Genius Hour Reflection

I worked on my explanation of cause. I wrote a paragraph, with multiple sources, explaining the functional purposes of capitalism and it's functions in society. I found and annotated another source for the paragraph explaining the theoretical benefits of capitalism.

Unit 3: Race Socialization Reflection

1. How is race socially constructed, and what effect does this have?  

Biologically racial divisions are illogical, often with more differences within racial categories rather than between them. However, socially, one’s technical race is less important than what others perceive them to be. Race is derived in perception of others, not biological formation. Omi and Winant explained that our individual, often disparate, conceptions of race are based on individual experiences, yet those foundations create a way in which we interpret, categorize, and form expectations about people based on their race or ethnicity.

Race is socially constructed by the agents of socialization: family, media, peers, etc. Although the manifest function of media is entertainment, the latent function is learning carefully crafted representations of race, and therefore developing prejudices. The media illustrates racial stereotypes and uses minority identities for punchlines, or often lacks any representation of racial and ethnic minorities. Jane Elliot demonstrated how one with authority in a group can construct race, by which I mean create a social value in physical characteristics. She utilized her power to verbally harass and degrade the lesser-eyed students by explicitly labeling mistakes as a result of their eye color. This is the key to racial construction: convincing a group that certain characteristics present in a racial group are a result of their race.

The symbolic value of a physical characteristic is a prejudice, which most often leads to bias. While declaring explicit bias and expressing it in overt discrimination has become a faux pas, implicit biases are still prevalent in this generation. Being that predominantly those in power (in government and upper levels of most American industries) are white, and have been taught to have a bias favoring other white people, these biases perpetuate the same racialized power structures that have existed for centuries. Even members of non-white racial or ethnic categories can acquiesce and believe in white superiority. The Doll Test showed how whiteness is taught as superior, even to children of color. Through the lens of the social conflict theory, race is tool to oppress groups.

The existence of bias, often based off characteristics present in the minority of a racial category, leads to discrimination. As a group is perceived socially as inferior or innately worse, however that stereotypes takes its form, and is treated worse, then the looking-glass self is more negatively warped. For example, a Black student in one of the prison-style high schools grows up being treated like a criminal, especially because school’s zero-tolerance policies unfairly target Black and Latino students (Braz & Williams 132). That rejectment from mainstream society makes criminal behavior more enticing, especially if other job offers are hard to find. This perpetuates the cycle of prejudice and discrimination that is institutionally pervasive. We see how race is integrated in the structure, and innate inequality, of the government and the criminal justice system.

2. How has learning about race and the criminal justice system affected the development of your sociological imagination?

We are in the ever-continuing process of writing the racial narrative of mankind. The racial system, as it now stands, is a result of the legacy before us. Being that America’s wealth and prosperity was stolen from the labor of slaves, we are still recovering from that inequality and the mindset it represents. Furthermore the inequality created in wealth would forever perpetuate itself in our economy, because as explained by Thomas Pickety, the rate of return on investment will always be higher than inflation, so inequality perpetuates and worsens itself. Logically Black Americans would hold less wealth than white Americans, with inflation against their side on the journey of social mobility. Moreover that economic status was perpetuated through institutional oppression.

Current racial systems are a shadow of what came before as those in power have learned how to be racist more covertly. The illusion of the drug war is that it opposes drugs as the enemy. (Personally I believe that the war on drugs was conceived for multiple purposes; one of which was eliminating the competition of other drug vendors. There is evidence that the CIA sold crack-cocaine, so the entire war could have been motivated by a potential drug monopoly. However, some might label this as a conspiracy theory that is unrelated to race and consequently grade me poorly, so I will not elaborate further.) The real enemy of the war on drugs is Americans, predominantly people of color. Alexander explains that the war on drugs provided the opportunity to combine military weaponry and fighting tactics with racial biases. Although nothing in the guidelines or legislature behind the war on drugs says to target Black people, they also lack definite limits on police discretion, which creates the opportunity for officers to rely on their biases. As demonstrated by Illinois 2010 prison census, Black people face higher rates of incarceration and over-representation in total prison population. This shows how the cycle of prejudice and discrimination perpetuates itself, because those ex-convicts are less likely to gain legal employment.

