Race

This week in sociology we watched the movie Crash. It tied together all of the concepts of race we had been talking about in the past few weeks. A lot of the characters while they were being stereotyped into a certain race were taking offense to it but doing it right back to another race which I found interesting and the more I thought about it, the more I believe that really exists in our society. These people create such harsh judgements based on a persons skin tone or people they surround themselves in and the movie shows how these people are actually very different from the way people portray them. 

I see it everywhere around me people being portrayed in a specific way. Blacks as the bad kids, asians as the smart ones, whites as the good ones and these stereotypes mean nothing. We learned that the color of someones skin does not determine their race and in America we have a very broad generalization for what race a person is. I think it is also unfair to think of these people in a certain way because while there may be a few black trouble makers or a few really smart asian kids, there can also be extremely intellegent and successful people who have dark skin (for example our president) and people from asian descent who are not smart at all. The color of ones skin should mean nothing about their personality, morals or beliefs, something that I feel like the movie we are watching represents very well.

Race

This week in sociology we talked about race. We discovered that race is a creation of society and there is no clear definition of race because every society thinks of race in a different way cWe learbed how some countries have over 50 (in some cases) descriptions of what race is which, living in the United Stares is something I have never thought about doing before. I also found it interesting how America categorizes race by a few main categories such as White, Black, Asian, Pacific Islander, or Latino. Although it was common to see most of those on applications and questionarres i never really put much thought into how discriminatory that actually was. And it doesn't have to be done like that.

This new concept of race I want to apply to my life. I want to start thinking of people more in the way that other more accepting countries do. I realize it is hard because in the United States we think completely differently but doing my best not to automatically categorize people by the race they were given is a very good start.

Students Helping Soldiers Community Service

For my 9th and 10th hours of community service I helped out Mr. Moran and Ms. Bush in the Stevenson ran Students Helping Soldiers club. They were preparing for the Veterans Baseball Game against Buffalo Grove High School so me and some of the people in the club wanted to help out since it was such a hit last year. We went out and bought all sorts of things and found restaurants that wanted to donate to the baseball game. We also decorated the field with cups in the fences and american flags all around the baseball field, after school, the day before the game. Some people in the club made a Facebook event that people could RSVP to and we did our best to get the word out there about the game. We spent a lot of time preparing for the game and it ended in a total success. I was not able to attend the game because I was out of town but from what I heard the turnout was amazing, it was a nice, warm and sunny day so tons of people came and the veterans were proud to be able to be there and all of the members of Students Helping Soldiers were glad they were there too!

Kildeer Book Fair Community Service

For my 1st and 2nd hours I helped out at the Kildeer Book Fair by selling pizza. Each year the school puts on a book fair and the proceeds go towards the school to help with projects within the school and the money sold for the pizza does too.
When we got there we met the women in charge of the book fair. They showed us around a little bit and then took us to the cafeteria where we had to set up. We put up the signs showing where the pizza would be so that parents could find us and then took some of the pizzas out of the warm oven and cut them up. There were a few people there also volunteering so some of us handed out pizza, while others passed out napkins and others collected money. I was mainly in charge of the pizza but we all switched off a little. We interacted with the kids and their parents, learned about the books they got and had a lot of fun. At the end of the two hour shift we took down the signs, and distributed the left over pizza to people still in the building. We also cleaned up the cafeteria and in the back where we kept the pizzas and other things we were selling.

Feed My Starving Children Community Service

For my 5th through 8th hours of community service I went and volunteered at Feed My Starving Children in Libertyville. Since each session is only and hour and a half, I went twice.
When you get there you have to sign in on the computer for the party name and sift you signed up for. Then you go and sit down and wait for the presentation to begin. The people who work at the organization put together a video informing the volunteers what their company is all about and what their food and our help can do to impact these hungry children around the world. Once the video is over you have to go and wash your hands so none of your germs get on the food you are packaging since the people in these countries may not have the immunities we do to certain things. Then we stand around and the lady who is in charge, Kathy, talks about what we will be doing. She explains the different things that go into each bag, how much of what to put in each bag and how many bags go into each box. Then we split up into tables and get to work.
I traded off my position a lot and went from pouring the vegetable pieces to sealing bags mainly. After an hour and a half of working we had to clean up. The person doing each job in the creation of the food bags is assigned a clean up job. I had to wash the dishes so I took the dirty supplies over to the dish washers, waited for it to go through their cycle then I had to dry them and bring them back.
Once everyone was done cleaning up all of the volunteers had the option to go into the storage room and pray. After that, we all went back out to the main area where we watched another video as they tallied up how much we had boxed that night. I was amazed when I heard the numbers! We had boxed 97 boxes which they said would feed 57 kids for an entire year.

