reaction again and again

April 5, 2006 at 1:56 am | In i think | Leave a Comment

We   are now in   second half of the spring semester .After analyzing and interpreting various aspects of Racial, Cultural discriminatory practices, now we are analyzing and discussing on issues of Homosexuality and its impacts.     After spring break, we discussed on topic like Gender Stereotype, Sexual Prejudice, Models of Manhood, and Masculinity as homophobia. In order to interpret and know    their approaches on our society we go through “Off the Straight and Narrow” and another movie called “Boys don’t cry”     On March 13 th, we talked about Gender Stereotype and Sexual Prejudice. Gender is   socially  defined  expectations for masculine and feminine  behavior. Gender streotypes is the prejudice or self-evaluation of gender on the basic of role played by women or men in the society.     Basically here in America, men are stereotypes  as aggressive ,macho  ,muscular ,strong, intellectual , competent and decisive   whereas women are  stereotype as passive,caretaker,sex object ,weak ,emotional ,need  input ,indecisive .    I was quite surprised to see same thing repeating about gender stereotype in US, which used to be same in third world country like mine. I had not imagined that
USA have same feeling and attitudes towards women as they are in minds of illerate poor Nepalese back in my country. Looking from eyes of mine, I   think women are competent, independent and decisive    in
USA than in my country.    Sexual Prejudice refers to all negative attitudes based on sexual orientation of human, whether   they are homosexual, bisexual or heterosexual. However, in these cases prejudice is almost towards homosexual behavior and groups of people who are gays, lesbians and bisexual as they are one who represent minorities. They are discriminated because they are less in number and societies always want to stop voices of minorities. If the cases are totally against laws and practices of society, they are more eager to stop it by hook or crook.               I think sexual prejudice is taken as negative   as it is some thing, which is not in our society and culture from long time. It is  considered unnatural too. As this practice is almost   against  the rule of nature of “opposite attracts”. Sexual Prejudice carries the voices of heterosexual majority so they want to suppress voices of minorities. For those reason attitudes   of heterosexual towards homosexual is always negative, violent and hostile.     I think in our society dominant   model of masculinity is heterosexual masculinity or manhood .but as gay a do not want to continue the typical model of manhood they suffers from oppression and discrimination of being unnatural.      Masculinity is defined by physical strength, bravado, exclusive heterosexuality suppression of vulnerable emotions such as remote uncertainty. Homophobia is a person who have negative attitude towards gay, lesbians and bisexual.     Kimmal had taken “manhood” as central organizing principle of our cultural definition of manhood   .Culturally man are taken as brave, decisive muscular confident,      I personally feel that Kimmel is true in his statement as everyman want to prove   him as being “man”. In order to prove himself he can do anything and can goes to any level to fulfill that. He even can take the help of violence to complete it. He do that because he fears from being insulted as man  without  manhood . In addition,    the   word “man without manhood” evokes him to do anything.      Heterosexual masculinity is the cultural pressure on males   to be masculine in traits as they are cultural beliefs, which is in practice   from long time ago.     In order to know the important of manhood hood we can just cite example of Napoleon (King), George Washington (Father of America), Alexander (warrior) or film stars like Tom Cruise or Arnold, they are popular of their masculinity. They are popular because of their big muscles, power, violent character, decisive nature. It shows important of manhood in our society. I think it shows   how much manhood matters in society and our surrounding.     I observe    that standard of masculinity vary from time to time, culture to culture, and place to place but always masculinity is defined as different and superior from feminity.     “Boys do not cry, is the film made on 1999, which was based on true story of Brandon Teena who embodies the ongoing dilemma of masculine identity.  Whole film is set on small town in
Nebraska and film revolves around a girl who wants to be boy.      Film is able to portrays the dynamic nature of a Brandon Teena who wanted to be boy from girl. Film focused on complicated issues of transgenderism   and its negative effects on society.    “ Off the Straight and Narrow “is the documentary, which talked about the  images of gays and lesbians in television from early 1960s until now. It is documentary to cast a critical cast over the growth of gay and lesbians and their images on TV. I think documentary is able to show     changing attitudes of society towards homosexuals. Along with that, it shows changing coverage of homosexual  issues in TV and other forms of mass media.

