Redlining: Is Verizon doing it to Buffalo right now?

http://www.buffalorising.com/2011/09/hey-verizon-dont-bypass-buffalo.html

I was reading this article and right when it brought up the term 'redlining', I thought that it was pretty bold accusation to make. What this article is talking about is Verizon's deploying of its FiOS fiber optic lines. It points out that, just like with housing redlining, Verizon is only deploying the fiber optic service in the predominantly white suburbs of Buffalo. There is no plans to deploy the fiber optics in the City of Buffalo at all.

Now honestly what this article completely fails to do, which I would like to make a big point of, is that economics comes into play for this type of stuff. Verizon isn't going to spend mass amounts of money deploying a top notch technology into an area where there is no economic means for it (the City of Buffalo is much more economically depressed than its suburbs).

The article directly compares this practice to the redlining we spoke about. Is it? I honestly don't think so but I believe that things like this need to be watched. A company that profits every quarter as handily as Verizon does should be questioned over its practices. Especially a company that in the midst of massive profits is attempt to lay off 20,000 people and axe the pensions of others.

Question #2

i strongly feel that the origins of these stereotypes came from the old western time frame . as settlers moved around the country and encountered these new and different people. some camp fire stories were told by the old cowboys on what they had to do to get the land they live on and what not. these stereotypes were just reiterated in western film. these stereotypes ,to me, taint history a bit and it makes me question some of the stories and accounts of what really happened around that time frame. its so easy for an individual to exaggerate and an event that involved 30 people can quickly turn to 300 people and a war. the American identity will not change to everyone, i mean we do live in a decent country so the American identity would change depending on who you speak to. as for the role of the western movies in history, i believe they were made as a defense mechanism to simply make it seem as the settlers had a justified reason to act as they did towards theses people and some were made to shed light on the problems and perception of the native Americans.

question 5

Seeing some of the white actors that were made to play Native Americans seemed pretty ridiculous. It seems so blatantly wrong to put an actor in "red face" when a true Native American could have been used for the part. I had definitely heard and had known about whites playing blacks and dressing in black face, but I had never realized that the same had been done with Native American characters. When thinking about it, its difficult to think of many recent actors that have depicted a different race. However, I'm sure it has been done countless times. It's easier to remember movies from the 60's, such as Breakfast at Tiffany's where Mickey Rooney played an Asian character. Recently the only movie that comes to mind is Prince of Persia, where Jake Gyllenhal is made to pass as a Persian prince. I think that this phenomenon is pretty despicable. It simply seems morally wrong for White actors to be playing non-whites. It's not as if there are no non-white actors to choose from, they simply need to be chosen.

Native Americans

My thoughts on the treatment of Native Americans are that Americans have always discriminated against anyone that looked different than their self. One thing in particular that always bugged me was when i learned about how the founding fathers of the United States would kill Native women and children during multiple raids on native villages. Just like John Wayne in his cowboy films George Washington and Thomas Jefferson had a history of brutally killing native people in cold blood. the mistreatment of Native Americans still continues today, on reservations in the Dakotas there holds the United States largest deposits of Coal and the Government has been trying to take that land from natives for a very long time by taking the reservations to court and trying to hold claim over the land denying centuries old contracts that gave natives ownership of the land by native peoples. In other such instances the Government has even taken other tactics to try and remove people since in the United States law says that they need to pay taxes on each head of cattle they own. The cattle are the people’s way of life and source of income so by taking cattle they could force Natives to sell their land to the government in order to survive. The movies are just another way to bring more people to the side against the natives.

Excusable Violence?

After realizing the actual violence against Native Americans that John Wayne takes, it's almost hard to swallow. He is an American hero in most people's eyes. He's the truest cowboy. But after taking a closer look at some of the films he stars in and the actions he takes against Native Americans, it is obvious that there is harsh violence that occurs. Unfortunately I think that this violence is excused because John Wayne is our hero, he's the good guy, so anything he does is going to be right in the audience's eyes.Native Americans always get the short end of the stick when it comes to their representation in films. They always seem to be the people that are getting killed off first and misrepresented. They are represented as warriors and savages, people who want to pillage the white people. I think that this is why it is easy for John Wayne and other characters in old westerns to get away with killing so many Native Americans ruthlessly.
It almost seemed as though Native American representation was improving in recent films but there are so many stereotypes that they must fight against, that it is hard to erase all of them at once. I believe that it will take some time for the false representation of Native Americans to disappear in films because of America's love for the western, but I think that the more that we are informed about the truth, the better off we can be to show the true Native American in film.

