52 Comments
Emily Dingman
2/4/2015 07:42:43 am
Ferguson: I had always thought of my self as a well rounded person, someone who understood others from afar or close, and always judged on personality. Growing up my best friend was African american living in a mostly white neighborhood; I never understood the discrimination between me and him. I never would fully understand what it was until Ferguson. I remember unbelievably well, sitting in my home when I get an email too look at the recent events My heart sunk. Ferguson was a MAJOR step backs for America and I am modified to call my self an American after it. The article is more then right, the bickerers I have caused over the news have usually ended in yelling. We have only made so many steps after that event, so many small one's of realization and horror. Our discrimination is still there and our disobedience to understand one another is harsh. The Ferguson issue should have opened everyone's eyes but if anything, they all shut them in hopes it would go away.
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Kayla Feather
2/4/2015 08:24:17 am
Ferguson: To be honest, I hadn't heard of the Ferguson case, just that something really bad happened and I still don't completely know what happened or what to believe. My family leans more toward the police office, but that is because our family is a police officer, doctors, or fireman and "they all get the same crap" my dad says. However reading the first article shows me that he doesn't have the facts or understand the white privilege we have. I was mind blown to see that the differences between the minority and majority was amazing and the fact that this is about 50-60 years after the end of segregation.
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Nicole King
2/4/2015 08:38:23 am
Furgoson: I thought this article was really interesting because I got to learn a whole bunch of different things I didn't know. Like blacks were less likely to get to go to school that offered high level courses but more likely to get suspended and expelled compared to white people. Just statistics like that got my interested on why that happens. Because I personally don't look at people and treat them differently.
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Jenna Welsh
2/4/2015 09:44:56 am
Ferguson: I went to a public elementary school in Escondido, that was about half white and half Hispanic. I remember hearing really vile statements aimed at a lot of my Hispanic friends and classmates, but I always thought they were isolated incidents or outliers. It wasn’t until the Trayvon Martin trial that I became keenly aware of the fact that racism is still as prevalent and pervasive as it was during the marches in Birmingham. The statistics in the Ferguson New York Times article stupefied me, particularly the one about the wealth gap. There is a $104,000 difference between the average black household and the average white household! That fact seems like it is from a different era or planet. The fact that it is even higher than the wealth gap of apartheid South Africa makes me feel extremely ashamed. Per usual, I am also angered that these statistics are not even mentioned in mass media. Anyone who feels that racism is a thing of the past must read this article.
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Nicole Matteson
2/4/2015 10:26:25 am
Racial Bias:
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Noah Parr
2/4/2015 10:34:58 am
Ferguson: I have previously known what the ferguson case was about, and was disgusted that the white cops would act lie that. It shows how much that racism is still real today, even though people will say that it is not. And, the article did open my eyes to the schools facts, and how black students are more likely to get suspended. So I guess having going to an accepting charter school for middle and high school, I never really noticed things like that first hand.
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Mikayla Kricfalusi
2/4/2015 10:40:19 am
Ferguson: I think that it is ridiculous to say that anti-white discrimination is a bigger and far more pressing issue than anti-black discrimination. However, that is a lot like what we talked about in class, how people try to pull sympathy towards themselves because it is difficult to admit your race has either privileges or suppresses another race. I was stunned to see the massive wage gap between the average white family and the average black family. That seems to large to comprehend. Just when we think that we are overcoming racism, numbers like this are brought to light. I know that in my daily life, I never think about racism or being racist to other people. Without looking at numbers or studies, and being white, I would say that racism isn't applicable in everyday life. I just don't see it. However, these numbers prove that racism is still obviously going on, but it is very difficult for people in my position to see.
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Christian Klosterman
2/4/2015 11:21:59 am
Ferguson: This just further proves that whites are still oblivious to the fact that they think everybody is treated equally. This article pulled through with bold statements and facts to back it up, such as the average price of housing for blacks and whites. I don't think that it is all the white people's fault though, because everyone sees those commercials telling people about problems, but if that problem doesn't affect those people directly, they most likely won't do anything to improve the situation.
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jackson sjogren
2/4/2015 11:28:36 am
Ferguson: Its ridiculous to say these cases are getting to much coverage. This is a pressing issue and people need to know about it. People are getting upset because they think their are more important issue that should be covered. But as soon as one case starts to die down another is brought to light. This should show people how often african american discrimination is happening and how the police force need stop be retrained.
