"I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong" (Richard Feynman)
If you missed class or want to see the video we watched in class, here it is. I posed that WORDS create WORLDS and that Jane Elliot's experiment with her third grade class shown in this documentary gives you a etic view of how this works around discrimination.
You should watch parts 1 and 2 on YouTube.
What were your thoughts?
PS Also here is the link to the Opinion in The Ticker on "Exclusive Diversity" at Baruch College published 9/24/07 by several editors on staff.
Originally posted 5/19/09 4:37 PM After we read Jeffrey Fish's essay on race in Brazil titled MIXED BLOOD in the Conformity & Conflict textbook (McCurdy & Spradley), you could be left thinking racism doesn't exist in Brazil. This video paints another picture.
Reality and Perception (from http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/001200.html)
People who say "perception is reality" should stop saying it. Perception is a reality, in the sense that it's something we have to deal with. But perception isn't reality itself. In fact, perception is often demonstrably false. {CHECK OUT OTHER PERCEPTIONAL TESTS}
OK, the following test works better if you hear these instructions rather than if you read these instructions.
That said, here's the test:
1. Look around the room you're in. 2. Now, close your eyes. 3. Answer this question: Is the room still there?
For the conversation of race, how do you describe/identify a diverse group of people without talking to them about their race/ethnicity? Does it mean anything that you describe them a certain way ultimately? How does our enculturated view of race shape our views or perceptions of race? Does it change and how when you learn that race was learned as a social construct?
The science of anthropology -- ethnography -- is not about getting rid of things. It's about assessing different views of life and comparing how we view life. You could come to the conclusion that ANYTHING is possible rather than things don't exist. I'll talk more about this the last day of class.
It's hard to see the world beyond ourselves. It's even harder to see the world beyond our clan, our country, our religion . . .
It's hard to see justice. It's easy for blind bigotry to backfire.
UNTIL WE DEVELOP THE NEEDED PERCEPTION, WE DO NOT "SEE."
"The more we learn and understand, the more we realize that most of the universe is, in fact, outside our understanding -- like most of the electromagnetic spectrum is outside our perception. Much -- and likely most -- of that "outsideness" is in ways, in dimensions, that we find hard or impossible to grasp (see falter points)." Might ethnography be essential to us?
Everytime instructors communicate, new concepts compete with preconceived ideas of the listeners. All students (in classrooms or of life) hold these ideas but they are unaware of their private theories or universes. Ethnography is a conduit to awareness (think Josh Klein's interviews in college). It is our job as enlightened beings to discover how to free ourselves from the private universe we were born into, raised in, taught by others and accepted as if the only or right truth or reality. An important conduit is not "knowing" but "not knowing" being willing to let go of being right or wrong.
By doing ethnography, you may discover we are all inventing taxonomies, rituals, and beliefs or myths we live by.
CURIOUS CONVERSATIONS OF RACE/RACISM Well we had a unpredictable conversation today. My intention was to as I said "push you off the edge" of the social construct of race/ethnicity or more importantly "difference" as if being different means something. Perhaps it means everything and nothing.
Today was an agree to be offended kind of conversation and I truly appreciate you being willing to stay in the conversation even when it was uncomfortable, confusing, or difficult to hear or talk about. Race, racism, are both social constructs but what do we need to really get about that to make a difference for our children's children and in what way? This conversation might be THE conversation of the semester for you. Maybe not. And if it isn't, it's all good. You'll pop anyhow. Promise!
PEOPLE ON THE MOVE: THE ROAD TO REFUGEE SETTLEMENT I didn't get to have a conversation about Thok in the Conformity & Conflict chapter on refugees in class today. So you should share any thoughts about that chapter. Share in regards to this question if you like:
QUESTION: How does Thok's story influence your views of U.S. immigration policies? or immigration policies in your home country?
“My parents were poor, and they never gave me to anyone,” Ms. Bail recalled. “I was not going to give my son to anyone either.”
There was a related article in NYT about refugees that is a must read. One of the other TED Fellows brought it to my attention serendipitously just after class today.
TED TALK: A VENTURE CAPITALIST FOR POVERTY I mentioned I wanted to share a TED talk related to the chapter.
This video was chosen inside the intention of having your POWERFULLY RELATED to what's possible of out the process of ethnography, out of the ethnographic method of participant-observation and interviewing.
Jacqueline Novogratz heads the venture-capitalist organization for poverty called THE ACUMEN FUND. Here's a short video about what the Acumen Fund is all about.
PLEASE WATCH the following clips (30 mins total) from the BBC documentary Racism: A History
NEW FEATURE: Indicate your reaction to the post at the bottom near the comment button.
1) Racism a History - The Colour of Money Part 1/6
2) Racism a History - The Colour of Money Part 2/6
3) Racism a History - The Colour of Money Part 3/6
PS: Remember this from early in the class. Puts religion and other concepts we studied in perspective as if now a retrospective of what you've now learned:
BONUS: "What we are" Dance Monkeys Dance by Ernest Cline - www.ernestcline.com
AGREE TO BE OFFENDED As many of you know, one of the things that matter to me is transforming the converations of race and racism not only in the US but in the world. This was how I began promoting the practice of AGREE TO BE OFFENDED (and stay in the conversation anyhow), which was a gift from a young Korean woman in a hip-hop class I taught at NYU in 2005. We got that people always take things personally and that the groundrule of agreeing to be offended allowed us to openly say so and stay connected. This allowed the possibility of transforming any barrier between people. I am playing to transform racism.
