Lacy's Piece

Lacy’s piece speaks about how a middle class black people handle dealing with white people of their stature. And also how they ensure that they do not forget their heritage and where they are from. She spoke to quite a few people and asking their opinion on interracial relationships and if they would feel comfortable with it. She also compared the difference between living in an suburb are and how some people feel its beneficial for their kids. Some people answered yes and felt that you can relate more to a person of your own race. They also pointed out attending a white college for the experience and I agree with that decision. I believe that it’s a smart idea to put you around certain kinds of people to see how to act towards them. I also feel that living in suburb areas is a great idea they have more advantages and they get better education and opportunities that urban areas do. My teacher always told me, “learn to be versatile, a little bit of this and a little bit of that.” learning how to speak, act and respond when you’re put around certain people of race and class. Showing them that even though you are a minority you know how to act professional and act a certain way.

Human Freedom

In Charon's reading about human freedom, he explains the difference on how we think we have freedom but in actuality our freedom is very limited. Even though this is supposed to be the land of the free we have limitations to being free in this country. My definitions of freedom would be being able to do anything you want and thats not the case. Our government controls our freedom by setting laws we must abide by and if we break these laws there are consequences that follow behind them. He also spooke about how religion sets morals and values for us. There are many different religions but every religions sets different morals and values to follow. Charon states, " Freedom is highly limited. Thrust of sociology is to show us that what we think and do is simply something we determine, controls or choose. What we believe is created by our social life, what we do is influenced by our beliefs and by further social causes." I agree with Charon statement. Our freedom is definitely limited. We can voice our opinion about different things but it doesnt mean something going to be done about it neccessarily. Society has a big impact on our freedom and how we choose to live our lifes. But in a way is a good thing because if not this world would be chaos.

Inequality

There had always been inequality throughout our life. Some people are more fortunate than others and have the opportunity to better themselves. Not many people have that opportunity; life can throw fastballs at you without you knowing how to handle it. We are all raised different, different values, morals, religion and goals. In the Garza piece, she described the stories of people working hard by making an honest and the people that they would work for would treat them very disrespectful. people from the same race treating their own people this way are so cruel. For example, Chabella was working for someone of her same race and he looked down at her like she wasnt worth anything. Everyone is worth something, the same way a person has to work hard to become rich, Chabella is working hard to feed her family at home. I think what makes people look down on people is money. Like they say money is the root of all evil. It just makes you act 100% differently than you normally would. You feel like your on a pedalstool that could never fall but it can and you can lose everything from one day to the next and you are going to be in the same shoes as Chabella. So its never good to look down on people myself no matter who they are, where they are from or what they do for a living. Sometimes I tend to criticize people and it is not correct because I do not know what they went through in life. Not everone wass giving the same opportunity that I was giving, life can throw off completely.

The code of the Street

In the the short story Adler and Adler spoke about the differences between living in the suburbs and living in the ghetto. Respect is a number one priority when you are living in the ghetto. On the other hand, in the suburbs its completely different, they do not carry themselves the wat the people in the ghetto would and its not about power or respect. It's about focusing on school, having a good job, and a good head on your shoulders. I feel that Adler and Adler really described the differnces amongst these neighborhoods thoroughly.
I come from Brooklyn, N.Y. and I was born and raised in an area known as East New York. From my experience living there I can honestly say that it is about power and respect. I think that it is more of a challenge for the men than the woman to live in these kinds of neighborhoods. A guy has to prove to everyone that he cannot be messed with or disrespected because if that were to happen it would cause a conflict. And now and days conflicts are not dealt with fighting one on one, people are killing each other over stupidity but because of lack of respect. Guys have to have the latest gear, show they can not be messed with and handle themselves when there is a problem. Young teens see this and they start following what they see on a everyday basis and it becomes normal to us. They go from being home and going to school to dropping out, selling drugs and more than likely end up incarcerated. We live day by day hoping things would get better but they don't and since these young teens have nothing to live for then they have nothing to lose either so life becomes unvalues to them. The only thing they focus on is making money and not by going to school and obtaining a good job, they want that fast money from selling drugs or guns. I feel that parents lose their kids to the street and do not enforce to them what is really important in life. And as the young teens get older he/she has to decide if living this lifestyle is worth it. I do not want to sound blunt but I honestly feel that people from the ghetto are close minded and ignorant to life. They feel that the ghetto and the projects is all there is when in reality there is so much to live for and do. For example, I have associates around me that always use to criticize me by telling me that just because I graduated HS that I thought I was better than everyone, just because I am in college that I thought that I was better than everyone, just because I have a good job that I thought I was better than everyone. And it's quite the contrary, I do not think I am better than anyone but because they see you going about life in a different manner it becomes a problem.

From the article about gender I learned how much of a learning process it is for children to actually realize and understand sexuality. I do believe that they do know the differnce between boy and girl and that they do know that boys have something that females do not. If they see either gender portraying as the other they recognize them as that gender that they are portraying even though its not intentional. I believe that when a child is young he or she knows what his or her preference is. For example, when I was young I had a next door neighbor who had a little boy that was about two years younger that I was. He would always love to come to my house and play with me. We would play with barbie dolls and play dress up and he use to love playing with my hair. Now that we are older, similar to Agnes he changed his entire male appearance and dresses as a female and likes to be acknowledged as a female. So I do believe that a lot of your sexual preference and gender identity is understood as you are a child and even more as an adult.

Class in America

The difference between class now and days as oppose to class in the earlier years is that the necessity of money wasn’t needed as much. People learned how to survive without financial means. Now and days, money is the key to success and survive. The article stated a lot of negative and positive aspects of class in America but the article states that “More Americans than 20 years ago believe it possible to start out poor work hard and become rich. They say hard work and a good education are more important to getting ahead than connections or a wealthy background.” I disagree with this statement. It is about the people you know and what kind of money you grew up in. Regardless of how many people think that things have completely changed, they haven’t. The minorities still live a struggling life and instead of things easing up they get harder and harder everyday. How are we supposed to move up in class if America makes it hard to provide a house, to eat, to pay bills? I found all of the people’s opinion in the article interesting mainly because I am pretty sure none of those people have ever been poor to know what its like to not have.