A sociological imagination requires the understanding that the drug war is not isolated. It is one of many measures to maintain the same power hierarchies. The collective narrative around race are a collection of these patterns. I can see how individuals, not through their own fault, fall into the roles defined by history through the cycle of prejudice and discrimination. Because of my whiteness, I have been given the option to choose how much I want to be aware of race. But a sociological imagination requires that I understand how my individual role, with my allocated privilege, can play a role in the greater social narrative.

3. How, if at all, can problems dealing with race and racial inequality be solved?

I would advocate for racial-nihilism, but I understand that others can find their race and ethnicity as a valuable, cultural identity. Ideally we could learn how to acknowledge differences without assigning value to them. Nonetheless there would have to be a massive shift in collective consciousness around race. Black Lives Matter promotes that even if they lack a clear direction. Because the problem has become institutional, it has to begin being solved there. Money funding the War on Drugs and over-bloated prisons must be re-allocated to schools in lower-income, non-white neighborhoods. This will help break the cycle of prejudice and discrimination because education can provide the foundation for social mobility.

The solution also requires massive social changes, which can begin in media. More TV series and movies need to represent people of color as full, complex characters who represent more than a joke or a stereotype. By showing people -- and allowing them to connect with and relate to -- different races and ethnicities equally, the next generation will be socialized to see that way and form less division along racialized lines. Smaller social movements are just as relevant as larger ones. Activities like Jane Elliot’s can be employed through various industries, so that teachers, officers of the law, and others in positions of authority can understand race as a social construct and therefore they take a role in perpetuating it or not.

Unfortunately, all efforts to end racial inequality are by victims of that oppression. Like in the Zimbardo prison experiment, a group in power will seek to continue that power. We saw this with a form of race in Elliot’s experiments with the favored-eyes groups. Racism has become more covert as a result of people of color speaking out, but it lingers because of the desire to maintain the existing power structure and its privileges.

Genius Hour Reflection

I watched Thomas Pickety's TED talk before last week's genius hour, and annotated it in my bibliography. He discussed the implications of his equation r > g which means rate of return on investment is always higher than inflation. The difference perpetuates and worsens wealth inequality. I didn't fully understand how he came to this equation from the video, so I revisited Capital to read a longer explanation. I am more convinced since I have seen his evidence, but to be fair it takes very little to convince me that capitalism perpetuates inequality.

Genius Hour Reflection

I was working on a the outline of the report on what causes my issue. While writing it, I hope to determine my gaps in sources. As such I started reading Capital by Thomas Pickety. There is a section that dealt with the role or Central Banks. Pickety believes it to be preventing financial collapse by creating out loans to socially-significant enough institutions. I am going to watch his TED talk as my documentary and annotate it for my bibliography for next class.

Genius Hour Reflection

I began reading The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve. I was reading about how the federal reserve formed in the same way a trust or cartel would form. The competing industry leaders -- predominantly the representatives of Morgan and Rockefeller -- formed a state-sponsored monopoly. It demonstrates that the manifest function of Federal Reserve was to stabilize the economy and promote business. However, the latent functions were to stop growing competition of new banks, obtain method to create money for lending, control all bank reserves, and have the american people deal with the inevitable burden through bailouts.

