HW: Read Joel Best's "The Truth about Damned Lies and Statistics." Other examples of stereotypes and lessons we can learn from them: Muslims, poor, differently-abled The video called I am an American that shows the dangerous power that extreme stereotypes can lead to. In this case, Muslim is the category, but it could be a different religion, ethnicity or any other category of people. United States' history is littered with examples of groups that have been scapegoated and vilified. This is how Muslims have been treated in many cases in post 9/11 America. But I have had so many Muslim students who prove that this is just a stereotype. And that is what this video is showing. There are caring, loving, neighborly Muslims all around us but extreme stereotypes lead us to only see the stereotype and ignore the reality. Here is a page from Indiana University called Muslim Voices which is trying to correct the stereotyping. Lesson: Don't give in to outgroup homogeneity. Even if you do not know the complex dynamics within an outgroup, be cognizant that those variations probably exist. Differently-abled individuals Here is an article in the Daily Herald about a motivational speaker who was born with no arms and no legs. We might categorize him as disabled, but we should be careful about the assumptions and stereotypes that go along with that category.
Here is a video about Aaron Fotheringham, an "extreme sitter." Aaron has been in a wheel chair his whole life, but he sees it as an opportunity. Again, we should be careful of our stereotypes. Aaron is way more rad than I will ever be, but he is in a wheel chair and I am not. If you search youtube, you can see Aaron doing a double back flip! But there are also lots of videoes of him crashing over and over again and again. It takes hard work and lots of effort to become good at what you do. Hard work was a theme in all of the above videoes. And if you read the rest of Outliers, Gladwell makes the case that the most successful people spend ten thousand hours developing their skills. The other theme that comes out in all of these videoes from Brett Eastburn to Aaron Fotheringham is that in order to find meaning in your life you must find a way to serve others. Find a way to help other people. You have talents. Develop them and find a way to use them to help others. That is your purpose. And here is Aaron "wheels" Fotheringham at the 2016 Paralympics. Here is the latest update from Wheelz on the BBC.
Differently-abled Street PerformerHere is a video about a different type of street performer that also challenges your assumptions about the category "disabled". I love how these "disabled" people see their opportunity to teach others. Their lessons seem to be similar: The world doesn't owe you anything. You owe yourself hard work and dedication to become what you want. Find a way to help others/teach others. Don't stereotype and keep an open mind. Lessons from differently-abled individuals:
Accept yourself as a part of creation; your existence is the universe's confirmation to you that you matter.
Develop your talents/desires. Whatever you want takes hard work. It takes failure, discomfort and effort.
Find ways to serve others. Whenever you don't know what to do or when your life feels directionless or meaningless, find a way to serve others. We all have talents that can help others.
The Cookie Thief, an example of judging There is a poem I like that illustrates Charon's point. The poem called "The Cookie Thief" by Valerie Cox. We are all cookie thieves sometimes in how we erroneously use the categories that Charon talks about. Lesson: We have all been both the victim of stereotyping and the perpetrator of it. Try not to be the cookie thief. Dealing with stereotypes Finally, when you feel like you have been stereotyped, how do you react? What do you do? Anis Mojgani suggests that you shake the dust. Checkout his slam poem. Here is a link to his poem in writing. Lesson from Mojgani:When you have been stereotyped, shake the dust. Move on and don't let the dust settle on you. Don't let it define you.
HW: Read Joel Best's "The Truth about Damned Lies and Statistics." Review the reading from Joel Charon called "Should We Generalize About People?"
Answer the questions below about the reading in your packet. Sociological Literacy: Categories and Stereotypes
What is the difference between a generalization and a stereotype?
generalization:
stereotype:
Is it okay to generalize?
After reading Joel Charon's "Should We Generalize..." hopefully, you realize that yes we must generalize because it is what makes us intelligent human beings. But our great strength as humans can also be a horrible flaw. If we do not generalize and categorize accurately then we run the risk of stereotyping. We must realize that although individuals can be categorized into certain groups, it doesn't mean that all individuals fit that group's generalization. Toward the end of the reading, Charon says,
"If we are open-minded and reflective, we can even evaluate how good or how poor our generalizations are, and we can alter what we know as we move from situation to situation."
