Critical Thinking: Is U.S. Society Becoming More or Less Colorblind?

I would say we are becoming both more and less colorblind.  While recognition exists that there has been – and still is – disparities between how society as a whole views the various races and ethnicities of the people of the United States, there has been great strides in reducing the disparities.  Yet there has not been enough reduction: bigotry and racism still exist.  Surely, the blatant bigotry and racism of the past is significantly less common than it was just a few decades ago, but by no means has it gone completely away:  it has just become more subtle.  On the other hand, blatant racism has become not just legally wrong: it has become socially unacceptable. 

Critical Thinking: Rise of Latin Music

Critical Thinking Question Chapter 14 #3: What does the growing significance of Latin music by performers such as Gloria and Emilio Estefan and Ricky Martin suggest about ethnicity in the United States?

Perhaps this will sound somewhat cynical, but the first thought to come to mind is that the growing significance of Latin music has everything to do with money.  When an ethnic or racial group achieves large enough numbers to become a market force, businesses are going to target them for profit.  Businesses recognize that there is a growing Hispanic/Latino population, that they would probably buy music by Hispanic performers, so therefore, they are going to target them by creating products that they will spend money on – in this case, music by Hispanic performers.  The growing significance of Latin music suggests that the Hispanic population has grown large enough for big businesses to target the potential profit to be made from them. 

On the less cynical side, however, many non-Hispanics not only enjoy music by these performers, they also buy the music.  By being exposed to music that is “non-White” (or “non-Black” or whatever), those who are not of Hispanic/Latino background have been enriched by this music, have had their appreciation and recognition of the talents of people other than their “own kind” raised, and at the same time, the bridge of “difference” has been shortened, if not quite crossed yet. 

Therefore, the growing significance of music by Hispanic/Latino performers suggests that this population has grown to a size large enough to be a target for profit.  At the same time, it has increased the appreciation of Hispanic/Latino music by people outside of the Hispanic community, therefore, increased the appreciation of the Hispanic community as a whole by non-Hispanics. 

Written for Professor Swanson’s Sociology I class at Pikes Peak Community College, 8^th December 2003.

Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale"

Brief Summary of the Book, Why the Author Wrote the Book, and your Reaction to it:

In The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood, we are taken to a near-future America where society, as we currently know it, has drastically changed. During the 1980s, pornography, drugs, street violence and other social problems are common. Serious environmental damage by toxic chemicals, biological weapons and nuclear waste has caused widespread infertility and birth defects, leading to negative population growth. A group of powerful men – mostly right-wing fundamentalists – plots and succeeds in murdering the President and most members of Congress. They then take advantage of the subsequent shock and fear of the people to suspend the Constitution and the civil liberties it protected. Of course, this was all done in the name of “protecting” citizens from further potential violence – it was not known by the public that the very people who were “protecting” them were the ones that plotted the murders and succeeded in a hostile takeover of the government.

Social Construction of Reality

Critical Thinking Question Chapter 6 #3: George Jean Nathan once quipped, “I only drink to make other people interesting.” What does this mean in terms of reality construction? Can you identify the elements of humor in this statement?

Social Construction of Reality is the process by which people creatively shape reality through social interaction. The quote, “I only drink to make other people interesting,” attributed to George Jean Nathan, shows aspects of reality construction. The speaker is not necessarily pleased with the reality he is in (people are not interesting to him) and that he is altering his version of reality by drinking to make people seem more interesting.

Nathan obviously finds himself surrounded by people he does not find interesting, who to him are dullards and boring. He does not find this situation pleasing to himself, so he alters the reality he is experiencing by drinking (although it is not known if Nathan was a heavy drinker). Drinking is a simple way to alter one’s reality - it dulls the mind - in this case making Nathan’s mind less sharp, thereby making the people around him seem more interesting, more intelligent.