Comment I
Comment II
Monday, September 19, 2011
The Media as a Mode of Cultural Hegemony (III)
Considering most of the negativity that is tied to the media, specifically in the U.S., I did not find this video too shocking, though I would probably be blown away if instances like this were not in the media. The media is very essential in collaboration with politics and power, as it is key in establishing and maintaining a certain cultural hegemony here in the United States. As a political science minor, it was interesting to read Clark and Ivanic, and compare their theories on hegemony to my Marxist readings on cultural hegemony by Italian philosopher, Antonio Gramsci.
The news company in this particular scenario obviously used various audio and video technologies to alter the original interview of the little boy. In my opinion, I think it is clear that the media in the U.S. has strategically portrayed young African-American males as hostile, bestial and maniacal. Given the size and location of this particular news company that produced the footage, they definitely committed this falsehood for promotion and to increase the number of viewers business-wise. Though again, we have a scenario where the media and other polities are benefiting off of the backs of the lower socio-economic class citizens, and the minority races, with Blacks constantly present in the lower strata. This is one of the corrupt features present in the United States. This kind of socio-economic corruption in the media, in its systemic form, has robbed present and succeeding generations the opportunity to thread history, information and knowledge that is factual. Through this kind of information manipulation, truths are mixed with lies, and these falsehoods are broadcasted to portray "some" as inferior as "others".
If I were to write my version of this story, I think it would be important to broadcast to the viewers, a story that would highlight the issue of a loose gunman running about in those two Chicago southside neighborhoods. I think it would have been important to denote a safety issue, and that families should be alarmed about their children and their whereabouts, and how they can stay safe. I think it is very important to be truthful in anything that is said or done, and such media should be a service to the people, not a tool used to socially debilitate a certain people.
The news company in this particular scenario obviously used various audio and video technologies to alter the original interview of the little boy. In my opinion, I think it is clear that the media in the U.S. has strategically portrayed young African-American males as hostile, bestial and maniacal. Given the size and location of this particular news company that produced the footage, they definitely committed this falsehood for promotion and to increase the number of viewers business-wise. Though again, we have a scenario where the media and other polities are benefiting off of the backs of the lower socio-economic class citizens, and the minority races, with Blacks constantly present in the lower strata. This is one of the corrupt features present in the United States. This kind of socio-economic corruption in the media, in its systemic form, has robbed present and succeeding generations the opportunity to thread history, information and knowledge that is factual. Through this kind of information manipulation, truths are mixed with lies, and these falsehoods are broadcasted to portray "some" as inferior as "others".
If I were to write my version of this story, I think it would be important to broadcast to the viewers, a story that would highlight the issue of a loose gunman running about in those two Chicago southside neighborhoods. I think it would have been important to denote a safety issue, and that families should be alarmed about their children and their whereabouts, and how they can stay safe. I think it is very important to be truthful in anything that is said or done, and such media should be a service to the people, not a tool used to socially debilitate a certain people.
Die Arbeit (II)
I perceive work to be the mental or physical activity needed to accomplish a set goal. Working is done to achieve a certain purpose. Frederick Douglas, a 19th century statesman, orator, and writer once stated, "If there is no struggle, there is no progress". I have always believed that any work involves a conscious and physical effort to achieve a set goal or result.
I would say that there are always two kinds of work that is done. There is the collective work for the benefit of the group, and work that is done for self-advancement. One of the first kinds of work I ever committed was, of course, chores at home as a young child. Keeping my room clean, or washing dishes were some of the basic kinds of work I did, but as a youngster, I never really understood why I had to do it so often because I did not have my eye on the "end result", or rather, what I was achieving by doing these things. With everyone doing certain tasks in my household, it simply benefited everyone, and we could live in a clean and well-kept home, because a home without some sort of structure and cleanliness provides for another array of issues. The more individualistic kind of work is of course, work I did for money, so I could have it to waste on movies, eating out, buying cool gadgets, video games and music, etcetera, spending time with friends on weekends. That of course, morphs into working for other things like paying rent and bills, and money to travel, and invest in various ways as a young adult. Work committed in school and at college is done to achieve good grades that will allow you to move onto higher levels of education, but I have always worked in school to satisfy my urge to learning more and more about the world around me, and my personal want to be recognized as an intellectual.
Work is not something I was always excited about. Whether I was flipping burger patties at Burger King, or writing a 20 page paper on a certain topic for class, I was never thrilled, and just wanted the shift to be done, or fast forward time to the point where I am concluding the paper. Though, while still in college, thinking of my future, I would like to have a work that I will not despise and have to bear to earn a living. My nightmare is to wake up at six a.m. to be in someone's office by 8 a.m. to work 40 or more hours a week to have nothing I can call my own in life. I do not want to work for years, and not have any assets or any real capital that I can give off to further generations in my family, and pray that my pension is still there by the time I retire. That is the brief image of work that appears in my mind when I take time to think of it. It is unfortunately a negative impression, and that is because most of the people I know hate what they do to earn a living, but learn to deal with it. This has caused me to "work" towards an adult life that will allow me to enjoy the work that I do to enjoy a lifestyle that I would like to live, though there will always been different kinds of work associated with even a great job, that I will not be eager to do.