Gender Socialization Blog Post

How is gender socially constructed and what effect does this have?
Gender does not exist innately in individuals. It is a learned behavior that is taught through the agents of socialization: media, family, peers, education, religion, etc. These people and groups raise a child and teach them proper social behavior. Without this education, humans can appear oddly inhumane, as seen in Genie's case. Socialization helped her develop. Unfortunately these agents are teaching an unnecessary, oppressive, social paradigm: gender.
As discussed by West and Zimmerman, gender is an active choice in every mannerism. These social patterns exist in every expression of self, including minor details like speech patterns and appearance and major details like activities and careers. The crucial element of the definition of "Doing Gender" is the risk of judgement for fitting one's gender role at any time. These roles are enforced by social accountability. Individuals who defy these norms will be rejected.
The problem with society doing gender is that it is inherently oppressive to women. Missrepresentation demonstrated the display of women as predominantly sex objects. The media socializes young women to view their bodies and its status as a sexual object as their value. Men are represented as the objectifies, and women the objects.  As seen in Fiji's increase in eating disorders from the integration of technology, strict beauty standards and strong focus on women's beauty as their value damage women and girls livelihoods. Media is one of the most powerful forces of socialization because it removes the I, and only appeals to the Me. The viewer is only able to passively absorb social interactions and the lessons about the values of different symbols in those interactions. This power is extremely undeserved by the media because of their willingness to misrepresent and unfairly socialize individuals with prejudices.
Women were socialized to be sex objects because the agents of socialization wanted them to be usable to attain masculinity. Kimmel describes women as "currency" in male interactions. This social interaction approach uses women as a symbol for power. Masculinity is defined by Kimmel is a constant search to earn manhood from male peers, which causes a constant push down on others to validate one's own ranking. It is the result of socializing males to highly value the looking glass self, so much so that their is a constant fear of embarrassment.
This objectification of women for the sake of masculinity disenfranchises each woman's autonomy and is a result of the inherent dominance in masculinity. That is why the patriarchy (the social system created to perpetuate the power of white, straight, and cisgendered males) disenfranchised any possible threat to themselves: racial and ethnic groups and women as discussed by Kimmel. Masculinity is a force a dominance. In socialization of gender, power is a prevailing theme. I have learned in this unit that gender is the result of teaching one segment of the population that they are powerful and another segment that they are not. Subsequently those in power will perpetuate their own power as seen in the social conflict approach.

How has learning about socialization and gender effected the development of your own sociological imagination?
I can recognize that the way I formulate my looking glass self is through the gender that I was socialized. In myself, I notice more female patterns of thought: trying to appear kind, assuming guilt, and other thoughts routed in low self confidence. Someone who is male would have been socialized to formulate their looking glass self in the context of masculinity which is shown to be more confident by "The Confidence Gap." I can see how my individual narrative, in patterns of thought and behavior, was defined by the collective narrative of gender. I came out as non-binary because I saw that any femininity in me is the result of history and that I was then socialized based on this history. I didn't feel comfortable letting my biography be defined by a random circumstance that our collective history places significant value upon. To accept my gender as a result of my sex organs is to lack the sociological imagination to see the dependency of my biography on history.
Mills says that in analyzing an society in the context of the sociological imagination, one must ask "what is the meaning of any particular feature for its continuance and for its change?" Gender is a crucial feature in our society. I believe it has been continued by the dominant nature of masculinity. Gender has been enforced by men to grant them innate but undeserved power. Kimmel fundamentally described masculinity as fear of powerlessness in society. Capitalism perpetuates gender because it feeds the fear and subsequently competition and dominance. Our larger social structure perpetuates gender and therefore impact every individual narrative.

