Rebecca Skloot

Rebecca Skloot the author of, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, came to Fairmont State’s campus to share her story about writing the book.  As Rebecca talked you could tell the passion that she felt behind getting to know Henrietta and her kins and also helping them find the answers that they had been searching for.  I personally enjoyed this book a lot and it was nice to hear Rebecca’s story behind it.  She answered questions that people had and read from the book some.  Everyone who had read the book there seemed to find it very interesting.  Rebecca did an amazing job with this book.  I can’t wait to see the movie.  I’m someone who has lost people to this terrible disease and so I feel for this family.  I have luckily been able to get answers and understand better than the Lacks’ did, but it still doesn’t take the hurt away that we feel after losing a special person in our life.  I hope that they can continue to find cures and I think that Henrietta will continue to help them with not only studying cancer, but other diseases as well.  I want to thank my teachers for picking such an awesome book for us to read and Fairmont State for allowing Rebecca to come here and share her memories. 

Soul Plane

                              

In our last class we watched a movie called “Soul Plane.”  This movie had all blacks flying on a plane except for one white family.  The last name of the white family was Hunkee and this name was used to describe how white people were portrayed.  The Hunkee family, with apprehension, allowed their little boy to dress and act like the black people they were around.  You realize that as everyone began to get on the plane that the Hunkee family felt uncomfortable especially the dad’s girlfriend.  Also the airplane was not your typical plane as it was purple and had a big bar.  Snoop Dogg, Captain Mack, was the pilot. The plane consisted of funky music, sexy stewardesses, a dance club, and a bathroom attendant.  When the flight began, it took flying to a whole new meaning!  As you watched the movie further, it showed a few surprising spins on how the passengers acted and the things that they did, but it didn’t take too long before you realized that everyone was having fun! This definitely wouldn’t have been an ordinary flight for any of us.  I’m sure most of us would compare it to something like a dream or maybe even a nightmare! 

Bamboozled

We watched the movie,” Bamboozled” which is an angry satire.  It pretty much asks that the audience forget the offensive and disturbing context that is being displayed.  Pierre Delacroix, the one black man working for CNS television show, has come up with dozens of ideas for television shows that involve black characters.  His ideas were always turned down so he figured if he couldn’t join the television industry he might as well beat them at their own game.  Pierre came up with the idea for an extremely offensive show. It uses story lines such as two black men hiding in the chicken coop looking for food with a white farmer outside with his gun, plus to the way they talked about themselves and their kin. The show took off and the audiences enjoyed being able to relate to the inside humor.  As you keep watching you never suspect that the ending will take a turn for the worst.  It ends with kidnapping, violence, and bloodshed all because some people didn’t enjoy the humor.  They took offense to the fact that their race was being made fun of. Since race is still such a sensitive topic in certain parts of our society, no one is trying to touch the topic and create a new, angry, satire episode.  After watching this movie, I’m really glad that they aren’t!

Power Point Presentations

In our last class we presented our Power Points and learned about certain individuals that we had been assigned to study.  Everyone provided the class with some remarkable information and I feel like we all learned a lot about why these people were so important for us to study.  I really enjoyed everyone’s Power Point and being given information about some truly amazing people.  It was interesting to see how race played a big part when it came to the people achieving their goals and the obstacles they had to overcome to accomplish the things they did.  We were informed about their history and about their families as we learned about an Olympic athlete, chiefs of a tribe, an artist, and many other outstanding people.  After the presentations were over, I realized each person was different, but yet they each had something in common with the other individuals that were studied.  The person I researched was David Ho.  Not only was he known for creating some great and very different art work, but he also helped with the research of AIDS.  While doing my research, I found myself wanting to learn more and more about David Ho as he is truly one interesting and amazing individual.  

David Ho

In our last class we were talking about race and how it affects our society.  We probably did not realize it, but we all passed judgment fairly easily when we made our baskets for different races in class.  A lot of people related food items, clothes, etc. to people because of their race.  The class was then split into partners.  We were assigned certain people to research and make a PowerPoint to present in class.  My partner, Kristen, and I were given a man named David Ho.  Little did we know when we started looking for information on Ho just how interesting the facts would be about him.  Among all the things Ho has done, we learned that in 1996, he was named “Man of the Year” in Time Magazine.  Ho received this honor because of his breakthrough treatment of AIDS.  He was also well known for his art work.  Looking through pictures of his art work was probably one of my favorite things about this project.  They’re very interesting and he seems to use a lot of different faces to express his artwork.  I’ve enjoyed reading different articles about him and learning about his life as well.  From what we’ve found in our research, Ho seems like a really well rounded man in many areas.  I’m excited to learn about the people that the rest of the class has been researching!

