Me, My Race, and I: The Elephant In the Room

The slideshow that resonated with me was called "The Elephant in the Room." It focused mainly on how Caucasians handle being in the power position in our society. One white man that spoke in the slideshow said "As much as i can try to put myself in someone else's shoes, I'm still a white guy." This statement sparked a lot of thought in my head. I understand what this man was saying because even though I like to think that I understand what black people go through, I know that I can never truly know what it feels like to be in a minority group. The slide show taught me that feeling guilt because I am a white girl and have some advantages that a black girl may not have is not the right way to handle my position. Rather than guilt, the emotion that I should feel is righteous anger. So many people, both black and white, would like to change this aspect of our society, they just don't know how to go about it. As they said in the video, we have to be proactive and put our righteous anger to good use.

Q: What did you learn? A: After watching part four and five of "A Class Divided" I learned that that even adults can be susceptible to Jane Elliott's experiment. Prejudice is not bound by age and it is clear that everyone can stand to learn a little about how difficult it is to be discriminated against. Q: What scene or scenes do you think you'll still remember a month from now and why those scenes? A: I think that I will remember the scene from part four when the blue-eyed woman lashed out at Jane Elliott. It showed me how extreme a person's reaction can be to discrimination in such a short time. This woman was was discriminated against for a few hours while minorities are discriminated against their entire lives; it put things into perspective for me. Q: Did any part of the film surprise you? Do you think someone of a different race, ethnicity, or religion would also find it surprising? A: I was surprised by the scene I mentioned in the last question. I did think that the experiment would work but I was surprised to see how angry the blue-eyed woman was, even as an adult. I think that the scene wouldn't be as surprising to someone who is part of a minority group because they have felt the same frustrations as the blue-eyed woman who acted out. To someone of a different race, ethnicity, or religion this type of reaction would probably be expected.

Narrowing it Down

For my project I will be conducting archival research about how the economy is connected to violent crime rates. In looking for statistics some reliable sources that I might use include the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the Police Executive Research Forum, University publications and the census. After collecting and analyzing the necessary data I will be able to prove or disprove my thesis that the economy is connected to violent crime rates. I will organize my information in a power point presentation and present to the class in January. I am looking forward to finding out more about this topic and hope that my project turns out to be very interesting.

Quarter 2 Presentation Topic

For quarter 2 my Violent Crime presentation will focus on how the recession has effected crime rates. I will be conducting archival research on my topic. Several of my quarter 1 blog posts have had to do with the economy's effect on crime and I am interested in researching further.

In this cartoon, a gunned criminal is trying to mug a seemingly wealthy man. The caption says "You're too late." Noting the news headlines in the background, I realized that the cartoon is implying that because of the current economic crisis, he has no money for the criminal to steal. I thought this cartoon was interesting because previous articles I have posted have shown that many people expected crime rates to increase because of the bad economy. Not many people understand why it has decreased, more people are short on money so one would assume that more people would be attempting to steal money. This cartoon made me wonder, are crime rates down because nobody has any money to steal? I look forward to researching this further and posting more about what other people think.

How my project is going...

While researching my topic (violent crime and the economy) I came across a factor that I hadn't even considered when thinking about how the economy could be connected to crime. I read in a publication by a police department that as a result of the recession funding was cut for many police departments. One policeman said that the community suffers when they don't have the money they need to do their job adequately. I thought this was very interesting and wonder how it will tie into my finished project. I guess we'll see...

Police Shooting in Anaheim Leads to Violent Clash

An officer involved shooting in Anaheim prompted angry citizens to protest. Things got so messy that officers had to release a canine on the citizens and shot rubber bullets in order to calm the crowd. This video is a strong contrast to my previous posts where I have stated that violent crimes are down in the U.S. While as a country our crime rates may be low, it is important to keep in mind that violence in our smaller regions may be getting out of hand. Citizen gets violent-officer allegedly shoots citizen-citizens become outraged and become violent-officers get violent to calm the citizens. Crime is bouncing back and forth and while they may be at the lowest rate we've seen in years, they are still evident.