How, if at all, can problems dealing with gender stratification and gender discrimination be solved?
Gender is inherently a power structure, as illustrated in the social-conflict approach. It would not serve it's function if it did not create discrimination and stratification. For centuries, in a structural functional perspective, it served as means to divide the labor force into raising the next generation (clearly the more important duty) and doing the physical labor needed to keep society functioning. As previously discussed, the divide has highly problematic effects. Moreover there is no need for division along those lines. Females are capable of serving society to the same degree.
Gender should be dissolved to eliminate this power structure that causes women to be disenfranchised. Although structural functionalist would see "I'm glad I'm a boy, I'm glad I'm a girl," as a demonstration of the complementary nature of masculinity and femininity. But what it demonstrates is that gender roles benefit men and put women in an inferior role.
There is no gender without this divide in power. To eliminate gender discrimination and stratification, we have to eliminate gender. The fundamental differences in the sexes are not enough that they require the amount of social divide we have created for them. Target demonstrated that not every children's product needs to be for girls or for boys. These products are ultimately designed to serve humans. From a symbolic-interaction approach, one can see that without gender defining the subtleties of daily interaction, women could finally exit their deferential role. In fact, there wouldn't be any roles. People would be able to dress, speak, and act how they want to based on their own individuality instead of their gender.

Genius Hour Reflection

I liked Mr. Vinluan's comment about focusing on the Federal Reserve's role in social stratification. So I spent time researching specifically what the social stratification is: how it occurs and what it causes. The Davis-Moore thesis is based on the structural functional approach, that it creates benefits for all of society if the best people have motivation to do the most important jobs. Unfortunately this approach pretends we live in pure meritocracy, but it is more defined by long-standing institutions. The awareness of these traditional institutions requires sociological imagination. Karl Marx offers a social conflict approach to social stratification: the bourgeoisie in power and the proletariat oppressed. I read more about how the Federal Reserve was offering too low of interest rates inflated the housing bubble, and how this furthers social stratification by keeping the poor in their state.

Genius Hour Reflection

I read about the Asch experiment and Milgram experiment. They both demonstrate individuals' susceptibility to society. This is fundamental to the sociological imagination. The individual is constantly acting and reacting to society -- and vice versa. Because it has been a quarter already, I will try to write my why this happened paper in the next week or two using this research and others about the Fed's history. Unfortunately the creation of the Federal Reserve Act is rather enigmatic. Information is not readily available, so I will visit the University of Chicago Library to look for more resources.
Considering that I also care about the modern context of the Fed, I researched the Fed's current state. They hold more US debt than China. Moreover the helped build the housing bubble and were not prepared for a crash.

Genius Hour Reflection

I spend Friday reading  an article titled "Herd Thinking and Investment" from the American Economic Review on jstor. It explained the "sharing-the-blame" effect: the idea that a mistake does not reflect poorly on an individual, because many people with good reputations made the same mistake. So in making any decision, an investor must consider whether it is wise based on the stock's information and who else is doing something similar. Although this concept was explained in terms of economics, it's universal in culture. If respected individuals in any community make certain choices, others will follow their direction. It's deeply rooted in socialization; we are prone to learn form our environment. The problem with herd thinking is when it gets in the way of smart decisions, e.g. buying a stock because other, smart people are even though there is good reason to suspect it's value may plummet. This relates to my topic because it shows why individuals crashed the market beforehand, which was considered the catalyst for the Federal Reserve Act, and it shows why Americans have accepted the Federal Reserve. The smartest, most reputable individuals of the time were behind it -- including Woodrow Wilson.
While reading the article, I realized how little I knew about the functioning of the American Economic system so I also read an article to better understand the historical context of a Central Bank in the US, because I don't remember enough from APUSH.

Genius Hour Reflection

I spend last Friday working on my topic proposal:

What does the Federal Reserve demonstrate about American culture? What systems of social manipulation created and perpetuated it? How is the Fed controlling/impacting the economy and consequently individuals?

I care about this topic because it impacts all American citizens. It is an injustice of which the American public is largely unaware. By controlling the monetary supply, the Fed is able to use sociological principles to control the market and the people. The goal of this project is to answer questions these questions in an interactive, educational website.

On Friday I also researched the Panic of 1907. JP Morgan was considered the savior after that event -- by keeping the large companies open and shutting down smaller ones. He was only perpetuating monopoly. Supposedly the panic was caused by a gold shortage after a earthquake in California, but I am trying to determine if JP Morgan had any role in causing the runs on the banks. The only banks with runs were in trusts, and I believe the public was whipped into a hysteria by rumors. Panics and stock crashes are the result of herd thinking. I will spend next Friday looking to back up or disprove some of my findings by reading sociological research on herd thinking.