Movie Audiences

The intended audience for most movies, especially old Westerns, is white people. Back a few decades this was because other races weren't "equals" to the whites. Nowadays I think it's more out of habit and the fact that it's mostly middle class people from the suburbs who are spending their money on movies, and as of now most middle class people from the suburbs are white. Essentially, people go to movies so they can forget their lives and pretend to be in someone elses for a while. Hollywood knows that people will identify with someone more like themselves so they follow the masses when it comes to who to cast; more white people are going to the movies, so more white people will be in the movies. This isn't right, especially when other races are given demeaning parts.

When the kids from Crow Agency School were shown Little Big Man with all the graphic images, I think they were frightened. First off, they seemed too young to be watching anything of the sort. But also, this movie may have given them a conflicting view on themselves. They don't know that some people think these things about them but after being shown it over and over again, they may start to believe it about themselves. We as a society absolutely need to overcome these misconceptions. No one should have to think down upon themselves because they think that's how they're viewed.

Westerns

A western movie is primary set in the late 19th century. Its normally a movie with a main character playing an "unstoppable" American cowboy. The movie normally shows Americans fighting Indians because the movie makes it seem like the Indians are trying to stop americans from settling.

Some common themes and plot points in westerns are:

- the cowboys always win

-Indians are less civilized with arrows, Cowboys are civilized with guns

-Cowboys are good, Indians are bad

- settlers vs. Indians

- humanity vs. civilization

Western movies represent an American film genre. This genre is used to make americans look better then other ethnicities.

Normally in Westerns, Indians play the role of the savage, trying to kill the cowboys. The movies always show the Indians in battle or as warriors. Also movies show Indian women loving white men and wanting to have their way of life.

Black guy dies first

The target audience of most movies is middle class Americans, of whom a shrinking majority are white, as this is the largest audience with the disposable income to go to theaters and buy DVDs.  To garner viewership, their will probably be a main character who the audience can relate to and hope to succeed.  As the majority of the audience will probably white, a way to make this character more identifiable is to have he/she be white. In fact, almost any movie aimed at a broad audience will have white protaganist besides martial arts films (No white guy besides Chuck Norris knows kung fu), and anything with Samual L Jackson (Playing an angry black man who can beat everything up).  Even if most of the cast is another race, the white guy will be the hero.

Spoiler for all horror films: black guy dies first and white woman is the only survivor

the western

A western movie is usually a film set in the western United States between the end of the civil war and the beginning of World War I.  The genre is viewed an especially American genre for several reasons.  The first reason is that as a genre, the setting is almost set in the United States, a condition which no other genre has too conformed to.  A second and third reason for idea is nostalgia.  In the first place, the western harkens back to a day and age where the United States seemed full of untapped possibilities (that would eventually be transformed into suburbia) and when were rugged action heroes who could solve all their problems with a gun (instead of a pen and DMV form I-349).  The second way nostalgia plays into exemplifying the western is how the ties it has to the mid-twentieth century are.  At the time the U.S. was at the height of power and prosperity, the western was the height of popularity. By being incorporated into images of wealth and grandeur through symbols such as howdy-dowdy and cowboys hats, westerns can be identified as the part of the American image when we were the best off (assuming you were a white middle-class male, of course).

"Reel Injuns" Thoughts

In response to discussion question 6, I completely agree with John Trudell. Indians have been extremely misrepresented. All Native American tribes have very different customs, for instance the Iroquois who lived in this area don't seem to be represented at all. If all Native Americans rode horses and wore loincloths and lived in tepees, well the Iroquois would have a whole lot of trouble in the winter. It just doesn't make sense.

I don't understand how the general public would be stupid enough to believe that all Indians act the same, look the same and are the same. But obviously, it happened. I think that people just don't like to think, especially about racial slurs or ambiguities, and especially in Hollywood. In our culture, Hollywood is God (Not meaning to offend anyone). People in Hollywood guide how we think, feel, act and dress. So why would someone standoff against Hollywood about their inconsistencies even when they are so obvious? This is something that really needs to change but it goes deeper than "white privilege" and feeling like we shouldn't have to fix anything we didn't create, it's about fitting in with the masses. Because most people don't want to stand out, even if it's fighting for something they believe in. In conclusion, I believe that psychology is playing a major part keeping racism alive today.

