Presentation Speech

For our group presentation our group tried to split the work load as evenly as possible.

I did the organizational part of dividing the work up evenly. My part was on the beginning of chapter 1 (Issues in Social Justice), writing the conclusion, and making some trivia questions. I also helped with some revising and editing of everyone summaries for the power point.

Harman did the second half of chapter 1, she did our powerpoint (which including some extra revising and finding pictures etc.), she also did a lot with organization to make sure everybody was getting stuff done, and wrote our final question that would be on the final.

Andrew worked on the beginning of chapter 2 in Social Justice Issues in Local and Global Context. He also worked on the intro to our presentation and he made a great connection for how his our readings related to the Global Social Imagination concept.

Harjit did the second half of chapter 2, found some media and wrote our progress reports to show how our group was doing.

Overall, our group worked well together!

Here’s my written work from our presentation:

Chapter 1 pages 1-11

 In chapter one of “Issues in Social Justice” by Tridico, Pellerito, and Armstrong they discuss the topics of religion and homosexuality and the effects these two topics have on each other.

• The beginning of chapter one discusses the relationships, similarities, and structure of the church and state to give a better idea of why the church is so reluctant about accepting homosexuality, and to shed some light on  how they can discriminate against a group of people with little political or social backlash.
• The main goal of both is to gain power and legitimacy. Both institutions gain power and legitimacy in similar ways.
• “Issues in Social Justice” describes 6 ways the church uses to gain legitimacy, however, they are not limited to using only these strategies:

1) Its relationship to the predecessor

2) The number of adherents

3) The strength of its organizational structure

4) Tenure of movement

5) Strength of ideology and opposition to dissent

6) Its relationship to the state

• The book describes the relationship between church and state as “one born of consensus and not conflict”, which effects the attempted growth of acceptance to homosexuality because it is trying to challenge a much bigger opponent both in power and in numbers.
• The book then discusses how the organizational structure of church and state somewhat mimic one another.
• Both must be strict in enforcing laws/rules and ensure that their rules are being followed. For this to happen both must be seen as legitimate institutions and be able to use its power and influence to enforce their laws.

-legitimacy must “serve as a foundation for power and influence”. Both organizational structures are described “highly sophisticated” with “hierarchically structured roles”.

• Change is rarely a good thing in either institutions though they still allow dissent so long as it is monitored by the level of threat it poses.

-Dissent from an internal member of an organization has a better chance of gaining legitimacy then any external dissent because                 an outsider trying to gain legitimacy and a large following are put up against a much more powerful opposition (whichever institution they are trying to branch off of)and are seen as a threat to that institution .

• The church has lots of power and influence on society which is why the acceptance of homosexuality is met with such restraint. If the church was to fold and go against what they have taught as the word of God, they would lose much of their legitimacy and therefore much of their power.

 

Presentation Conclusion

Our presentation really highlighted the power of hegemony, which is the strong influence our nation’s leaders have on our society. We also highlighted the complex structures and processes that go into building strong influential organizations, like our governments and churches.

 

Trivia questions

1)      What is social justice?

-the distribution of advantages and disadvantages within a society

2)      Why is the church so resistant to accepting homosexuality?

-because it is worried about losing legitimacy by breaking away from traditional rules.

3)    What is one of the themes from our presentation?

-power, legitimacy, global social justice, social constructivism, etc.

Reflective Essay

In this class we have discussed many socially important topics; all of our topics have affected and impacted the lives of people in societies all around the world, whether we know it or not.

We first discussed what society is. I feel this was very important because I don’t feel that anyone really thinks about how weird the presence of society is. There is a quote saying “humans create that which creates them”, this is based on the concept that as humans we are born as biological beings, simply with instincts, and then reborn as social beings through socialization.