Diversity in Media

In our last class, we worked in groups to search the internet to see if we could find examples of diversity in media.  It was easy to recognize that each member of my group found it easy to add in their own ideas as we were surfing the net.  My group and I not only looked for different examples of television shows, but we also searched for pictures showing diversity.  While looking at the pictures, we found they helped us to better understand how diversely gender is portrayed in media.  Some of the examples we found were of men and women with perfectly formed bodies.  Their appearances even followed current fashion trends such as hairstyles, makeup, and clothing.  We also talked about some of the diverse television shows and movies we have watched that show examples of diversity.  There was one episode of “Fresh Prince of Bel Air, I remember watching when Will and Carlton were accused of stealing the car they were driving because of their race.  This was a false accusation, but very common for Will since he was raised in a lower class society.  Carlton, on the other hand, believed the cop was only trying to do his job, but then realized after talking to his dad that Will was right about the situation really dealing with their race.  After watching that episode, it made me think about how common it is for people to be judged by their race, class, or gender not only in our society, but in the media.

The Longest Yard

We watched a segment of the movie, The Longest Yard, in class.  It displayed masculine characteristics throughout the movie by using items such as cars, a football game, and an all-male prison.  Even the soundtrack was very masculine.  The inmates were separated into groups by race and crime.  Most of the inmates found the need to act rough and tough to make people fear them, but the guards always appeared to have the upper hand.  The male guards would bully the inmates to make sure they knew who was in charge.  The guards and inmates were going to play a football game against each other.  Paul Crew, coach of the inmates, was trying to recruit inmates to play on his team.  Once the inmates found out they would be playing against the guards, they all wanted to play.  Since some of the inmates had certain guards they did not like, they thought the game would be the perfect opportunity to get even with the guards.  As you watched the inmates practice, you realized that some of them were very athletic while others didn’t seem to have any athletic ability at all.  As a female, it was easy for me to notice the masculine characteristics that the characters used in the movie.  A lot of them displayed these characteristics through the things they said or the way they talked, their body language, and how they acted towards others.

Midterm Exam

In our class before spring break we had our midterm exam.  On our exam we had to know the basic understanding of vocabulary and how we could apply the words to examples.  I thought that this was an interesting way to give us an exam because as a psychology major I like to apply things.  I enjoy doing work that makes me think especially when it comes to people acting, feeling, and thinking a certain way.  This is not how I expected our midterm exam to be so some parts were a little difficult.  We had two parts to our midterm and the second one consisted of watching an episode of NCIS and writing down examples of the gender and class.  I found it easy to find examples of these since we have been studying them both a great deal this semester.  We could also write about the race of the characters if we saw any that stood out to us because we have also covered that a little bit as well.  I enjoy criminal justice shows and trying to figure out the crime scene myself.  This has always been an interest of mine so I would have to say that this was by far my favorite part of the test. 

The Women

In our last class we watched the movie “The Women.”  The movie was interesting to me because throughout the whole film you never once saw a man.  You hear the women speak of men, but we never get to actually meet who they are talking about.  This movie is big on expressing feminine gender.  I found the movie easy to relate to because I’ve either reacted like they did to something or I’ve known someone who has reacted like the women.  I thought this movie did a good job on pinpointing how women stand up and protect their friends.  The way the writer of this movie made the characters act was very similar to how a lot of women act in today’s society.  In the movie, we learn that a woman named Mary Haines was being cheated on by her husband, Steven.  I thought this was almost a stereotype to the male gender.  It was pretty much saying that if a rich man sees a pretty, young girl, he will flaunt his money to try to get her attention.  Mary found out about his affair through gossip from the woman who was doing her nails.  I believe when this movie was being produced, it was definitely being directed towards a female audience. 

Gender

In our last class we talked about gender.  Gender is defined as how you associate yourself with being male or female.  It has two primary aspects, identity and performance.  Gender identity is based on individual self concept of their sex role.  The performance side of gender is based on perception.  Your gender identity is not tied to a person’s sex and can result in transgenderism, where gender performance is often a mix between masculine and feminine performances.  After we learned the difference between gender identity and gender performances, we were asked as a class if we were competitive.  Many of my classmates raised their hands, including girls.  We were told by our teacher that being competitive is a masculine trait.  It is common for females to have masculine traits and males to have feminine traits.  The difference is that we have these traits only for certain things such as competitiveness.   I found the gender learning in this class to be not only interesting, but familiar to me because I have learned about this in one of my other psychology classes.  Since I am working on getting my major in psychology, this is important for me to understand gender identity and performance.  I want to work with children so I definitely want to learn more about them.

