Personal Blog #1

When I first enrolled into this class, I wasn’t sure exactly what I was going to learn. I knew because of the title that we would be discussing gender and race in the media, but I didn’t understand what exactly we would be talking about through those topics. On the first day of class our professor asked us what our definition of race was. I starting thinking about it and wanted to post my feelings on race and what it is. Race to me is simply a classification. It’s one of those questions you get on survey or the SAT that asks you other questions such as gender. It’s a classification of physically what you are, but I wonder if it is more than physical. If a part of you is where you are from or as we call it your culture, wouldn’t race be a by product of that culture? Wouldn’t the more important question be not what is your race but where did you grow up? Race has become such a huge question in our society that we only look at is as a description instead of a part of who we are and the culture we grew up in. The color of our skin has become the definition of race for many instead of the person we are inside and the culture we are surrounded by. As we elect a new President and when asked to describe him, the first word used to describe President Obama is African American. Shouldn’t our first words be things like trustworthy, change, courage instead of just African American? Although it is a part of him it is more importantly a part of his culture; the part that he wants to bring to the forefront of this country. Being white, black, yellow or green shouldn’t matter, especially in a society that calls itself the “melting pot.” What matters is the person, and that is exactly what I hope to take away from this class. Our professor on the first day of class told us that some colleges require students to take a class like this. I absolutely don’t think it should be required because I think that even if one person took the class, a change can be made. It only takes one person to make a difference, so I wonder what 60 people in a class can do and an excited to see!

I have a dream that the people in this class can make a difference:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbUtL_0vAJk