When I think about the term "work", it itself does not set off another network of ideas or objects, as Lakeoff proposes, but it brings on impressions and memories tied to the work that I know and have experienced. I may think about my high school days, working for Burger King, because it was the worst kind of work I had ever done. I tend to think about people I know who come home from work, already stressing about the next day because they hate what they do. Then, there are more positive impressions I receive, thinking about working as a DJ or photographer, earning money doing the things that I love to do, but in those instances where I'm earning money, those passions are considered work, by definition. With this being said, I like to develop more positive thoughts about work, because I don't think that a work should cause any limits or problems for an individual, but it should be a process of diligence that would allow someone to truly benefit from that work that they are doing. There should be a return on that physical or mental investment of time.
I would say that there are always two kinds of work that is done. There is the collective work for the benefit of the group, and work that is done for self-advancement. One of the first kinds of work I ever committed was, of course, chores at home as a young child. Keeping my room clean, or washing dishes were some of the basic kinds of work I did, but as a youngster, I never really understood why I had to do it so often because I did not have my eye on the "end result", or rather, what I was achieving by doing these things. With everyone doing certain tasks in my household, it simply benefited everyone, and we could live in a clean and well-kept home, because a home without some sort of structure and cleanliness provides for another array of issues. The more individualistic kind of work is of course, work I did for money, so I could have it to waste on movies, eating out, buying cool gadgets, video games and music, etcetera, spending time with friends on weekends. That of course, morphs into working for other things like paying rent and bills, and money to travel, and invest in various ways as a young adult. Work committed in school and at college is done to achieve good grades that will allow you to move onto higher levels of education, but I have always worked in school to satisfy my urge to learning more and more about the world around me, and my personal want to be recognized as an intellectual.
Work is not something I was always excited about. Whether I was flipping burger patties at Burger King, or writing a 20 page paper on a certain topic for class, I was never thrilled, and just wanted the shift to be done, or fast forward time to the point where I am concluding the paper. Though, while still in college, thinking of my future, I would like to have a work that I will not despise and have to bear to earn a living. My nightmare is to wake up at six a.m. to be in someone's office by 8 a.m. to work 40 or more hours a week to have nothing I can call my own in life. I do not want to work for years, and not have any assets or any real capital that I can give off to further generations in my family, and pray that my pension is still there by the time I retire. That is the brief image of work that appears in my mind when I take time to think of it. It is unfortunately a negative impression, and that is because most of the people I know hate what they do to earn a living, but learn to deal with it. This has caused me to "work" towards an adult life that will allow me to enjoy the work that I do to enjoy a lifestyle that I would like to live, though there will always been different kinds of work associated with even a great job, that I will not be eager to do.
When I think about the term "work", it itself does not set off another network of ideas or objects, as Lakeoff proposes, but it brings on impressions and memories tied to the work that I know and have experienced. I may think about my high school days, working for Burger King, because it was the worst kind of work I had ever done. I tend to think about people I know who come home from work, already stressing about the next day because they hate what they do. Then, there are more positive impressions I receive, thinking about working as a DJ or photographer, earning money doing the things that I love to do, but in those instances where I'm earning money, those passions are considered work, by definition. With this being said, I like to develop more positive thoughts about work, because I don't think that a work should cause any limits or problems for an individual, but it should be a process of diligence that would allow someone to truly benefit from that work that they are doing. There should be a return on that physical or mental investment of time.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Response to "The Hidden Curriculum of Work" (I)
If you can tell a tree by the fruit it bears, it does not take long to visit various public schools in cities like Detroit to know that something is wrong with the fruit it produces. Something is wrong with the educational system, and very naturally something is wrong with its students' abilities to compete intellectually with their peers in more privileged school settings.
According to the four types of schools that Anyon describes, I feel as though I belong mostly to the "middle-class" school for each of my elementary and high school learning experiences. I wore a uniform from kindergarten through the end of high school, which just off of appearance alone, provided for a very meticulously structured setting. I attended charter schools for the most part, which differ from public schools, in that they have more concentrated and custom curricula. For example, in high school, I was able to earn college credit by taking courses administered by a university that charted the high school I attended. I was also able to take a series of modules designed by both my school and the Ford Motor Company for students who wished to pursue a business administration based curriculum during the four years. My high school had six to eight different course curricula, two of which were education and computer science.