Reel Injuns Discussion Question #4

Question number 4 really sparked my interest. I mean, you can tell that the Austrian camp counselor has a good heart and he didn’t mean to be offensive by agreeing to be a counselor for the camp. Regarding the question, “What do you think is the purpose behind such a camp” He believes it is to promote brotherhood, unity, and teach young boys to work together. I agree with where he’s coming from and think it’s a good idea. But there are other ways to promote these values in a camp than to make the camp a stereotypical Native American atmosphere. (painting the boys head to foot in stripes, the mud pit wrestling, the loud chanting imitating Indians in the media) I also thought it was pretty embarrassing that he said he could learn about their mentality after watching two or three films. I was embarrassed for him. That made him seem pretty unknowledgeable. If he wanted to run a camp to embody Native American Culture then he would have done his research and not gotten all his thoughts through Hollywood film. Luckily, even though he thought he knew about the “mentality of the natives” at least he got a positive image out of it though- thinking that the point of the films was to show the Indians unity. A practice like this could be harmful because it could be teaching young boys such things as screaming and banging on lunch tables is how Indians always act. Movies should obviously not be trusted as sources for accurate representations of Native Americans, as we learned from the reading. Hollywood films have portrayed many stereotypes, which I won’t list because I’m sure we all know them by now, and it’s sad that not only were there plenty of movies, there are now institutions out there (like this camp) that are keeping the stereotypes alive. (Even if they mean well…)

native americans in film

The video we watched today in class focused on the portrayal of Native American's in classic Hollywood films. Oftentimes, they were not depicted accurately. For example, the Indians in the movie would all be dressed up like Plains Indians, with the big feather hats. They also said in the movie that the natives would wear headbands in a lot of these movies to keep there wigs on while they are getting attacked in the film.

These depictions of Native American's as being warriors, or very spiritual, have only some elements of truth. They said that a lot of the time these movies would exaggerate these points. Also for kids watching these classic cowboys vs. Indians movies the kids would look at the Indians as the enemy.

These "western" movies are considered the most American of all film genres. I believe this is because it was all about the expansion of this country, and people bought into the patriotism of it. I also think this genre became so popular because it shows the cowboys who are viewed as the good guys, battling and defeating the bad guys or the Indians.

What is the Middle East?

So, if you go to the Wiki page for "Middle East" you come upon this page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East#Criticism_and_usage

I directed the link to the criticisms section because I believe it is of importance. Funny little tidbit in there: the term middle east was first officially used by the United States in a document about the Suez Conflict (source: Wiki). Now how does it make any sense to call somewhere arbitrary on a map "east"? Well, we here in American deem is totally fine to do so (I'm on this little George Carlin thing right now). But look at the map that is in this section: as you can see, there really is NO definition of the "Middle East". It's been changed and reworked and is completely arbitrary, but yet encompasses an entire part of the continent, much more diverse than our own country, and artificially puts them all into one homogeneous word. What does that say about us, or really anyone who uses the term without thinking of its implications?

Hajji Alert

So over the Bull's Homecoming Weekend, I decide to take a backseat from watching the game and head down to check out the Niagara Gun Range instead. Cutting to the gist of the story, there was a group of off-duty police officers that came in just ahead of me. Nothing out of the norm while we were all processing the necessary paperwork to get into the 50yard rifle range...

As i was getting ready to pick up my choice of rifle for the night (this is where it starts getting interesting..), in came a middle-aged guy wearing a keffiyeh as a scarf and of arab descent. This was the tipping point where the whole atmosphere of the range turned from a seemingly relaxed state to one which is pretty intense. The group of off-duty police officers that came in before me, watched intently while the counter staff were extremely "vigilant" this time with the documents passed over to them. (Point-in-view: I was holding on to a Singapore Passport and it took me less than 5 minutes to be in-processed)

Just when the counter staff decide to pass over his identification papers, the group of police officers approached the desk and demanded to see the documents, while one of them chimed in to his partners to "checked the Hajji out carefully" blatantly. In-dignified by that derogatory term used as well as the paranoia, the man exclaimed that he is an american and should not have been subjected to such atrocious racist behaviors.

The situation ends, with the man asking to leave the premises on the grounds of public disturbance by the police officers. However, it was more appalling to realize that some other group of customers walked up to thank the group of officers for doing their job!

The media portrayal of people with arab descent has not only created a misdirected knowledge of this racial group but in essence created a sense of fear amongst groups of people in the U.S., how is it that a non-american citizen is able to possess a firearm and ammunition for less than 5 minutes of paperwork clearance while an american (in this case of non-white descent) was denied and rediculed in the process?

