Service Ideas for 1 hour

If you need just one more hour for your community service requirement, here are some options:

Donating
You can clean out your closet or help your parents clean out stuff around the house and then drive the donations to Goodwill, Habitat for Humanity Restore shop or another charitable organization.  Remember to take pictures of what you donate and where you drop it off at.

Giving Blood
You can stop into a Lifesource and donate blood.  I will count this as one hour.

Feed My Starving Children
They have lots of shifts and some of them are just 1.5 hours.

Northern Illinois Foodbank will take food donations.  You can run a food drive  in your neighborhood.

It's a privilege to be...white?

What color dress is Mrs. Obama wearing in this picture?



This picture featuring Michelle Obama was published with a caption saying that she wore a "flesh-colored" dress. Are they implying that Michelle's skin is not flesh? I don't think so, but this is an example of the privilege of being white; white skin is considered normal/flesh-colored.  This is just one of many privileges of being white in a culture that sees white as normal, desirable or better than other "colors".  This type of privilege is often unnoticed, subconscious, implicit.  But, it has a big impact.
Here is another example from Johnson and Johnson.  Note that the bottle says, "Normal to Darker skin," implying that there is normal skin and then there is darker skin which is implicitly abnormal. And, here are some privileges related to Christmas.  Some sociologists call these subtle nudges of racism microaggressions.  Here are 25 microaggressions from buzzfeed.






Sociologist Peggy McIntosh writes about White Privilege in her essay, Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.
In class instructions:

Please read through McIntosh's reading and choose one of the numbered privileges to respond to.  Take out a sheet of paper and write down which privilege you are responding to.  Things to consider: Have you ever thought about this before?  Why do you think McIntosh considers this a "privilege"?  Can you see this type of privilege happening in your day to day life?  

The idea is that because Americans live in a white-dominated society, whites have a host of little things that work in their favor.  Tim Wise, another sociologist, applied McIntosh's idea to the 2008 election. Read Tim Wise's White Priviledge, White Entitlement and the 2008 Election. Here is a brief excerpt,

White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because "every family has challenges," even as black and Latino families with similar "challenges" are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.

When you're accustomed to privilege, equality sounds like oppression.  From Chris Boeskool of Huffington Post.


Privilege does exist and it's measurable.  From Michael Harriot of The Root who explains the ways privilege shows up in education, employment, income, spending.


Robin DiAngelo, author of What Does it Mean to Be White and White Fragility; Why It's So Hard for  White People to Talk about Racism published this op-ed about White Privilege.  Here is a journal article about White Fragility.


Here is an example from Sociological Images of how white privilege shows up even when discussing racism.


Listen to comedian Hari Kondabolu's example of white privilege and  microaggressions from the website Colorlines.





Here is a great story from This American Life (episode 362: Got You Pegged, Act 1) illustrating what happens when 2 cops see a black man riding a bike with a white kid. It is a funny story but it illustrates white privilege because I think the story would be very different if both of the people were white. Listen to the story and then tell me what you think.


Here is another story from This American Life (episode 475: Send A Message) about how eliminating an implicit racial bias can make a big difference in a young child's life.

Chicago Public Radio aired a story about Global Girls, an organization working to develop African-American girls’ self esteem. The girls at the organization know firsthand how difficult it is for their peers who are poor and black and pregnant. They developed a performance piece to help show their feelings and how white priviledge helps to favor white girls (especially wealthy) in the same predicament. Listen to the full story here. What do you think the reaction would be if one of Obama's girls was old enough and pregnant with a baby of her own? How does this privilege affect you? How might it affect minorities in other ways? What is your reaction to Tim Wise's analysis of the 2008 election? Noting that this is a difficult challenge ahead of Palin, what are the advantages that she might have being who she is? How might pregnancy affect a poor person differently than a wealthy person? How might pregnancy affect someone with power like a governor's daughter or Vice-president's daughter differently than the daughter of someone with less power/clout?

Race Panel

We were so fortunate to have a panel of our own students talking about "race."  The students had many insights.  One was that those who have to navigate different racial worlds never feel quite right anywhere.  For example, some students emigrated from another country like Mexico.  So, in the US they are considered Hispanic and they do not feel that they fit in, but in Mexico they are considered white and they do not feel that they fit in there.

Along these lines, students spoke about how their master status often becomes their minority status.  That is, other people (usually those from the majority) only see them as black or Asian or whatever their minority status is.  This takes away the student's individuality.  Sometimes this results in the student being forced to speak for their whole minority group.  It also results in many of the students feeling pressure to represent their minority group or live up to an ideal that is more pressure than those in the majority have to experience.

