One of the core concepts that I learned at the beginning of the semester was “debunking”. Before the semester had started I had never heard of this term. I had no idea what it meant. I later found out that the term debunking means ” looking at both obvious and surface-level and the less obvious and deeper explanations for social behaviour. I learned many new things in the course such as racism being a big problem in today society. I did not know you could be racist unintentionally and not know it. This made me think about my life in general. I later realized that I had people be racist towards me unintentionally and I did not even know. For example when some people would say that ”I was the whitest brown person they had ever met” I had no idea what people had meant by that. My preconceived notion of one of the topics covered in class would have to be about minorities. I had no idea until this course that minorities are needed in society for it to function properly. I learned that minorities are needed for cheap labor, and that many people in the general public gain from having minorities. Overall I did learn a lot from this course on topics that i knew very little about. The course was very different than what i had expected it to be.
Group Contribution on December 5th
After watching the video in class called ”Indecently Exposed” we were told to get into groups and discuss the video. My thought about the video was that it was very interesting to see one of the blue eyed males in the video try to defend him self and say that he is not a racist towards brown skinned people. he tried to defend and speak only for himself as an individual. Also it was interesting to hear that other people in the class have been called ”the whitest brown person”. I too my self have heard that many times and i still do not know what white people mean by it? is it suppose to be a compliment?
Social Justice Event
The social justice event that i attended was on December 2nd at the surrey campus. The main goal for the event was to raise money for scholarships for the deprived but very bright students in rural Ghana. There was a live band playing and pictures on the projection screen of Charles Quist-Adade’s trip to Ghana with student from Kwantlen Polytechnic University. There was a also a guest speaker, she spoke about the non profit work she does to help student in Ghana receive books and computers. The guest speaker and her team have sent out so many books for the children in Ghana that they have a small library there now were people can check out and borrow books. She said that the children in Ghana did not even know what story time was during her visit there. I learned a lot from this, I knew that there were children out there that did not have access to books, and computers but it never really occurred to me how big of a problem it really was. I have always taken these things for granted. I am glad to hear that there are people in todays society that go out of their way to help out others in rural countries.
Race:The Power Of Illusion
The movie we watched in class called Race: The Power of Ilusion was about a group of students comparing the patterns of there DNA to students of the same and different race to see the similarities and differences. The students all thought that they would have the most similarities with the students that were the same race as them. The film says that race is a biology and the fundamental argument was that there are differences. This movie also looks at and discusses the issues of concordance. The issues of concordance involves linking inner and superficial trait.
The Phantom of the Race: The Myth Of Race and The Reality Of Racism (Charles Quist-Adade) Dialectic Reading
| What Questions did the text/chapter raise? | How did the text answer this question? | How does the answer match my own ideas and experiences? |
| -What is “race and what is “racism” ?
-How was race created/started? |
-“Race has not always been with us…….The term according to historians, was first used in the 15thcentury by an English poet to refer to a line of British Kings”“race is based on a small set of physical characteristics”-“racism is defined as a set of ideas and ideals (ideology) that asserts or implies the superiority of one social group over another on the basis of biological or cultural characteristics”‘’most social scientists, and indeed biological scientists and geneticists are in agreement that “race” is a human invented concept. Thus “race” can be defined as a grouping of human population characterized by socially selected physical traits” | -I never knew that the term “race” was used in the 15thcentury to refer to a line of kings, I always thought there was only two meaning behind it and that is a contest of speed or to determine what background somebody comes from. |
Who Will Liberate Liberia? (Charles Quist-Adade) Affective Reading
What is the reading about: The reading ”Who Will Liberate Liberia” by Charles Quist-Adade is about the U.S spending outrageous amounts of money for the heads of Saddam Hussein and his sons.It is said that the Bush administration will spend almost $200 billion on Iraq. The author beileves that ”it makes perfect sense in our Orwellian world and global jungle, a world where immorality means morality, where might is right”. In George Bush’s mind if we want peace we must be ready for war no matter what the financial damage will be.
How do I feeling about the reading I just finished: I feel outraged to find out about the billions of dollares being spent by George Bush and the Bush administrative for the heads of Saddam Hussein and his sons.
What do I think about the reading I just finished: I think this money should be put to things that can benefit todays societys and the people who live in it,for example it should be put towards feeding starving children, health care and shelters for the homeless.
What do I beileve about the reading I just finished: I beileve that George bush is an idiot and does not know how to spend the nations money accordingly in order to benefit the society. I beileve that he will spend every single dollar the US has in order to defeat Saddam Hussein.
What do I know about the reading I just finished: what I now know about the reading that I just finished is that the only help that Liberia got from the US troops are logistical support to ECOWAS Economic Community of West African States.
September 11: Forgiviness Is Not Part Of The Lessons Learned (Charles Quist-Adade) Paraphrastic Reading
Summary:
During the anniversary of September 11, we think about the lessons learnt from past mistakes, but in Bush country, forgiveness does not appear to be one of them. Rather than focusing on forgiveness, George W. Bush and his team concentrated mostly on nationalist hatred, and gave into their burning desire to retaliate. Forgetting their Christian moral, they reacted to the terrorist attack looking for revenge and by choosing to ignore the fact that many innocent Iraqi citizens were being killed, they sank down to the shameful level of the terrorists who attacked them. This showed the American’s cowardice, as they often preach to their African citizens that they should forgive and forget their past suffering, while the Americans have done neither in the event of September 11, and have even considered their own lives more valuable than those from foreign countries. Although George W. Bush has claims that he is seeking justice, it is obvious that he is much more concerned with revenge and retaliation. With this being said, the event of September 11 was traumatic, and the loves that were lost will always be missed, but we must recognized that the tragedy did not end there, and it will continue as long as the innocent Iraqi citizens remain suffering due to the US government.
“Yet forgiveness is a virtue that the West pontificates constantly to non-Westerners. To non-Westerners, in general and Africans is particular, they preach: forgive and forget- most of all forget- the past, what happened between Africa and Europe, between Africa and North America. They want us to forget the African holocaust- The European slave trade- the colonization, the balkanization, and the pillage of the continents human and natural resources. They want us to turn the other cheek but they demand their pound of flesh when it comes to them. What double standards!”
The West preaches to foreign countries that they should believe in forgiveness. The Africans specifically, are told that they must forgive and forget, but most importantly, forget about the cruelty and suffering that they have experienced in the past. They want to overlook any pain that they have placed on other countries, including the African holocaust, European slave trade, and many more hurtful events in their country’s history. They encourage all other countries to forget the mistakes that they have made and forgive them for any suffering that they have caused, yet when the US is the country suffering, this attitude of forgiveness is ignored. Revenge becomes their top priority, outlining the American government’s strong contrasting principles
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I chose to paraphrase this section of the reading because I admired the author for outlining the many mistakes that Americans have made, both in the past, and the ones that they are currently making in the present with their reaction to September 11. The author outlines to readers the selfish attitude that the American government has taken on, making readers consider the flaws in their own government.
