On page 109 of Zack's TAR she says, "Parents who do not have college educations or the financial and social resources -- that is, the leisure -- to teach their children how to behave like middle-class children are unlikely to reproduce middle-class values in the course of child rearing. Children of the poor are therefore likely to grow up with different values, different ideas of what is important in life, from middle-class children." I have a few problems with this passage. Obviously, the economically deprived class in America, spread all over the country, from cities to rural areas, do not have the same values as those in the middle-class. But that is not to say they cannot learn to treat everyone with respect.
Zack is trying to say class-status is one reason for the propagation of racism, but I see it more as an excuse. No matter what your socioeconomic status is or where you're from or what your favorite flavor of ice cream is you should be able to treat another person the way you'd like to be treated. It is such an old and over-used proverb, but its so true.
Another idea this passage made me think of is how racism isn't just a white problem. I don't believe that racism would be solved if tomorrow every white person in America said I am going to accept all people as my brother and sister, and treat them like family. I think there are preconceived notions that all races use, that is to say a black person already believes that a white person they've never met is a racist and is going to treat them in a certain way because of it. I don't know where or even if there's an answer to that particular problem, just putting it out there.
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I guess you are interpreting middle-class behavior as treating everybody with respect, and that children with no middle-class values do not treat everybody with respect. If am right about your interpretation, then i want to say that, that is not what i got from that passage. I thought that Zack was stating that different classes will have different outlooks in life and that may be reflected in the things they do ssor instance she mentions how children of parents without a college education may choose not to put their all in school and excel, and that children growing up in violent neighborhoods may feel it necessary to always have weapons on their person.
ReplyDeleteto me this makes perfect sense, because it is true, if we think about it, there are real life examples. I think what we have to keep in mind is that every situation has exceptions, not all children of parents who do not have a college education will not excell in school, some parents in this situation do encourage their children to do well in school and go to college and be professionals and so forth.
True we all have to treat every other person with respect, am thinking of the golden rule here 'do to others as you would like them to do to you'
however the fact that the way we think and act and what we tend to do in life will be largely affected by the way we grow up is something we can not avoid, whether we are aware of it or not, it's there
this goes into what you are saying about preconsceived notions, and this just highlights the significance of how we grow up and where we grow up and definitely race and class are big factors.
I wanted to touch a little bit on the last point that Nick made about how racism wouldn't simply disappear if, "tomorrow every white person in America said I am going to accept all people as my brother and sister." I feel like often times racism in America is oversimplified or narrowed down to white vs. black. I believe that tendency exists because of this country's long history of whites discriminating against blacks. These days it is not uncommon to see racism between other minorities including asians, latinos and people of middle-eastern descent. With the influx of immigrants from around the world racism can occur between any combination of races. Instead of white vs. black there is black vs. asian or latino vs. white, etc. I just thought this was worth mentioning because in many areas discussions on race predominately deal with white vs. black, but with the changing/evolving demographic of the US population, racism between other races could become a bigger issue. It may be worthwhile to settle any conflicts between these races now so that it is not still a problem 200 years down the road.
ReplyDeleteWhen talking about racism, it is usually simplified into black and white. But if every white person signed a contract today that said they would no longer be racist, the problem of racism would not be eliminated because there are many other races, especially in present day America. It is a preconceived notion that white people are the backbone of racism. Is this still true?
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