I only stand to wonder, if the situation was different and had the individual not enter the range that night, would i be seen as a "gook" and be asked to leave the premises immediately?

stereotypes on native americans

I found this on the internet with 24 different stereotypes on native americans. After some of them I added in my own comments that I noticed from this weeks reading on Native Americans. Enjoy!

From the book: American Indians: Stereotypes & Realities
by Devon A. Mihesuah

1. Stereotype:

Indians are all alike.

Reality:

In America alone, there are approximately 2.1 million Indians, belonging to 511 culturally distinct federally recognized tribes or an additional 200 or so unrecognized tribes. They live in a variety of environments, either on 286 U.S. reservations, or off reservation in rural areas or cities.

--> This was talked about a lot in the reading. The reading went into depth on how many different subcultures of Native Americans there are. Most movies place all Indians either into the group of Indians called the Mohawk or the Cherokee's. Which is completely not true.

2. Stereotype:

Indians were conquered because they were inferior.

Reality:

Indians were conquered because of their lack of immunity to European diseases.

3. Stereotype:

If Indians had united, they could have prevented the European invasion.

Reality:

Tribes were too different culturally and lived too far apart to fight together as a cohesive unit.

4. Stereotype:

Indians had no civilization until Europeans brought it to them.

Reality:

Indians were civilized. Their cultures were different from those of Europeans.

--> films portrayed Native Americans as savages in most movies and also as nomads just moving where ever they wanted but in reality the Native Americans had their own culture, language and values. They were just like us.

5. Stereotype:

Indians arrived in this hemisphere via the Siberian land bridge.

Reality:

Indians believe that they were created in this hemisphere.

6. Stereotype:

Indians were warlike and treacherous.

Reality:

Indians fought to defend their lands, sovereignty and way of life from invaders.

--> Europeans made Native Americans look like warriors but in reality if our land was trying to be conquered by a different group of people we would also fight back and become the "warriors". They were just defending their homes and family as we would.

7. Stereotype:

Indians had nothing to contribute to Europeans or the growth of America.

Reality:

The contributions of American Indians have changed and enriched the world.

8. Stereotype:

Indian tribes did not value or empower women.

Reality:

Indian women often wielded considerable power within their tribes.

9. Stereotype:

Indians have no religion.

Reality:

Indians are deeply religious. Each tribe has its own religion.

10. Stereotype:

Indians welcome outsiders to study and participate in their religious ceremonies.

Reality:

Indians often practice their religions secretly and want outsiders to respect their desire for privacy.

11. Stereotype:

Indians are a vanished race.

Reality:

There are 2.1 million United States Indians today.

12. Stereotype:

Indians are confined to reservations, live in tipis, wear braids, and ride horses.

Reality:

There is nothing that confines Indians to reservations. Few wear braids and rid horses. Fewer still own tipis.

--> Native Americans live just like Americans. There is no visible difference. Movies like Pocahontas make Indians look like out casts but in reality thats not how it was.

13. Stereotype:

Indians have no reason to be unpatriotic.

Reality:

Most American patriotism is the celebration of Euro-American history and interest. Euro-Americans' behavior and policies towards Indians have been brutal throughout American history.

14. Stereotype:

Indians get a free ride from the government.

Reality:

The benefits Indians receive from the government derive from treaty agreements, which purport to compensate them for the surrender of some or all of their invaluable lands.

15. Stereotype:

Indians' affairs are managed for them by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Reality:

Each tribe has its own govermental structure possessing a variety of self-governing powers.

16. Stereotype:

Indians are not capable of completing school.

Reality:

Hundreds of Indians graduate from universities every year.

--> I got a good laugh out of this stereotype. Do people really believe that Indians do not complete school??!

17. Stereotype:

Indians cannot vote or hold office.

Reality:

Indians represent a powerful voting bloc in elections. Numerous Indians hold tribal, state and national offices.

18. Stereotype:

Indians have a tendency towards alcoholism.

Reality:

Indians are no more predisposed to alcoholism than members of any other ethnic group.

19. Stereotype:

"My grandmother was an Indian"

Reality:

Thousands of Americans "wannabe" Indian, but they are not.

20. Stereotype:

Indians are all full bloods.

Reality:

The majority of Indians are of mixed heritage.

21. Stereotype:

All Indians have an "Indian name."

Reality:

Most Indians have only a Euro-American name. A minority of Indians also have "Indian names."

22. Stereotype:

Most Indians know the histories, languages and cultural aspect of their own tribe and of other tribes.

Reality:

Few Indians know all cultural aspects of their own tribe, much less those of other tribes.