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Benjamin Rose
2/4/2015 11:29:24 am
People love to propose solutions to solve racially based conflicts, because, after all, if we just did this or that, that would eliminate the problem, right? No. This is an extremely complex situation that has numerous reasons for its continued existence. It's not something that's just going to go away in a day, or a week, or a year. We've come far since the 1950's, but we haven't come far enough. The most pressing problems are the ones that we white people never get a chance to see. The wage inequality. The fact that the US public school system is so unequal in the quality of education it provides. Where the houses are more expensive, the education tends to be of a better quality. The fact that so many people (even subconsciously) believe in the stereotype that black people are low-class, or that they're criminals, or any of the other ones out there. These are the problems that aren't even thought of by the majority of the white american population.
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Hunter Birk
2/4/2015 11:48:12 am
After reading both articles I was surprised to see the large gap in income education. What was also pretty shocking was the majority of caucasians surveyed said that whites believed that anti-white racism was a bigger problem than anti-black racism. However while reading them I came to a conclusion that everyone makes there own decisions and those decisions ultimately impact your future. The first article also mentioned neighborhood and the impact it typically had on a child. It had a very significant impact on me because when I think about where your born it too I think that it should not have as big as an impact as it was actually having. Breaking the tradition and getting educated is a choice your race is not dependent on that choice but a will to break the statistic. However, I can't help feeling bad for someone who's put into a situation where its difficult to not be another statistic. I think the debate on police offers being racist claim is completely ridiculous because you can't stereotype a whole organization and claim for them to be racist based on a few cases in which a police offer my be prejudice. I believe that Police offers alike share a similar goal to help the community but it becomes a fine line when they need to protect themselves and protect the public and telling the difference in an individual I could imagine is a very difficult task. However, the events in Ferguson need to be dealt with. Racial tension is a big issue to the community and to the nation but responding with violence is only hypocrite and hurt the community much more. Have a clear organized plan and ways to address the situation is what I believe to an appropriate response to a situation in which a single officer harms a citizen.
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Alexis Habib
2/4/2015 11:49:21 am
What I had to remind myself constantly during these articles is that that are speaking about (or blaming) the majority of white people as a whole, and not necessarily the individual. I kept having to think over my actions over my lifetime and confirm that I was not the horrible self absorbed beast that was causing this. And even then it is hard to say with a strait face that the inequality taking place is exclusively the fault of white people. I understand that certainly some was caused by them, and besides the incredibly racist fools that could not shut up, a good part of it was not intentional. All of the fear, or mistrust, or low expectations aimed at suppressed minorities stem from many things, like location, but I have to say that they all have some roots in stereotypes.
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Kane McGrath
2/4/2015 11:50:37 am
When I first came across the first article I thought "I have read this before". And I'm sure I have but that's not important. One thing I thought about the first article was that some of the information seem to be cited and some of it seem to not be. Some parts of the statistics they presented seem to be very stunning. And I don't really trust it 100%. Despite some of the information seeming off to me the rest of the information presented in the article I found very interesting some of it I already knew but some of the things I had never heard of. The second article seemed a lot more straightforward and "organized". But the information they presented made me really consider if I had any racial biases myself. The article really focused on the subconscious thought that forms racial bias. I would like to think of myself as a very non-biased person but some of the employers and people on the survey said the same thing.
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Morgan King
2/4/2015 11:52:51 am
After Ferguson: I think that it is interesting to hear the statements and all of the facts. I honestly have to say that I only got about a quarter of the way into the article, before I had to go and look up the original case. I have to say that while many people are complaining about to much coverage, I think that maybe there wasn't enough, because I had heard the name but I never really knew much about it. I found the statistics mentioned in the article to be very interesting, I really believe that there was a racial bias of some sort in the facts. My reasoning, is that when I was reading these facts, I kept getting the impression, "Oh this only happens to the people who cause trouble, who can't be bothered to work harder." I believe this to be something of a stereotype, because I have met some well educated persons, and than I have met many that I would much rather not discuss. Overall, I think that this is still a very serious issue that people need to take much more seriously.
