Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus

After reading this question, the first experience that I could think of was my interaction at the JO. In the winter I would go there to play basketball at least three times a week. There's usually always a game going on which means there are people waiting there turn to play the next game. Walking back to the courts instantly made me aware that I was the subordinate group. If I was lucky there was this other girl there that I knew but almost 80% of the time, I was the only girl there to play basketball. In the beginning of the quarter when I would go there, not many guys would ever ask me to be on there team unless they were a person short and were desperate. After playing some games for the next few weeks, I was able to show the "regulars" there that just because I'm a girl, doesn't mean I'm going to run around the court like an idiot who has no clue what they're doing. Although I wasn't as strong as them (not by much, just kidding), I think through my play that I impressed them. After this fact, now they would ask me to play even if there were other guys to ask. I think growing up, it's easy to develop our views and stereotypes young. Like the last article mentioned, those three year olds all drew pictures of Indians with feathers and knives. They were only three and they already were stereotyping Native Americans. I think the same applied with these guys. Women's sports are not taken as seriously as men's and to live in a world where that's just how it is, I'm not surprised that in the beginning they never asked me to be on their team. I think it's easy to stick with what we know but once what we know is disproved, that's when I believe the engagement can become positive. Once those guys saw that I could actually play basketball, they were able to change their view and treat me as if I was another guy at the JO.

I think that these types of positive engagements between dominant/subordinate groups can take time. It can be hard at times to think differently of someone else if you've had an opposite point of view growing up. In order to be successful with this type of interaction through ServeCorps, I think it's important that people get a feel for each other at these events. For example, say we planned an event where two distinct groups were participating; a subordinate group and a dominant group. Maybe before the event starts, the participants should have do some type of an icebreaker with each other. In their daily lives, these people may be at different levels, but when you put everyone together in one room and make them participate in an unknown activity, I think it helps level out the "playing field." Once everyone hopefully can gain more respect for each other, this mutual respect could do wonders for the community. When we're all on the same level, we all respect each other and listen to each other. Because of this, more ideas can be heard, more plans can be made, more things can get accomplished, etc. It sounds easier said than done but I think it can be accomplished.

Me, Myself and I

In the last article, the most interesting point of view to me was the excercise the author did with her pyschology class. I remember learning in sociology class some of the dominant identities in America. Knowing this, I guess I still never realized that when the dominant group describes themselves, they do leave out the obvious dominant traits. If I was asked to describe myself, I would be lying if I said I would say I'm white. Mentioning that wouldn't have crossed my mind, except for now that the article talked about it. When I actually think about this exercise, it makes me feel sympathetic towards the students who mentioned their specific race, sexual orientation, age or gender. This sympothy is caused by the fact that in her article she says, "The parts of our identity that do capture our attention are those that other people notice, and that reflect back to us." This sentence bothers me because to me it's saying that we identify ourselves by the non-dominant characteristics that others notice about us. By no means am I saying that any of these possible non-dominant characteristics are bad, but if a white person doesn't feel the need to mention his/her race, why should anyone else? I understand that we have a tendency to do this because our society thinks highly of certain identities are disgustingly of others depending on the person or group of people. I know this isn't going to change over night and I don't even know if it will ever change but the reality of that sentence just really bothers me.

The importance of someone's identity is to help differentiate them from the other six billion people in the world. However, sometimes these differences can cause problems. At first, women were deprived of a lot of opportunities such as voting, jobs and school. We are not completely equal with guys today but we are a lot closer than we used to be. African Americans were once used as slaves and were also deprived many opportunities like being able to use the same water fountain as a white person. African Americans are almost treated as equally as white people, there are still a handful of people in America that discrimate and are racist. Another identity that has been discriminated against and still is, is a person's sexual orientation. The first article mentioned how LGBT members were once considered to be mentally ill. Today, some states allow same sex marriages. All of these identities are still discriminated against to a degree but not as much as they used to be. I think community service is a great equalizer for all of us. When we all get together to put forth our efforts to the greater good, our identities are put aside for that moment in time.

Class

In high school History class, we used to learn about the different classes that were once put in place in Europe years ago. I was never a fan of History class, so at the moment the only type of class I can remember is peasants. I don't think America's class system is to the extreme of how Europes' was but we definitely do have a system. After reading about our class system, the only thing that really surprised me was the in between class that doesn't receive recognition. I was aware of the lower, middle and upper class but I guess I never realized there was an inbetween one. I was also shocked to read about poverty line.I believe that it needs to be reevaluated. I don't think $19,000 a year for a family of four is reasonable. My rent for next year will be a total of about $5,000 for eleven months, for a three bedroom apartment. If you multiply that by three, there is only $4,000 left over to pay for groceries, medical care, dental care, transportation and other bills. I don't see how the government expects anyone to live on that type of budget, especially with the price of living continuing to increase. To be considered "lower class" makes life hard enough but I think at times it might be even harder to live in the inbetween class. If someone is below the poverty line, they should atleast have access to welfare and food stamps. But for those who are above the poverty line but below "middle class," they do not have these options. Most communities are lacking certain needs, such as these options available to their members but because  of their "invisible" appearance, they may be easily forgotten. It is probably fairly easy to drive through a community, see that it has a school, a park, and a community center and to not think anything else of it. But if you go inside some of those locations, I bet the experience would be similar to the tour of the East St. Louis High School. These hidden needs are similar to society. If you walk across the oval, you'll pass by plenty of students who look like they're happy and have a great life. But in reality, we all have problems, some people are just better at hiding it at others. This concept also applies to our communities. Even communities that have nice facilities probably still have problems. There problems might not be run down schools but maybe it is a lack of involvement from their citizens. Look at Desperate Housewives, that community seems perfect, but every Sunday someone is being killed, cheated on or robbed. The point of this random rant is that every community has problems, whether we are able to notice them or not. And I think the only way to assess these needs is to break down the invisible wall, explore and take inventory of a community.

JOE

       Last quarter I was part of a service-learning project through my art education class. Every Thursday we went to Columbus Collegiate Academy where we taught sixth to eighth grade girls how to use Photoshop on the computer. This project was put in place because of a study done that showed girls are more likely to sit back and not learn as much about computers when boys are present in the class. This is why we only worked with girls for our project. All of these girls were very smart but lacked confidence and skills when it came to working with computers. By the end of the quarter all of the girls knew how to use Photoshop. After reading the second article, I can see how deficiency-focused services would be anything but helpful. However, because the girls we were working with didn't know we were focusing on their "deficiency" they were able to fully embrace the program.
         I don't think promoting a gift-focused service would be successful without increasing civic capacity. It's easy to pull up an article on the computer and read about problems we have in our community but I won't know the strengths of that community until I actually find out for myself. By actually finding out the strengths of a community we can use those to help better it, instead of focusing on the defects and making members of that community feel under-qualified.