23. Stereotype:

Indians are stoic and have no sense of humor.

Reality:

Indians are as endowed with as rich a sense of humor as anyone else.

--> as from the reading. Indians were made to look mute in movies. Or illiterate they would always say sayings in movies like "ho" or "ugh"

24. Stereotype:

Indians like having their pictures taken.

Reality:

Indians find photographers intrusive.

http://stereotype.drumhop.com/Reality.html

Indians in the Media

As was said in the reading this week the media always depict Native Americans as being wildmen from the plains and even go into depth about the different tribes in the midwest. What they fail to do is show the many different cultures of the southwest other than the Apaches and I feel this is wrong because the Apache were not the only tribe in that region. The media seem to always show Indians as savages because thats how we justified taking their land and going to war with them in the 18th and 19th centuries. Other than recent documentaries, we hardly ever get to see how native american culture actually was but instead always saw them as the enemy.

Jim Crow

I was really surprised to see how much explicit and underlying racism exists in film and television today. I was particularly surprised to see the original racist words in the opening Aladdin song. This got me wondering if there was other racist content in Disney films. I started looking for things on the internet and there are COUNTLESS blatant examples of racism in Disney films. Much of them have been edited or removed due to backlash from the targeted population. However, much of it has been completely unchanged. Although all the examples were pretty outrageous, here are a couple that I found particularly so.
1. The black crows from Dinsey's Dumbo. These crows are black, constantly smoking, and speaking in stereotypical "jive talk." The main crow's character is literally named Jim Crow.
2. The original centaur scene in Disney's Fantasia included a servant brown girl centaur to the beautiful while centaur. She was taken out of the film in the re-release in 1960.
There are more examples at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHyzAbV6nuM
The blatant stereotypes and racism in these films is obviously a huge problem. It begins teaching children at an extremely early age to have racist and stereotypical values. If these values are ever going to lessen or disappear in society, they most definitely have to disappear from these films.

More on 9/11

Continuing on from what a lot of other people have been saying about September 11th and Arab racism, I agree with the points that have been raised. We all know that not all Arabs are terrorists, in fact, only about an incredibly small percentage of them are, but the fact that that small percenatge did such great damage to the American moral, really ruined the image of "arabs" and "middle-easterners" in Americans eyes. I think since that attack on our country, it will take a great deal for Americans to get over our racism of Arabs. The majority of us will probably stereotype anyone who looks like they are from the Middle East. If there had been a chance of Americans growing out of our racism toward Arabs before September 11th, there is no chance now.
As for my personal opinion of the situation, I think that it is hard to get over the fact of what happened on September 11th and get past the racism toward Arabs, especially since the 10th anniversary of 9/11 stirred up some pretty strong feelings of hatred in me toward those people of that extremist group. But when I see "Arabs" or someone from the Middle East, I don't automatically think that they are racist. However, I think that this generation, who has witnessed the action of September 11th in our lifetime, is probably going to be a generation that harbors racist feelings toward Middle Easterners.

Arabs and Black Face

Growing up, one of my best friends was of Pakistani decent. A lot of people in our school called him an "arab" and he took offense to hit. We knew it made him mad which is why everyone did it. If he didn't let it effect him so much we probably would of stopped. That term is offensive to a lot of people with "middle eastern" background, but its such a general term and not true, so why take offense to it. That'd be like calling an American, Mexican, and the American getting angry.

Also, I was watching Family Guy and Chris went out for Halloween in black face. This is the first time I've seen black face on TV.

The Cinematic Colonization of American Indians

I thought the reading on Native Americans was really interesting. I had no idea that so many movies existed that portrayed Indians in negative ways. Of course, the way Hollywood and the media portray them has helped the formation of stereotypes. Starting at the beginning where it says, seen one Indian seen them all, I could already imagine what was going to be talked about. Unfortunately, it’s true that when I picture an Indian, it actually is on a horse with a head dress and fighting American Soldiers. It seems to be that we really don’t get much idea of what their actual lives were like. In movies, we always see Indians on the move or at war with soldiers. Kind of like African Americans and blackface- some Indians were considered fools or dunces and if they were friends with whites then they were their loyal helpers. What also stuck out to me was on page 179 where it says how the victim always forgives the victimizer. If this idea continues, people will believe it’s okay to do this to the Indians because we’ll think they will always grant forgiveness. It’s just unbelievable how many times Indians are down played. Their language is actually highly intellectual but Hollywood portrays them as primitive beings that wouldn’t seem to have any type of advanced language or writing. This reading also made me think about the movie on Arabs we watched in class- how they’re all portrayed as terrorists in all the movies. It’s absurd that all people could be categorized as the same, just how all Native American males are thought to rape and murder women. I agree with page 187 that says all these images have consequences in the real world. These images are the reason we judge and stereotype a person of a certain race when we see them.

