There is no more basic component to a culture than that of its language. Language defines who you are and what you do. Without language, we would have no communication....How could we!? Yet while language brings us together as humans, it also divides us as cultures. On the obvious level, different cultures have different languages. One needs to understand these languages in order to be accepted in a culture. You wouldn't very well expect to speak French in China now would you? Yet language shapes our culture in more sudden ways. Each culture has certain words that are untranslatable into other languages. Thus even when translating, some of the meaning of the word is lost. This culture of language creates a boundary that separates different parts of the world, its an unavoidable facet of human life.
On a much more minor scale, I too have experienced this language of culture. Growing up in a Jewish family, my grandparents were rather fluent in Yiddish. While this proficiency disseminated throughout the generations, my parents still used quite a few Yiddish phrases. As I result, I too picked up a few of those terms. Because of TV culture, many of these terms, such as meshugganeh and chotchkie, are easily understood and translated in English. However, my grandparents, being the "interesting" people that they were, apparently manipulated the language to create their own words. Just right now while googling information for this blog, I became acutely aware that one of the words my late Zayde used to call me, tottyshein (it supposedly was an endearing term for a small child), isn't even a word at all! Thus, absolutely no one out of the small culture that is my family would understand me if I used that word!
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Service Project Hours 7-8: Students United 4 (School Name Here)
Name of Organization: Students United 4 (School Name Here) (Decided at Meeting)
Location: Private Residence in Buffalo Grove (If you need the address, ask me and I'll give it to you)
Date: Friday February 18th 5-7 PM
Supervisor: Kimberley Levy (K_Levy@comcast.net)
Coming off of my campaign dinner on Wednesday, I was looking forward to getting more into the nitty-gritty of how we as students could help out with the campaign. This meeting was held at a friend of mine's house, and there were 4 other students who showed up, plus Kimberley. We got right to business on how we are gonna plan this election out. In Case anyone from the opposition stumbles across this page, I'm going to be rather vague in my descriptions; If you need more information, talk to me in person and I'll get it to you. We decided to Split the job down the middle, Me and my friend Glenne would be in charge of online recruitment, while the other two kids would be in charge of organizing volunteers. We planned out dates for a phone bank and door-to-door canvassing, as well as tentatively scheduling another meeting. When the meeting was over, I went immediately home and started working on my job. I created a facebook group in support of our cause (I can give you the link if you'd like) and added over 300 people to the group. I added a mission statement, and informed people of ways to get involved with the campaign. Since then, I have moderated the group to keep out explicit behavior (which there has shockingly been a lot of), and recieved contact from people wanting to work on the campaign. One of them is actually a college student with campaigning experience. I trust he knows what he's doing; you don't get a profile picture of you with Joe Biden for nothing! I am very excited to be working on this campaign, as it means a lot, and will help shape the future of the school for years to come
Location: Private Residence in Buffalo Grove (If you need the address, ask me and I'll give it to you)
Date: Friday February 18th 5-7 PM
Supervisor: Kimberley Levy (K_Levy@comcast.net)
Coming off of my campaign dinner on Wednesday, I was looking forward to getting more into the nitty-gritty of how we as students could help out with the campaign. This meeting was held at a friend of mine's house, and there were 4 other students who showed up, plus Kimberley. We got right to business on how we are gonna plan this election out. In Case anyone from the opposition stumbles across this page, I'm going to be rather vague in my descriptions; If you need more information, talk to me in person and I'll get it to you. We decided to Split the job down the middle, Me and my friend Glenne would be in charge of online recruitment, while the other two kids would be in charge of organizing volunteers. We planned out dates for a phone bank and door-to-door canvassing, as well as tentatively scheduling another meeting. When the meeting was over, I went immediately home and started working on my job. I created a facebook group in support of our cause (I can give you the link if you'd like) and added over 300 people to the group. I added a mission statement, and informed people of ways to get involved with the campaign. Since then, I have moderated the group to keep out explicit behavior (which there has shockingly been a lot of), and recieved contact from people wanting to work on the campaign. One of them is actually a college student with campaigning experience. I trust he knows what he's doing; you don't get a profile picture of you with Joe Biden for nothing! I am very excited to be working on this campaign, as it means a lot, and will help shape the future of the school for years to come
Service Project Hours 5-6: Campaign Dinner
Name of Organization: United 4 (School Name Here)
Location of Event: 301 Weiland Road, Buffalo Grove (The Grove Banquet Hall)
Date: Wednesday, February 16th 5-7 PM
Supervisor: None officially, but if you need contacts to verify my attendance, I can give it to you
Last Wednesday I went to a political fundraiser/meet-and-greet to kick off the campaign for the reelection of the incumbent candidates for school board. I was excited, I had always wanted to get involved in politics, but had been to lazy too. This election however, I felt the need to get involved, as some of the things the opposition wants to do scares me greatly. I went with a group of kids from GSA and two adults who were with us. It was mostly a meet and greet, which was nice, as I got to take time to talk to the candidates about the issues at hand, and was lauded by them multiple times for being involved at such a young age, which made me feel very proud. After we spent time talking to the candidates, they gave speeches, and then we talked some more about ways to get involved on the campaign, and I knew I had another meeting planned on that more individually for Friday. Before I left, I picked up a yardsign for their campaign, which I intend to post on my lawn as soon as we are allowed to, on March 5th.