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Kaeli Leoni
2/4/2015 12:00:37 pm
Ferguson: After reading this article, a lot of different perspectives now weigh in which were before unnoticed by me. Several points in this article shocked me, first starting out with the one about the average income of black and white families. The dramatic difference between the two is extremely upsetting to me because I feel like America should be past this by now. Equal pay to every race is crucial for the development of this country economically and socially. Another piece of information that shocked me was that out of 100 friends, a white person only has about 1 black friend. This made me reflect back to my own life and realize that I don't have as many African American friends as I do Caucasian. Something else that stuck out to me was how surprised the African American finance of a white woman when she threw away her receipt, not thinking that she will possibly need it for proof. You would think that after 50 years of supposed de-segregation that these racial stereotypes and prejudices wouldn't be at all as present as they are today.
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Allison Hopkins
2/4/2015 12:04:13 pm
Ferguson:
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Camila Antonorsi
2/4/2015 12:07:42 pm
After reading these articles I have come to the conclusion that is it all about choice. Thought these articles did not necessarily say it, that is what I have gathered from them. one of the articles talked about how on the news and media the topic is usually about race, and how some people thought it was getting to much attention. i think that if people made the choice, and opened there minds a bit they would see that everyone is the same. If people weren't so dang racist then this type of stuff would not be all over the news because it would not be happening. The other article talked bout how though stereotyping people is bad it did arise form some sort of truth. i don't personally think that you should judge people using stereotypes but whenever i meet someone for the first time i do make note on how they behave. a snap decision that decides wether i perceive them in a good way or in a bad way. I think that this is why stereotypes are made.
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Chloe r
2/4/2015 12:07:59 pm
I always look at statistics that shock me, like (60% of white people believe racism against white people is a bigger problem than racism against African Americans.) and I just can't but wonder where people are finding this information. Who are the people being polled? Where do they live? I want to know why people carry the opinions they do. Also I want to know what I'm supposed to do as a student when I see inequality, or believe it to be a thing. Its so hard to speak out about something your not watching happening. I don't know any African Americans who I see suffering from apparent inequalities, and so I'm not sure what I could do about it.
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2/4/2015 12:22:21 pm
Ferguson:
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Ian
2/4/2015 12:23:50 pm
Ferguson: Before I read this I have heard up a lot about this case and I really like and dislike it. In my opinion I would go for the brown side. When they were listing thing of what looks like we are still having this sederation but its put away and most whites don't see that. Reading those list opened my eyes to notice that most of those things were true becasue they are really noticable today.
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Jordan Farrah
2/4/2015 12:39:31 pm
I thought the articles were interesting. Alf of the racism that was going on was kinda outrageous with how blacks got worse education and were punished more often than whites. It just goes to show how humans always want to feel in charge of something and in a way i feel that a lot of it was the whites wanted to be in charge of the blacks.
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Hesham
2/4/2015 12:59:35 pm
Ferguson case: I have been on Browns side because it is never acceptable to fatally injure an unarmed person. He could of used less than lethal force like a taser or a shot to the leg. Instead he pursued Brown, shooting him 6 times. This is a racial case, and all evidence points to the officer being guilty, but he never got convicted. It is shocking to see that whites think that anti-white racism is more of a problem than anti-black racism. When were whites prosecuted for their skin color? Its absolutely ridiculous that people have this kind of mindset.
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Jack Campbell
2/4/2015 01:30:20 pm
One of the first paragraphs reads "on average, believed that anti-white racism was a bigger problem than anti-black racism." which is a true statement. But it has many different positions in what it means to be racist. There are multiple sides to the debate of racial discriminations and it leads to BOTH white and black racism. There is no singular type of racism. The article about furgeson discussed some information on the wealth gap between white households in america and black house holds. There was some data presented (however the exact numbers were slightly off of a data analysis that i read prior in the year) the numbers were significantly different in the new worth of those families. About $105,000 difference, and that is significant, however it does have some data manipulation and is presented in a way that favors one side. It is bias, and it is not fully understandable in its current form, the same as most data. There are factors, such as homeownership, that change peoles perception of the data, and major exception to where people of minority groups are significantly wealthier than the mass of majority groups. Which brings up a few questions about the way data is use to represent white racism. Because traditions and property is passed down generationally, there is a lot of cross over between parents and children. That is the main reason for ethnic location and areas with high populations of certain ethnicities. Many people stay close to where they grew up and if their parents grew up in a bad neighborhood, and you grew up in a bad neighborhood, the chances of you staying in a bad neighborhood are larger. And this effects BOTH white and african american families. I understand that there are historical reasons that this is occurring, but many people are attempting to blame people today for it. I feel that the parts of the article such as the section that reads "One black friend tells me that he freaked out when his white