White Privilege

I think white people do get a privilege in lofe. The question is do we deserve it? I do not think just because a person is white their life should be any bertter than a person who is black. Shin color should not affect things like, a job interview, getting a house, or being looked at walking down the street. The readings showed that white people have it better for no reason in life. it also showed that males and straight people have it better than females and homosexuals. A straight white male should not be treated any differently than a gay black woman. Its things like these that will always be with us and that wil;l never change because people will not change the ways they look at life

Emmett Till

Going back to the discussion we had on Tuesday, we saw a part of A Birth of Nation, where an African American character chases after a Caucasian woman, in attempt to rape her. She then jumps off a cliff, and the African American gets lynched. This reminded me of a program I once saw on TV about the case of Emmett Till. I don't know if anyone has ever heard of him, but he was a 14 year old African American boy who was murdered in Mississippi in 1955. As the story goes, he was leaving a shop one day with his friends, when he either whistled, or (depending on which story you read), said "bye, baby" to the young white woman who ran the shop. Hearing this now seems like nothing, right? However, back then this was a huge deal, and it cost Emmett his life. The white woman, Carolyn Bryant, told her husband about the event, and he was determined to find this boy. He asked around until he figured out that it was Emmett who did this. Then, Carolyn's husband and another man abducted him from his home in the middle of the night. They tortured him and threw his body in a river with a 70 lb. fan attached to him to keep the body down. Emmett's body was found though by two boys. The body was badly deformed, and you could tell that Emmett was beaten, shot, and had one of his eyes removed from its socket. Emmett's mother received his body, and was mortified. She had a funeral with an open casket, so everyone could see what had happened to him. If you look up Emmet Till, you can see a picture of his disfigured body in the casket, and it is absolutely disgusting. Those who murdered Emmett Till were put on trial for it, but ended up getting off free of all charges. Although there was definite evidence, at the time, a murder of a young black boy was just not a big deal.

It's important to see how African Americans were portrayed in films, because it's very clear that is how they were seen in real life too. They were powerless, inferior, and dehumanized by whites, We may not be a racist free society now, but when you see that the case of Emmett happened only 56 years ago, I think our society has made a lot of progress in a short amount of time.

hollywood and the middle east

Thursday's movie was the first time I really learned about middle eastern stereotypes in American film. I was extremely surprised that Aladdin's opening song contained such racial lyrics. "Where they cut off your ear if they don't like your face, it's barbaric but hey it's home." This line goes to show that middle easterners are generally viewed as being villainous, and violent throughout American culture.

If movie's we show to our children portray arabs as being barbaric, it's safe to assume that it's a widespread problem in all genre's. Other American classic's such as Back to the Future, Indiana Jones, and Father of the Bride reinforce these stereotypes. In other movies we see that Arabic women are often shown as belly dancers, or Arab men being rich oil tycoons.

Racial profiling toward middle easterners has only gotten worse since 9/11. The two comics shown in the film went on to say that they had to show up a month early for a flight.Even if this is a stretch, it's obvious that all people with a tan/brown tone to their skin are hassled when traveling.

Cycle of Discrimination

Not only was sit after September 11, 2001 did Americans take a group of people and single them all out for a crime against the general public but there were also a few other occurrences that tend to be forgotten. The first of these being the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese and as a result of that Japanese Americans were placed into containment camps where they could be watched after there having been a conspiracy of Japanese Americans having helped aide the Japanese with their attack. There was also the Native Americans that had similar issues with this because after American leaders such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson would conduct raids on Native American villages killing everyone. The Native Americans fought back and eventually the natives were pushed into reservations and are still heavily restrained by the government and discriminated against as well. So throughout our entire history as a country white Americans have discriminated against others. Getting this centuries old mentality to fade away is going to take a lot of time to happen.

greys anatomy! :)

i dont know if any of you watch greys anatomy but its one of my favorite shows. we talked in class about how we cant think of many main characters that are of color in shows and on television. we also talked about how if there is someone of color on a show then they don't hold a very powerful position. greys anatomy proves this wrong. the 2 most powerful people in the show are people of color. the chief of the hospital is a black male and the chief resident is a black woman. i think this show portrays really good diversity and shows that anyone can be successful..because not only is there two African Americans in the show but there is also a Korean doctor who is one of the best. futhermore, they also show interracial marriages which i think is great. it had a black male and the korean doctor getting married and also a white male and korean getting married. there is also a gay couple on the show who chose to have a baby.

i guess what im trying to say is that this is a great show when it comes to the topic of racism. They dont seclude any race and they talk about serious issues throughout the show. it really explores a lot of different things when talking about serious dilemmas going on in this world.