This is both the task and the promise of sociology. Sociology challenges us to think about our generalizations and assumptions about what we know and it promises us that with proper thought and care we can understand people better.
Applying categories and stereotypes to your research:
What are the categories that your research article covers?
Are these ingroups or outgroups for you?
What are the generalizations in your research article?
Are there stereotypes that your research article dispels?
Other examples of stereotypes and lessons we can learn from them: Muslims, poor, differently-abled The video called I am an American
that shows the dangerous power that extreme stereotypes can lead to.
In this case, Muslim is the category, but it could be a different religion, ethnicity or any other category of people. United States' history is littered with
examples of groups that have been scapegoated and vilified. This is how
Muslims have been treated in many cases in post 9/11 America. But I
have had so many Muslim students who prove that this is just a
stereotype. And that is what this video is showing. There are caring,
loving, neighborly Muslims all around us but extreme stereotypes lead us
to only see the stereotype and ignore the reality. Here is a page from Indiana University called Muslim Voices which is trying to correct the stereotyping. Lesson: Don't give in to outgroup homogeneity. Even if you do not know the complex dynamics within an outgroup, be cognizant that those variations probably exist. Differently-abled individuals Here is an article in the Daily Herald about a motivational speaker who was born with no arms and no legs. We might categorize him as disabled, but we should be careful about the assumptions and stereotypes that go along with that category. Another powerful differently-abled speaker is Nick Vujicic. He is a motivational speaker who also has no limbs. Here is a video of him on youtube.
Here is a video about Aaron Fotheringham, an "extreme sitter." Aaron has been in a wheel chair his whole life, but he sees it as an opportunity. Again, we should be careful of our stereotypes. Aaron is way more rad than I will ever be, but he is in a wheel chair and I am not.
If you search youtube, you can see Aaron doing a double back flip! But there are also lots of videoes of him crashing over and over again and again. It takes hard work and lots of effort to become good at what you do. Hard work was a theme in all of the above videoes. And if you read the rest of Outliers, Gladwell makes the case that the most successful people spend ten thousand hours developing their skills. The other theme that comes out in all of these videoes from Brett Eastburn to Aaron Fotheringham is that in order to find meaning in your life you must find a way to serve others. Find a way to help other people. You have talents. Develop them and find a way to use them to help others. That is your purpose. And here is Aaron "wheels" Fotheringham at the 2016 Paralympics. Here is the latest update from Wheelz on the BBC. Here is a video about a different type of street performer that also challenges your assumptions about the category "disabled". I love how these "disabled" people see their opportunity to teach others. Their lessons seem to be similar: The world doesn't owe you anything. You owe yourself hard work and dedication to become what you want. Find a way to help others/teach others. Don't stereotype and keep an open mind. Lessons from differently-abled individuals:
Accept yourself as a part of creation; your existence is the universe's confirmation to you that you matter.
Develop your talents/desires. Whatever you want takes hard work. It takes failure, discomfort and effort.
Find ways to serve others. Whenever you don't know what to do or when your life feels directionless or meaningless, find a way to serve others. We all have talents that can help others.
The Cookie Thief, an example of judging There is a poem I like that illustrates Charon's point. The poem called "The Cookie Thief" by Valerie Cox. We are all cookie thieves sometimes in how we erroneously use the categories that Charon talks about. Lesson: We have all been both the victim of stereotyping and the perpetrator of it. Try not to be the cookie thief. Dealing with stereotypes Finally, when you feel like you have been stereotyped, how do you react? What do you do? Anis Mojgani suggests that you shake the dust. Checkout his slam poem. Here is a link to his poem in writing.
In and out is not just for burgers, it is also for groups! Sociologists use the terms ingroup and outgroup to refer to groups that you are either a member of (ingroup) or not a member of (outgroup).
To illustrate this, today I separated the class into two different groups. To put it another way, I created an ingroup and an outgroup for each student. Each group made a list of reasons why the other group was wearing what they were wearing. Every time I do this lesson, the reasons break down into judgments against the other group.
