Marger

For my last blog post, I wanted to address the Marger text. Personally, I was not a fan of the text. It was too "textbook-y" for the class. I think this class is one that would operate more sucessfully with selected readings. Caucasia and the White Privilege books did MUCH more for me than Marger's chapters ever did. I also really enjoyed the readings you were giving out at the beginning of the semester. Readings with a more artistic sensitivity (not as dry) offer far more insight and are more powerful to us as the reader, and evoke a much more emotional response. The more emotional we feel toward the subject, the more we connect to it and can learn from it. Basically, I don't believe Marger's textbook allowed us to connect with our topics on as deep a level as our other reading had.

See you Friday

Canada

I want to elaborate on the point I made in class regarding Canada. I really do believe one of the chief reasons we don't learn a lot about Canada is due to its progressive nature, especially as far as race relations go. America does not want to seem inferior to Canada in any way, so it is purposely removed from standard curriculums. I guess I understand their reasoning behind this, but what is the cost? All it does is breed ignorance throughout America. We should know more about the nations that share our boarders!

Along with this, I'm curious as to what a nation would actually look like with more progressed race relations. What kind of environment does this create? How is it different than what we live in? Personally, I think America is heading in the right direction. While we still have many who want to keep this country for the white men only, I think a majority of us are loioking for change, and a push toward multiculturalism.

Pres Obama Speech on Osama

I think that he went about it the right way as many i have heard agree. He made sure to clarify that it is not a war against Muslims and that he was not a Muslim but a mass murderer of Muslims in his country and abroad. What he said really helps because for many years we have heard that Osama and al-Queda have and other Islamic extremists have been giving all Muslims all over the world a bad name. It is just those few extremists that participate in acts of terrorism that give all Muslims this negative name.

Canada

I will admit just as many of us in the class have that I do not know really much about Canada as you think we should considering that they are our neighboring country. I have been there before a few times when I was younger. I have family in Plattsburgh, which is about 45 minutes to an hour away form the border. I have had minimal interaction with English or French speaking Canadians mostly just on ski trips up there sitting in the lodge. I have heard about the conflicts among those French speaking and the English speaking Canadians. The city of Quebec I know is French speaking and they are afraid that if they do not allow French to be spoken there it may be lost all together in the future and only English will be spoken. I think that it should continue to be spoken in the country especially because it is their own version of French that they have developed and its part of their culture and the country itself.

Genocide

In class on Thursday the topic we mainly discussed was genocides. I found it interesting how much we as a society do not learn about them. Most of the ones that were presented I have never heard of. The ones that I have were because I took an African history course last semester and we discussed the Rwanda genocide, and the Darfur one. If it wasn’t for that class though I wouldn’t of heard of any of the ones he brought up. It is just so bizarre that these horrors are taking place and so many people are ignorant of them.

The sad thing is that our society is a society based on visuals. If on the news they talked about a genocide, sadly I think that most people would not have strong feelings about it. But if that same news station started showing pictures of the horror happening, then we would have something to say. With pictures it draws an emotional response from people, meaning that they will respond more strongly when there is a picture involved.

Canada

Like a couple of the other comments I can sadly say I did not know much about Canada. I honestly do not think I have ever really learned anything about Canada. I also have never thought or realized how much I do not know. I could tell you dozens of facts about Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and even Europe. I would probably have difficulty before this class even coming up with three about Canada.

I enjoyed the presentation on the Inuit people’s sled dogs being killed. I have always found it interesting how people justify certain things. It is no different with what happened to the dogs. I do not believe that they were justified in killing so many of them. From what I know about sled dogs, they are normally well trained. So I do not see them being these un-tamed, mean dogs, which have to be killed. I feel that it’s terrible what people subject others to, just to get an end product. Which in this case was to get the Inuit land by means of killing there sled dogs.

Visualization, Sara Ceraso

Today we discussed the idea that images being shown to the public are used to help further understand what is going on in the world and to evoke some type of emotion.

I believe someone argued that these photographs were strictly just mean to document these situations to inform the people.

I have to disagree with this statement. The way I have been brought up viewing photographs is that there is no such thing as a "documentary photograph." I must argue that every photographer has an opinion on the photographs he takes, whether it is a strong one or not is another story. Unless a photographer is snapping shots with their eyes closed they still make the conscious decision to snap a photo at a certain time, of a certain moment and depicting it in a certain light.

I agree with the fact that photographs should circulate and be out there for people to see. But I can't see how these photographs could strictly be documentary.