Over the semester there were quite a few important reoccurring themes. Ignorance is an extremely important one to me, because the simple lack of knowledge on many people’s part leads to a lot of the conflicts and tragedies around the globe. What is worse: while most people aren’t given the proper information to make educated judgements and decisions, many people just choose to ignore the information they are given, thus making themselves ignorant.  Bracketing was another important theme. Bracketing means to suspend or hold off any preconceived knowledge. I like the idea of starting the introduction of new information with my mind as a blank slate. My goal is to take ALL information given about a subject put it together and make my own decisions and opinions about everything. As Peter Berger stated, “things are not what they seem”. Not lastly, but definitely one of the many important themes I wanted to touch on, is debunking. This means to look at surface level information and also information that is less “obvious”. The aim of debunking is to constantly be challenging and questioning the “truths” of society.

Race and Ethnicity was a big part of our semester. While I think that these topics are getting easier to talk about, I realized that it can still be kind of awkward and it is important to think about the way you word things before saying them because with such controversial topics it is easy for people to take things the wrong way. I would never want to say something that may be misinterpreted as hurtful or discriminative. I think that that point alone is important, because it shows how much pain is still held in just the words regarding race and ethnicity. This was probably a section where I feel like I learnt the most as well. For example, each person is only 1 out of 1000 nucleotides different. I learned about the “wind tribe”, which was a mix of black, white, and native people forced to live in the mountains in hopes of separating them so they could keep the white race pure. I also learned that the idea for the holocaust was taken from the American idea of race purification.

Overall, this class covered a lot of what I’ve already learned from previous social justice classes and also had a ton of information added to it. So from my perspective, it was a very successful and interesting semester.

 

Dialectic Writing on Chapter 12 of ‘Social Justice Issues in Local and Global Context’

In this chapter the book reviewed hate crimes and how the information is collected for hate crimes. There are so many different definitions that it’s difficult to know whether or not a crime can be defined as one with hateful intentions, therefore making it very difficult for the government to collect data and statistics about this topic.

What questions did this chapter raise?

How to define hate crimes and how do we collect data about these crimes?

How did the text answer this question?

There was no specific definition as to what constitutes a hate crime, because each state has a different idea of what “hate crime” means, I think this causes a lot of confusion among people and for the people that are victims of these crimes. With this confusion, I believe many of the victims have a hard time speaking up without worrying about being taken seriously. The chapter also shared a few reasons why it is so hard to document these crimes. One of the most important ones that I found was that a crime could be classified under many different things and this could lead to false reports, which would lead to inaccurate information for statistics.

How does the answer provided reflect our own ideas and experiences?

I have friends with a variety of different cultural backgrounds and even sexual orientations, while I haven’t had any hate crimes directed at me (as far as I know), many of my friends have. I realized that many incidents are not reported because people are either too afraid or simply too embarrassed. This may add to the inaccurate results of the UCR (unified crime report). Also, these hate crimes don’t only affect them, but also people close to them; family, friends, and especially members of the same category that was the reason for discrimination.

Dialectic Reading for Chapter 10 of ‘Social Justice Issues in Local and Global Contexts’

What question did this chapter raise?

What is constituted as genocide and human rights? And what has the United Nations done to help these problems since their formation after world war?

How was the question answered in the text?

Genocide was defined as “involving an intent to destroy – in whole or in part – a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”. They also discussed how many acts of genocide have happened even since the formation of the UN. I think this is important for showing that despite having people in power working against such heinous crimes, they are still happening all over the world and something more should be done. A few examples from this chapters were Cambodia and Rwanda.

How can we relate this answer to our own ideas and experiences?

I have learned A LOT about genocide throughout my years of education. One of the major things I have noticed being a problem with the UN, is that as “peace keepers”, they are not allowed any weapons, nor are they allowed to take drastic actions when they are being threatened. Rwanda is a prime example of this. The UN was IN Rwanda during much of that genocide, and there was literally nothing they could do as a group of unarmed people against an army of people killing everyone around them. The peace keepers were told by the UN to leave. That was their actions. While many stayed, the damage in Rwanda was already done. I think if the UN is going to make an impact they need to have more support. On a more local level, Canada played a big part in the deterioration of aboriginal cultures during its founding.

Affective Writing for Chapter 3 of ‘Issues in Social Justice’

What is the reading about?