Also students talked about the racial prejudice that lies just below the surface; sometimes it comes out from another student in a class of their, or their own parents or school teachers and administrators.  A third conclusion that I drew from the panel was the diversity within different groups.  Many people assume that all blacks are the same or all Hispanics are the same, but really there is a great deal of diversity within each group and this is another reason that stereotypes are ignorant and don't hold up.

Finally, I think there was an emphasis on empathy.  Multiple students talked about the need to develop empathy for those from other races. I really like that idea.  Empathy is an aspect of sociological mindfulness.  Here is a Ted Talk from a sociologist called "A Radical Experiment in Empathy."

Here are some notes from the presentation:

Shariq

Mom is Indian and dad is Pakistani. 

Racially profiled on a flight.  Mom said that we will be treated differently, but have to react differently.   Profiled as terrorist, but also stereotyped that good at math, bad at sports.  Mom said we might be treated differently but what matters is how we treat others.

Recalls a time teased by a kid in 6^th grade.  Called Osama Bin Laden by a boy who didn’t even know me.  Asked if he dislikes Jewish people even though most friends are Jewish. Asked if I know how build bombs.

I grew more aware of cliques and how race shapes social groups.  But I didn’t feel that I fit into one group, but was still bullied for being not white.  Asked where are you from?  Where are you really from?  Parents encouraged me to blend in and not identify, but wanted to embrace being brown, Pakistani Muslim.

Alerted at the rise of white supremacy and trump, I wanted to be involved.

I know I am blessed and cursed to live in a bubble. 

My bubble burst a few weeks ago.  I was volunteering at a hospital, a white woman walked past without a pass.  When I stopped her, she asked my name and told me that I have no business in this country as a brown boy.  She talked about how I don’t belong here.  You’re people ruined this country and destroy buildings.

She shouted cussed me out and called me “sand nigger”.  I got a hold of myself and remembered my moms advice.  I gave her a pass and wished her well and asked her to have a nice day.

Reya

Identify as Biracial and live in a multiracial family.  Father is white german/Swedish.  Mom is Indian and Pakistani but switched between both.  I also have two black uncles and black cousins. 

Adopted my sister who was black, then had me.

I knew we weren’t conventional.

Always normal to have different races in my family.

3^rd and 4^th grade is when I realized it was different and I became more aware.

I was always more pale than my mom. 

People used to think my mom was my nanny.  One friend told me that my mom couldn’t be my mom.  People said that my sister couldn’t be my sister just because of our looks.  People think how someone looks defines their experiences and their relationships.  I was visiting an aunt in the hospital and followed back to the room because the nurse didn’t believe that we were sisters and only family were allowed.  People were more inclined to think that my adopted sister and my mom were blood related because they are both minorities but not me and my mom even though shes my biological mom.

Didn’t connect to my mom’s side of the family because they didn’t accept that we were a mixed family. My own grandma said that I have “devil’s blood” in me because of my Indian and white.  Crazy because your grandma is supposed to love you no matter what, but because of race, they have these viewpoints.  Now I am more proud

Dwisha

Used to be troublesome.

Typical Indian family.

I was different, I took interest in other cultures.  My family never understood this.  When I played with cousins, I always felt left out.  There were groups – older cousins and younger cousins and then I was stuck in the middle.  I used to be the goody two shoes in middle school.  In high school I rebelled – didn’t want to do chores or get good grades.  My dad is a pediatrician in India and he owns a hospital.  I grew up feeling that I was not Indian.  In high school I didn’t feel like myself, my family didn’t accept

Kat

Born in Chicago.   Raised in Jalisco, Mexico.

Growing up in Mexico was nice.  Played with everyone esp on fri sat.  Went to religious catholic school . Less rules in Mex.  I miss it.  Still feels like my home.

Moved back in 6^th grade.  Knew very little English.  I couldn’t make friends because of the language and people didn’t want to talk to me.  Eventually, I talked and became friends with the few other minorities.  I don’t fit into the same experiences with my parents.  I

I started to be rebellious and self harm.  But parents don’t accept mental illness as a real medical problem.  I was bullied and stereotyped.  We came to high school but thought we were going to Mundelein but ended up at SHS.  Felt like I was being stereotyped that I was  a minority who was up to no good. 

Microaggressions – day after election.  “Trump won, why are you still here?”