fiancée purchased an item in a store and promptly threw the receipt away. “What are you doing?” he protested to her. He is a highly successful and well-educated professional but would never dream of tossing a receipt for fear of being accused of shoplifting." had a powerful message, but did not cover the opposite side and had a little bias. Blaming whites for misconceptions they learn from society and their parents is the same as blaming certain african americans for growing up in a bad neighborhood. Not everyone can control their ideas, and many people are taught things that they can easily unlearn and the it takes both sides to fix a problem like this and on this massive of a scale. That is what I thought about the first article. As for the second one, I had a little bit of a stronger attitude for it. When it comes to things, especially prejudice related topics, I hate being accused, or anyone being accused of things. And this article sort of accuses all white people of discrimination. Similar to the other article, I fell that the data was not fully applicable and did not support every part of the argument. Let me start of by saying that I know discrimination exists, and it is prevalent. But these types of articles pretend or present that there is only minority prejudice. All of the data presented here covers blank and white. but there are a million other prejudices and discriminations out there. and then reverse racism comes in with polices such as affirmative action. The main part of the problem is natural human recognition, the brain is evolutionarily developed to recognize and determine characteristics of objects and other animals. The prefrontal cortex it adapted to in a spot second analyze the visual data it receives and compute it to the primal areas of the brain to asses its safety for natural selection reasons. It all comes with association and humans spent 200,000 years developing it, it does not easily go away and people expect to be able to ignore it, but when the human eye sees someone who the media has stereotyped to be one way, they make assumptions. As a society, it is our job to determine the validity of those assumptions, but we can't easily stop the production of them. But tom them, we get argument such as the examples from the article. Some people use their assumptions to determine what they do. But a major issue that come from the recognition of that is the application of a sort of revese racism where non white people are given more privileges and advantages that white people. This is called affirmative action. There are good examples of arguments given in the article, but then there are examples of iPods not being sold on ebay because a black hand is holding them. Closing the article it states "There are some counterexamples: Data show that some places, like elite colleges, most likely do favor minority applicants."......elite colleges....this is huge to me, the fact that i don't have as good as a chance to get into an elite college because
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Jack Campbell (Continued)
2/4/2015 01:31:35 pm
i am white. This is affirmative action in the works. something that looked over. I understand the idea of it, we oppressed them and now we should help them, but it does not seem to be fair in judgement. Its assuming that all minorities are poor and all white are rich. I don't think its right to give priority to someone ver their skin color black or white. Because the bottom line is the SKIN COLOR DOES NOT MATTER. you can be rich, poor, smart, stupid, mean, nice, and every other characteristic and be black or white and it does not matter and would not have anything to do with it. One more thing this article brought up, there seems to be a fear that you will be accused of racism if you are white. And I have seen this first hand, last year my mom decided to buy two more houses. She went to rent one after she bought it and prepared all the documentation. She started to get application submissions and start interviews for the people, the second application she received happened to be from an African American. She met and interviewed him and received all of the paper work for his application, but the first application she received went through and she was legally required to rent to the first person to apply. And in doing so, she felt that the second renter might think that race played a role, and outsiders might think that, but my mother is the most tolerant and accepting person ever, however there was still that fear, and a lot of people have it. Even in writing this, I was not sure what people would think of it because its not a generic reflection completely supporting what the articles are saying, so there is the fear I might be accused of certain things. So that is what these two articles reminded me of and are me think of, sorry if this was messy and long, but I doubt anyone will read this.
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Srdja
2/4/2015 01:49:18 pm
I agree with you that racism towards the black people caused a lot of judging towards the white people, especially white males. Stereotypes about them often are made by their ancestor's mistakes. I liked how you brought the fact that history is making all white persons racist. If it continue going to that side, it can only cause a big rebellion of white population. And that is not a good thing because it will bring a bad spirits from past. However, judging by race or ethnicity or religion caused all wars that this civilization face. Hitler needed holocaust to express his hate towards different ethnicity. We don't need another type of "holocaust" (e.g. KKK) to realize that it went so far away. Therefore, learning about race segregation can help us to make better future. Once Americans realized that they are first Americans and brothers between their-self and then black or white or Hispanic or Asian, better days for all races are coming.
Morgan King
2/4/2015 02:13:19 pm
I agree with you in that racism towards people and placing the blame on a specific group creates a lot of issues. I can tell that this meant a lot to you, because you had a lot to say. But I think that when you said you doubt that anyone would read what you wrote, made me think of how even that could be applied to what happens throughout our nation. So many people have been raised to a certain set of "rules" or standards, that they are afraid to speak what is meaningful to them, because they believe it won't be acknowledged in a positive way. Overall, I really think that you made some really good points and Im glad that someone saw that there was a lack of one side or the other in these articles.
