I'm actually starting to feel like an adult - Enlightened Society

I've got "business" to take care of today. hahah. So funny. I have things to mail out, I have to call the Academy about faxing me some papers, and I have to go take care of some fines at the library so I can check out a book for school. Wow! I'm so grown up! :P

Anyway, before I get all caught up in that shit, I have blogging to do!

I think I'm just going to stop contributing to discussion in my sociology class. Also in my Modern Lit. class. I love discussion and I enjoy getting involved, but my comments always seem to go over everyone's heads and get misinterpreted by the teacher who misreinterprets (< not a word but that's OK) them to the class and then all hope for me being understood seems lost. Today in sociology really ticked me off and made me not want to talk in there any more.

Today's topic was victimisation, how we have become a society of victims. We watched a video and they touched on racism against blacks. They talked about the differences between some blacks in America who are on welfare and don't do much to get ahead because they see themselves as victim and have the idea that change is not going to happen no matter what they do to try and get ahead, they will always be oppressed, so there is no reason to try because it is futile, compared to Caribbean immigrants who come over with nothing and make something of themselves. Some of these immigrants agreed to talk about this in the video. They expressed how they think it is ridiculous that some African Americans use racism as an excuse to not get ahead, that if you want to get ahead you have to be willing to start somewhere (many of the American blacks said that they would never work at McDonald's because it is degrading; they'd rather collect welfare) at the bottom and work your way up. One man with dreadlocks talked about how he walked in to get a job and they took one look at him and turned him away. After this he decided to start his own small business.

A student named Matt started off the discussion. He said that in the particular case of the Caribbean immigrant with dreadlocks trying to get a job, he didn't think it had as much to do with race as it did with his appearance otherwise.

The teacher reiterated his point to the class with an example. She said that she would hire a particular student in the class who happened to be white, and dressed nicely, over 50 Cent because he might come in with his pants sagging and she would come in dressed nicely. That has nothing to do with race because a white person could do the same thing (come in dressed sloppy) and she would pick the person dressed nicely still.

This really struck me and so I raised my hand to comment. This is pretty much what I said word-for-word:
About Matt's comment: I think it's interesting that, like they mentioned in the video, people were stripped of their culture in the past, when we're still expected to do it now. I don't think something like his hair or how someone dresses should matter in getting a job. A lot of these things are cultural and we shouldn't have to sacrifice our culture and identity to get ahead in the world and fit into society. But I also think these things can't like, be enforced through laws. It's going to take some kind of shift in society... in our like... consciousness, some raise in it, for these things to not matter any more. I noticed that the African American guy in the movie who was a success and talked about not using racism as an excuse to not get ahead had a very white American accent. The way we talk is part of our culture, and he has lost that.
My teacher started to talk but I wasn't done so I interrupted her and kept going
About your example of hiring her over 50 Cent because of his sagging pants, why does that even matter?
She repeated her case that she would see him dressing sloppy and that would tell her that he is a sloppy worker.
She then told me that I should save this for later in the week and bring it back up again because I was jumping ahead of the class. She said "we aren't there yet" so to just hold that thought until we get there. Whatever the fuck that means! Damn.

My point was the cultural part of it and she ignored that and reiterated something completely different to the class. My point was that getting ahead in the world should not mean conforming like that. Maybe it is the INTJ in me that does not appreciate social rituals and I have never for the life of me been able to understand the concept of "looking/dressing professional". I was going to talk about how I anticipate difficulty finding a job because of my dreadlocks, but she cut me off.

It is my belief that there is some validity in judging people by appearance. We chose how we dress, how we do our hair, how we present ourselves in general. These things are usually a reflection of our culture, the society we live in, as well as our individual identity. The man with the dreadlocks or 50 Cent with sagging pants - it shouldn't matter. I also understand that the reason an employer might chose against giving someone a job is because what customers might think. Okay. I don't see how hiding from each other is supposed to breed an accepting, open society. It may bring about some conflict at first, yes, but you have to work through that, I think. Change has never been made by people sitting back in the shadows and waiting for some shift to just magically happen. WE have to make it happen. Like I said to a friend a while back, it amazes me that people kind of tend to talk about society as though it is something separate from them. YOU are society, I am society, WE are society. Each and every one of us contributes to this greater whole, and it's important that we each question ourselves and how we think things should be and how we are contributing to that bigger picture if we want things to be different or whatever you want. Anyway... I digress. If I can't get a job anywhere I am qualified to because of my hairstyle, if someone can't get a job anywhere they're qualified to because they have tattoos, etc., that's not right. These things are an expression of us as individuals and in the case of the man from the Caribbean, that was an expression of his culture and that should not deter him either. No, there aren't laws we can create to force enlightenment. It is just a shift that is going to have to happen as we evolve... I don't know if it ever will happen. More and more I'm seeing us, human beings, as a very primitive species still. We think we are very evolved and shit, but we aren't. We are far, FAR from it.