Genius Hour Reflection

 I am questioning what social factors drove the need for a Federal Reserve and how has it impacted our culture. On Thursday, I read the modern Federal Reserve Act -- how it functions and what we are told about it -- and reports about the Act from the era -- the public response at the time. There was a crash prior to the Act that scared the public around their banking system. But the only reason it crashed was because of rumors. Subsequently, the rich eight families purchased heavily after the crash before regular values were resumed. The Act was supposedly a response to prevent these types of crashes again -- which history has shone it did not. As I've continued to research the Federal Reserve, I've realized that this information is clouded to avoid the public's understanding -- which is likely the biggest factor in a cultural acceptance. The best solution I could do would be to make a way for this information to be accessible and understandable: like an interactive, graphics-focused website that conveys the necessary details. I want my project to be solution driven, rather than just query driven, because I value social change.

Zimbardo Analysis

Perspective 1: Symbolic Interaction Approach

Questions:
How did individuals experience the community?
How did the individual impact their conditions?
How did the meaning of their actions change in the circumstances?
What symbols were defining their perspective?


Answers:
Individuals began to think that the prison community was legitimate because of a unified interpretation of symbols. This was most apparent when the priest visited, and the prisoners introduced themselves by number and explained their ‘crime.’ In typical circumstances, lying to a priest is wrong because of their symbolic role, but the prisoners were so effectively convinced by the symbols around them: jumpsuits, prisoner numbers, bars on cells, visiting priest, etc. 819 felt so connected to the community that he did not want to leave early as a bad prisoner. Prisoner 416 entered the community later, and therefore missed the conditioning period. Upon entering, he did not respond to the guards brutality, because he did not experience the same conditioning as his counterparts. His interpretation of his environment and the validity of its symbols was vastly different than the other prisoners, and that is why he was so separated from them, as shown that no one supported his hunger strike or would even give up their blanket. The prisoners tried to impact their conditions by making them better with striking and collective action. The guards were not trying to make conditions better for themselves, but focused on worsening conditions for the prisoners. Because they symbolically must punish them, they found it their personal goal to dismantle the prisoner’s sense of self with various symbols: arbitrary commands, counts, etc.

Perspective 2: Social Conflict Approach

Questions:
How was the community divided?
How did the guards preserve their power?
How did the prisoners fight for themselves?

Answers:
The community was arbitrarily divided, yet the separation was defining in their experiences. Each group immediately tried to strengthen their own group. The experiment was not innately prisoners vs guards, but the groups made it that way. The prisoners united together initially -- including rejecting the nicer dinner of the privilege cell. The guards united with increasingly brutal treatment. The guards preserved power by maintaining that each prisoner had no right to refuse them. They realized the most effective method was to punish everyone except the trouble-maker to remove the unity the prisoners once had. Ultimately the prisoners had no reason to stay united, so this tactic removed their collective strength, and therefore the prisoners had to decide their own individual course of action -- whether it be rebellion or following every rule. Moreover even the model inmates were punished, which seems counterintuitive, but demonstrates that guards’ regime was based on constant terror.


A sociological imagination would have greatly aided the participants’ sanity, but would have made the results much less gruesome and compelling. The participants completely redefined their biography because of the history of their prison community. The prisoners demonstrated that when they introduced themselves to the priest as a their prison number and accounted the fake crime they committed to come here. Their new and adapting identities were formed because of their environment. If the participants used their sociological imaginations, they could identify, and possibly fix, the thinking patterns that were slowly being conditioned into them.