Chloe R
2/5/2015 05:48:05 am
Nice rant Jack. I really enjoyed reading this.
Srdja
2/4/2015 01:31:16 pm
Reading articles from tonight was really interesting. I learned a lot and find out some information and facts about gaps between two most dominate race in the US: blacks and whites. It is really scary how the difference between income of white and black families increased since 1960's. I liked how in the first article writer tried to find solutions for all these gaps. Education. But how can black boys be educated in the broken schools in their neighborhoods. That looks like endless problems. But there is always a solution. Instead of blaming society and everyday people for all racism movements happening today, we should start from ourselves. We need to clear our thoughts and mind. Find out what we actually think and reasons we think that. If we skip that step, "bad"society is going to build more bad opinions on our owns. We will be controlled by opinions of majority. At the end, society is consisted of individuals. Second article opened my eyes to the names, one simple thing that we can choose. It is really miserable that name is deciding your future or job. Young people are influenced so much by history and society about stereotypes. This is the chance for them to stop building it up on the surface that already exist and start reducing the gaps between them and their brothers.
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Adrien De Luna
2/4/2015 01:35:23 pm
Ferguson: Michael Brown's story is one that may have gone a bit too far. Shooting an unarmed person one time is bad, but shooting an unarmed person six times is just absurd. If was a cop, and I got myself into a heated situation, I would defend myself with my taser, not my gun. I just find it a bit extreme that a cop would do something like that to a teenager.
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Sarah Lockhart
2/4/2015 01:49:03 pm
Ferguson:
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Rena
2/4/2015 01:59:18 pm
Ferguson: I'm kinda blown away at the fact that someone had the guts to say that anti-white racism was a bigger problem than anti-black racism. I know this will probably sound silly coming from me, because I am like the definition of a white girl, but when will white people ever be satisfied with what they have? I know personally, that I am not part of the stereotypical rich white family, no I am far from that, but I am still happy with what I have. Sorry about that little rant there. One thing that people are still neglecting to realize is that everybody is human, everybody deserves to be treated the same way, it doesn't matter if they are black or white . It deeply saddens me to think that people have different standards and expectations for each other based solely on race.
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Eamonn McGuiness
2/4/2015 02:12:51 pm
Ferguson: It shocked me to read this article and see that on average more whites are worried about anti white racism than anti black. I cannot comprehend this especially after reading that on average whites in America 18 times as much. I had to yes it was so big I had to reread it. What also surprised me was that whites on average have a longer life expectancy than blacks by half a decade. The wealth gap is only going to get worse since black students 3 times more likely to get expelled. This will worsen their chance of a education and as a result the wealth gap will get worse. Honestly I didn't know that racism was so bad in America until I read this.
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Emily Hayashida
2/4/2015 02:20:09 pm
Ferguson: It was interesting to read about the many sides of the Ferguson case. In my opinion Bill O'Reilly is one of the most idiotic reporters out there. While it is interesting to read about a different perspective, hearing how he believes black to white rascism in more serious that white to black rasicm was appalling. Another thing that disgusts me is how people are "fed up" with the coverage of Ferguson, as if it were to happen to their child wouldn't they want to get the message acros?
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Isaac Fernandez
2/4/2015 02:24:57 pm
Ferguson: I think what we are learning about right now, is super beneficial to how we live our live from now on and the future. Like how the writer for the Ferguson article stated, it's gonna be ridiculously difficult to fix this problem of white privilege. I really enjoyed how he spoke about how it's something that people have to work on from the inside, funny thing is, that's how almost every problem is. You might be thinking well then let's solve this, the hard thing is if you say, "I now think that I don't have anymore privilege than my black friend." Well this also has to do with your black friend. If he cares enough to go against the stereotypes that exist for his race. Also, does everyone want to get on the same page of being tolerant, the rough answer is no.
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Ryan Cormack
2/4/2015 02:25:06 pm
Ferguson: It really doesn't make sense to me when people say they are tired of hearing about Ferguson. Just because the media hype lasts only a few days doesn't mean the problem just dissapears. And it sickens me to think that people can treat the event like some over hyped movie, when this is something real that is happening in our own country. The statistics that this article brought up blew me away, and when there is an average 100,000 income difference between two parties based on race, people need to come to terms with the fact that racial discrimination and bias still exists.
