Social Class

In class we were watching a movie about different social classes in America. They interviewed people from elite classes like w.a.s.p.s and the complete opposite such as a family who lives in poverty in southern Ohio.  I found only one thing similar to what they were saying. It is frowned upon if you leave your class. Being a wasp, you are very rich and you have been rich your entire life. You would never even consider yourself being upper middle class. You look down on the lower classes because, you have more money, therefore everything about you is better. The lower class want to be middle class, but there is little hope for them. One son of the family in Ohio dresses as preppy as he can so at school he looks middle class. His mom isn't happy about it because she thinks he isn't proud of the true stuff he has in his life (ex. family or health).
I see similar things at my school. There are the very rich and the very poor. Everyone dresses based on who they hang out with, not based on the money they have. It is easily assumed all the preppy whites at my school are the rich ones. But, I bet if you ask all of them, they would all say they are middle class. They could me upper class, but because they see upper class people all the time, it is normal or average to them making them feel middle class. People dress down or dress up based on what they want to represent themselves as. In society today, it is all about the image, real or fake.

Drugs

                                                         Its just a flower... link
In class we learned how all crime is relative. Smoking tobacco is actually much more dangerous than smoking marijuana. However, when weed was introduced in America, it was seen as a threat to the tobacco industries. These industries had huge say in the government so marijuana was made illegal. Also, caffeine is a terrible drug on paper. With a long list of side effects  and warnings, it is the most accessible drug because any one can buy it in many different forums. My school now has a coffee stand. I would say the majority of students at my high school drink coffee or caffeinated drinks in the morning so it was probably a good investment. But why is the school making such a terrible drug even easier to get? It is all about the money. If it is legal and thereIts just a flower... linkis potential profit, my school and other school will jump on it. The United States can learn a good lesson from this. If they were to make marijuana legal, they could tax the hell out of it and I have a feeling it would have better sales than cigarettes. It could be the answer for the economy problem, but what would I know? I'm just a student who has no say in a country that is based off the people's voice.

equality?

After reading the story of Saints and Roughnecks, two gangs in the same town with different backgrounds.  I saw how society judges people. The saints were rich athletes that cheated and did well in school. The Roughnecks were not well off, didn't play sports and were "c" students without cheating. The Saints were looked up to in society where the Roughnecks were looked down upon. The saints committed worse crimes than the roughnecks but got away with it more than the roughnecks. The gangs also hung out in different places making it easier to see one of the gangs doing illegal things.

One Trillion Dollars link

My high school doesn't have a gang problem, but can easily be looked at the same way. The saints can be represented by all the white preppy, wealthy, jocks. They are the majority of the school and they pretty much run it too. The parents of these kids have very respectable jobs that pay amazingly.  When ever you hear about a wild party, its a saint, but it never gets busted. They are also the ones that get 36 on their ACT and never get detention once. Money buys these kids freedom, but does it buy them happiness?  The roughnecks are the minorities of the school. I'm not going to name specific groups so i don't sound racist, but they are definitely treated different. I'm not sure if it is just judgement by the deans or guilt by association. I remember their was an ipod stolen by a white kid in my gym class freshmen year. They questioned a lot of people, but not everyone. I was second behind an african american who was infamous for being caught doing bad things. He must have been talking to our dean for 10 minutes. I walk in  thinking this is going to be a long interrogation. The whole 30 second meeting went like this. Dean: "did you take an ipod during 7th hour gym?" Ben: "nope." Dean: "ok, have a nice day." I know i am not a perfect student. I have never been given a detention or any form of punishment while at the same time, there are kids that do equal things and get suspended.

adult

What is it that makes us an adult. On paper, it is when you turn 18,  but in reality it is when you aren't dependent on your family or friends to live. I am almost 17, I don't feel any closer to being an adult than I did when I was 13. I understand that kids want to grow up faster and experience things that they can't yet. But in all honesty, being a kid is fantastic. All we have to do is go to school and prove we learn something. We don't have to worry about anything. As a kid, I can sit back and watch the world go by without having a single thought of if I'm going to be alive tomorrow. It really is wonderful being able to live life like this. Then in a couple of years, i will most likely be graduating college. Where will I go? back home? i couldn't, I'm not a kid now and need to fend for myself. If all goes to plan, I will get a job right out of college and be able to support myself alone. If the economy keeps up, this plan is gonna look more like a dream. The day I can fully support myself and not have to ask my parents for help, I will consider myself a kid. However, I would like to be treated like an adult to help my process of becoming independent.

girl

Girl's are influenced by everything to be something they aren't. They see models and want to be tall, unhealthily skinny and overall fake. So much production goes into making a model look like a "perfect" girl. The studios do a good job of this, they also do a good job of making normal healthy girls go crazy. They see these models as what they want to look like. From a guys point of view, I like to see a little meat on the bone. Girls have eating disorders trying to look like the fake woman they see. When they don't succeed, because they can't, some might get depressed and could harm them selves even more. Today is dress up day for halloween at my school. I have "Bieber Fever" as my costume. After 30 minutes, four sexy nurses treated me. It is disgusting how girls dress on halloween. Its like an excuse to wear something even skimpier than normal. When did  it become acceptable for girls to be hookers for halloween? It is because society says that girls have to dress like that to be "hot." I would rather have a girl that comes up with a creative costume, not a girl who pays more for less. And once again, society has pissed me off.

Girls Costume Warehouse video

Society still sucks

What has society done to screw up humans this time? Well, it is telling boys/girls how to act. You think it could hold off its attack until maybe high school or college, but it throws everything at you the day you are born. They wrap girls in pink and boys in blue blankets. What makes pink a girl color? Kids are like sponges, the absorb everything and anything and it shows pretty early on in life. I am 4 years younger than my sister. I always looked up to my sister and followed her around and pretty much wanted to be like her as a little kid. She was playing with barbies in her room so I wanted to join her, my mom stops me and says that barbies aren't for boys and that I should go play with my trucks. I never questioned my mom because I knew she was boss in my house. From such a young age, I started learning how society wanted a boy to act. I recently found this experiment that is pretty much sums up everything.

Monkey Experiment

Start with a cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the other monkeys with cold water. After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result, and all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon the monkeys will try to prevent it.

Now, put away the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all of the other monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.

Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm! Likewise, replace a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth.

Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked. Most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey. After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the banana. Why not? Because as far as they know that’s the way it’s always been done around here.

Where the Wild Things are... our backyard?

Children that are neglected always end up not "normal." Normal meaning they go through  the stages of life at a ordinary time. A neglected child might act more like a wild animal than a human. Walking and talking all might be very difficult tasks for a neglected child at the age of 8. Last night I volunteered in a soup kitchen in Uptown. As the huge crowd  started to slow down, I had time to think about and talk to the guests that were there. I wondered what had happened that caused these people to be in the situation they were in. My teacher explained that there was a huge population of mentally ill people in uptown. The government cut funding for clinics, so the patients had no where to go but the streets. I wonder if anyone I saw last night was one of the patients. They were probably neglected because there families couldn't take care of them so they sent them to an institute. Some people at the soup kitchen had poor communication skills as well as poor motor skills. One man struggled to shake my hand after I had a pretty simple conversation with him. We just made normal small talk and then he had to go. The only thing that actually stuck in my head that he said was, "stay in school, you got your whole life to work." I wish I got to hear about his background. I often walk past homeless people without even giving them a thought. They actually might be more wise from living on the streets with the bare minimum than a person who has a PHD.  I had an amazing experience in the soup kitchen and highly recommend everyone volunteering.