Jenny

Born in Seoul South Korea.  I have memories of Korea.  I am part of 1.5 generation.  I migrated with parents so mot exactly the first one here.  Father will move to states for better econ opportunity, but family will stay or vice versa.  Wild Goose father. Moved to California first.  Actually very excited.

Moving here, realized people thought they knew me better than I know myself.   Got to choose my own English name – Jenny.  Chose Jenny because I thought it was sexy J  At first got in trouble because of language barrier.  Despite speaking eng fully by 3^rd grade still getting bullied.  I moved to Buffalo Grove at age 9.

Remember my first night at orientation they spoke to me slowly assuming I could speak slowly.  They put me in ESL without evaluating me.

Race became master status – everything related back to my race.  Chiky eyes, youre pretty for an Asian, youre smart because youre Asian,

Mom packed traditional Korean food, but I tried to speak English on the phone.

I tried to Americanize myself as much as I could. I wished that I was white.  After middle school I was at all time low.  At SHS I felt better, but still tried hard to prove stereotypes wrong by rebelling and not getting good grades.  Didn’t want to be just another cookie cutter Asian.

Mom put me into traditional Korean drumming and I was thrilled to get praise from the Korean community.  It’s the most joy and pride I have felt in my own culture.  I never viewed the world by races, but …

My said that she was told America is a melting pot but recently Race is more of a salad bowl

People try to pick out ingredients and make fun of them or take them out of the salad bowl.

I think we should embrace our backgrounds and our history but not judge others based on their race.

Emily

Asian (Thai and Laotian) and identify as Caucasian?

My identity and race problem is never really placed quite right.

I remember watching Tarzan and realizing that I didn’t look like my family like Tarzan and his tribe of apes.  My mom told me that she loved me no mater what. However in middle school I had more trouble because there were other Asians who I didn’t relate to even though I wanted to identify with them.  I felt a little left out. I started identifying as white.  I couldn’t put that hyphen next to my nationality.  Race was always at the forefront of my life.  I have learned some

-->

Everyone’s situation is different.  Listen with an open mind.

Post 8: Race

For this post, please post about race.  You may wish to talk about the social construction of race (it is not biological), ingroups/outgroups, explicit and implicit bias,  prejudice v. discrimination, and privilege.

As you apply it to your own experiences, you might want to think about: assumptions you have had about race (esp. biological), experiences you have had with other races and/or racism, and how privilege affects you.
Some sources you might want to consider using are:
The Racial Formation reading (in your packet) by Omi and Winant, and Tim Wise's video "White Like Me," the panel, and the various other links and sources on my blogpage.

Implicit bias on AirBnB

http://www.npr.org/2016/04/26/475623339/-airbnbwhileblack-how-hidden-bias-shapes-the-sharing-economy

http://www.npr.org/2017/03/02/518087610/new-research-looks-at-ways-to-help-stop-airbnb-racial-discrimination

Post 7: Social Class

For this post, you are required to apply both the movie, The Line, and the reading called Nickel and Dimed.  Please explain the dynamics of social class in the United States.  Explain how The Line and Nickel and Dimed contribute to our understanding of Social Class.  For the sociological content, some of the concepts that were a part of this unit are:  income, wealth, prestige, power, social mobility, poverty and life chances.  For applying these concepts to a unique experience, you might want to use your own family's social class or the social class of your neighborhood/school as an example. This is due next tuesday by class time.

Nickel and Dimed and the effects of poverty

Please take out your packet and open to the Nickel and Dimed reading.
Please answer: 
1. How is she treated by customers and management?

2.  Is she successful at living at minimum wage?

3.  If this was her real life, what limits her ability to move up in class?

Try the playspent website which guides readers through the difficult  choices that those in poverty must make.

-----------------Pause here-------------

These charts from Soc Images explain the myriad ways that inequality affects individuals.


Consider this statement:
A lower class person has a higher chance of dying at any age than a wealthy person.
 Brainstorm in your group all of the reasons why this may be true.  Use your reading and the movie to cite examples.

Barbara Ehrenreich's book Nickel and Dimed is an experiment with what life is like for someone living at minimun wage (or at least low-wage). Here is an excerpt.

Morgan Spurlock's video 30 days at Minimum Wage is also an experiment at living at minimum wage.