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Abby Elliott
2/4/2015 02:34:27 pm
I think that the recent deaths of African Americans has America talking. Is the conversation productive? Is it going to make a difference in race relations? I know we have discussed it in my home-luckily, articles like we read tonight whether we agree or disagree to what they present, make us think. There are two things that these articles really bring to mind:
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Piper Tompkins
2/4/2015 02:49:29 pm
Ferguson: The first thing I thought when I read this article was 'Wow'. Many parts from this article reminded me of the Nap sack reading we did last night, the part of the reading I am referring to is when the woman throws her receipt away with out a worry that some one may accuse her of seal the high priced item she just purchased, while her fiancé is stunned by her actions, him being an African American man he always kept his receipts out of fear someone would accuse him of stealing. This section really reminded me of white privilege, and how I also just through out all my receipts once I get them. That part of the article was the most eye opening for me.
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Alexis Miranda
2/4/2015 03:16:58 pm
Both articles were very interesting to me. The Ferguson case seems to have a lot of people talking and involved in it. Most of these people are African American, and the media is where all the talk goes around about different kinds of situations that just kept on causing controversy, that mostly based on skin color. I personally think that people should still be supporting this case. The second article really shocked me, especially the results the researches got from their tests. After reading this article I knew there was still racism being used. It is ridiculous how one judges other people just by their names. Even if it's a stereotypical name, they are still actual names that belong to actual people. Imagine if there were people who had stereotypical names trying to order something online and getting rejected just because of their name or race, that's a situation that I do not a prove of.
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Alex de Villiers
2/4/2015 03:28:11 pm
Racial Bias: To be honest I have no idea why this racial bias only focuses on just blacks, there are many other racial groups living in america as well. Racial problems in America aren't just problems between whites and blacks, there are many other racial groups that have certain problems with other racial groups. Also most of the problems that were brought up in the article weren't really problems, like does it really matter if a black person receives 21 percent less offers than a white person? Most of these studies are also focused to make it look like there certain racial injustices that exist, however there are many other factors in those situations that could have effected those outcomes. In my opinion this article was a very biased article that tried to make it seem that all white Americans are out to get black people in any tiny possible passive aggressive way. However the point made about the "fast thinking" discrimination is valid, every single person's brain is made to make very quick assumptions about people and things they see. Every single person judges the "book" by it's cover subconsciously, but it doesn't mean anything, people don't act on these assumptions most of the time, the solution to the problem of fast thinking discrimination is to think about the assumption a you made and make your own decision separate from the first thought using evidence from further interaction.
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Grant
2/4/2015 04:02:24 pm
After reading both articles I was shocked to discover the differences they both brought up with the statistics. I was surprised by these statistics because I never knew that there was such a huge difference in income of both groups. It makes me wonder what are the main factors that make this true in modern times. I know in the past it was very different and there was more of a reason for this gap. So it makes me think that there is something very wrong going on and its more than people being racist. I think it might have something to do with peoples perspectives of where they feel like they fit in society and how they handle certain situations.
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Jonathan Richeson
2/4/2015 04:06:51 pm
I honestly wasn't shocked when reading these articles, I mean are they fascinating to read, absolutely, given the research found in both articles I found it particularly interesting to read. However, on the other hand I wasn't shocked because this is the sort of thing we've been talking about all week, and some in the past semester. All the reading did was introduce data to support the claim of "invisible privilege". These statistics also don't shock me because it IS the world we live in and if one looks hard enough they will see these things happening.
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Eli Murguia
2/4/2015 04:09:22 pm
Racial Bias: Right off the bat this article dove into how we should consider different reasons for racism like the environment in which African Americans grow up in contrast to the general white public. And then flew in the statistics. Woooow I was astounded with the studies that Universities had conducted showed evidence that even though the civil rights movement ended and African Americans broke the chains of continued segregation, there is CLEAR evidence that discrimination and the fight against race judgement still goes on today. And what even more so got to me was the fact that even then when it seems obvious reading the studies, all of this is because of the fast thinking or the "snap judgement" that is subconsciously in the back of our minds that is shaped and created by stereo types and the environment that we grow up in. And I really found this interesting because when looking at the studies I was thinking "Daaamn, that's crazy!" but at the same time I realized that I got this thought from the people around me. My white side aka the school side of me was thinking this meanwhile my Mexican side was recalling personal experiences that I have encountered and other family members around me have encountered where these statistics and studies made sense and almost seemed obvious. This blew me away because in my own mind I had been able to differentiate the differences of my thinking around the two groups of people that I grew up around and just the idea that I was able to think both of these things unconsciously at almost the same time simply because of the people I've surrounded myself around since childhood continues to bewilder my mind.
