Being Middle Eastern American

This American Life- Talk to an Iraqi

Of all of the articles from this semester this is the that gets under my skin the most. I dated this loser in high school who thought that taunting anyone who could have been classified as Muslim was hilarious. He thought that trucks with images of eagle "throwing up the bird" saying "Jihad This!" were totally appropriate. He got totally dumped.
It will never make sense to me why perfectly normal, respectable human beings will have to deal with such ignorance. It also makes no sense to me how we let ourselves become so poorly informed that we find these behaviors of hate acceptable. If we compare this obvious hate with the Blumer article, it makes for an interesting comparison. Prejudice is a group phenomenon according to Blumer and that is most certainly the case in the typical American disdain for individuals we label as Arab. Just thinking about this group behavior makes me crazy.
However, if I try to find a unique connection in this article that doesn't dwell on racial prejudice and hate, I find it interesting that the techniques these individuals use to handle discrimination and disrespect are the same methods that many individuals use to deal with other kinds of bullies. Humor, education, defiance, and passing are techniques used for protection by all kinds of people for many different types of bullying and hate. Why is that? Are these techniques effective?

Doing Gender

I find West and Zimmerman's arguments about gender to be compelling and generally true. Good for them for taking the time to create definitions and argue about the ways in which we "do" gender. While I agreed with their arguments, I did have one problem with this article. Actually, it's an issue I have with many of the articles about gender. Why is it that all of these articles are obsessed about all the ways in which we do fall into our gender roles and worry very little about the ways we defy these expectations? Why are we so obsessed with defining our genders? Is it possible that if we stopped trying to define gender we would have an easier time dealing with gender?
These are just the questions that run through my head as I read articles like West and Zimmerman's. In the end I feel that they make points that are extremely important to the balancing of the genders. I just wish that in that balance we were able to better include individuals who don't fit into traditional categories more easily. The effect of gender roles on these individuals may seem pretty obvious but I feel that it is still important to consider these various types of gender representations when defining sex and gender.

The Case of Lower Income Students

Over the summer I worked for a few months with the Office of Parent Relations. It was a fantastic experience and the project I enjoyed the most was creating a presentation for parents and families of incoming first generation college students. I got to spend a fair amont of time researching the subject and then deciding what information about our university and college life would be most pertinent to these groups. Many of these families fit into the category of lower income as described in the article. In my light research I found that many students expressed anxiety about fitting in with their peers who come from different socioeconomic backgrounds. I feel that same sense of anxiety in the interviews provided in this article. 

What I find most discouraging about these articles and anxieties, however, is that often times these fears are rooted in reality. This article clearly displays the extent of the exclusion that students of lower incomes actually experience at their colleges. I also find the gap that occurs between individuals and their families due to their college experiences to be completely disheartening. The stress that is placed on students who experience these situations has to be gigantic. 

Borderwork among Girls and Boys

Ms. Laura is the last one on the playground.

Working as a teacher in a before and after school program you see at lot of weird stuff. I spent many long afternoons on the playground and watching my students go from blanket wielding Kindergarteners to beginning stages of hormonally obsessed 5th graders is always a treat. One of the things I observed the most were the interactions between the male and female students and how it changed over times. A vast majority of the activities between the two groups that I observed perfectly represents the activities described in Barrie Thorne's article. Chasing, invasion, and pollution rituals occurred almost every day.

 

The one place where I found this rituals to be oddly prevalent was in the line to wash hands and go to the bathroom. It was always a competition between the two groups and often times there would be taunting and teasing between the two groups. It was at this point that students often informed each other of the gender difference between the two groups. "Boys do gross things in their bathroom. They are NOT allowed in the girl's room." At the time I was too busy yelling at children to stop wetting paper towels and throwing them at each other to notice the social experiment happening infront of me. I wish I had paid more attention. 

The playground was often a place of distinct gender roles, as well. When it would rain the children were not allowed to play on the field and this would cause tension between the kids. The boys who normally beat the snot out of each other on the field were suddenly confined to playground areas that were normally dominated by the female students. This would often times cause tension between the two groups and fights often broke out. What would start as normal play would end up in the inevitable punishment of two fighting groups; groups that were often designated by gender. I find this to be extremely reminiscent of the activities the children in Thorne's article experience. 

