Group Project

My group has really been trying to work hard as a whole, but there have been different things keeping the project from going on as planned. Since our project requires cooperation from a high school, the process of making the project work has not been easy. The majority of the administrators do not feel like our project is necessary because they are more focused on the students TAKS scores than them getting into college (in all honesty). For the project, we will visit LBJ High School and have a panel for the students to get an opportunity to talk to college students to get a feel of what they should be doing at the stage that they are in as high school students. We plan to have an open ended discussion for them to ask us questions, and a section for us to talk about our college experiences and how high school had an effect on our college experience. I hope that this project gets students more excited about college, and if some do not plan to go to college, I hope that they feel more encouraged to at least think about going to college and the multiple benefits it allows for them.

Videos for Discussion

Above is a video about a study of policeman and how they may target black men more than white men. Dr. Anthony Greenwald (UW - Department of Psychology) explains how racial stereotypes can influence decision-making in police officers. Several virtual reality experiments were conducted containing simulated criminals (with guns), police officers (with guns), and citizens (holding harmless objects). The test takers were to respond appropriately to criminals (simulate shooting), fellow police officers (signal safety), or harmless citizens (no action). The results reveal that Blacks were shot incorrectly more than Whites. The study concludes that race can affect ones ability to discriminate between a harmless object and a weapon & that race can cause one to respond as if a weapon is present.

Above is a series of videos from a Stanford University Psychologist that addresses the Harvard University Law School where she describes several experiments that suggest White males & police officers subconsciously perceive Black Males as criminal and less than human. The results provide evidence of a strong automatic bidirectional association between Blacks & Crime. The image of a Black male can trigger unconscious thoughts of crime and thinking of crime can trigger unconscious thoughts of Black people. The simple presence of a Black Male may unknowingly cause thoughts of crime and violence attributed to that person. 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QDbylpaguw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvIBIn5Xp7s

Article Discussion: Police and Black Men

Article: Police don’t like black people: African American Young men’s accumulated police experiences by Rod Brunson

This article focuses on a study of 40 black men performed in St. Louis, Missouri to understand black men's experiences with police. The target was young black men because research has identified them as the group for whom involuntary police contacts are most frequent and salient in the United States. Brunson did the study to show how the mens patterns of events and experiences shape the way that they view the police, and the way that it affects others views and vice-versa. In the study, most of the men interviewed had negative views toward police because of them being explained as "Almost never easy to talk to", "Almost never polite", and often because they were harassed or mistreated. They also felt that police resources were directed disproportionately toward specific neighborhood problems such as drugs and gangs instead of assisting crime victims. Many times they also explained being targeted and searched because of the way they dressed, who they hung around with, or how much money they had. THey also continued to explin that officers lacked the physical evidence to arrest them and would put them in patrol cars and drive them to other neighborhoods. Sometimes some even explained being filed for resisting arrest charges to conceal use of excessive force.

Some instances explained in the interviews for heard from by friends, family, and others in their neighborhoods but some experienced these events. Brunson explains at the end that citizen complaints against officers could be initiated in the prosecutor's office rather than in police stations. 

Personally, I have never been physically abused or pushed by force from any cops, but I have heard plenty of stories and seen videos of events like these. I feel like many cops abuse their authority, and I have been verbally attacked by a security guard/off-duty police officer before. I have also seen police target certain communities and people on a regular basis.

My question for discussion is how do you feel about police and how are your encounters with them? Have you experienced or seen first hand any events like the ones explained in the article? Can a continuous cycle of  stereotypes and retaliation be occurring? How does it affect the way African-Americans view police in their communities?


--An interesting thing I picked up from researching for this discussion is the history of police and blacks. How does history of oppression towards blacks with police violence have on this?