Reverse Racism

While thinking about the misrepresentation and lack of black actors in media, films, and tv shows, a move called Guess Who came to mind. It's about a black woman who gets engaged to a white man and brings him home to her family. When the cab first pulls up to her parent's home, the man and woman get out of the car as well as the black cab driver. Immediately the woman's father comes out and shakes the hand of the black cab driver assuming that he is his daughter's finacne and the white man is the cab driver. This makes me wonder why people automatically assume one will marry within our own race. I think society (meaning media, history, customs, etc) plays a big role in this factor, which ultimately leads to inter-racial marriages being looked down upon, and the assumptions that one will marry someone within the same race. Further into the movie the woman's father becomes furious with that fact that she is engaged to a white man. I understand that this makes for an entertaining movie, however, I feel that if the races were reversed, and a white woman brought an all black man home to meet her father, this movie would be considered racist. Because a minority group (in this case a black family) is discriminating against someone from the majority group (in this case, a white man), and because we live in a "superior white" society, that makes this movie okay, and even funny. If the races were reversed, the movie would be an outrage, people would complain, I don't even think it would sell because it would be considered extremely racists. I don't think reverse racism is acceptable. I feel that discrimination towards any group is wrong, and I don't think media should portray this reverse racism as funny, because it's taking our society in the wrong direction. It will even continue to disciminate against inter-racial marriages (although like all movies this one has a happy ending).

High School Experience

When we were watching the video in class on Thursday I started to reflect on my past and think about my own experiences. What came to my mind was about an Arab girl I remembered in my high school class. The only thing I could remember about her was how she was always alone and I don't remember her having very many friends. I am just as guilty of this as everyone else from my class, but I don't think I ever really talked to her. High school can be a very hard time for most teenagers, I can't imagine how much more difficult it was for her being the only Arab in a class with 300 white students.

race and diversity in film making

when reading the articles for tuesdays class i couldnt help to think about how discriminated both blacks and women were. if you were to try and name the top five actors in the film making indusrty are i'm about 100% sure that there would be at least one black and one women actor in that list. there is no way that the will smith's, denzel washington's, martin lawrences', eddie murphy's, cameron diaz's, and the halle berry's of the world dont come to mind when you think of good actors we've seen on film. there is no doubt that once upon a time discrimination was high on both women and racial minority groups but i think times have changed. of course there are some movies and sitcoms that have required the main cast to be of one race (the house of pain, friends, the fresh prince of belle air, and two and a half men) and to me its not being racist or discriminating its just the part or the point of the sitcom or movie to show the life of the specific group of people. i feel strongly, at least in terms of the acting position, that there is a fair playing feild on race. and for the record i think the best film ever made on racial discrimination has to be Remember the Titans!!!!!

9/11/2001

before september 11, 2001 happened, i was very unknowledgeable about the world in general. i had no idea what really went on. Osama bin laden is an afghan arab. His people were the ones who crashed into the world trade centers. before then i didnt have any clue as to what arabs even were. i guess what im trying to say is that ever since this happened to our country, i have become a little hesitant to accept these types of people. I dont mean this to be offensive in any way but this day was a huge eye opener to me. i know that not all arabs are terroists, however, when i do see one, the first thing that comes to my mind is that those kind of people is what destroyed our country. at the same time, they have brought us closer and btought us together and have made us to be more patriotic. i dont try to stereotype them all into this category but what those certain individuals did to our country makes it hard for me to get passed this idea. does anyone feel the same way? i hope that one day i can get over this.

Troy Davis

Last night, I was channel surfing when I saw the news story of a man who had just been executed. His name was Troy Davis, a black male who was accused of murdering a police officer in 1989. I had not heard of this case until after he was executed so I decided to look into it a little more for some details. I wanted to see if this may have had something to do with the color of his skin. He was tried in front of a jury of 7 black jurors and 5 white jurors. I still got the feeling that he was not giving a fully fair trial. After being convicted with no murder weapon found, it was 20 years of Davis claiming his innocence in the appeals process to no avail.