• Human trafficking
• What people are trafficked into – ex: sex slavery, forced manual labour such as working in mines or forced work that severely under pays, prostitution, nannies etc.
• Who is being trafficked & how many people are being trafficked a year from all over the world, with people of all ages, races and genders; with Europe being the number one country for sex slavery
• How these crimes are committed and who is committing them – surprisingly many people agreed to some of these human trafficking crimes with belief that it could be a better job opportunity then their current situation, unknowing full details of what they were really being forced into, and not knowing that they would not be able to escape.
• The outcomes of these crimes – physically suffering (health problems from unsafe environments, as well as STIs. Many children deal with lack of developmental growth as well), psychological harm, disconnection from families (in most child cases they can get separated from their family for life), etc.
• What we can do to try and stop it – organizations such as UNODC (united nations office of drugs and crime), NGO’s (non government organizations), etc. VTVPA (victims of trafficking and violence protection act) has also helped to make a difference in many of these victims lives.

How do I feel about this?

I am personally horrified that this is happening. A big shock to me was how often it’s happening in North America, I knew it was happening in other places and I know how bad it is, but hearing how much it happens so close to home really gave me a different perspective of how real these crimes are. It’s terrible to think about how these events can ruin someone for the rest of their lives, there are many that have a chance for recovering with psychiatric help and with help from some of the above organizations, but especially for children or those with incurable physical harm done to them, their chances of a happy life seem much smaller.

What do I think about this?

As much as I think that there are organizations trying to help, there are many situations where some governments are part of the problem. With human trafficking being such a growing problem I don’t know how these corrupt governments can be fully stopped.  I think it’s important that people be educated about human trafficking at an early age so that they don’t get tricked into these situations and so that more people can be aware of their surroundings.

What do I believe?

I believe that education is key. I know I’ve mentioned this before but as an example: I saw an ad on the bus the other day. It said “My name is ________ (some little girls name and it had a picture of her), I am 15 years old. I met this man on the internet. He said I was his girlfriend. Now I live in a barred up room in his house and I am sold for sex up to 18 times a day”. This was so hard to read because her whole life could be ruined now. She lost her entire childhood; over a situation that I feel could have been avoided had someone educated her about predators online.

What do I know?

I know that human trafficking is a growing problem all over the world, but I don’t know how to help make it better. Maybe if there were harsher punishments? I know that no one wants or deserves this kind of life, and I wish people would stop and think for a second; “What if this was me? My daughter/son? My parent?”

If only people could just stop thinking for their own personal gain and realize the repercussions of their actions. If only there was a way of showing them.

Dialectic Reading for Chapter 2 of “Issues In Social Justice”

What question did the text/chapter raise?

What hardships are forced upon the LGBT due to discrimination on a daily basis?

How did the text answer this question?

The text answered this question by giving some background knowledge on the main factors affecting this situation. For example explaining the difference between identity (the sex a person believes they should have been born) and sexuality (a person’s sexual preference towards dating either males or females). After making sure we are up to date the chapter tells us why the lack of understanding of these terms is such a big factor adding to the discrimination. It also informs us that the majority of the population being heterosexual also makes acceptance a difficult task. The chapter informs us of the discrimination the LGBT face regarding hate crimes, employment and housing, and marriage.

How does the answer match our own ideas and experiences?

I have taken psychology before so I’m very aware of these terms and the effect they have on individuals, also how drastically different they are from one another. Also, I have a few homosexual family members and for 1 of them, I have watched and heard the hardships he has had to deal with over his life time. Even the task of having to tell his parents he was gay ended in him being isolated from his family and that started his very difficult and still difficult trip into adulthood. Through all of these trials and tribulations I have watched him grow as a person, but he has shown me how much discrimination there is towards gays, which was something I was definitely ignorant to before because I had never seen it. Everything I’ve learned through this chapter has widened my eyes to this huge discrimination that effects people in more ways then I imagined was possible.