This experiment supports the fundamental idea behind the sociological imagination: the individual is affecting their society and vice versa. The experiment’s brutality is likely the result of some guards becoming aggressive and setting standards for the rest. Watching the video, I could see that every event -- caused by an individual or group -- would drastically impact the entire environment. Even once 8612 left, his presence remained in their community because of his impact, and that is why they started the rumors about him returning. Every individual was crucial in shaping the community, but that doesn’t mean one person can dictate. When 416 tried to do a hunger strike alone, he failed because he was only an individual protesting, and that is why he failed. I see that an individual can make a change if (some of) the community is supportive. This experiment built my sociological imagination because I could see the direct cause and effect of individual actions in the community and the community upon individual actions. When we study the sociological imagination on a macro-level, we can’t see the clear connection -- especially in between individuals.

Genius Hour Ideas

Of all social constructs, I am most baffled by the American creation of the Federal Reserve. The British not allowing the Colonialists to print their own currency, instead made them use British currency that immediately called for a debt in stamps. The Federal Reserve is doing the exact same thing, except the debt is paid in the Federal Income tax, which I believe was not constitutionally passed. I want to study why American culture has allowed the Federal Reserve to take power and how it has impacted our financial system and larger culture. It is against the fundamental morality of the nation. I'm interested in this topic because it affects everyone. Most of my activist efforts are focused on one identity or issue. All people should see that the American government should take back the central bank. Still, since the removal of the gold standard, that money, as "legal tender," is technically meaningless. I believe in crypto-currencies. Block chain programs, like Bitcoin and Ethereum, assign value to server space in the larger super computer. All of the currency has value in their crowd-sourced, massive, and still growing super computers. Currency has been digitized to such a degree already that converting to a crypto-currency solution would be simple. I'm torn between this idea and studying sex work. Why do people pay for sex? My work with the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation has shown me that the way to end exploitation is to end the high demand for it. Moreover I want to be able to help the problem I choose. I cannot end the Federal Reserve, but I can have open and constructive conversations with soon to be college-aged men.

Who am I?

I am a senior at an urban high school. I'm interested in computer science and design. This summer I built a website, as a part of Girls Who Code. The site is designed to rate relative campus safety using FBI crime reports. Outside of computer science, my passion lies in social justice, not because of a self-defined moral necessity, but because people can be a force of innovation, when we are connected. When we let false identities like gender, sex, race, sexual orientation, etc., divide us, we are defined by separation. Society can function best for all people if we treat everyone with an understanding of their human rights, and then unite as an effective force. Social justice is the fight against these oppressions that prevent our ability to function optimally. I’ve joined and become a leader of many social justice groups: my school's Environmental Club and Alternative Political Groups, and a council of activists for a charity fighting sexual assault. This past year, I joined a LGBTQIA-identifying, youth ensemble dedicated to writing and producing a show from a queer, and art-activist perspective.
In all of my groups, we believed in a cause, which was essentially fighting for certain people’s basic rights. In Environmental club, we are fundraising for our next cause. In Alternative Political Groups, we publish a zine with our own essays, articles, poems, and political cartoons in an effort to educate young members of democracy about the political process, who is controlling the political system, and how they can participate in democracy. The council of activists works to promote awareness around sexual assault and raise money for the legislative and victim care systems of the charity. I volunteered at an exhibit at a community arts gallery with a youth-built series, Girls for Sale, about sex trafficking in their community. In the theatre, we work to communicate with others how we feel to be queer – in a fashion that is engaging, expressive, and honest. In my theatre work I have found more satisfaction in any other of my social justice efforts. I found the beauty of speaking with others through the fantasy of art – conveying an emotion in a show: the dialogue itself, the performance, and the design elements. Although any actor is inherently lying when they play a character, they are on stage with one of the few opportunities in this society to be fully honest. Utilizing technology like lighting, sound, set, etc. pulls that brutal honesty into a language more complex than words: design.
These passions -- to understand logic and consciousness in technology, to create art that is interactive and connecting, and helping society -- are my pursuit in life.