The Dangers of a Single Story (Affective Reading)

What is the video about?

The video is about a lady, Chimamanda Ardichie, speaking about her life as a black women. She speaks about her early years and explaining the books that she used to read. The books came from England and as a child she thought and wrote stories with white people with blue eyes, even though in her world white people were a minority. This was one of her examples of a single story.  She continues to speak about going to university and her roommate expecting she didn’t understand English and thought Ardichie had “tribal” music. Her roommate had a single story of what Nigerians were, expecting them as poor people who dont speak any English. Her speech really makes it easy to understand all the single stories that people have for other people and race based on where each person is located in the world and the little information we get about each culture.

How do we feel about the video?

I feel the video is a wonderful statement that really opened my eyes to what I think about people and ways to change my thinking. I feel as if people are unintentionally led to believe a certain way about different cultures just based on the media and are inaccurate knowledge of different places in the world.

What do we think about the video?

I think if more people viewed this video and listened to what Adichie had to say, then more people would be open about understanding different culture and would steer away from believing a single story. I believe that most people are naive and when one thing is said it is automatically taken as truth.

What do we believe about the video?

I believe that Adichie accurately judges people and cultures for who and what they are. She seems to take things said with a grain of salt and give every story a chance. I believe that if more people in our world had this attitude, then racist comments would be said less, sexism wouldn’t exist and “minorities” wouldn’t be singled out but people would be interested in listening and understanding that they are people as we all are.

What do we know about what we finished viewing?

I know after viewing this video that I am motivated to keep in mind that their are many single stories and not everything that it seems is how it necessarily is.

Welfare Queens Video (Dialectic Reading)

Questions the video raised	How did the video answer these questions?	How does the answer match our own ideas and experiences?
Does the welfare tax actually help people out of debt?	The video explained that the tax actually creates a dependency upon the poor and in the end they dont poll up their socks and get a job yet live paycheck to paycheck and still end up being poor. The video makes the tax seem to be immoral and a waste of hard working people’s money.	I do agree with the video in the aspect if I was granted enough money to live on each month without working, I would defiantly be less motivated to find a job than if I was not getting any money. I find the welfare tax almost too good to be true for the poor and it seems to promote more of a lazy lifestyle.
Is there money granted for each kid in a family?	The video explains how people exploit the system by having several kids to gain more interest through working people’s taxes. Although this is not technically a crime, the act is immoral and explains how some actions are to be regulated which would make society more responsible.	I think that the system should defiantly be regulated. The video didn’t explain if the new system has different laws of how many children apply for the tax, although I couldn’t imagine it would be endless amounts of people.  I think instead of giving money from to the poor, instead it would be more beneficial to pay for grocery items, money directed for rent and insurance, to make sure the money is going towards a good cause.

Zimbardo Stanford Country Prison Video (Affective Reading)

What is the video about?

The video is about an experiment tested by Zimbardo to analyze how people change when given power or higher authority. His experiment took place at Stanford in a prison environment. Two groups of people were divided; the inmates and the prison guards. Zimbardo let the guards order the inmates around and by doing this he noticed that because of the situation the guards were put in, their personalities changed to controlling almost evil. The test subjects unintentionally separated into almost “classes” where guards would refuse to talk to inmates kindly because of their power granted.

How do we feel about the video?

I find the video very interesting and feel that Zimbardo has depicted how life is in many cases. For example, people with money likely act a certain way because of social status versus someone with little money. Status and power are a main factor of people’s personalities.

What do we think about the video?

I think the video and the experiment is well done and defiantly has established how much effect a role has on people. I find that in society a role is one of the main factors to how someones personality unfolds.

What do we believe about the video?

I believe that if the experiment would have gone the full 14 days that was initially planned, then extreme crisis would have broke out amongst the people. Also I believe that the experiment had many factors that might have changed the results, one of them was the fact that the people were getting paid daily to participate. Also the sample of people was quit biased because Zimbardo chose mostly white, middle-class men to participate in the study. I believed that if the study was re-conducted without paid rates and with a variety of race, sex in the sample maybe the results would be less extreme.

What do we know about what we finished viewing?

I know after watching the video and from experience in my life that a situation when someone is given power does change a person. also when someone is placed in a situation when little power of decision making is granted, the person feels as if there is a loss of control in their lives and their personality reflects such feelings.

Appendix: Who Will Liberate Liberia? (Dielectic Reading)

Questions the text raised	How did the text answer these questions?	How does the answer match our own ideas and experiences?
Does Bush care about people in the US?	The text explained how Bush has spent 4 billion dollars on trying to win a war instead of looking at the real problems in the US, people without jobs, or even problems in the world like hunger, homeless, and disease. The amount of money that he has spent has created even more hunger and disease throughout the world. Therefore, no, bush has doesn’t care for people in the US.	I completely agree that the world could have benefited from 4 billion dollars. Its very unfortunate to think that people are being killed and yet the US is investing money to put so many people’s lives in jeopardy. Bush has shown he doesn’t care about the people, yet defeat is the only thing he has on his mind.
Did Bush create a never ending battle?	Unfortunately Bush has created an untactful way to try and “get even”. War creates more anger and although Bush is willing to pay any price for peace, he is the one who created the most havoc. The war has deprived the country of many things that Bush once guaranteed when being elected. The death that has been caused because of Bush will affect people for decades.	At the time when the war started I lived in Oregon and on the news it was a frequent event to see families killed in Iraq. Those families are now effected by Bush until they day they die. The war he created is not only the obvious but also madness and hurt within families.