For example:
In just a few minutes, I created an in-group and out-group. Some years I divide students by who is wearing jeans, or who is wearing green and gold or who is wearing gym shoes. Regardless, a similar result happens. Students generalize about the other group and pass judgments. This is a small example of what happens with ingroups and outgroups. Imagine how much we are affected by the ingroups and outgroups that we experience from the time we are young.
In discussing the different groups that make up society, we see that there are in-groups and out-groups. Here are the important concepts you should understand about ingroups and outgroups:
Ingroups are groups that an individual is in. You have membership in it, and because of that, you feel aligned to the group and you have ownership in it. It is easier for individuals to recognize the diversity within their ingroups.
Out-groups, by contrast, are the groups that one is not a part of. People tend to not trust outgroups and judge them more. This can result in people unnecessarily fearing outgroups and scapegoating problems on them. They also tend to see outgroups as being less diverse and having less individuality/differences than those of an ingroup. This is known as outgroup homogeneity.
As this semester goes on, be mindful of the groups that we talk about that you are not a part of. You must make a conscious effort to understand these groups. Try to become conscious of your unconscious judgments so that you can work against fears and judgments that are unfounded. And be conscious of how you might view outgroups as inaccurately homogeneous.
Applying ingroup/outgroup dynamics to your research:
Think back to the research article that you found for this unit. Was the research focused on an ingroup or outgroup for you? How might your research shed light on this group to avoid viewing the group with outgroup homogeneity?
Here is a 2017 news article that explains how outgroup homogeneity and fear have a real impact
Much
of hate is based in fear, said Dr. A.J. Marsden, an assistant professor of
psychology at Beacon College in Leesburg, Florida — "basically, fear of
the unknown, fear of what might happen and fear of anything that's different
than you or falls outside your definition of what's supposed to be
normal." "We establish
ourselves as a tribe, and we say this is the group for which I have a love for,
for which I identify with" Marsden cited
Islamophobia as an example."There's a lot of
hatred in the United States toward Muslims," she said. "One of the
reasons is they don't understand the religion. ... There's a lot that they
don't know, and that scares them, because there is a small part of Muslims who
are violent, and that is what is driving the hate." That concept is known as
the "in-group/out-group theory" — the idea that people tend to define
themselves in social groupings and are quick to degrade those who don't fit
into those groups."
Outgroup homogeneity and terrorism in 2017 media coverage
"New research from Erin Kearns and colleagues at Georgia State University shows that the president is right — sort of. There is a systematic bias in the way terrorism is covered — just not in the way the president thinks. Kearns says the "terrorism" label is often only applied to cases where the perpetrator is Muslim. And, those cases also receive significantly more news coverage. "When the perpetrator is Muslim, you can expect that attack to receive about four and a half times more media coverage than if the perpetrator was not Muslim," Kearns says. Put another way, "a perpetrator who is not Muslim would have to kill on average about seven more people to receive the same amount of coverage as a perpetrator who's Muslim." Perhaps these findings are not all that surprising to you. But there are disturbing implications for the way Americans perceive Muslims, and the way Muslims perceive themselves."
"We'd heard Derek Black, the former white power heir apparent, interviewed before about his past. But never about the friendships, with other people in their twenties, that changed him. After his ideology was outed at college, one of the only orthodox Jews on campus invited Derek to Shabbat dinner. What happened over the next two years is like a roadmap for transforming some of the hardest territory of our time."