Veronica Mars

In our last class we watched an episode of Veronica Mars.  We were able to take notes on certain items from the movie that seemed important such as race, class, and gender.  There were a few examples that stuck out to all of us.  When we went into our groups to compare what we had written down, my group had a lot of the same ideas about what we had watched.  We all talked about the school situation where Veronica said, “If you go there you’re a millionaire or your parents work for millionaires.” This was the first episode that I had ever watched of Veronica Mars, but it was easy to see the type of society of which she was a part.  It took no time to figure out that she was a member of the lower class.  It showed how Veronica tried to fit into the popular crowd by attending parties, but she learned that she should not try to push her way in since she was not popular.  Veronica went to another party, only to have “roofies” put in her drink, and then was raped.  I guess this was the popular group’s way of telling her that she wasn’t welcome in their group. Veronica moved on with her life by helping her father investigate.  Veronica was well known by her teachers and fellow students for trouble always following her.  I thought that watching Veronica Mars was another great way for our class to compare and think about what social class really means.

Upper Class, Middle Class, and Lower Class -- Which one are you?

In our class we have been discussing the three different social classes:  upper class, middle class, and lower class, plus defining the characteristics of each class.  In the upper class, people are secretive and concerned about legacies—preserving things from the past for the future.  In the middle social class, the members like to strive for the future.  Lower class members focus on survival and are not able to do much planning for the future.  To help everyone have a better understanding about the three social classes and their stereotypes, we did an activity within our groups.  I was in the middle class group.  We each had the opportunity to say what things from everyday life that would remind us of these social groups.  I was not surprised to see what people wrote.  It makes me sad to think we use words to define people.  Just because someone is in a certain class does not make them better or less than others who may be in a different social class.  I believe everyone is an individual and are deserving of the same rights as others.  But with the way our society is today, I do not think that will ever happen because we’re all judged by what we have and how we were able to get it.  Even though people try to prove themselves to others, who are we to judge?  We really do not know the actual circumstances or situations of others.  As we know, sometimes things are not really as they seem.  Also, I do not feel as if I am better than anyone else, but I do know that I am a hardworking individual with lots of goals for my life.  I think people need to be who they are and not strive to be something they are not! 

Social Class

The business dictionary defines social class as the status hierarchy in which individuals and groups are classified on the basis of esteem and prestige, acquired mainly through economic success and accumulation of wealth.  The four most common classes are upper class, middle class, working class, and lower class.  Class is composed of three elements: property, prestige, and power.  Property is what you own and how you get it.  Prestige is the level of respect you have within your community.  Power is the control that you have over others.  When there’s a combination of all three of these things, there is guaranteed to be a social class.  Most of us started out learning about social class through high school and a lot of it was learned the hard way.  If you didn’t have a lot of money or play a sport, you weren’t the most popular or even in the popular crowd.  This can have an effect on kids.  Some people will be friends when they are younger and then as they get older they start to “lose touch” because one becomes more successful than the other.  It can be a hard adjustment for the person who doesn’t have the social status.  I dealt with this with my transition through grade school to middle school.  My best friend, Cassie, and I were what you would call “attached at the hip” and when we went to middle school, she continued cheering and I didn’t.  I was left out because she always hung out with cheerleaders.  Being upset over losing my best friend, I approached my mom about the matter and she told me to make a list of the most popular girls and we would put away until I graduated.  On graduation day, we pulled out the list and I realized I was friends with every one of those girls.  I’ve learned not to judge people and just because you think someone is better than you, it doesn’t mean they really are. 

The American Dream

What do you think about the “American Dream” and how it is defined from a cultural point of view?  As discussed in class, the American dream is having your own home with a white picket fence, being married with children, possibly owning a pet, driving a nice, reliable car, and working a steady job.  Most of us are trying to achieve this dream.  We are taking the first step by trying to get a college education.  Most of us will have a huge financial obligation to repay after graduation even before finding a job or a place to live.  Also, if you have not found a partner you want to create a future with than more than likely that will be one of your goals after college.  Hopefully, you have met a mate in college or will meet “the love of your life” soon after beginning your career.  Once married and both with financially secure jobs, you can continue your American dream by starting a family. Unfortunately, the American dream is changing and it is not hard to see especially when you visit certain places.  All you have to do is look around at neighborhoods and see town houses or housing complexes with homes designed the same way.  Everyone seems to be striving for what everyone else has or at least something similar.  We are so used to our world being like this that sometimes we forget being different is not always such a bad thing.  What is so wrong with having your own life, being your own person or having a family?