A Bronx Tale

The movie A Bronx Tale demonstrated several topics that were previously discussed in class. The movie is told from the point of view Calogero, who is brought up in a culturally enriched Italian village in the Bronx, NY. The macro dynamics that establish the racism seen in the movie is because of the time period. While Calogero was growing up, there was extreme racism and segregation throughout America. Thus, a majority of Americans, as well as teenagers and adults, were prejudice towards African Americans simply because America had a harsh prejudice past that influenced further generations. Such racism was carried over into the Italian village not only because segregation was promoted in America, but perhaps Italian immigrants have not been accustomed to seeing African Americans and thus alienated them. Calogero was taught by his father, as well as Sonny, to not be prejudice towards African Americans. Moreover, by romantically perusing an African American girl, Calogero insists that he is not a radical racist and tries to distance himself from this reputation. This ultimately exemplifies the sociological micro dynamics. However in this case, the macro dynamics overpowered the micro dynamics as Calogero inevitably verbalized racist comments.

Calogero belongs to several groups. Apart from classifying him as a teenager attending high school, he may be classified as an Italian/ Italian American, or an immigrant. However, I believe that he is apart of a smaller group between himself and Sonny. Calogero's master status definitely changes as his nickname becomes C, and he gains respect from the men around his community. Similarly to C, I believe my master status has changed growing up. I've become more aware of how life functions outside of my personal problems and fears. My master status has grown from being a daughter to a friend simply because--even as cheesy as it may sound--I am consistently there for my friends and being a good friend is something that I really value and is more than just a status to me.  

Discrimination

"In" and "out" groups was one of the interesting highlights discussed in class this week. In groups are groups that we classify ourselves in while out groups are something we don't see ourselves to be a part of. This was uniquely tied into the discrimination video we watched in class regarding an experiment where a teacher segregated blue eyes from brown eyes in order to show children the negative and unethical effects of discrimination. It was interesting to see how children who were in the "out groups," typically the unfavorable brown eyed group, were behaving towards being neglected as they thought it was so silly to be discriminated and talked down to merely because of their eye color. This experiment was ultimately practiced to teach children not to discriminate against other races. So although most can agree that racial discrimination among African Americans in the country has subsided, Americans have become more discriminating towards the Hispanic culture. For instance as seen in this picture:

The first sign indicates children must be supervised to play on the playground whereas the second sign translates into: "you must have a permit to play on this field" and police action will be taken against violators. The message in English doesn't come close to what is being translated in Spanish--implying that those who do not speak English and are Hispanic are not welcome to integrate playing with other children . So although the Jim Crow laws are dormant, racial prejudice has not left parts of America and is being practiced on playgrounds; thus it is also teaching children discrimination. We may be taught that discriminating against African Americans in America is wrong based on American events in history, but it's more important to not only learn from these lessons but to apply them elsewhere in the future.

Week Two

Social construction of reality is one of the topics we discussed in Sociology this week. Social construction of reality essentially is how society shapes or forms social norms. This theory is often used to compare and contrast cultural differences or reveal certain contradictory stigmas in society.

This reminded me of when I went to London to visit family friends with my family. When we arrived in Wimbledon, naturally the first thing we did was celebrate our families re-uniting with a feast. As I was helping around the kitchen, I noticed one of the hosts started pulling cloths out of what I thought to be a dishwasher. I was so incredibly puzzled that somehow I reached the conclusion that there must be a black-hole where the cloths get sucked into the dishwasher and you had to fetch them in time for them to be clean--and naturally this black hole existed in the dishwasher. After fantasizing about this, I realized I was just imagining things because I was exhausted from traveling all day.  But my eyes did not deceive me and this woman was literally pulling cloths out of the kitchen dishwasher. It was later brought to my attention that this black-hole that majestically spit back clean clothing was not in fact a black-hole but a washing-machine. Although in the U.S we have ''mud-rooms" where we do our laundry and wash our cloths, in England it's customary to acquire a washing-machine right next to the dishwasher in the kitchen. In America, we might think this to be unsanitary--reason being we like to separate our dirty cloths from our dirty dishes. Though in England, not only are they being eco-friendly by not acquiring so many machines to wash their things, but England is much smaller than the U.S and houses/apartments are often congested because they were constructed a hundred years ago. So there is no room for them to create separate rooms for washing their cloths. The social construction of reality for Americans might be that they find this to be very appalling and abnormal, but what's so strange about washing your cloths alongside a dishwasher if the items that are being washed are kept separate. I mean, it's all being washed anyway, right?

Above is a picture of what a typical kitchen would look like with a washing machine.