The Line is a documentary about people living at the poverty line.  It highlights the difficulties of different people who share a common struggle: life in poverty.  Here is a link to The Line on Mediacast.  Here it is embeded:

What I want you to see are the effects of poverty on individuals:

Physical Health (Here is a comprehensive list of research on health effects of poverty):
- a lower class person has a higher chance of dying at any age than a wealthy person!  Some other health outcomes for those in poverty:

From the American Journal of Pediatrics; Poverty and lack of nurturing in early life may have a direct effect on a child’s brain development, according to a study that found smaller brain volumes in poor, neglected children.

 Impoverished black children, for example, are twice as likely as poor Hispanic or white children to have levels of lead in their blood that is at least 2.5 micrograms per deciliter. Some researchers have found that even that small amount of lead is enough to cause cognitive impairment in children — especially the kind that impacts their reading ability.

 hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and diabetes, heart disease,  

Environment: the poor are more likely to experience asthma and other health issues;

...poor black children are more likely than poor white or Hispanic children to be diagnosed with asthma — another ailment that plagues poor children in Jacksonville and one that is linked to living in older, more industrialized areas.Poor white children, though, are more likely to be exposed to secondhand smoke, or to be born to mothers who smoked during pregnancy than poor black or Hispanic children.And poor Hispanic children, it found, are twice as likely to have no place to go for health care, as compared to poor white or black children.

Lifestyle = less access to healthy food (i.e. fruits and vegetables); see this link for a TED talk about one man who is arrested for planting a vegetable garden in a poor neighborhood, smoking, Drug use and abuse, exercise less,

One reason may be that violence tracks with poverty, thereby preventing people from being active out-of-doors. Similarly, parks and sports facilities are less available to people living in poor counties (5), and people who live in poverty-dense regions may be less able to afford gym membership, sports clothing, and/or exercise equipment. There are multiple individual and environmental reasons to explain why poverty-dense counties may be more sedentary and bear greater obesity burdens.

 unsafe sex. obesity, cancer, HIV

Medical Care = less access and poorer hospitals, lack of health insurance.

Mental Health = higher stress, children feel effects of stress for life, mental disorders, suicide,

Some people will argue that there is a culture of poverty among those in the lowest income levels. This culture of poverty represents individuals making choices that create or worsen the impoverished situation they are in. But, it is important to understand how these choices come about. A life of deprivation, punctuated by emergencies creates a lack of “deferred gratification." In other words, it is difficult for these people to invest in their own future; many of the poor see the future as more of the same or even worse; enjoy what you can, because tomorrow may be worse; poverty influences attitude & behavior which leads to poverty, etc…

And it is important to note that 20% of the children in the US are growing up in poverty! That's 1 out of every 5 kids in the United States is living at the poverty level! Yes you read that correctly - 1 out of every 5 children in the United States is living in poverty right now!  That's a higher rate than 34 out of 35 Western countries. This is another good reason why the cycle of poverty exists. These children grow up in these conditions and so it makes it easier to see how they become the adults who continue to be stuck in the cycle of poverty.

Growing up in poverty can have serious and long-lasting effects on children’s health, development, and overall well-being. The effects of poverty have a well-documented impact on young children’s developing brains. And children who grow up in poverty are more likely to experience harmful levels of stress, more likely to struggle in school, and more likely to have behavioral, social, and emotional problems than their peers.

Watch Poor Kids on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

Here is a link to the National Poverty Center which is full of resources and research on poverty. 

Unnatural causes is a website about the early mortality for those in poverty.

From the CDC, here is an explanation of the social determinants of health.

The Line: The Dynamics of Poverty

Today we watched a video called The Line about different people living in poverty.  There are a number of important concepts that this movie highlights.


Concepts that the movie exemplifies:

Chapter 1: The New Poverty, Dupage County, IL
Suburban poverty is growing faster than urban or rural poverty and is at a higher rate than urban poverty.
Often, these people will go unnoticed.  For example, there are at least 2% of SHS that qualifies for federal financial aid.  That's about 80 students, but often they go unnoticed.  Sometimes this anonimity is purposeful - there is a stigma that comes with poverty and so some impoverished people feel inferior.
The man in the video experienced downward structural mobility.
Divorce played a role.

Chapter 2: The Violence of Poverty, Chicago, IL
Inner city poverty often accompanies violence.
Those in poverty are often living one trauma away from homelessness.
J Kwest
The threat of violence and trauma leave many urban poor not thinking about the future because they do not plan to live long enough to worry about their future.
One medical disaster can result in a downward spiral for the poor.  Divorce exacerbated her situation.  Sheila moves in with her mom and siblings to create a "community home".  Her children feel stigmatized at her school.