Halloween

At one point in my childhood I had this horrible teenage neighbor. Each Halloween he would find new way to torture all the small children in the neighborhood and delighted in watching us cry. His constant torture had my paranoid mother so worried that she stopped letting us take candy from their home on Halloween. She often worried that he would put something into our candy. While I doubt that this juvenile pain-in-the-butt would actually poison our candy, I see how the role of the Halloween Sadist played into my own experiences.
I also remember being exposed to various kinds of Halloween safety propaganda. Teachers would hold entire class periods devoted to safe Trick-or-Treating and pamphlets were sent home every year. It also became and extremely popular trend to attend alternative candy gathering festivities. Many times churches and grocery stores would open up their parking lots and asiles for guaranteed safe candy giving, in order to fight the Halloween Sadist and ensure that children received candy only from adults that could be trusted.
Were we all just a little too paranoid?

Inside Toyland

Currently, I work for an organization that is gung-ho in its mission to create equality amongst employees. However, I haven't always experienced this kind of determined justice. For a year I worked at a job that could very easily be compared to Christine Williams' position within each of her toy stores. For instance, in both places there was a defined sense of gender roles.
For Williams she found that only women worked at the cash registers in her stores and white men often times held leadership roles. In my former position, which I will not name for fear of my former employers wrath, there were such distinct gender roles that I almost lost my mind. The women with whom I worked and I had a very distinct set of expectations that included kitchen maintenance, cleaning, decorating, and interacting with young children. These were very stereotypically feminine tasks. The only time we could convince a male coworker to perform any of those task was to directly ask for help, otherwise they would completely disregard these tasks. Also, our male coworkers were given tasks that included building and leadership positions.
In addition to this obvious sexism, every employee at this "family owned and family friendly" business were all from the same racial and economic circumstances.  Not a single minority was employed and one had not been employed for many, many years. I find that this relates to Diamond Toys, in that very few minorities were employed at this high scale store.

Cyberspace and Cyberselves

I understand the argument that Waskul is trying to make with this article. It could basically be boiled down to the fact that the Internet is a scary, scary place and you have no idea who  you're talking to, nor does anyone know who you are. Waskul explains the fluidity of identity of the internet and the basic ways in which individuals present their perceived identities online. However, I find that this article has a negative bias and I can think of one important reason why this is so. Waskul was hanging out in chat rooms for hours doing research. In the current Internet culture, chat rooms are comparable to strip clubs. While strip clubs are entertaining, not everyone spends all of their time watching daughters and mothers remove their clothing for the sexual stimulation of others. There a millions of people on the Internet who are finding ways to genuinely communicate with others, despite the fluidity of online identities. 

An example of a counter to the Internet's deceptive nature is the YouTube phenomenon. Thousands of people have flocked to YouTube to do away with the anonymity and bear the realities of their lives through a diary method called "vlogging". My favorite example of vlogging stems from a duo that identify themselves under the screen name of The Vlog Brothers. (I will admit, their screen name is important and helps to identify their purpose, so that's something that I agree with Waskul on.) This brother duo began creating daily videos as a way to communicate with each other and then created an entire subculture called Nerdfighteria. While the main goal of the community is to "decrease world suck", a large component of the community's communications are perceived acceptance and portrayals of the characteristics that actually belong to an individual through their online persona. In fact, it is encouraged for members of this Internet based group to engage in "real life" activities with one another, thus fighting the online identity issue.

Of course, this isn't a perfect counter example and Waskul's arguments are applicable in certain settings. However, I think it is vital to note that the fluidity of chat rooms is not completely applicable to all online interactions. The cyberself is not the scary entity it is made out to be.

DFTBA

The Self as Sentiment and Reflection

I would be lying if I said I wasn't being completely judgmental when reading this article. There appears to be something about writing on the subject of "self" that draws out some strange, strange things. The problem I have with this article comes down to the way in which the author chose to approach writing about the subject. Normally, my dissection of another person's literary pursuits wouldn't be relevant, but I think it applies this time. Please, bear with me while I attempt to connect the dots.

The author of this article, who happens to have the middle name of Horton, discusses the social self, but is careful to explain that he does not believe that there is a non-social self, it's just that all those other, lesser, people call it something else and he had to find a way to distinguish his topic. Cooley (the author) then spends several pages using perceivably unique phrasing to describe the phenomenon by which individuals build their concepts of self based on the way an individual relates to others. This can mean that we define our sense of self based on how we relate to other beings through our interactions or the way we think and perceive situations. A decent example of this, which was included in the article, was the description of how an item is only able to be described as "mine" because it relates to other beings as not belonging to them.

While the points Cooley makes are interesting and it is possible to walk away from this article with a general understanding, I found myself looking down at the pages and thinking, "Wait, what?" Cooly's sense of self is doused like bad cologne all over this article. It is apparent that Cooley wanted to be seen in a certain light and is willing to write in a unique style, so as to put off a very specific sense of self. In order to project this sense of self Cooley uses "unique" writing techniques to explain his thought processes. For example, phrases like "fondling it in seclusion" are used with strange metaphors that really don't help support Cooley's case. Why does he do this? Part of me is completely baffled and unable to explain why anyone would want to present scholarly material in such a way, but it could be argued that Cooley is attempting to project his sense of self by writing in such an unexpected manner.

