We Are Human

This week we have talked a lot about gender roles. How they play a part in society and the media. The media does “great job” on enforcing these male/female stereotypes. From commercials with young girls wearing “sexy” clothes and guys playing with “toy guns” to TV shows like the Jersey shore were in order to get a girl you have to have the 6 pack, and tan.  Even in our home these gender roles can be present.  When we think only the “mom” should cook or clean and we seen is as “not normal” for the dad to control those things in the house hold. Like in class everyone was surprised when one student told how if her dad leaves the house that her mom doesn’t know what to do and the house is a disaster. When we usually are taught the opposite.  We talked about gender roles in a lot of aspects in our daily life but forgot one place. Religion.  The religions (that I’m educated in) carry over societies view on gender roles. Or maybe society got these view from religion? In Orthodox Judaism the man is the only one who can be a rabbi. Men and women are even separated in services to carry on these roles.   Also in Christianity the priest and religious figures are always a man.  Even if we look back at the torah or bible the main prophets are usually men. They are seen as “heroic” just like society today views men should be like.  Yes there are some females that have played important roles in these religious texts but they are not described or seen as heroic as the males.  One religion that I have just learned about defies today’s society’s gender roles is Wicca. This is spiritual religion focusing on connecting with nature and the 4 elements of earth, fire, water, air and the spirit. Unlike popular believe Wiccan’s are not the “witches” seen in harry potter or wicked. They are not “evil” or even believe in evil it’s self.  Yet during this samhain known to most as Halloween they are frowned upon and misunderstood.  One major difference between Wicca and Judaism or Christianity is the believe that men and women are seen as equals. They don’t have the “gender roles” that only males should lead spiritual rituals.  Even their g-d and g-ddess are treated the same. The g-d Cern and g-ddess Brigid are both worshiped together. They have women lead ceremonies and covens not just men.  So maybe religion influences today’s society view of the “macho men” and “Barbie doll girls” or maybe it doesn’t? Either way we need to learn to not conform to the negative stereotypes. To be our own individual self. No matter what we see ourselves as (man or women) we  still have the commonality of being human.   

Rebuilding a Neighborhood Thousands of Miles Away

This week we talked about neighborhoods and how the agents of sociology affect our everyday lives. That our peers and family members shape us to be who we are today. We even looked at our own values and where they came from. But the one that most surprised me was neighborhoods. How they affect us in the future. How neighborhoods with divorce or single parent families are more likely to have higher crime rate. But what about a neighborhood that  most children had NO parents. They might have a grandparent or elder living with them but most only have themselves (as a teen) to live with. To support themselves. To learn values and lessons from. This is the reality in Northern Uganda.  In the many villages and Displace persons camps. These neighborhoods the former child soldier of the LRA live in terrible conditions stricken with hunger, diseases, and poverty. These once independent African people now are forced to live dependant on the government and aid. Before they were stricken by the civil war and Joseph Kony their villages were healthy. The people thrived and crime was low. They were successful farmers and fed off of others joy and practiced the wonderful traditions of their Acholi culture.  Even when the farming times were tough they had their village and farms to “cheer them up” and help them get through the tough times. Now however there are no parents or whole families in the villages. The children don’t have the space to farm in the camps. They have lost all the traditions and values that have been taught in their villages.  Most unfortunate is they have lost hope. These children feel that they have lost hope In their future and they don’t have that same village they use to have to support them and tell them there is hope.  It shows that even half way around the world neighborhoods do affect us. Yet by helping the invisible children we can become part of their “extended neighborhood”. When we donate money and time to help build schools and safer villages we help to rebuild that “neighborhood” that affects the lives of people everywhere.   

Pigmentation.

