A Most Vulgar Game

By On 28 August, 2012 · Leave a Comment · In social

When I played Apples-to-Apples a year ago, I pulled the card “Legendary”. Needless to say, the cards my mates played were fairly insensitive and with some ironic twist on my own family background, I chose, as the winning card “Hiroshima, 1945″. It’s sad, yes, and that play forever lives on whenever we encounter a moment worth grunting “legendary!”

The best part about taking a bunch of sociology classes is they make you see things a certain way, make you more aware of existing inequality, sexism, racism, and a bunch of other -isms in everyday things that you’d probably never take the time to notice without having some background knowledge in sociology.

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Revisiting the Culture of Poverty

By On 6 June, 2012 · Leave a Comment · In articles, culture and society, environment, life

From what I’ve seen, we’re all really good at laying blame, and skirting responsibility. We’re quick to avoid taking as much of the responsibility as we can, falling into the line of thinking that someone else will ‘clean it up’ or ‘take care of it’. Blame is quickly laid on ‘others’, those not in the same categorized box as us. It is a privilege to ignore (or even be unaware of) privilege and be unaware of the overarching institutions that exist and created those situations in the first place.

I somehow came across this New York Times article, and after reading it (and the referral links), was curious to notice that despite all the interest in the ‘culture’ of poverty, as a means for policymaking pursuits, conversations about poverty are still largely absent of the ‘institution(s)’ of poverty, and how…

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A Bus Stop Study

By On 27 February, 2012 · Leave a Comment · In culture and society, social

I was waiting at a bus stop to go to work a few days ago and began wondering if a socio-psychological-behavioral study has ever been done on people waiting at bus stops.

There were about 13 people at the stop, and we were waiting probably 30 minutes for the bus to come and I couldn’t [...]

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Crushing the Man Box

By On 23 January, 2011 · 1 Comment · In articles, life

MEN,

According to the standards set forth by society in our culture you are: intelligent, rational, respectful, hard working. You are the protectors and supporters. And you are expected to be the leader, the breadwinner. Church is to be attended promptly in full team regalia, being mindful of your host’s significant other, to not ruin [...]

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Living outside of marked categories

By On 8 November, 2010 · Leave a Comment · In articles, life

This semester, I had the opportunity to take a sociology of gender class with Michelle Corbin (and for those at UMD College Park taking any sociology courses – I highly recommend signing up for her classes because she is a-w-e-s-o-m-e).

When I first signed up for this class I was partially interested in the subject. [...]

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Living outside of marked categories – 2

By On 8 November, 2010 · 2 Comments · In articles, life

continued from page 1

Seriously, how does an individual who grew up in two distinct cultures meet the obligations and obsessions of social identity? My problems of being able to identity with one culture over the other is one social problem I’m currently experiencing. I [...]

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