Or maybe people are just weird. That's a completely reasonable possibility at this point.

Salvation On Sand Mountain

My grandmother, the most wonderful woman to ever live, passed away at the beginning of this school year. Her funeral was the first time I had sung "Mansion Over A Hilltop" since I was in my mid teens. It used to be a hymn that I would sing every Sunday. Even though it had been half a decade since I had heard this song, I still knew every note and lyric. It was just something that was ingrained into you.

Now, the difference between when I used to sing this hymn and when Elvis sings it is pretty big. The church I attended from birth to 17 was a Church of Christ. The CoC does not believe in the use of instruments in musical prayer. This is because if the Bible doesn't specifically say that you should do something, then you just shouldn't do it at all. This was one of my church's practices that I just could not wrap my head around. Jesus never said, "Come forward and feed thine cat!", but I still choose to put food in my cat's bowl every morning.

There are a few observations and memories I can discuss in regards to my religious experience. Most of this will be boring. One of these things is awesome. The boring facts will tell you that my mother was Catholic and my father was a heathen. Alright, he wasn't a heather, he went to a Church of Christ with his family growing up. He then hit a wild rebellious streak, met my mom, got married, and now wears sweater vests to work every day and swears he never did anything improper a day in his life. Neither of my parents were very satisfied with their early religious upbringing, so my mother started taking us to Church of Christ services and my father started working on Sundays. Our church was (and still is) a congregation of educated, middle class, white people, with traditional families. Services include very monotone readings out of the Bible, sermons that are mild mannered, and singing with no instrumental background.

Here's the awesome part. The clearest memories of my religious upbringing are of what took place after church services were over. Sundays meant Kentucky Fried Chicken and Car Talk. After service we would turn on Car Talk, a fantastic NPR show, and drive-thru order some disgusting fried chicken. It was the best part of Sundays. (Sidenote: I became a vegetarian after I stopped attending church regularly. I'll let you figure out how those things are related.)

My religious upbringing was boring and miserable. There was absolutely no liveliness to keep a teenage engaged. I would say this had a wooly mammoth sized impact on my current non-identity when it comes to religion. However, I get the feeling that had I attended The Church of Jesus with Signs Following, I would probably be more connected to my religion; or I would be dead.

Snake handeling services with The Church of Jesus with Signs Following could not be more different from my religious experience. Where The Church of Jesus with Signs Following encourages its members to yell, make prophecies, and do absolutely unsafe things, my church was putting people to sleep. It is unreal to me that people would gather together in a religious space and behave that way. Mumble out a "hallelujah" in a Church of Christ in Missouri and you will be shushed. While there are millions of ways in which to contrast my religious upbringing with The Church of Jesus with Signs Following, I am more impressed by the similarities.

Our church, too, was rocked by a scandal. While we prayed for resolution and believed in the rightness of our leadership, we, the congregation, suffered. I see this with The Church of Jesus with Signs Following, as well. Their numbers dwindled and their reputation was shot. They had to seek outside of their congregation to find someone to lead services or had members not well versed in public speaking leading services. This, also, happened in my experience. In fact, the way in which The Church of Jesus with Signs Following reacted to its scandal reminds me all too well of the way in which I witnessed adults behaving and structural changes in my own experience. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if after their church services, Uncle Ully Lynn and Sister Bobbie Sue picked up some fried chicken while listening to Car Talk.

The Saints and The Roughnecks

Revisiting The Stanford Prison Experiment

I first learned about the Stanford Prison Experiment when I was in high school. My Advance Placement Psychology teacher shared the video, "Revisiting The Standford Prison Experiment" and then challenged our teenage brains to think about how our school experience was linked to this experiment. In hindsight this was probably not the best idea. The last thing an overflowing school needs is a student uprising based off of an over zealous teacher's lesson plans. Regardless, it is an experiment that tends to stick with you.

I remember thinking then, as I do now, that I was so entirely repulsed by the behavior of the experimenters.  I wondered why they let these students engage in violent behavior or be tortured and no one stopped for a second to question if they were causing harm. Zimbardo describes when he realized that he was causing others to suffer as a moment that could only occur when someone from the outside, in this case his current lady friend, related their perspective. I have always found this to be completely unacceptable.