Affective Writing on Chapter 1 of ‘Issues in Social Justice’

• This reading is about the relationship between religion and homosexuality.
• Its main goal is to discuss how the church has had such a huge impact on the homosexual communities due to the church’s influence on society.
• This chapter discusses how the church has gained its role in different societies.
• Also how it has maintained its importance and followers.
• Chapter 1 discusses the different processes the church uses to gain and maintain its reign over society.
• It mentions why the views on homosexuality amongst religious people has not changed
• Social change- what that means and what it covers.
• The four types of social movements and who they affect.
• It covers how the views of homosexuality have changed over the years,
• And it discusses a bit about how privacy laws have affected homosexuality

How do I feel about this reading?

I feel pretty upset about this. I feel proud that society has opened its mind a little bit and that the homosexual community has worked so hard to get to the place they are right now. While I’m happy that the homosexual community is getting more acceptance then before, I also feel that the chances of full acceptance any time soon is probably not very high, so that is pretty sad.

What do I think about this reading?

I think this reading opened my eyes to why homosexuality is not fully accepted. I didn’t originally know that the church and especially the state (especially, really stepped up to kind of help the homosexual communities out so that they were still following all their laws) played such a huge role in people’s personal and intimate lives. I also think that it is completely unfair to judge other people for something that does not affect your life.

What do I believe about the reading?

I have learned from this chapter that 78% of Americans alone follow Christianity and therefore I believe the chances of full acceptance is slim because to accept homosexuality, the church would have to reveal a flaw in their religion. To reveal this flaw is to give up power. I don’t believe the church is willing to do that. As time goes on, however, I believe religions won’t have much of a choice about being more accepting the “flaws” of people that they wouldn’t have before because I believe their follower would start to deplete quicker knowing that if the church doesn’t accept the “flawed” people, society will. That is big competition.

What do I know about the reading?

I know that religion has had a huge hold on society, but state is making a lot of progress with this power struggle. I know that the homosexual communities are trying to work acceptance in through the state, because it’s easier to find situations in the laws to make it clear that accepting homosexuals is a logical thought.

Ethnocentrism and Africa

Interesting Topic of the Day:

What is the population of Africa? Africa is the second largest continent in the world, with 54 countries and a population of one billion.

Which is larger: Canada or Africa? Africa, by a long shot.

Which is larger: North America or Africa? Africa again, the North America continent fits into the continent of Africa.

Class Discussion

Class Discussion on Body Ritual Among the Nacirema:

When I originally read this article I was more or less just confused about why the Nacirema would put themselves through all these painful rituals, but after getting together with my group I realized that the Nacirema are not that different from our society. Though their rituals are somewhat extreme, or completely extreme, there are also religious extremists in our society. Also like our society, their society is very into the physical appearance of their bodies and because of this women and men are very self conscious and uncomfortable with their bodies. The standard for trying to be perfect is the same every where, we just go about meeting “the perfect image” in different ways.

 

My Global Sociological Imagination

Videos screened in class:

1) http://www.quist-adade.com/2011/09/cocoa-bean-story/

2) http://www.quist-adade.com/2012/01/son-of-the-global-village/

After learning that my actions are not just affecting myself but they could possibly have a global impact, I realized that making an impact is much easier then I had originally thought. I have been recycling for years and years because I was taught to recycle as a child, but it never occurred to me that something as simple as recycling affects so many people.

In my family, recycling is just a natural part of the day. It is as simple as throwing our cans, news papers, etcetera in the recycling bin in the garage as opposed to the trash can in my kitchen. The only big impact recycling has on my family, is a couple extra dollars for returning a bunch of empty cans, and the feeling that we are doing something right for our environment.

Though recycling has little immediate impact on my family, it has plenty of immediate repercussions to our society. By bringing our cans to a recycling plant, we are helping to create jobs for those working at the plant. After they have been organized at the plant, our cans are sent back to manufacturers where they will be used to make new cans. This action creates more jobs and also wastes less resources then only making brand new cans. Our recycled papers and cardboard may be used to make new paper, still creating jobs and minimizing the amount of trees being cut down to make new paper. Saving more trees is making our air and environment better for everyone.

Not only has recycling helped my family and people around us locally but by helping the environment and our air quality it is helping people all throughout the world that I will probably never meet. By doing the simple task of recycling we are setting an example of how easy it is to make a ripple which in some way, will reach all around the world.