Donating Blood For Community Service

For my 5th hour of community service I donated blood. My dad has always gone and donated every few months for as long as I can remember so when I heard about the blood drive at school, one of my friends talked me into doing it with her. Although I was extremely nervous, I decided to go with her anyway. After watching a small mishap with her veins and the doctor, I became way too nervous, wimped out and left before I had the chance to donate. After I left though, I was so mad I did.
A few weeks later my dad went and took me with as a way for me to redeem myself and I did! When I went and donated for community service this was the second time that I had done it.
When I went inside I signed in and waited for my turn. They called me back and I answered a lot of questions and they had to check my blood for the correct iron levels. Once they cleared me I went and sat in the chair. They poked me with the needle but it wasn't too painful and it only took about 10 minutes. When it was over they put a bandaid on it which I had to keep on for a few hours.

Project Dance Community Service

For 4 of my community service hours I participated in Project Dance. A Dance-A-Thon put on through Stevenson and U-Give that raises money for Riverside Foundation. I have done this all four years of high school so I knew what to expect going in to it this time.
A month or two out, we had to pick a captain and she went to the meeting and told us what we needed to do. She ordered our shirts and told us we needed to collectively donate $300 which happened to be $15 per person in our group. I asked people around me to donate a dollar or two and people were overall very nice and generous about it so I was able to raise my money relatively quickly.
On the night of the dance-a-thon we got to school around 5:30 and all checked in and were given bracelets. The rest of that night we danced, hung out with people we knew, ate pizza and watched performances from people who belong to dance clubs in and outside of Stevenson. They also played a video at the end of the night talking about what Riverside is and what the money we were raising was planning on going towards. It was very inspirational to see some of the people that we would directly be affecting and how happy they were with our contributions. In total, Stevenson raised over $60,000 that night!

Social Classes

This week in sociology we talked about social classes. We looked at lost of comparable houses, in drastically different neighborhoods and watched as the prices dramatically rose and fell. This went along with movie we watched that talked about different social classes from people of those different social classes. Seeing people from such dramaticly different social classes talk about the samentopic but in very different ways was very eye opening. We then shifted our focus towards people in poorer classes and what life is like for them. They get by with basically nothing and do things people in other classes wouldn't dream of for very little money. When we watched the movie about the guy who lived with his wife on minimum wage jobs for 30 days, seeing what they went through made everything much more real for me. 

I see people all around me, growing up, and at other schools not too far away that are really struggling to get by. You just see it though for a few minutes and walk away and think about how hard it must be for them but then go on with your life. For these people it is their life and they can never just walk away and forget about it. I want to make more of an effort now to help these people who are for absolutely no reason other than luck, less fortunate than me. Very small actions I could do could dramatically change their life. 

Economic Inequality

This week in Sociology we talked about economic inequality not only within the world which is usually what's talked about when inequality is brought up but also the amount of inequality in the United States and also in a much smaller scope, within our districts and the ones around us. Because we are so used to our surroundings we don't always take the time to step back and realize how good we have it. Our district and neighborhoods we live in by going to school in this district, while they may seem normal to us, are actually far exceeding the level of wealth in our surrounding areas and especially in the scope of our country and world. It's pretty crazy when you step back and actually look at the amount of money and life that the majority of people live with even within the same
country

I have grown up living in many different areas. I went to a Chicago Public School for 9 years of my life and have lived in several different neighborhoods in Chicago so I have been around lots
of different people and their living situations. I was used to it because that was the environment I grew up in. Lots of the kids I went to school with qualified for free or reduced lunches and when lunch cards were passed out each day in our classrooms, everyone knew who those kids were but it meant nothing to is because they were our friends and we didn't think of them any differently. There were so many situations like that where kids showed how they were from different socioeconomic class levels but until now when I step back and think about it, I hadn't even realized this was the case.