In class last week we talked about 7 things that good parents do that mess up their kids. These included giving them creative names, making them play sports, and teaching them about stranger danger ( to name a couple). We were asked asked to share about our own experiences being raised. Many of the kids had stories about stranger danger. These stories started out harmless but with in 2 minutes it was less about stranger danger but more about raciest stories and sterotypes.  The common theme of many of the stories were they took place at a gas station and the student felt threaten or unsafe because it was on the "south side" of Chicago and there were blacks there. Each story had its own veration of this. One being " i was really scared going into the gas station and then the big black guy told me that i should get out of this neighborhood becuase i can get shot" REALLY STEVENSON??? come on! a. those guys were probley messing with you becuase they saw you were scared. b. you were making judgments on these people whos only difference is the pigmentation of their skin.  We are in high school yet our teacher has to tell us “ my brother is married to a black women” to get the racist and sterotypes to stop being spread in class?.? Why? Its frustrating that we cant look past the darker pigment of a person’s skin. Why do we have to sterotype the “south side” of Chicago of being “ a bad area” filled with crime and “black people”.  These students fail to see that there are nice neighborhoods there. And regardless of the people’s race that live thiere they are humans just like us. Not only has Stevenson’s students been stereotypical about people not around them but they have taken it even further. They have actually said these sterotypes and raciest comments to people’s faces. My friend is jamacian and she was walking down the halls to get to her locker when we had 8^th period free. These two guys came up to her and pointed and laughed. She had no clue who they were. They then called her a “filthy stinky  n word”. She was in shock and didn’t know if what she heard was what they really said. When she told me this I was mortified. I was not only furious that someone could say such derogatory comments to a complete stranger.  But sad that our world has not moved forward that racisism still happens. I guess the worst thing a parent could do to mess up their child is to not talk to them about how they shouldn’t judge people and how racist comments are one of the worst things that can come from their mouths.  Maybe parents do talk to their kids about this when they are younger and the kids forget or just go along with what their peers say. Maybe we need a course in higschool that reminds students that the only thing that seperates “black” people and “white” people is pigmentation of the skin. They are not filthy people but they are one of us. We have to learn to work together to make this world a better place. But if we let the sterotypes get in the way we will never accomplish anything.  Maybe im over reacting?  Maybe im not? But either way I think 8. On that parent list of what they do wrong is “not talking to their kids about sterotypes”.

Messages of Life: Share Your Pumpkin Seeds

The other day I was walking my dog when this kid rode his bike past me. He looked very familiar he stopped and said do I know you? And I was like I don’t know and then he asked me if I was Samantha and I said no. He rode his bike away before I could get his name.  He looked like a boy in my second grade class. He had the same brown eyes, dark skin, and big smile. I don’t remember the kid’s name in my second grade but that day made me think about him. How he open my eyes to the world around me. Yes in second grade in Lincolnshire. If I had to pick a time of when I became interested in helping others and where my passion for volunteering came from I would say it came from him. He always would make me laugh. When he came in my class it was the end of September and my mom and I use to always bake pumpkin seeds and I would bring them to school. I would share them with him every day because he never had a snack. He would play with me on the playground since I had no friends in my class. My second grade teacher even told me (later) that I actually helped him to read and he learned/ listened to me more than he did to her. I remember my class always having fights between the girls but when I was with him I didn’t get sucked into the petty drama. During reading time he uses to try to do my hair (a custom that all the girls did when our teacher read to us).  He had to leave at the end of October and I remember that when it was his last day my teacher gave him a bag of pumpkin seeds. He said “I want to give these to Dori because she was nice and always let me have hers”. It’s the little things like those words that make you smile and feel good about yourself.  In the world we live in today as a teen it can be hard to just sit down and smile while sharing pumpkin seeds.  I feel he taught me to appreciate the little things because before I knew it he was gone and off to a new school. As a second grader I guess you can say “he changed my life beyond all means”. Whenever I feel that everything is going wrong I always remember him and smile knowing that we have to appreciate the little things that I have like pumpkin seeds. 

Death is the end of a person’s body but it is a beginning of another journey for that person’s sole, beliefs, traditions, and memories.  Even though a person is dead the life they left behind will continue on forever. Traditions from grandmothers get passed down through the generations. Memories and stories go through every family that makes us remember that special love one even when they are dead. Even famous individuals in the world leave their mark.  Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. great believes and dreams have inspired others to do great things and make this world better even after King and Gandhi were dead. Thus these dreams were part of one person but continued on to another as a new journey.  Jews and others who died in the holocaust can be viewed the same way.  They are dead physically but their story of struggle and of ignorance of the world still are told today.  We might not know each of their names but their messages influence us to do better in this world.  We grieve for a love one and many times in this process we want to make sure that they are never forgotten. We do this by taking a part of this person and applying it to our lives in that very moment, day, week or year.  This part of their soul is taken on a new journey with a new person but still hold true what they believed in. So death is just a process everything in nature goes through. We end the physical life of a plant, animal, or person. But what that soul can carry on is the message of beauty, loyalty, or peace.