The Rich List

Again, pardon my politics. Few issues upset me more than class disparity. It is one of America's most glaring problems, and it is also the one we seem to care the least about - at least in terms of actually doing something about. All the time on the news you hear people complain about class inequality in other words. You always he about the "average American" who is "strapped for cash" and "just barely making ends meet" you are supposed to feel sorry for these people, and to want to change the world to be more fair to them. But then you see TV, where almost everyone is rich, drives fancy cars, and live in mansions. The high visibility of rich people on television creates the false connotation that the middle-class is a suburbanite who lives in a 2 story house. However, that couldn't be further from the truth. These people likely make up the top 20% of our Nation's incomes

The cash-strapped American as portrayed on television is actually the "middle-class" American. We never see the real poor people in America on television, atleast not portrayed in any way other than criminal scum. Why? Probably because the poorest Americans tend to be minorities, and television doesn't like to portray minorities in a positive light.  George Gerbner's "Mean World" theory shows us that as the media increasingly portrays violence, typically in news broadcasts depicting minorities in poor neighborhoods committting crimes, society as a whole becomes more and more afraid that the world is a violent place. And because this violence is attributed to minorities in the media, we come to blame the minorities. Thus society as a whole tends to shy away from helping out the poorest of the poor. We are raised to believe that these people are "criminal", "unhelpable" or worse that they "deserve what they have". It is easier for people to ignore the problem, and continue incarcerating more and more people than to confront the problem that is facing them. Class disparity can easily be lessened through social and fiscal programs that benefit the poor instead of making the rich richer, but we all know what happened the last time I mentioned socialism, so I wont go into that!

Justice (Make-Up Blog)

Allow me to get political for a moment. Those of you who know me, know that next year I am heading out to American University in Washington DC to study political science. Whenever I tell someone that for the first time, their response is always something along the lines of "future president, huh?". I always tell them no, I could never run for office because I am unelectable. This is the reason that I am unelectable, because I have the nerves to stand up and make the unpopular (but true) claim that our criminal "justice" system is not just whatsoever. This is an issue that will never get fixed, looking "soft on crime" is career suicide for a politician. As a result, millions of prisoners are left to suffer unjustly in a debilitating environment, victims of the system.

We claim to be "the land of the free", and that our Democratic ideals make people much more "free" than the Communistic ideals of China, North Korea, and the former USSR....we even had a 40 year nuclear standoff to that point. Yet if that were true, why is it that American, the place to "live free" has 25% of the worlds prison population?

America doesn't want to think about prisoners. They view people who commit crimes as evil, not deserving of society. However, what they don't realize is that so many of these "criminals" who committed minor crimes like theft or certain things that shouldn't even be crimes, are not hardened souless killing machines. Nay, they are young impressionable people in need of molding. We could get them help, and mold them in the image of a model citizen. But that would require time and effort. Nay, we find it so much easier to lock them up and throw away the key. The problem is, by locking them in a prison environment, we are molding them to be a criminal. And thus the self-fulfilling prophecy of the American "Justice" system prevails.

Deviance

Deviance is such an interesting topic, mainly because of the frequency to which it is misinterpreted. When used in an everyday context, deviance has such a negative connotation. However, that isn't always true. Deviance merely means to deviate (or stray away) from societal norms. Thus, positive deviance can exist as well. I'd like to take a moment to examine each.

Negative deviance is the more commonly recognized form of deviance. Laziness, apathy towards work, and a prediliction towards drugs and alcohol are all things that society today considers to be deviant behavior. You aren't supposed to do these things, and so society frowns upon those who do. However, it isn't necessarily true (though not necessarily false either) that these things are inherently bad. It is just the fact that society views them as bad that makes them bad; but societies views change often. A century ago, premarital-sex was something only harlots participated in, and sex was such a taboo topic that no one dared talk about it. Nowadays, sex is so prevalent in society through our media, and premarital-sex is so commonplace that it has actually become deviant behavior to abstain from sex!

Equally as interesting as Negative deviance is Positive deviance. Positive deviance is doing something good for society that isn't often done. Thus it is still deviating from societal norms, but in a positive way. A good example of this is the fact that whenever my family is eating in a city and have leftovers, we always like to try to give them to homeless people, this way they receive a nice meal that they wouldn't get otherwise. While this is by no means a bad thing, it is not a frequent occurance either, and thus society views it as deviant. It is important to remember positive deviance when talking about deviance, so that one doesnt come to the misconception that all deviance is bad.

The Masculinity Epidemic

Modern American society has come leaps and bounds in terms of equality. Not only do women, African-Americans, Latinos, Irish, Italians, you-name-it, now have equal rights, but it is now considered socially unacceptable to be derogatory towards them. However, in this rush for equality and tolerance, America as a whole glossed over the one group that appeared to be fine, but in reality wasn't, The Man. It may seem a bit rediculous of an argument to make, I'll admit. Men may have equal rights, but when it comes to the social acceptability of derogatory statements, men receive more than their fair share of the abuse. And all of this stems to controversy over masculinity. For most men, nothing is more important than masculinity, their appearance that they are a "man". Thus, the emasculating begins, as people knock on each others masculinity to make themselves feel better.

Me, I don't care about masculinity. I'm fully aware that I am nowhere near the most masculine man, and I don't care. I don't see the need for us as a society to get so worked up on "what we should be". People are people, let them make their own decisions of who they are. I cross my legs when I sit, I have a rather high pitched voice, I don't play sports, and I'm in touch with my emotions. Many people would see these things as weaknesses, something to redicule me about. But I don't see how any of those things are bad. For me, I would much rather be myself and not be the ideal man, than change who I am to fit some label that society has assigned me. Who are you if not yourself?