I understand that this study is supposed to be used as a key example of how people can become so engrossed in a certain reality or situation that they are unable to see past their current circumstances. However, I have an extremely difficult time applying this principle to Zimbardo and the other experimenters. It is expected that researches and, especially, teachers are able to remove themselves from situations in order to be effective leaders. This is not a new concept and I find it hard to believe that Zimbardo had never been taught to remove himself from bias and convolution, especially in the process of research.

Is Zimbardo's explanation of his inability to address the safety of his subjects acceptable? I would have to argue that Zimbardo deserves to be knocked down a peg on the experimental recognition scale. Other studies that traumatized subjects and put them in a lot less physical danger, like Milgram's shock tests, and are villainized. Why do we praise Zimbardo as being a genius for recognizing his own inhumanity? Personally, I'd like to see the teaching of the Standford Prison Experiment altered to show fault on all levels. Recognizing his inability to effectively lead does not excuse Zimbardo for his behavior.

Emotion Work and Feeling Rules

Arlie Russell Hochschild discusses emotional work and deep acting in the article "Emotion Work and Feeling Rules". Emotion work, according to Hochschild is "the act of trying to change in degree or quality an emotion of feeling." Let me tell you about a woman who is a stellar example of emotional work. Her name is Betty Draper. Betty is a fictional character on a completely ridiculous television show. Betty Draper is a a horrible shrew on the inside and as the show goes on more and more of her inner wicked witch starts to come out. On this particular occasion Betty has found herself unable to deal with her multitudes of problems. (Children who act out, a cheating husband who also secretly conspires with her therapist about what Betty is saying, and neighbors with loud birds.) Betty's attempts to deep act, or force herself to feel as if she is happy in her soul-sucking role as a housewife, have failed. Despite how hard Betty worked at her emotional work of keeping up with the way people expect her to feel and behave, she's going to just lose it and start shooting the neighbor's stupid stinkin' birds.

Some days I want to be like Betty Draper, even though she's a miserable woman. Betty Draper is a character who is so genuinely unable to continue the emotional work of being a standard housewife that she does things like, oh, shooting the neighbor's stupid birds. Betty Draper has been deep acting for so long that her brain just can't take it anymore. All the times she's tried to convince herself that she should feel a certain way has just eaten away at her little brain.

While this may seem like an unstable thing to aspire to, I envy her in this moment. I think everyone has the deep desire, every now and then, to pull a Betty Draper and just do exactly what their urges tell them to do, even though the consequences could be dire. I mean, wouldn't it be just fantastic to just unleash your inner "crazy"? Wouldn't it be nice to just shoot the neighbor's stupid birds?

“Symbols and the Creation of Reality”

Behold, the symbols of my reality.

I play roller derby. Derby is often times associated with symbols of violence, aggression, physical harm, sexual deviance, inappropriateness, and debauchery. Derby is a sport that symbolizes chaos and disorder in the view of general society. In my constructed reality derby symbolizes athleticism, friendship, diversity, and community. I often times have to explain how derby “really is” to others. I feel as if I have to convert them to my version of reality. The example given in the article of walking back to your dorm (I hate that word, by the way) and being unsure of who is behind you applies here. Derby is perceived to be a mugger, when in reality it’s just a good friend trying to catch up with you.

I also feel that my dislike of the word “dorm” applies to this concept of symbols, language, and perception. A dorm is perceived as being a building where college students live. A dorm is probably dirty, a dorm is rarely loved, a dorm is just for sleeping. A residence hall, however, is a place where communities are built, friendships are made, and people look out for your academics and general health. That’s why you’ll never find someone from Student Affairs calling a hall a “dorm”. In general realities “dorm” is just a term, in our reality it’s a dirty, dirty little word.

Doesn’t everyone have words that are equally misinterpreted according to their social reality?

September 11, “Commemorating America’s Involvement in Vietnam” – Wagner-Pacifici and Schwartz

To be completely honest, the only thing September 11th makes me want to do is to completely shut off all access to other people. Turn the television off, close the laptop, and ignore Twitter. I don’t anticipate writing about 9/11 as being an elating task. I imagine I won’t want to finish writing this at all.

I will, relatively briefly, describe how I remember 9/11/2001. I was 12 and in middle school. I carried a Five Star zip binder because we weren’t allowed to carry backpacks around school. I had a very exact way that I folded notes to later be passed in hallway. I was just starting to figure out what characteristics I had to possess in order to be more like my more popular peers and less like my socially awkward friends from elementary school. I read really terrible books and spent a ridiculous amount of time on AOL Instant Messenger.

