I first heard about this story on NPR. I'm not really sure what to make of it. Obviously there are grave civil rights problems in this town, otherwise there wouldn't be hundreds of people marching in protest. I don't think the same charges would be raised against a group of white teenagers. It would probably be the old "boys will be boys" saying.
I honestly can't blame the boys for wanting to beat up a white boy that hung nooses around a tree that they wanted to sit by. What world are we living in? Am I so sheltered to believe that things like this don't happen in 2007?
Friday, September 28, 2007
Disability Issues
I guess I am just as biased as everyone else. I don't often include disabled people when I think of minorities. News stories just use them as subjects of their stories, not as sources. I think we would all have a broader view in journalism if we asked disabled people how the news effects them.
Life Magazine, 1972
I had a lot of fun working on this project. My mom and I went to Half-Price Books and looked at the old magazsine racks. She picked up this issue with Liz Taylor on the cover and laughed. She said she remembered it. My mother has always idolized Elizabeth Taylor ever since she was a kid. I think this is because my grandmother loved her too. They loved her violet eyes and her jewelry. She's also pretty funny in her interviews.
When my mother looked at the date on the magazine she said it was the date she graduated from high school. She then began to tell me that my grandfather didn't want her to go to college at Texas Weslyan. He wanted her to go to secretarial school. This might be appalling to most people, but my grandfather only went to school until seventh grade. He was in a family of thirteen and the son of a sharecropper. They were so poor that they couldn't afford shoes. The kids at school would tease him because he didn't have shoes and being red-headed with buck-teeth didn't help much, either.
In the end, my mother was the first to graduate from college and she worked three jobs to pay her own way.
When my mother looked at the date on the magazine she said it was the date she graduated from high school. She then began to tell me that my grandfather didn't want her to go to college at Texas Weslyan. He wanted her to go to secretarial school. This might be appalling to most people, but my grandfather only went to school until seventh grade. He was in a family of thirteen and the son of a sharecropper. They were so poor that they couldn't afford shoes. The kids at school would tease him because he didn't have shoes and being red-headed with buck-teeth didn't help much, either.
In the end, my mother was the first to graduate from college and she worked three jobs to pay her own way.
schema theory
This idea makes a lot of sense to me.
“the real environment is altogether too big, too complex, too fleeting for direct acquaintance. We are not equipped to deal with so much subtlety, so much variety, so many permutations & combinations.”
If we all abandoned our stereotypes, it would be like saying, "I know that I don't know anything." And I think this would be a good thing. If we all embraced the fact that we only have skewed, one-dimensional, ideas of cultures and lifestyles that we aren't constantly in contact with, we could learn more about new people without any preconceived notions.
I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING!
“the real environment is altogether too big, too complex, too fleeting for direct acquaintance. We are not equipped to deal with so much subtlety, so much variety, so many permutations & combinations.”
If we all abandoned our stereotypes, it would be like saying, "I know that I don't know anything." And I think this would be a good thing. If we all embraced the fact that we only have skewed, one-dimensional, ideas of cultures and lifestyles that we aren't constantly in contact with, we could learn more about new people without any preconceived notions.
I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING!
News Habits
I usually get news by going to google news, which is also my homepage. I also listen to NPR whenever I am in my car. I usually don't watch news on television and if I do, its the five o' clock local news.
I probably intentionally seek out the news for about three hours a week.
There is not much positive coverage of minorities in the news, in my experience. I do think that I get a different perspective by listening to NPR. They cover many stories that other news outlets would never touch.
I probably intentionally seek out the news for about three hours a week.
There is not much positive coverage of minorities in the news, in my experience. I do think that I get a different perspective by listening to NPR. They cover many stories that other news outlets would never touch.
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