Sociology Blogs                                                                                                        Mason Hanse

·         Article 1

o   The question stated in this article was “Is racism a Western idea”. After reading I have concluded that racism isn’t just a western idea….it’s everywhere. It has always been around. As long as humankind is around there will always be the thought of someone looking down on another person. It was even stated that the Arab people thought their definition of a perfect human was a person with “Light brown skin”. A person will always believe that their culture is always superior.  It just always has been that way. The thought of it just being an idea developed by the European idea is ridiculous to me. Although, no one really ever thought of racism as the way it is till before the 1950’s. Overall, this article I believe sides with the fact that racism as we know it is a western idea. But, there is no doubt that racism has always been around and will continue to be around. Racism is everywhere whether you want to think that or not. The points stated in the article feed both sides of the argument. I believe firmly in the end that racism is truly universal and isn’t just a western idea.

·         Article 2

o   In our second article, it is asked “How Racist are we?” I believe naturally as much as I hate to say it I believe all of us have a little bit of racism in us. That doesn’t make you a terrible person but it does say that we may be hardwired to believe that we are superior to others. The author of this article states that the color of your skin our race shouldn’t determine how to judge a person. I believe we don’t have the right to judge a person as no one is perfect. Even if a person is perfect they do not have the right to judge anyone lesser than them. That is why this article states that everyone has a racist side to them. It also says that it isn’t just a white vs everyone problem anymore. Other cultures are in on the problem and we saw an example of this in our movie we watched the Bronx Tale. Not to mention that we stereotype cultures and pre-judge before we even got to know people. We view all welfare people as lazy drug addicts and all smart people nerds. It is just how we are raised. We are taught to be the best and be at the top of the pedestal. When in all reality we all breathe the same air and sleep under the same moon. We are all equal but our culture doesn’t view it as that. And that to me is a sad deal.

·         Article 3

o   This was an extremely interesting article as it views the physiological side of things. That to me is extremely interesting as we got to see that it isn’t our racist views that make us look down upon us but it may actually be the media that is making us used to seeing these stereotypes. Now, in this experiment they stuck words that were used together often like cool-night; summer-warm and they compared these to so called stereotypes. And after they quizzed the people on what they first thought when they found that the people viewed the races like whites as greedy and even females as “weak” and “fragile”. This states that this issue isn’t just confined to race but even age and gender as well. This article did a great job on explaining that media directly influences what we view as we are so used to seeing these words used together that its almost become second nature to what we think.

·         Now as we are asked to answer these questions it starts with “Is racism a culturally diverse or is it just a Western Idea?” I truly believe that this is a universal thing we have here. It isn’t just confined to us. Racism has always existed because someone always needs to be better than the person across the street or in another town.  It came from the very first person who looked down upon another. It came from when the very first people who were different skin colors and conquered each other and viewed them as slaves. And the sad part is that we all have a little bit of it in all of us. Whether you choose to show it openly or keep it inside of you…. It’s still present.  It’s everywhere as well.  There isn’t a way to completely avoid it. That doesn’t make you a bad person as I have stated because NO one is absolutely perfect and has done everything right in his lifetime. That doesn’t dismiss the fact that prejudices are ruining cultural relations and even some livelihoods. People are killed and attacked everyday just because of the color of their skin. It’s sad to me that the color of someone’s skin is what automatically makes them “lazy” or “weak”. People need to determine a person by their personality or what is on the inside. Until we are all getting along and learning to have some cultural awareness. Crimes will still happen and hate will still be around. We need to keep in mind that we will never get fully rid of racism. It will never disappear and it won’t ever change. But we can make changes to how we think. And to me I believe it all starts with the media. If we see more positive than maybe we will do more positive. That may just be the spark that can start a flame that will change the whole world. Hopefully we will get to live in a world where we don’t have to see that a busload of people was blown up solely because they believed in a different god than everyone else. Imagine if we all could get along for one day. Relationships would be mended and nations united. That’s maybe just what this world needs…….Positivity.