Connecting research, ingroups-outgroups, mindfulness and the fear of guns v. terrorism
According to the New America Foundation, jihadists killed 94 people inside the United States between 2005 and 2015. During that same time period, 301,797 people in the US were shot dead, Politifact reports. But... Americans are more afraid of terrorism than they are of guns, despite the fact that guns are 3,210 times more likely to kill them. Chapman University has conducted a Survey of American Fears for more than three years. It asks 1,500 adults what they fear the most. It organizes the fears into categories that include personal fears, conspiracy theories, terrorism, natural disasters, paranormal fears, and more recently, fear of Muslims. In 2016, Americans’ number-one fear was “corruption of government officials”—the same top fear as in 2015. Terrorist attacks came second. In fact, of the top five fears, two are terror-related. And number five is not fear of guns but fear of government restrictions on guns. Fear of a loved one dying—whether by gun violence or anything else—came next. ... after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, people began flying less and driving more. The result, estimated Gerd Gigerenzer, a German risk specialist, was that 1,595 more Americans died in road accidents during the 12 months after 9/11 than would have otherwise. Michael Rothschild, then an emeritus professor at the University of Wisconsin, calculated some of the risks we face: One in 6 million: Risk of dying in a plane hijacking, assuming you fly four times a month and hijackers destroy one plane every year. (Just to be clear, since 9/11, hijackers have not destroyed any flights in the US.) One in 7,000: the risk of dying in a car accident in any given year One in 600: the risk of dying from cancer in any given year According to data compiled from the Centers for Disease Control, over 2005-2014, an average of 11,737 Americans a year were shot dead by another American (21 of them by toddlers), 737 were killed by falling out of bed, and nine were killed by Islamic jihadists—who in most cases were US citizens, not immigrants (Nearly twice as many Americans kill themselves with guns as kill each other).
In this example, the media and most Americans see terrorists as an outgroup and because some terrorists claimed to act in the name of Islam, Americans stereotype the category of Muslims into terrorist. The fear, mistrust and stereotype result from most Americans seeing them as an outgroup.
For Student Discussion:
How does this article illustrate that sociology is more than common sense?
What types of research does the article use?
How might ingroup-outgroup mentality play a role in the article's conclusions?
How can we be mindful about our fears?
In this case, Islam is the example, but it could be any religion, ethnicity or group. United States' history is littered with examples of groups that have been scapegoated and vilified. This is how Muslims have been treated in many cases in post-911 America. But I have had so many Muslim students who prove that this is just a stereotype. And that is what this video is showing. There are caring, loving, neighborly Muslims all around us but extreme stereotypes lead us to only see the stereotype and ignore the reality. Here is a link to a page hoping to end stereotypes about Muslims.
In fact, in the wake of 9/11, many Muslims were stereotyped as terrorists and some were victims of vengeful hate crimes. But because of outgroup homogeneity, the first person murdered as a hateful vengeance for 9/11 was not even Muslim or Arab - he was Sikh. His name is Balbir Singh Sodhi Here is his story on NPR's Story Corps. And 15 years later, Sikhs are still being victimized. But Sodhi's brother has made it his mission to preach forgiveness.
Cubs Joe Maddon's "Hazelton Integration Project is a great example of how creating ingroups can help people bridge outgroups like race, immigration status and social class. Essentially Coach Maddon did what I did in class: He created ingroups. Except, he did it to create bonds between the group members so that they would no longer see each other through the outgroup lens creating mistrust, hate and stereotypes.
And there is an updated version of this. Jane Elliot returns to do the experiment with college kids. It is called Angry Eye. Here is the link to watch it on mediacast.
I think that the point of sociological mindfulness is becoming more aware of others and part of that awareness is an understanding of how we may have portrayed that group in our own minds. So understanding the idea of in-group/out-group dynamics is easy but applying it to ourselves is the challenging part. In this TED talk by Sam Richards, he explains how understanding outgroups might lead to a radical experiment in empathy. Check it out:
Now think about your own life. What are your in groups? What are the outgroups that you could become more aware of, more empathetic to?
Bong Joon Ho made history with his film Parasite which took home the Best Picture Award. It was the first time a movie that was not in English has taken home that award. Other acclaims include (from Wikipedia):
Ho was also a sociology major! Bong enrolled in Yonsei University in 1988, as a sociology major. He then developed his sociological mindfulness to promote democracy. College campuses such as Yonsei's were then hotbeds for the South Korean democracy movement, and Bong was an active participant of student demonstrations, frequently subjected to tear gas early in his college years.
Parasite is a visual masterpiece, but it also contains strong sociological themes especially about social class.
Here is the Parasite trailer:
Here is Flick Fanatic explaining why Parasite is so good:
Differently-abled individuals