Location of Event: 301 Weiland Road, Buffalo Grove (The Grove Banquet Hall)
Date: Wednesday, February 16th 5-7 PM
Supervisor: None officially, but if you need contacts to verify my attendance, I can give it to you
Last Wednesday I went to a political fundraiser/meet-and-greet to kick off the campaign for the reelection of the incumbent candidates for school board. I was excited, I had always wanted to get involved in politics, but had been to lazy too. This election however, I felt the need to get involved, as some of the things the opposition wants to do scares me greatly. I went with a group of kids from GSA and two adults who were with us. It was mostly a meet and greet, which was nice, as I got to take time to talk to the candidates about the issues at hand, and was lauded by them multiple times for being involved at such a young age, which made me feel very proud. After we spent time talking to the candidates, they gave speeches, and then we talked some more about ways to get involved on the campaign, and I knew I had another meeting planned on that more individually for Friday. Before I left, I picked up a yardsign for their campaign, which I intend to post on my lawn as soon as we are allowed to, on March 5th.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
The Pain of Stereotyping
Today in sociology, we learned about Joel Charon's distinction between generalizations and stereotypes. A generalization is taking information gained from sociological studies and research, and coming to a conclusion about a group of people. Take for example the generalization that Asian-Americans are more intellectually motivated than Caucasians. However, if one takes this broad generalization about a group of people, and assumes it applies to everyone in that group, they are creating a grave mistake, a stereotype.
Stereotypes, in addition to often being inacurate, can be exceedingly painful as well. At the risk of over-expounding on this one topic, I relate once again to the LGBT community. As a community that incapsulates a huge bredth of different people, this community is exceedingly prone to stereotyping. Gay Guys are effiminate, weak, and fashion oriented. Lesbians are manly, fat, and rude. Bisexuals and Pansexuals are promiscuous whores. The list goes on and on. These stereotypes not only cause immense pain and anguish to the people they attack, they are also almost wholely inacurate. As a member of our school's GSA, I am fortunate enough to know and be friends with many members in that community. I can tell you first hand, not only do these stereotypes not fit many of the people in the LGBT community, they barely fit anyone at all. They hardly even classify as generalizations! Yet the media expounds the stereotype of the effeminate gay guy, the butch lesbian, and the promiscuous bisexual. And as a result, society comes to view these lies as truths, causing pain and discomfort to many an innocent person.
Stereotypes, in addition to often being inacurate, can be exceedingly painful as well. At the risk of over-expounding on this one topic, I relate once again to the LGBT community. As a community that incapsulates a huge bredth of different people, this community is exceedingly prone to stereotyping. Gay Guys are effiminate, weak, and fashion oriented. Lesbians are manly, fat, and rude. Bisexuals and Pansexuals are promiscuous whores. The list goes on and on. These stereotypes not only cause immense pain and anguish to the people they attack, they are also almost wholely inacurate. As a member of our school's GSA, I am fortunate enough to know and be friends with many members in that community. I can tell you first hand, not only do these stereotypes not fit many of the people in the LGBT community, they barely fit anyone at all. They hardly even classify as generalizations! Yet the media expounds the stereotype of the effeminate gay guy, the butch lesbian, and the promiscuous bisexual. And as a result, society comes to view these lies as truths, causing pain and discomfort to many an innocent person.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
In The Out Group
Today in class we did a social experiment on how we judge others. We were put into two separate groups based on what we were wearing, and asked to make judgements on why the other group was wearing what they were. Many jokes flew around the room, such as "they're evil" or "its a conspiracy" (I'll admit that one was me), but little did we know, that's exactly what was expected. When a person is in a group, they feel much more connected and understanding of that group's viewpoint. However, when given a group of people who you aren't associated with, an out-group, one is much more likely to make negative judgements as to why they are different from you.
Out-Group stereotyping can be an extremely dangerous phenomenon. Probably the greatest example ever would be World War II Germany. Most of the Germans were Christian, and when their economy started going sour, and Hitler came to blame the Jews for their woes, people were much more likely to believe him. As they were not Jewish themselves, they couldn't relate to the Jews, and as a result, they came to judge them.