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TJ
2/4/2015 04:52:41 pm
Racial Bias:
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Chenoa Levy
2/4/2015 06:27:18 pm
After Ferguson: I think the reason why the racism seems to be "worsening" is because racism is constantly denied therefore it is being ignored. But with recent coverage on police brutality and racial discrimination in America it's sort of uncovering all the racism America has been hiding There's few people who step and say " hey that's racist " instead they refuse to acknowledge it and allow the issue to worsen. I also think that's the reason the whole " I don't see colour" is an awful way of trying to stop racism because it's masking all the struggles and hardships a person of colour faces and grouping them in with the majority while each race has their own problems that need to be properly faced and addressed and not ignored. The only way to truly end is racism is to not overlook someones color but accept it and appreciate that. And as the article states it's not a single job for individual races to solve but the country as a whole.
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Michele Moua
2/4/2015 09:07:32 pm
Racial bias: I have always known that racial bias had existed and have seen it as a natural somewhat harmless thing. But I was so shocked and surprsed by all of the statistics presented in the article, I never thought that the color of skin or name would ever hold so much power in decision making. I wonder, how though, how did the black stereotype gain so much of a negative stereotype, because from what weve saw so far, thier strongest efforts in the 1950's was powered through nonviolent, peaceful protest. I just wonder how we go from that
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Matt Rose
2/4/2015 10:53:54 pm
Ferguson- This article was mind blowing for me, especially the data to show that the average net worth for a black houshold was around $6,000 while the average net worth for a white household was around $110,000 and about forty years ago this wealth gap has actually gotten worse. You would think the gap would be getting smaller as time progressed. A lot of the data showed in this article has made me realize that there is still a lot of stuff that needs to be changed in order to stop this white vs black war and get rid of the term "white privilege"
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Dylan L
2/4/2015 11:14:47 pm
After Ferguson:
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Chandler Gaines
2/4/2015 11:42:53 pm
While I was reading the Ferguson reading and seeing the first example of racial bias I was just thinking Oh its gonna be another one of these. Where it was, but it did show some fantastic points.the one that got to me was the racial standard income difference of 104k which is an insane amount of money. As a few others said I didn't know much about the Ferguson case either and I guess it's too late to choose sides now. But this reading was very informative.
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Eddie Herrera
2/5/2015 12:27:35 am
Ferguson: I was somewhat mad when I heard something like this happened. Even if he was shoplifting he was shot to death which is insane and unjust. It's ridiculous when people said that racism towards whites is more of an issue. I feel that perhaps verbal abuse towards whites may be an issue but aside from that Blacks have it tougher. Like that household difference is insane and people who say that brown deserved it haven't been in his shoes or known how poverty is for someone. This was kid who was unarm and was shot to death, it's just lucrative.
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Ferguson: When I had read this article, and they were demonstrating the differences between the privileges given based on race was shocking to me. Some of the things said in the article really made me think of how the people of the world view each other. Are people of different color or race more likely to fail? That's what I was getting from the article, the examples given of African Americans are more likely to become criminals. When I would think of some of the stereotypes of being a African American I would never imagine going deeper, what I mean is how people are able to take a stereotype and use it to explain a race based of that stereotype.It's sad that the education is being used against races and because the thought that, "well they are more likely to fail anyway" stereotype. It's sad that people have done this and that it has affected a lot of races even now racism is being viewed as a joke.
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Tristan Elghoroury
2/5/2015 01:17:52 am
Ferguson:
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Shea Saulino
2/5/2015 05:51:54 am
Ferguson: The statistics in this article really opened up my eyes to the racial bias and the awful stereotypes that Americans can make up to make them feel better. What truly shocked me was that a black child's life expectancy is five years shorter than a white child's. I agree with Dylan L. in that in the beginning of the article it seems one-sided but throughout the duration of the piece it becomes clearer that the author is not biased but is simply informing the reader. The concluding sentence drew me into the author's point of view more than anything "...the first step is to acknowledge that the central race challenge in America today is not the suffering of whites."
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