reaction is necessary

March 31, 2006 at 5:43 am | In i think | 2 Comments

In the course race gender and mass media we are going through more specific topics of gender biasness and racism. These days we are not only interpreting how racism is hampering our society and culture but also   looking at how American government is trying to minimize its effects   .                                                                                                                                                     From February 13 onwards till February 22 we go through several topics of race, gender and its relation with media. We interpret, analyze and evaluate   its pros and cons. During this period we watched video called “Legislating morality” and we go through articles like Institutional /Cultural/Linguistic racism. Along with that we discussed about affirmative action.                                                                                                                                  On 20 th February, we discussed about institutional /cultural / linguistic racism.                                                                                                          Every institution in
United States is fully controlled by whites. From central government to local government; from big hospital to clinics; from universities to school whites are leading whole institution and maintaining racism. This is institutional racism.
Yes, I agree with this phenomenon of institutional racism, as its truth, and it’s obvious to be so. In
America white people have got privilege of first class citizen. They are encouraged to get good education. They are rich and are elite. So they possess chances to do better in life   and that’s why they are ruling every institution. They are trained to rule others as they have dark history of promoting slavery. On the contrary, other minorities like black have dark history of being slaves.  They are just free to think about themselves from last 100 years only. They have pains and sorrows of being slaves till now. They are far from opportunities to do better in life due to lack of education and proper environment.
So it obvious  to have institutional  racism ;as privilege  to develop career; motivation and skills  between  whites  and other minorities  lag far behind  from each other . They are unequal and unbalance too.Institutional racism has brought cultural racism too. Cultural racism is the imposition of racial political culture upon the lives of other culture willingly or not willingly.As culture is a  way of life of  people, cultural racism forces one to follow the culture of powerful  group  or majority ,so that he/she can assimilate in their culture.                                                                                                               I agree with this concept of cultural racism as I feel myself victim of it. After coming here in USA from small mountainous  Hindu kingdom  Nepal, I feel myself  alien  as I am  disconnected   from my culture ,  on the other hand  I have not been able to adopt to new American culture. I am in phase of assimilation to new culture. These days its hard for me too calculate dates and months of
Nepal which are in Bikram Sambat(BS) rather than in AD.I am being used to with AD. Along with that I don’t  know  when festival like  ‘Holy’(festival of color ) falls but I remember  when is valentine day and Christmas.
In
Nepal, I never used to call elders by name as it is regarded as disrespectful. But here I am getting used  to calling elders with name, as it way of life here.   So I feel my self victim of cultural racism and I found myself in phase of transition   to new culture.
Cultural racism has favored linguistic racism to. As language is part of culture, we are facing linguistic racism too. We can just take example of English, which shows how linguistic racism occurred. When
Britain emerged as the super power of the world by making world its colonies, its power affected the whole world. As English was their language, its force other to speak in English. Consequently culture of speaking English developed world wide and finally  every  people were attracted towards this language  and now every where in the world English is teaches  as compulsory language in schools , colleges and universities . This shows how the influences of power change whole society, community or world.
 Affirmative action is the set of public policies and initiatives designed to help eliminate past and present decimation bases on race, color, religion, sex one national origin. Main motive towards introducing affirmative action was    to help African American become full citizen   of the
United States.
I think plan to implement affirmative action was right initiative to empower black people or minorities to bring them in main stream development by giving them priorities. Along with that I feel that this concept have been misused too.    I personally  feel that it is good to give priority to the equally qualitative people of other  color rather than majority, but again if the same trends continues  of just giving  priority  to color  rather  than qualification . I think it will bring another conflict or revolution.   In name of giving priority to minorities, one cant hurt majority, as some time equally qualified majority representative  may be kick out from  opportunity because of color. In democratic system I think every individual right, qualification views should be equally treated rather than giving priority to majority or minorities.              Legislating morality: affirmative action of burden of history is documentary which revolves around views of people of various post and occupation. It deals with positive and negative aspects of affirmative action.

reaction is going on

March 31, 2006 at 2:27 am | In i think | 12 Comments

With aim to learn how to analyze, interpret and evaluate the images and  On Message regarding the images and messages regarding women and people from medium of mass communication, started our class on 9 th of January.Our course RTV 105-003 Race ,Gender and mass media will examine  the historical development of  image  of women and study of other ethnic group which are after  referred as co called ‘ minorities “. Along with it, it helps to know about political and economic influences racism too.                                                                                                      From 9 th January till 23rd January we go through several lectures and viewing videoProgram along with reading assignment from black board too. We watched 3 documentaries . They were A] Angry EyesB] Question of race C] The color of race    and goes through articles like ‘white privileges” and “how Jews became white folks “and 1st and 2nd chapters of Racism, sexismand the media , which discussed on  “diversity in the land of majority  rule “  and “do the  media matters “ respectively. 

                                                               Documentary’ The question of race ‘was shown on 18 th January 2006. It is all about what people think about race .The questions of race ‘vividly presents the ideas of race through mindset up of several persons interviewed. It shows that people have varieties of ideas about race, its origins, its function and important.                                                                                                           People in documentary take race as history, a kind of ugly racism as a fun, as a poetry and as a difference.                              I agree with must of ideas  or views share by those person , as it carries the experiences  of happiness  or a bad experiences  they  faced due  to their race  of origin.                                                             I too feel that race is racism or bad history. Size of ones eyes or shape structure should not be the qualification to judge individual or group. Races have always stood as dark part of human civilization. System of making slave to black African by white people on past are all the consequences of the black skin color African posses. This shows that color or racism have created bad history. Race is the barrier for establishing mutual cordial relationship between the people.      In my opinion race is in grained too. It is bitter truth. Race matters when people fought for social and political matters. Races have become an agenda to fight between people of different origins. Races based on politics now which don’t allow people to think beyond the narrow wall of racism instead of broader space of humanity and brotherhood.                                                                                                   Finally in conclusion, race is all about thinking which prevails in   human minds as feeling of race which passes as culture transmission. Race is socially reality. We must reconstruct it show that one can be free from idea that race is all about color, size, shape of human being   body structure.

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