This story made me feel sick to my stomach and made me think back to the Casey Anthony trial. Her life was not on trial, as was Davis's, but just as Davis, there wasn't enough evidence to convict her. Yet, it took only witnesses to take Davis's life. Davis held to the last second of his life that he was innocent. The only thing that makes me sicker than a possibly innocent man's life being taken is that there is a question of whether or not race was a deciding factor.

Hispanics in the Media

After talking about Arabs and Black's media image,  I thought about hispanics and their media portrayal. There are not a lot of popular hispanic movies in Hollywood today and if there is a hispanic role, they are not usually the main character. Also there are a lot of stereotypical roles that Hispanics play in most movies such as being a main, an immigrant or a construction worker. the link below gives more examples.

http://www.latinitasmagazine.org/teens/articles.php?article=256

"ARABS"

After our class discussion today, I was trying to find more about what being "Arab" might actually mean. Of course Wikipedia popped up first but it didn't tell me much about how Arabs are perceived. Then I found Urban Dictionary (which seems like a pretty racist entity in itself...), which described Arab as:

Arab= Arabian. Arabic is their main language and alot of arabs also speak other languages. Arabic can be spoken in diffrent "accents" and alot of words are diffrent from one country to another but it's all the same language. For example in the UK we say "Biscuit" in the USA they say "Cookie". Thats just a small example but yeah it's kinda like that a Iraqi might not understand everything a egyptian would say because of their accent. Anyone who comes from the middle east and north Africa, alot of whom leave all around the world, but orginate from there. Most of the population is Muslim but you can also get other relgions among Arabs e.g. Christians, Jews and some are ethicists but this is rare. (All the spelling and grammatical errors come directly from the website.) I thought this was a pretty okay description, it was more encompassing then what we talked about in class but I'm still not sure if the people we consider Arab would consider themselves Arab. But then Urban Dictionary went on to state:

Warning, not all arabs are suicide bombers!

Seriously like no more than 100 that are alive today are planning to blow something up, and probablly won't anyway.

What a way to make people believe you...I have to wonder who's writing this stuff???


A second definition stated that Arab is commonly used incorrectly to describe Muslims who are actually all over the world. It's nice to know that someone at least has some of their facts straight.


But anyway, the terms Arab and Orientalist were pretty new to me. Of course I've heard the term Arab but I've never used it to describe someone, probably because I never really knew what it stood for. I'm still a bit in the dark about Orientalists though, are Arabs considered Orientalists? Or is that reserved for "Eastern" Asia?

Anti-Muslim Sentiment

For this post I chose an article that demonstrated the consequences of Americans' perverted image of Muslims and Arabs.  This is obviously directly tied into the reading we had to do for today and also into the documentary we viewed in class.  The article covers the storm of controversy brought on by the mosque that was proposed to be built near Ground Zero.  Naturally, most people were outraged at this, including myself at first.  It seemed to spit in the face of the thousands of Americans who died that day and have continued to die overseas.  Over time I realized this truly was unfair to the local and greater Muslim community, it's the Muslim Extremists/Fundamentalists that committed the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and they compose a vast minority of the global Muslim population.  It seems most people who were extremely reactive towards the proposed mosque allowed anger and pain to blind them to the fact that religious intolerance was the sole cause of the terrorism we endured and by no means could solve our problems.  To use a quote from the article one individual said, "I do have a problem with having a mosque on top of the site where [terrorists] can gloat about what they did."  Granted, the person who said this is the parent of a firefighter who died at Ground Zero the day of the attacks so their anti-Muslim sentiment is understandable.  But just because it's understandable does not make it justified and that's why we have a long way to go before we can repair the Islamic faith's image in the eyes of America as a whole. 

Great movie about the American drug war.

I recently stumbled upon a movie that does an amazing job of explaining the true nature of America’s war on drugs. The movie American drug war the last white hope delves into the issues surrounding the prison industrial complex, the need to fill jails with non-violent offenders and fitting with our discussion in class the movie also addresses the disproportionate number of minority’s arrested in this all out war. However I suggest watching the movie mostly because of the other issues covered that we never got to cover, such as how the government may have been involved in the importation of illegal drugs during the Iran-contra affair, supporting crack use in the inner cities and many other questionable operations. It’s important to realize that most of what we have been told about drugs/ drug laws by the government is clearly one sided at best and is in many ways dishonest. Anyone who is interested in learning about the true history of the American war on drugs and how we got where we are today should take the time to watch the movie. It’s fairly entertaining and can be found on Netflix.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8231634812734884936