Racism

Racism happens all the time anywhere. People see it in schools, work, at restaurants, in movies and television shows etc. When has someone not judged someone else based on a different physical or religious trait? It has just always happened.

In McIntosh's article I first felt that she was kind of being raciest but then I thought more about what she said. It's true that there is a "white privilege" in society today. Whites do live life a little less stressful than other races. However other races have worked very hard to get where they are today because they can look past all of the racism and privileges that happen in society.

In a response to Tatum’s article about racism starting in preschool years, I do agree with it. At that age a child is very observant and very curious about things that are different. I dealt with that as a child growing up. Where I grew up as a child I had all white peers. Then when I attended grade school there was one African American child out of two hundred and fifty students. At the time it shocked me a little because I wasn’t use to someone of a different skin color. I kept asking my parents why that person was so different from everyone else. They explained to me why, and they taught me never to treat anyone different because they are different than me. I became friends with that student and still am today. Unfortunately everyone did not feel the same way as my parents and I did. When I look back on our experience as students I realized that teachers had to be careful of what they said because of this one student. Another event was when another student called them a very degrading word and that student was suspended from school.

Racism has been going on for years now. Unfortunately it’s a situation that will always be around everywhere.

Is Imagery Deadly or Safe?

After reading the pages that were assigned to us, it made me have a stronger dislike towards some advertising. I was never aware of how much structure there was to it. I just thought most would get a semi nude person and take a picture and then BOOM you have an advertisement. I didn’t know that an image or video had so much to it. You have to deal with gender, race, what audience to attract, the lighting, and much more. Everything in an advertisement is to point out what a product should be. One of the readings pointed out that advertisements for cosmetics or clothing weren’t made to have to consumer felt better about themselves but to make the consumer feel worse. They wanted them to feel like they weren’t good enough as they were so by buying the product it would make them even better as a person on the outside. Yes that is a good way of getting money but is that the right thing to do? Many problems with people today have to do with self image, so by constantly showing extremely thin girls, guys on steroids, and the picture perfect person (who is actually is photo shopped) causes these problems. Many females and males change who they are because of crap like this. They change with eating disorders, diet pills, surgery, and over exercising just so they can be feel beautiful. Now not all imagery is like this. Some is to make a reason known. I remember tragedies like September 11th and Hurricane Katrina happening but I remember the imagery that was taken to show people how terrible these events were. Other events like the Holocaust, Pearl Harbor, and the Great Depression are in school books to show students the troubles that happened in the past. Movies are created for a real life experience also. Imagery can not only show people about life but also influence their own.