family, co-workers, collegues, and so forth on their actions. If we all help one another out on stopping the oppression we each little by little can minimize racism.
What else I enjoyed with today's class was the film "True Colors". It was very blunt and straight to the point, yet I think it was long over due. This gives us and our society true life experiences that are happening everyday due to ones skin color. It was depressing to see the white man always succeeding no matter what. One interesting part of the movie was the car salesman and how he bumped up the price for the African America. I had no idea that this actually happened and not just once, but enough to notice a huge sum of money was being collected, because of race. It would be great if they could do this research again in today's time (not that I didn't enjoy it, but I don't feel as though people would take it seriously enough) and air it on television.
One final comment to today's class and discussing Wal-Mart. During my sociology 101 class we read a book called "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America." I highly suggest it, it is a quick read. It is about a middle aged women writer decided to drop her life and started living like many Americans do each day, under the poverty line and working at minimum wages. She goes to 3 or 4 different cities to find work and housing and in one city in perticular she finds a job at Wal-Mart. She discusses her experiences of working there as well as other jobs and her living situations.
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I know this is kind of off topic...but did you laugh when those guys were confronted during the movie? I did. I don't feel like it is wrong to laugh in that kind of context because a student put it well, "we're laughing because its an awkward situation and we know what's coming." If you think about it, there are tons of awkward movies that we all laugh at...any one of Ben Stiller's movies. Those movies aren't funny because of their jokes but because of how frickin' awkward he is and the situations he finds himself in. So I think that justifies laughing...
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