Chapter 4: The Labor of Poverty, Charlotte, North Carolina
Left by his father, he had no money and his mother relied on welfare.  He had to pass up college and find a job instead.   Worked as a horse walker for 20 years, but then moved to North Carolina.  He worked hard, never used drugs, but refused to sleep in the street.  Having no skills, he had trouble finding a job.  He had to move into a homeless shelter.  He found work because a minister runs a nonprofit restaurant called the King's Kitchen.

Monopobility

Yesterday we played monopoly with rules that more closely affect the real rules of the US class system. Players started with different amounts of income and different amounts of property; the upper-upper class started with the most, and the working class the least. They rolled the dice to see what class they were. I told them them not worry about who "wins" the game, instead just try moving up to the next level of class. Playing monopoly according to the rules of the U.S.'s class structure should have some revealing insight about the state of mobility within the U.S.'s class structure.

From the NY Times Upshot "Moving On Up: Teaching With the Data of Economic Mobility", this 2017 data allows students to explore how mobility works in the US.  Students can manipulate the dynamic chart to display different classes and gender or race and see how likely they are to end up in a lower or upper class.

From the Brookings Institute:

Recent studies suggest that there is less economic mobility in the United States than has long been presumed. The last thirty years has seen a considerable drop-off in median household income growth compared to earlier generations. And, by some measurements, we are actually a less mobile society than many other nations, including Canada, France, Germany and most Scandinavian countries. This challenges the notion of America as the land of opportunity.

And from the New Yorker,
“Social mobility is low and has been for at least thirty or forty years.” This is most obvious when you look at the prospects of the poor. Seventy per cent of people born into the bottom quintile of income distribution never make it into the middle class, and fewer than ten per cent get into the top quintile. Forty per cent are still poor as adults....The middle class isn’t all that mobile, either: only twenty per cent of people born into the middle quintile ever make it into the top one.

From the NY Times series about social class, this graphic shows that mobility does exist but one's starting point plays a strong role in where that person ends up.

Mobility in America tends to be within the middle classes (from working class to uppermiddle class). The wealthy class tends to stay wealthy and the impoverished class tends to stay in poverty, especially in comparison to other most developed nations.

When someone changes social class within their lifetime, this is called intragenerational mobility.

1. Was anyone from your group able to change classes?  If so, who?  What class?  If not, then who was the closest to moving up or down?

2.  Does your groups' mobility reflect the findings above from the Brookings Institute?

Social class mobility might also be  intergenerational mobility or structural mobility.   Intergenerational mobility means that the children of one group will have a different class than their parents.  This is much more common than intragenerational mobility.  My own family's history reflect this as well.  How has your family's mobility been? Are you growing up in the same social class as your parents? How about from your grandparents? Where do you see your future in terms of social class?
 Structural mobility is when the structure of society changes in such a way that a group is moved up or down.  For example, many people in the 1950s and 60s were able to finish high school and go right to work in a factory.  When those jobs moved overseas, many of those people were thrust downward.

3.  Tell the group about your family's intergenerational mobility.  Did they go up or down or stay the same?

4.  Using the monopoly game yesterday, what are some ways that we could exemplify intergenerational mobility and structural mobility as part of the game?


A second way that we can look at this simulation is in how players react.  Below is a TED talk about how people react to playing the game.  Think about how that reaction might show up in everyday life.

GLASA volunteer opportunity

You may recall that former SHS student who visited in January to talk about adaptive sports.  She sent this request for volunteers:

GLASA has a volunteer opportunity coming up Saturday, April 1 that will be a great opportunity for your students!  We have a limited number of spots available so please tell them to sign up quickly.

On Saturday, April 1, we have a Power Soccer League day where we need volunteers to assist with various tasks throughout the tournament at Libertyville Sports Complex.  Volunteers will be needed to assist with setting-up, fielding balls, keeping score, selling raffle baskets, selling 50-50 tickets and cleaning up.  Any time slot signed up for will have direct contact with athletes.  The time slots are as follows:  7:00am - 11:00am, 9:00am - 11:00am, 11:00am - 3:00pm, 3:00pm - 6:00pm.  Volunteers can sign up for one slot or the entire day! 

Please visit www.SignUpGenius.com/go/9040A44AAA62BAB9-glasa1 to sign up.  Contact Micaela Fedyniak, Volunteer Coordinator, at volunteer@glasa.org or 847-283-0908 with any questions.