I have very vague memories of a day that I’m supposed to “Never Forget”. No one turned on the TVs so we could see what was happening on the news. No one sat down and explained why all of the adults were so absent minded. No one told us what was happening or why it was important. School went on as normal, with the exception of a few extra phone calls between classrooms and whole lot of “independent study” time. At the end of the day I got on the bus and was teased just like every other afternoon on the yellow tin can of death. I had picked up throughout the day that something was bothering the adults that they weren’t completely disclosing, but wasn’t something always bothering the adults?

In complete opposition to the adults at school who preferred we remain clueless, my mother, the Queen of Too Much Information, assumed that I knew every detail she had already absorbed. Upon reaching home I walked upstairs and noticed that my mother was sitting with my then 15-year-old brother on his bed watching the news. My mother barely removed her head from the news to anxiously say, “You’re home! Are you alright?” After a long day of being 12, I turned to her tersely and said, “Well, yeah. It’s not like a bomb went off or anything.” She looked at me like I had just dropped the f-bomb in front of her for the first time. It didn’t take but a few seconds for me to walk away so I could get on AIM and talk about how freaking cute Will Seaver was. I had things to do.

I was completely clueless at to what September 11th was or what it meant. As it was happening all of the adults around me were too concerned about what it meant to them to think about what it would mean to some kid with terrible prepubescent acne. I have had to almost completely construct my “memory” of 9/11 based off of information I received later from the news, textbooks, blogs, and teachers. I believe that this is so frustrating for me because there are two very different memories of that day for me to choose from. The first is an overly patriotic construction of deep remembrance. This construct wants me to post my Facebook status about how deep my sorrow is and stay home and watch TLC for hours. The other option is to be bitter and discuss how ridiculous the War on Terror is, spend hours reading articles on the internet, and to write long diatribes on Facebook in response to my friends’ statues.

I choose to remain totally ambivalent. How ambivalent must you be to survive in America?

No one will agree on how 9/11 should be remembered. It’s a piece of history that so many of us have to share that it will constantly be debated and argued. Everyone will attempt to back up their arguments with their own belief in being wholly correct. No one will be completely satisfied. This, however, is not a new thing for us. It’s easy to compare 9/11 to the remembrance of the Vietnam War. Both events are things that everyone will argue about and have deep connections to. They will both remain this giant thing sitting there at your dinner table, invited or not. We as a whole will also look on both events as being these giant tragedies in American history and choose to remember them the way we think we’re supposed to.

The Vietnam War Memorial was supposed to create a solemn sense of remembrance of the people over the government. However, the American people visit and search out individual names, place flags at the base, and create their own idea of how the war should be remembered. The ceremony surrounding the memorial was elaborate and patriotic and not at all what the creator of the memorial had intended. The problem was that Americans have a general belief that to honor and commemorate they must do so with large displays. The bigger the better; the larger the display the more we care.

This relates back to 9/11 rather blatantly. The media shoves “Nineelevina” in our faces every year. They have to discuss it because to not address the issue is unpatriotic and just plain wrong. Each piece of the American media wants to show that their flag flies the highest. Who shows the most survivor specials? Who puts on the biggest parade? Who does the most in depth coverage? Who’s Facebook page had the most chain-mail style status posted in one day?

Both events are things that we should always remember, but we have no idea why. Do we just feel these proud American feelings because we’re told we’re supposed to?

“Islands of Meaning” – Eviatar Zerubavel

The first thing I have to do with this article is provide a little bit of credit and little bit of criticism. First off, credit is due to Zerubavel for using a unique metaphor to describe the concepts of schemas, accommodation, and assimilation. This is generally an over-worked concept and it’s nice to be provided with a unique explanation. However, this is an over-worked concept and reading about it, uniqueness aside, is a little brain numbing.

However, relating the concept of schemas to language usage really grabbed my attention. I am a firm believer in the power of language. My mother taught high school English for 33 years. We read banned books at bedtime. In short, my mom is kind of a bad ass. One of the most bad assed things she taught us, however, was how language can completely construct a world. I believe that language makes “the real world” possible.

Zerubavel discusses language as being socially constructed based off of our desire to assign labels. Unfortunately, Zerubavel has a largely negative view of schemas and sees language as a puppet that aids schemas in their evil plot. Zerubavel says, “Since it is the very basis of social reality, we often forget that language rests on mere convention and regard such mental entities, which are our own creation, as if they were real…”

While I can understand the angst towards schemas, as they do make it possible to group things together unfairly, I would argue against Zerubavel’s view. Schemas, like language, can be used for both good and evil. The user must be very careful in their selections of language and categories. Instead of telling humans the way they have been thinking about the world is a negative thing, encourage the reader to make informed choices. Just because something is a “mental entity”, does that mean it can’t be real?