Reading/Response

Week 1

All three essays speak to ideas of identity and culture. In the first article, “Captain America in a Turban,” Vishavjit Singh walked around the streets of New York wearing a Captain America costume, but with a catch, instead of Cap’s usual mask, as the title states, Singh dons a blue turban. He first had to overcome his self-consciousness about his skinniness, and then how the people on the street would react to him. Most people enjoyed it, went up and asked for pictures, and congratulated him on having the courage to do something like that, but there were a few that didn’t react so positively. Few yelled out, “Captain Arab” and “Terrorista!” One even flipped him off. Singh went out to make people think, think about how there are more than just white people who can represent America, and he did that. He says, “We could have a new Captain America who is Sikh or black or Hispanic,” and now we actually do, as the man who was formally The Falcon, who is African American, is now Captain America.

            The second article, title “Faking It,” is about a fifteen-year-old boy posing as a legal expert on an online message board in order to help people with their legal troubles. Marcus Arnold become the No. 3 rated expert in criminal law on AskMe.com, ranking in front over about 150 actual lawyers that use the site. In order to be taken seriously, he uses a fake identity on the site as unsurprisingly; people don’t usually want legal advice from a fifteen-year-old kid. He eventually confesses who he actually is on the site, and is attacked by many of the real lawyers and is drilled with questions on the finer details of law that he obviously doesn’t have the answers too.

The third and final article, “Black Men and Public Space,” is about the experiences of a black man who have just moved to the Chicago area. Many people would tense up around this man because of his skin color and stature, even though he describes himself as quite shy. People walking in the same direction will pick up their speed to get away from him; others walking the opposite way will cross to the other side of the road. He became very conscious about this, acting calm and carefully all the time. He was a graduate student at the University of Chicago, but he was treated like a common criminal because of the way he looked, and this is all too relevant today, sadly.

The quote that really struck me out of all of the essays was in “Captain America in a Turban,” and the quote was:

As we posed for a picture with one kid, he stuck his middle finger right in my face.

“So you are flipping off Captain America?” I admonished him.

He got red-faced, apologized and struck a smile instead.

The quote just goes to show that racism is instilled in children at a very young age. The kid saw the turban and immediately thought to flip Singh off. If parents continue to teach their kids these types of values, there will never be full equality, but hopefully that will change in the not so distant future.

Week 2

In the first video, "Shrinking Women," Lily Myers speaks about how society and even her own family differentiate the way men and women are treated and seen. Men are basically given the freedom to do whatever it is they please, while women have set roles with very little wiggle room. She uses the example of herself and her brother; she was taught to speak with a filter and apologize for asking questions and being unsure, however, her brother doesn't think before he starts talking, he has no filter, and society thinks that is okay. Society says women have to be small and thin, they have to watch what they eat, etc. and this is instilled in Lily because this is how the women in her family have been and still are for generations. Growing up, Lily picked up these habits by association, whether she liked it or not, and she wants it to change, not just for herself, but for the whole of society.

The second video, "This is Water," David Foster Wallace talks about life after college, a boring average adult life. Wallace's entire point behind the speech is about choice, you can choose to live with this "default setting" as he calls it, where you are the center of the universe and everything revolves around you, or you can change your outlook on things. He wants these graduates to think of the others around them while waiting in the grocery line or while stuck in traffic. Maybe the person in front of you isn't moving slow just to piss you off, but it's because they've been in an almost fatal car accident before and would rather be safe than sorry.

The final piece, "Why Women Smile," relates closely to the first video as it talks about women and their role in society. Amy Cunningham speaks of how she herself, along with women everywhere, have been conditioned to smile and only do just that. Society says women aren't allowed to show any other emotions other than pure joy. Oscar Wilde's quote, "A woman's face is her work of fiction," exemplifies the fact that women just have to grin and bear it in basically all situations. Women are conditioned to hold back their true feelings and put a smile on their face to say, "Everything's fine," when it really isn't. I feel that the line in which Cunningham says, "To limit a woman to one expression is like editing down an orchestra to one instruments," says everything that is needed to be said. Women are so much more than just a smile, and they should be able to show that and be treated as such.

Week 3

Karniol, Rachel. Sex Roles: The Color of Children’s Gender Stereotypes. New York: Springer Science & Business Media, 2011. Print.

• The article focuses on gender stereotypes in children when coloring with crayons based on the colors they chose to use and the pictures they chose to color on. The researchers chose the coloring activity because they were able to examine their choices in an unobtrusive way and without asking many questions. The children were able to just be themselves and focus on the coloring without any distractions from the researchers.

Miller, Cindy Faith; Lurye, Leah E; Zosuls, Kristina M; Ruble, Diane N. Sex Roles: Accessibility of Gender Stereotype Domains: Developmental and Gender Differences in Children. New York: Springer Science & Business Media, 2009. Print.

• The article focuses on gender stereotypes in elementary school children and the differences in these stereotypes in the older children versus the younger children. Stereotypes seemed to be more prevalent in the older children than in the younger ones, while appearance stereotypes were more prominent in girls, like activities/sports stereotypes with boys. Girls in general provided a higher proportion of stereotypes.

Patterson, Meagan M. Sex Roles: Self-Perceived Gender Typicality, Gender-Typed Attributes, and Gender Stereotype Endorsement in Elementary-School-Aged Children. New York: Springer Science & Business Media, 2012. Print.

• The article focuses on how elementary school children perceived themselves in the gender stereotypes. Children who considered themselves more gender typical were endorsing gender stereotypes, while students who saw themselves as less gender typical were usually more open to less stereotyped attitudes. These attitudes and attributes did not seem to differ across age groups.

Week 4

I'm guilty of just dropping in a quote with no introduction or explanation. It's usually because the teacher says we need a certain number of quotations within our essays, so I would just toss a few in here and there with no rhyme or reason. Now I know to lead in to the quotes with an introduction and give it an explanation afterward. I don't care for citing sources at all. I realize why it needs to be done and why we do it, but it's such a tedious and boring task that I can't stand doing. There's also so many different ways to cite sources that seem completely unnecessary. Why can't we just choose one way and stick with it? I think there being so many different citations is why people struggle with citing their sources correctly.