As a professor of anthropology and as a singer-songwriter, I can make a difference in practicing and sharing a new kind of courage and compassion for anothers' worldview. I can combat ethnocentrism by not being ethnocentric myself and inviting others to call me on my own if it surfaces. Most of us did not LEARN to have a capacity for all of humanity however it shows up, esp. when it does not conform to our worldview. Especially when my worldview, not theirs, leads to fear and hatred. It's my worldview I must be vigilant against not others. I've been noticing how fear impacts me not only around race/racism but in how often I hear the fear around this financial crisis. Even in parts of the world where there is NO money to be found, invested or stretched, humans beings have a remarkable spirit to survive and tolerate difference in times of war and poverty.
FEAR-MONGERING IN THE US ELECTION ColorofChange.org (Changing the Color of Democracy) has captured evidence of McCain and Palin race-baiting the issue of Obama being a terrorist at rallies and evidence that supporters at these McCain/Palin rallies have yelled "kill him,"1 "terrorist,"2 "traitor!"3 and "off with his head!"4 about Obama. There videos and other references to this evidence are listed below.
What I find most interesting is how the U.S. media is underreporting the actual evidence and only commenting on the possible race-baiting involved. Meanwhile the English version of the Arabic-language news network is breaking the news quite effectively in this video. Al-Jazeera English TV is the only independent Middle Eastern news outlet. featuring great background pieces and global reactions to current news. How ironic. This Islamaphobia that has invaded US whisper campaigns has many non-muslim or non-Arab citizens and immigrants unwilling to investigate the veracity of not only the claims against Obama but to insist our national media outlets and the McCain campaign stop this hate inciting speech among white working class Americans who fear Obama will make America 'black'.
FROM WIKIPEDIA: Al Jazeera (Arabic: الجزيرة, al-jazīrah, IPA: [aldʒaˈziːra], meaning "The Island," referring to their status as the only independent Middle Eastern news station[1], is a television network headquartered in Doha, Qatar. Initially launched as an Arabic news and current affairs satellite TV channel with the same name, Al Jazeera has since expanded into a network with several outlets, including the Internet and specialtyTV channels in multiple languages, and in several regions of the world.
American citizens have never have heard of AlJazeera before it broadcast Osama bin Laden's videos, and guilt by association, is not a democratic value. This video reveals aspects of American culture we rarely see on CBS, NBC, or ABC News soundbytes this election season. Thank godness for the Web 2.0 era where many alternative and even ordinary broadcasters can get the message out.
References
1. "Unleashed, Palin Makes a Pit Bull Look Tame," Washington Post, 10/07/08 http://tinyurl.com/3wmg4c
I noticed a few of you have been using the idea of a social construct a bit too generally. Here is the definition again:
A social construction (social construct) is a concept or practice which may appear to be natural and obvious to those who accept it, but in reality is an invention or artifact of a particular culture or society. Social constructs are generally understood to be the by-products (often unintended or unconscious) of countless human choices rather than laws resulting from divine will or nature.
People never see social constructs from an emic point of view. The insider never can see it. Like the fish never sees the water or humans never think about air. It's taken for granted. The etic view, the participant observer, the outsider (even insiders can become outsiders to their own culture from travel, migration, going away to college, etc.) the begin to see how people in a culture accept the invention as natural and obvious.
Anthropologists use interviewing inside of participant-observation to "expose the way in which a particular belief has been shaped by social forces" (Writes philosopher Paul A. Boghossian in WHAT IS SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION? philosophy.fas.nyu.edu/docs/IO/1153/socialconstruction.pdf).
For instance, how did we/you learn the belief that North is up. One social force impacting that view was colonialism by the British Empire. They created a view through maps emphasizing the upper parts where they were located in their emic view. Reading importance from top to bottom is a social construction. Not all cultures read and have their views correlated that way. Others are equally valid in seeing things differently. "Another society, differing from us only in their social values [their learned ways of thinking, feeling, believing and behaving], would have arrived at a different and incompatible belief [or view]." Boghossian writes further:
There are certainly many things, and facts about them, that are socially constructed in the sense ... : money, citizenship and newspapers, for example. None of these things could have existed without society [or enculturation and acculturation]; and each of them could have been constructed differently had we so chosen
If a belief of ours were shown to be socially constructed ... it would follow that we could abandon it without fear of irrationality [the earth is flat; Muslims are evil; carbohydrates are bad for you; noticing skin color causes racism]
[I]f we have the belief not because there is adequate evidence in its favor but because having it subserves some contingent social purpose [Muslims are evil], then if we happen not to share the social purpose it subserves we ought to be free to reject it.
Much important work has been done ... most significantly, it seems to me, [on the] topics of gender and race. Simone de Beauvoir (The Second Sex, 1953) and other feminist scholars since, have illuminated the extent to which gender roles are not inevitable but are rather the product of social forces. Anthony Appiah (Color Conscious: The Political Morality of Race, 1996, with Amy Gutman) has been particularly forceful in demonstrating that nothing physical or biological corresponds to the racial categories that play a pervasive role in our social lives, that these categories owe their existence more to their social function [stratification of resources and wealth affecting our views of who has wealth, power and prestige] than they do to the scientific evidence.
To clarify and be sure you are clear about what a social construct is, tell me what this says to you. How did you have the idea before reading this and how has it changed? If you get it, you can recreate it in your own words and even give an example back to me as if its yours.
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