I definitely had textbooks for each of my classes, and assessments, tests, quizzes and homework were all based off of lectures from teachers, as well as readings on a weekly basis. I always understood mathematical equations, for example, for having more than one answer, and I was always expected to logically choose the appropriate way to solve a problem, and I was left room for critical decision-making, as to how I solved it. In the social sciences, work was heavily based on the textbooks more so than other classes. I normally had study guide sheets with series of questions that could be answered after reading, where answers to the questions were carefully outlined in the texts. The same can be stated for the natural and physical sciences as well.
In reflection upon my elementary and high school experiences, I felt that I had a very unique learning experience because I had teachers that were very enlightened and dedicated instructors of their fields. It was not until I reached college, that I realized that I was cheated because I met students that I saw as competitors, who matriculated through obviously, much more privileged educational systems in middle to higher class suburbs across the United States. I would describe the teachers I had within these various schools to be hidden jewels. These small group of individuals, mainly stemming from my elementary and middle school years, motivated me to be well-read, articulate, diligent, and highly confident of my own intellectual capacity, and eager to see through to its further expansion. I was uniquely taught that as a young Black male, I always had to be "two steps ahead" of the next person to even be able to compete in the "real world".
Considering the fact that the educational systems here in the United States see through to providing thick walls between its socio-economic classes, it is safe to say that this roots from the United States' pluralistic feature. It is so extreme, that these differences can generally be seen and empirically categorized between whites and the wider range of minorities in the U.S. This is typically done by carefully looking at the typical levels of overall education, the incomes of families, and the types of professions that are pursued by these individuals upon completion of their educations. However, using race as a crutch in this today's world is becoming more and more pace. Through various technologies and globalization, the tide is being offered, but various tarnished educational systems across the U.S. are not producing enough intellectual surfers. With the assumption that little will change soon, the forecast of what is to come of people in the lower-middle classes, and below, in the United States is very intimidating. It is scary to smell so badly in the nostrils of a developed, information driven, and intelligent world; the kind of world, I can fortunately say, I have been most prepared for.
According to the four types of schools that Anyon describes, I feel as though I belong mostly to the "middle-class" school for each of my elementary and high school learning experiences. I wore a uniform from kindergarten through the end of high school, which just off of appearance alone, provided for a very meticulously structured setting. I attended charter schools for the most part, which differ from public schools, in that they have more concentrated and custom curricula. For example, in high school, I was able to earn college credit by taking courses administered by a university that charted the high school I attended. I was also able to take a series of modules designed by both my school and the Ford Motor Company for students who wished to pursue a business administration based curriculum during the four years. My high school had six to eight different course curricula, two of which were education and computer science.
I definitely had textbooks for each of my classes, and assessments, tests, quizzes and homework were all based off of lectures from teachers, as well as readings on a weekly basis. I always understood mathematical equations, for example, for having more than one answer, and I was always expected to logically choose the appropriate way to solve a problem, and I was left room for critical decision-making, as to how I solved it. In the social sciences, work was heavily based on the textbooks more so than other classes. I normally had study guide sheets with series of questions that could be answered after reading, where answers to the questions were carefully outlined in the texts. The same can be stated for the natural and physical sciences as well.
In reflection upon my elementary and high school experiences, I felt that I had a very unique learning experience because I had teachers that were very enlightened and dedicated instructors of their fields. It was not until I reached college, that I realized that I was cheated because I met students that I saw as competitors, who matriculated through obviously, much more privileged educational systems in middle to higher class suburbs across the United States. I would describe the teachers I had within these various schools to be hidden jewels. These small group of individuals, mainly stemming from my elementary and middle school years, motivated me to be well-read, articulate, diligent, and highly confident of my own intellectual capacity, and eager to see through to its further expansion. I was uniquely taught that as a young Black male, I always had to be "two steps ahead" of the next person to even be able to compete in the "real world".
Considering the fact that the educational systems here in the United States see through to providing thick walls between its socio-economic classes, it is safe to say that this roots from the United States' pluralistic feature. It is so extreme, that these differences can generally be seen and empirically categorized between whites and the wider range of minorities in the U.S. This is typically done by carefully looking at the typical levels of overall education, the incomes of families, and the types of professions that are pursued by these individuals upon completion of their educations. However, using race as a crutch in this today's world is becoming more and more pace. Through various technologies and globalization, the tide is being offered, but various tarnished educational systems across the U.S. are not producing enough intellectual surfers. With the assumption that little will change soon, the forecast of what is to come of people in the lower-middle classes, and below, in the United States is very intimidating. It is scary to smell so badly in the nostrils of a developed, information driven, and intelligent world; the kind of world, I can fortunately say, I have been most prepared for.
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