TED TALK: Actress Sarah Jones transforms blackness into elderly Jew & fast-talking DR

See Homework post below on RACISM: A HISTORY.

I am delighted to share one of my most favorite TED TALKS from the Long Beach conference. Sarah Jones is a locally-born actress, a Broadway star, and she won a major battle against the FCC over language in a hip-hop critique based on her poem THIS REVOLUTION.

Chapter 5: Making A Living (Subsistence and A Brief History of Mankind)

One of the professors who inspires my teaching is Prof. Mike Wesch at KSU (National Teacher of the Year). I love his cultural anthro syllabus and the intention of his course:

Cultural Anthropology explores different cultures in all of their manifestations - from how people make a living to what people live for. In an increasingly interconnected world, cultural differences lie at the root of many of our most pressing challenges, throughout the world and in our own personal lives. There has never been a time when Cultural Anthropology has been more important than it is right now.

Subsistence.

• minimal (or marginal) resources for subsisting; "social security provided only a bare subsistence"
• a means of surviving; "farming is a hard means of subsistence"
• the state of existing in reality; having substance http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
• The means of living; obtaining food and shelter necessary to support life; everything that is done to "make a living" resweb.llu.edu/rford/docs/VGD/GSLVT/gslglossary.html

Last week you read about culture. This week about making a living.

Chapter 5 - Making a Living seems rather dry and uninteresting to most students. However, this chapter begins to explain the history of mankind through five adaptive strategies used to subsist, to survive, to ... make a living. It is useful to know these strategies, which are still part of modern culture in some places. These strategies help us distinguish between the ways humans in the past and the present organized into groups that shape our the shared, learned, symbolic and integrated culture we live by as well as reflect adaptive and maladaptive approaches to our survival.

This chapter will also help you understand the documentary The Corporation (which we will watch) that explores the nature and spectacular rise of the dominant institution of our time that rose out of industrialization. "Taking its [the corporation's] status as a legal "person" to the logical conclusion, the film puts the corporation on the psychiatrist's couch to ask 'What kind of person is it?' " As we look at the forms of reciprocity that are common in each adaptive strategy, the example of corporations reflect the tensions of balanced and negative reciprocity.


YOUR COMMENTS THIS WEEK: Rather than quoting the chapter this week, write a 1-3 sentences responding to the (1) video above IF THE WORLD WE A VILLAGE as well as the (2) videos below on the Kwakiutl potlatch which was once outlawed by the government in British Columbia.

Taimoor's Rap

Ok here's the situation.That girl right there just gave her explanation.Now its upto me to tell you how,The different band societies work now.Ranging from thirty to fifty people,With no individual property ownership,These nomadic populations of food collectorsBased their bands on blood and kinship.They place high values on sharing and reciprocity.Probably the oldest because they're associated with forging technology.They handle their disputes with direct negotiation,So they can get along well with the population.Highly egalitarian, they had few differences of wealth,And took care of each other in really bad health.The people in the bands had little role specialization,Just like the fact that they had the same traditions.And because of the same traditions they had the same culture.And that same culture incorporated their good future.And then there was this band who spoke its own language.But it didn't matter to them as they all understood about it.And all the band members were independent of each other,So they could live in peace and harmony with their prodigal brother.And lastly there was this man from Kalahari.He was the headman of the tribe Ju/'hari.He carried his load on his own two shoulders,And its not because his heart wasn't colder.It just wasn't his culture to take favors,No matter how hard were his endeavors.His leadership role was very informal.It stemmed not from spiritual or physical powerbut based on his wisdom and being novel.So for all you people from distant landsI give you ma' brother Nick, i hope you understand....

Nick's Rap on Political Systems (Chap 7)

Many years ago Elma Service was born.....Poly organo was finally formed......That means political organization......Four types of levels covered the nations.......You had the bands, the tribes, the chiefdoms, and the state......Sayin' which ones best would start a debate......I'm only rappin' to layout the facts.....And get your brain cruisin' on the educated tracks......The man in charge of the tribe was the village head......But they didn't always listen to what he said....The big man was the boss of New Guinea......He was also known as tonowi.......Regulator of regional organization.....Expansion in the scale of Sociopolitical Regulation