CRASHH

This week in sociology, we watched a movie named Crash. I have seen Crash before but I never thought about it in the same way. Now that I'm in sociology, I have a whole different perspective about the movie than I did previously. Instead of depicting a main character throughout the film, Crash focuses mainly on race; and how it affects the lives of the characters every day. Its interesting how many people think that Racism doesn't occur anymore; even though sometimes it occurs more today without us realizing it, than it ever has before. The movie demonstrates how racism now is mostly implicit instead of being explicit like it used to be. One of the cops was explicitly racist and he knew he was and he admitted it. But, the other cop was so against him and thought he was a pig; but in reality he was just as racist without knowing it. For example, in the scene where he wants to help a black guy up because he is walking in the cold. So, when he gets in the car, he was talking about hockey he accused him of lying immediately because he didn't think black guys play hockey. Also he was laughing because he had the same toy as him in his pocket.The white officer immediately accuses of him of making fun of him. But things even get worse. When the black guy reaches into his pocket to show him his toy, the officer immediately shoots him. By being implicitly racist, the white officer has to live with regret for the rest of his life.

Race

Race is defined as any of the traditional divisions of humankind, thecommonest being the caucasian, Mongoloid, andNegro, characterized by supposedly distinctive anduniversal physical characteristics: no longer intechnical use. Race is a part of us whether we like it or not. From the day we are born we get judged based on the color of skin we are and how we physically are. Race is not biological; although many think it is. The concept of biological race doesn't exist, unlike what people think. It's all based on perception. This week we watched a Dave Chappelle episode and saw what the stereotypical black race is like, asian, and caucasian. Our society creates these stereotypes for us like how smart asians are or how dominant whites are. We also learned how there are indeed two types of racists people out there; explicit and implicit racisim. Implicit is instilled in our brains and we don't even realize that we are being racist. It was interesting to learn about this kind of racisim because before I didn't even realize it exists. In my life, I have experienced many racisim in my family. When I was dating someone that wasn't my skin color, my family treated him differently than what they usually would act like. They didn't mean to but it was instilled in their brains that because they are a different race than we were, they should be treated differently. I disagree with this and think skin is just  a color and it shouldn't label us as a human being or define us as a person.

Social Class

This week in Sociology, I learned a lot about social class. People who were at the bottom, people who were at the very bottom, people in the middle, upper class, and people who were very, very upper class. The trend seems that the rich will always get richer and poor will stay the same, without moving up or go down even lower, sadly. It was interesting that so many people who were poor were actually very content with their lives. The people who were extremely wealthy usually weren't content with their lives and always wanted more and more. Then, the people below poverty level wanted to move up. Just like the people who lived in the trialor in the movie. It was very saddening to see their lives, and see how hard the Mom was working at Burger King but the reality of moving up in social class is almost no chance at all. It wasn't her fault though; she was born and raised in that social class so she is probably going to stay there for the rest of her life.

Personally in my life, I've experienced actually moving down a class. When my parents were together they were pretty well off, when they got a divorce however, everything changed. We lost our car and home. My mom had no money. Luckily, she had an education to fall back on and was going to start working as a teacher once again. IT is interesting how much more I appreciate everything now that I've been through all of that.