I found Judy Root's essay, "Changing American Families" to be very enlightening. It was kind of cool to read about the upper, middle and working class's values and structure. It was also very interesting to read how race and gender fit in to all of this.
I just had a ball reading about the upper class mothers or shall I say "Gatekeepers." The author mentions how these women are so involved with holding charity benefits yet at the same time they are trying to find proper "suitors" for their children. How can you be charitable but think that your better than everyone? It just seems so silly to me.
Another thing I found very interesting was the difference between the black and white middle class. I don't want to say that I was shocked but I was surprised and what they had in common and what they didn't. One of the things that I was surprised by was how blacks instill greater importance on education over white middle class people. I felt kind of bad about being surprised when I read this, I know I'm not a racist or prejudice person, but I guess that just goes to show how no matter what we all hold stereotypes.
Michael Moore: an Idiot?
16 years ago
Genesis, I too was interested by the similarities and differences between the white and black middle-class, especially on their views of education. What made it really interesting to me was that both groups place a high importance in education, but for very different reasons. Aulette points out in her essay that blacks encourage education because they view it as a way to overcome racial discrimination, and thus make life better for their culture as a whole. This just shows how one culture can effect another culture's view on important aspects of life. Which probably causes the stereotypes that we hold like you mentioned.
ReplyDeleteso so true. i never thought that i was a 'stereotype' kind of person, but really it is just the way that we are brought up, i don't think we can help it!
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