Don't Guys Like Gifts Too?!?

       As I entered my carpool this morning, I sat on the leather seats and made small talk with my fellow riders. The conversation was pretty limited, as it was 6:45am, but we seemed to discuss something that actually really made me think. One of the boys in the carpool made a joke about how the two girls were both carrying festively wrapped gifts with them and the two boys weren't. With Christmas approaching it seems to me that I couldn't even walk by a group I was involved with without them begging me to join their holiday gift exchange or secret santa of some sort, my fellow female rider said she couldn't agree more.  But apparently, as I was informed by the jealous boys in the car this morning, this wasn't the case with the male population. Neither of them had been invited into a gift exchange, and as I complained about my fear of having my secret santa identity revealed, the boys noted that they had never had such a worry, as they had NEVER participated in something like that. 

       This discussion really made me think about gender roles in our society, especially around the holidays. It hit me that it was so normal for girls to be involved in various gift exchanges, secret santas, cookie exchanges etc. While the very idea of adolescent boys sitting around a fire, listing to Taylor Swift's Christmas album, and exchanging homemade cookies was enough to make anyone laugh. Why was that I wondered? As I was informed by my male carpool-mates, "guys like presents too!" So then what is it that makes it so normal for girls to be doing such a thing and not guys?

       Maybe it dates back to a time where women were in the kitchen, or cleaning the home while the men went out and hunted. But now-a-days women are running corporate positions, owning companies, and holding high ranking medical positions. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2011 women accounted for 47% of all employment. So it seems to me that although women are no longer the homemakers that they once were, they still carry the stigma that they are the ones who are interested in homely things. Or maybe it is socially unacceptable from a male's perspective to want to bake cookies and exchange gifts? 

       Either way it is evident that there is a gender divide in such activities. And while I am surely not complaining about all the new nail-polish, Starbucks gift cards, and peppermint bark I have received from my classmates this past week, I do think it is worth a critical look, for as I have been told, "guys like presents too!" 

Randomly Selected?

         I came across a picture yesterday posted. Well, not really a picture. It was actually a screen-shot of a Snapchat. The world of Snapchat is one for a later discussion, but what I wanted to look at now was the content of this screen-shot Snap.

  The photo, shown here, is of a man with a turban. The man is relatively young, and is going through airport security. Although the photographer, the man pictured himself, seems to make light of an actually serious issue. The face of the man resembles a funny/shocked look common in many "selfies" (photographs of yourself, taken by yourself). The caption, which is typed across the screen and complete with a few emojis of a man in a turban, reads, "' Bout to get randomly selected." The word randomly is the one that has the most emphasis to me. I think if snapchat allowed more characters in the text line he would have put the word "randomly" in parentheses. As he is making a comment about racial profiling, and how the "random" searches, are actually not so random. 

This is a controversial topic. Whether or not the people who select who to use for these searches, uses racial profiling. And to what extent it is acceptable to use this racial profiling. From what I understand, the officers feel it necessary to profile people, to a slight extent, because there are so many people and not enough time to check them all. For example if they are looking for someone to search airport security they will choose a twenty something man with a turban over an eighty something white woman. It's hard for me, though, to see how this slight need to profile wouldn't be abused. If the only people the TSA scans are young middle eastern men, then they will miss real potential terrorists because the ones who aren't being searched will learn that they are not watched as closely. While I'm not suggesting that my grandma will be trying to sneak bombs through the airport, I think it is worth thinking about the extent that racial profiling is used, and whether or not it should be used at all.     

Baby's Future?

Yesterday I saw an interesting a documentary on America's "failed" drug war called The House I Live In. It discusses how drugs are represented in our society, and how race and class play a role in arrests for the War on Drugs. One thing that stuck out to me was something Harvard professor William Julius Wilson said. He claimed noticing a sad reality in our country, that if one were to walk through the halls of a hospital and pass by new born babies, one could determine each baby's future just by knowing their race and class.
According to American ideals, we can be as successful as we want to be. We can move up in social class with enough hard work and determination, right? Well, not according to Wilson's claim. He seems to believe that it is actually very hard for a poor minority baby to rise above the violence and lack of education, to succeed in the same way as say a wealthy white baby. Unfortunately, it seems that when I thought about it further, Wilson's claim seemed to be true. When we hear about a poor African American, who grew up in a low income neighborhood, rising above it and becoming successful, we think it to be an amazing feat. "Wow! He was a really remarkable person!" Or, "wow! Oprah is an inspiration for overcoming such a difficult situation."
While I believe that it is important to recognize these accomplishments, should we really be that surprised that this kind of thing can happen? Don't American ideals tell us that no matter where we start, we can end up anywhere? So why are these accomplishments so rare.
And although while walking past hundreds of babies at a hospital you may see the next Oprah, will the other babies all just become another high school drop out or an imprisoned drug dealer?

Family Ties Stronger then Iron Bars?

          With the holiday season amongst us, I have been seeing signs of strong family ties everywhere I look. Children are taught to make poems and turkey cut-outs that include the statement "I am thankful for my family." As cliche as it may sound, I think this time of year really reminds us how important family really is. What Americans go through in order to see their loved ones during the holidays, for just a day, or a few hours or even a minute, really reflects the American value of family.
         

 With this in mind, I thought carefully as my American Studies class talked about the "Prison  Industrial Complex." An intimidating phrase at best, loaded with controversy, statistics, and pain. In short, the Prison Industrial Complex (or PIC for short), is a term used to describe the current state that many see in America's prison system. As the prison systems are becoming supplied by private sectors, these private sectors are starting to own the prisons. With private groups owning anything, there is a clear desire for profit, and with this desire comes the controversy. To these private groups, more inmates means more profit, so the more people arrested, the richer these groups get. As selfish as it sounds, it is reality. More people are being arrested today then ever before. As is clear in the graph shown, the prison population rates have increased dramatically over the past 30+ years, however the violent crime rate has gone down. A conclusion can easily be made that the things people are getting arrested for these days is not violent crimes, but rather more menial crimes that result in arrests for the prison's profit.
            With all of this in mind regarding the PIC, I go back to my original thought of family ties. I am quite aware that to be in prison, you must have done something wrong, and often times it is something extremely wrong that prisoners were sentenced for. However, it seems that with the PIC there have been more arrests then ever made on people who really shouldn't be serving a sentence at all. I suddenly began to feel a lot of sympathy toward the young children of imprisoned parents. I thought about the family ties, and how much Americans value family. So when these children go and visit their parents, I can't help but wonder what is going through their mind. The children give so much just to have a quick conversation with their beloved parent. I wonder however, what kid of respect these kids can have for their parents. If their parent was a victim of an unjust sentence, do the children know that, or do they see their Mom or Dad as just another bad guy. I would be interested in hearing about how others feel these children's lives are effected by their parents imprisonment, and if you believe the PIC is a direct cause for these children's potential misery.