Black is...bad?

White is right

A conversation that my group and I stumbled upon and spent time to discuss. We included our cultures experiences of whitening cream and how being lighter skinned is desired across all spectrum of ethnicity. In my own experience, I know for a fact that lighter-skinned filipinos are known as Mestizos (mixed with any other heritage, in most cases Spanish) which are seen as the more "attractive" and desired skin tones. It is so important to the point where people using whitening creams, bleaching their skin, and taking in supplements all in order to whiten their skin.

But how did this universal belief that white is beautiful begin? With a belief like that, minorities are already internalizing that they are placed on a lower level. But a question that we asked ourselves was when does this conditioned belief begin? Does it start when we go to school? Is it something that is learned in history books? I came across a study done on YouTube including a White doll and a Black doll and I think it answered the question to a certain extent, that this starts much earlier than we expected.

I don't expect you to watch the entire thing (I didn't finish it myself) but I thought it was definitely an intriguing thing to watch. This class taught me that there is much more than learning, that there is such a thing called "un-learning" and it is just as important as its counterpart.

Blog #5

I've been slacking a little this week on my assignment (midterm week) but i've realized that I find myself a little lost while researching my topic.

I'm part of the Politics of Language group and my plan is to create a compilation of short videos. Included in these videos will be people reading poems by authors who often cover topics of race and language. The difficulty came when I realized that most poems I am finding don't cover language at all and for the most part are about identity (and I know there is a separate group for that already). I just want to avoid delving into a topic that is separate from my own so I don't end up losing my way. I hope that when I dive further into my research it is easier to find poets that can help with my topic.

P.S.

If anyone knows of any specific poems or even poets that may be able to help me, feel free to send a link through twitter! Much appreciated

Blog #4 "No, where are you really from?"

Long ago I saw an image with a quote circulating around social media:, tumblr, facebook, instagram, twitter, the works. And it was an image of Morgan Freeman during an interview and he was asked the question:

"How do we stop race?"

Morgan Freeman replied with:

"You stop talking about it" 

With the provided context I would have to disagree with Mr. Freeman, but after further research I understand what he meant. The quote was cut off by the people who created the image, "You stop talking about it" in the interview video was actually followed by, "I'm going to stop calling you a white man, and i'm going to ask you to stop calling me a black man". This important part of the quote was left out of all the aforementioned pictures and I think that people took the wrong message that he was trying to convey. 

Silencing talks about racism will not make it disappear and I think that people honestly think it will. We need to be confrontational with the facts, almost aggressive in the way we make progress.  Everywhere you look racism is apparent, but people are too sensitive to talk about it?  How can we be afraid of something that is always in front of our faces, maybe they appear in forms of blatant bigotry or sometimes in nonchalant microaggressions but it must be confronted regardless of what shape or form it comes in. 

Our class learns about these problems and after reading classmates blogs I see that we are all spreading our knowledge to people we know, we are also utilizing the use of the internet and spreading it to people we don't even know. The first step is awareness and that is the hardest step to make and it is our job as being in this class to educate others on something we are too afraid to realize, racism is real and it is dangerous.

Attached is the full text of Morgan Freeman's quote:

Here is also a link that I shared on twitter. My friend was part of a project on microaggressions a few years back: http://9gag.com/gag/a3YZ6r5