However, this is still a phenomenon that continues today, even inside our high school. I can think of no better example than that of the LGBT community. Statistically speaking, the vast majority of our school is heterosexual; that makes them the dominant in-group, one that vastly overpopulates the corresponding out-group. As such, much of the school has begun to find it acceptable to judge these people for something they have no control over. It has become the norm to think of people in the LGBT as "weird" or "abnormal" or even "amoral". In addition, exceedingly hurtful phrases like "that's so gay" and "what a faggot" have entered the everyday lexicon of the vast majority of our high school's population. These people don't realize the sting of their hate-filled barbs, because they cannot relate to us. The LGBT community is an out-group for them, and so they go along thinking it is ok to judge us, and that these words, these hateful, vile words, are nothing more than synonymous for disapproval or something that they don't like. But we feel it. We feel the barbs of hatred, the stings of vile speech. We hope that some day soon people will begin to realize that their judgements were presumptuous, and begin to realize the pain that those judgements cause us.
Out-Group stereotyping can be an extremely dangerous phenomenon. Probably the greatest example ever would be World War II Germany. Most of the Germans were Christian, and when their economy started going sour, and Hitler came to blame the Jews for their woes, people were much more likely to believe him. As they were not Jewish themselves, they couldn't relate to the Jews, and as a result, they came to judge them.
However, this is still a phenomenon that continues today, even inside our high school. I can think of no better example than that of the LGBT community. Statistically speaking, the vast majority of our school is heterosexual; that makes them the dominant in-group, one that vastly overpopulates the corresponding out-group. As such, much of the school has begun to find it acceptable to judge these people for something they have no control over. It has become the norm to think of people in the LGBT as "weird" or "abnormal" or even "amoral". In addition, exceedingly hurtful phrases like "that's so gay" and "what a faggot" have entered the everyday lexicon of the vast majority of our high school's population. These people don't realize the sting of their hate-filled barbs, because they cannot relate to us. The LGBT community is an out-group for them, and so they go along thinking it is ok to judge us, and that these words, these hateful, vile words, are nothing more than synonymous for disapproval or something that they don't like. But we feel it. We feel the barbs of hatred, the stings of vile speech. We hope that some day soon people will begin to realize that their judgements were presumptuous, and begin to realize the pain that those judgements cause us.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Double Snowday
I was shocked that Stevenson cancelled school even on Wednesday, let alone today as well. Stevenson is notorious for never having snowdays, from what I've gathered, there's only been 4 since 1989. The fact that I've been at Stevenson for all 4 of those days makes me feel lucky; this graduating class is the only class that can say that.
In a society that has become so dependent on technology and the hustle-bustle from one place to another, we have grown splintered from one another. People communicate less and less personally, and thus, interaction as a whole decreases. This is the society that we have come to live with, and a reality we have come to accept. It takes a big disaster to shake that reality; yesterday's snowstorm was just that disaster. With everyone in a giant area being affected by the same problem, people were forced to cooperate together in order to get through. Not by any means comparing the two in terms of magnitude, but the social cooperation that yesterday fostered invokes memories of post 9/11 America. When we had been attacked by the terrorists of Al Qaeda, every single American was affected by the same tragedy; we were brought together by our common experience. Although to a much lesser degree, yesterday was similar. With everyone affected by the same disaster - 20.5 inches of snow - people could no longer claim independence from the problems of everyone else. Instead, people were brought together to overcome this snow-laden enemy. Yesterday it was a common sight for me to see neighbors helping each other plow their drives. People who lived right by you, yet for some reason you never talked to, became your closest allies. Although obviously the snowstorm had a large negative impact, the positivity of social cooperation is something I will severely miss when the snow melts away.
In a society that has become so dependent on technology and the hustle-bustle from one place to another, we have grown splintered from one another. People communicate less and less personally, and thus, interaction as a whole decreases. This is the society that we have come to live with, and a reality we have come to accept. It takes a big disaster to shake that reality; yesterday's snowstorm was just that disaster. With everyone in a giant area being affected by the same problem, people were forced to cooperate together in order to get through. Not by any means comparing the two in terms of magnitude, but the social cooperation that yesterday fostered invokes memories of post 9/11 America. When we had been attacked by the terrorists of Al Qaeda, every single American was affected by the same tragedy; we were brought together by our common experience. Although to a much lesser degree, yesterday was similar. With everyone affected by the same disaster - 20.5 inches of snow - people could no longer claim independence from the problems of everyone else. Instead, people were brought together to overcome this snow-laden enemy. Yesterday it was a common sight for me to see neighbors helping each other plow their drives. People who lived right by you, yet for some reason you never talked to, became your closest allies. Although obviously the snowstorm had a large negative impact, the positivity of social cooperation is something I will severely miss when the snow melts away.
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