Appendix: The Phantom of the Race (Paraphrastic Reading)

The article begins with pointing out what racism is to the author and the pointlessness that racism creates in society. Race is explained as an adaption to different weather condition which in exchange has made different looking people. Logically it doesn’t make sense to categorize those from different climates therefore racism is explained as a “modern invention” , it is society that gave birth to what we consider the “black man” and “the white man”. The white man has always been the yardstick since race has started. Although whites have always seemed to be superior, racism has changed in the twenty-first century, yet not necessarily for better.  Racism is created by people and if peace was created by people instead, racism would not exist. The author explains that because humans did make racism they can also unmake it.

Quote:

“Racism, as has been amply shown, a human invention. While I agree that combating racism is an uphill task, I insist we made it and we can unmake it. It took more than three centuries and a civil war, millions of lost lives and limbs to cure America of its virulent addiction-slavery. One should have no illusion that the slaying beast of racism, the child of slavery, will be even more difficult. Yes, fighting racism in the 21st century will be a Herculean task, but not an impossible mission.”

Paraphrase:

Racism is purely from humans, it is not biological yet socially it has manifested into the problem today. Unfortunately racism has taken on a life of its own from years of building, therefore indeed it will be a challenge to demolish racism, yet it is not impossible.

 

Appendix: Negotiation, Not Retribution (Paraphrastic Reading)

Summery

The reading starts off by introducing the fact that several innocent people were killed on September 11th.  It focuses on the world as a whole and innocent people being hurt and killed because of war and conflict among countries. These deaths are explained to take place because of direct and indirect events happening around the world because of greed. Several problems have developed from carelessness and oblivion towards the rich nations and poverty and also the United states in general have ignored the gap between the wealthy and poor. A point was made that if Osama Bin Laden had planned the attacks then he would have used the training of  the US military  to attack. The US has neglected to have apathy.

Quote

“As United states launches its open-ended attack on global terrorism, the West should not be oblivious to the ever-widening chasm between the rich and the poor nations, between the “haves” and the “have-nots” in their own backyards. Playing the ostrich may have even more devastating consequences. Several years ago, Lod Pamelson reminded us that in politics there are only permanent interests. not permanent friends Osama bin Laden, if indeed he master-minded the September 11th attacks, was courted, trained and armed by the US to kill Russian soldiers and Afgans, including mothers and their children in order to “roll back” the “Evil Empire.” Today, he is the devil incarnate.”

The US seems to act oblivious to the fact that they are going to war with countries that are of less money than them. The US military seem to act oblivious to that fact that they opened an attack on the poor nations. In politics there are no permanent friends, its about a permanent interest that people are willing to break ties to get ahead and accomplish a goal. Therefore, it was the US that trained Osama bin Laden to be armed to kill other soldiers and yet he is the one made out to be the devil. The US were made to look like “the good guys” when in reality, they are almost part of the reason certain unfortunate events have taken place.

I captured this section of the reading because it strongly conveys a message that we are only as strong as our weakest link. It puts into perspective how nations do step on toes to get ahead and unfortunate events that take place because of little thought and planning.

Appendix: September 11: Forgiviness Is Not Part Of The Lessons Learned (Affective Reading)

The Appendix begins with an article explaining the attacks on 911 and how George Bush decided to deal with the circumstances.Forgiveness is a key term explained in the reading, yet it seems that George Bush never forgave but instead put most of his efforts on getting even. It explains that Westerners often don’t understand how to “forgive and forget” and yet we have little to forget compared to non-westerners. Non-westerners have went through several events  that are expected to be forgotten , like slave trade, although its double standards when it comes to 911 and Western events.

I feel the reading is an accurate description of how many people look at 911 and Bush’s bold decisions. At the time of Bush being elected I was living in Oregon and Bush seemed to have so many  followers. It is such a parallel to see how many people despise his actions and even in Canada the amount of people that relate Bush’s name with negative thoughts.

I think that to forgive and forget is a hard concept to be comfortable with. Naturally people have an urge to get even “eye for an eye” yet analyzing a situation and sometimes forgetting it does seem to go farther than getting even.

I believe this reading in particular does focus on different problems that maybe most people haven’t even noticed. For one, Westerners seem to be focused on themselves and maybe have never put non-westerners into perspective of how they deal with world crisis. I believe and I think many others would agree, if people thought of the world as a whole instead of separate groups, than less excuses would be made based on culture and people would be more understanding in general.

I know that this article has opened up my eyes as a westerner to understand all sides of the spectrum. Forgiveness is hard but it is something that all cultures should have learned by now.