Blog #12

The spring bling video was actually amusing to me, but not in a good way. I was extremely surprised that women and men were acting like that on camera. The women were consistently disrespected and couldn't even walk anywhere without getting grabbed and touched. I have seen this before, but not to the extent that was on the video. Jasmine mentioned in her blog that this somewhat reminded her of Texas Relays, and that was almost EXACTLY like this. Women were dressed showing off their curves and bodies, which led men to thing that they wanted to be approached or touched on.
Women who fall into the stereotypes definitely engage in more risky behaviors, because they believe that everyone else is performing in those activities. When groups of them come together, it only makes the activities occur more regularly because that makes them think it is normal. The article on stereotypes provided empirical evidence for all of this. I thought it was interesting how it said in the article that when women were exposed to more stereotypical images of men drinking, smoking, and being more promiscuous that they were more likely to be attracted to those types of men. It also mentioned that regardless of the circumstances such as SES, education, etc, girls who watched more of the videos were more likely to do engage in behaviors similar to the ones in the rap videos.
In the other article about enhancing critical consciousness in black men, I think that it is essential for other black men to understand the effects of negative modeling because they have such an impact on the way that we act and think. It is proven that enhanced critical thinking, and increased community development has a positive effect.

Blog #10: Boys of Baraka, Acting White

What I took away from the film was that there are so many factors at play while a child is growing up and in school, I feel very lucky to have had a positive experience with my public school. I feel like the system is at place to put the poor in a disadvantage, which is unfair. Laws and policies are set up to where not enough opportunities are given to public schools without resources. Another thing that I took from it was that individual factors play a strong role as well. Many of the families were invested in the school and depended on the school for the future of their kids. I think that it would be hard in a school where everyone deals drugs and it is hard to be commended for your schoolwork by peers.

I think that the differences between whites and black are very different for a variety of factors which effect the achievement gap. I feel like the artcle somewhat targeted blacks in a negative aspect in some ways. Blacks typically are not the majority of their school, which can be an advantage to whites, there are many less black teachers, and sometimes the black students may not feel as comfortable with themselves or in the classroom. Many blacks can ignore the negative influences on their education but not always.

Acting white was definitely something that I had to overcome as a high school student. In middle school I had mostly black males as my best friends, once I reached the end of middle school to the beginning of high school, I found myself distancing myself from many of the other black males that I associated with because they were more worried about basketball and football, whereas I was more worried about my school work. Many times as I got into more advanced classes, they would say that I was “acting white” or somewhat whitewashed because I was in classes with more white and asian students than normal track classes. My parents were a strong influence on encouraging me that they did not understand how important school was which was a huge factor in my well being. As I continued throughout high school and reached an academy associated with my high school, I met other black students who had the same goals. People telling me that I was “acting white” did not phase me.

Blog #9: Racial/Ethnic Identity

Race identity definitely has a role in ideas of privilege here in America. Race will always be a big issue in America because there are so many different people that identify with other people in so many different ways. It is hard to compare African Americans and whites in terms of privilege because in all honesty, whites have a majority of power and authority and outnumber African Americans by a large amount. I think a good example of this is white and black schools, there are so many differences that are apparent every time, and like it has been mentioned, it comes down to resources. White privilege has a huge effect on my daily encounters. For example, being the only black male in a vast majority of my classes makes me stick out more than people of other races, and is something that I must deal with here at UT. I feel that many white people have problems identifying with blacks and people of color because they do not understand the basis of white privilege and how people of color understand racial and ethnic identity in comparison to whites. I feel like information about this (and specifically white privilege) should be taught to all Americans so we can all have a better understanding of each others race. One ethnic identity that we do not speak about much is immigrants, who are also of color but have a different identity than African Americans, of which non-immigrants usually do not have an understanding of. For the service learning group project, my identity and stage of race awareness has a huge role. Speaking to African American students in high school, they do not have a complete understanding of their ethnic and racial identity. When I was a high school student, I understood how my racial and ethnic identity existed, but I did not understand the implications on the macro-level. Also, I did not understand my connection with my race in terms of what I felt like I wanted to do for it long term. White privilege was also not understood, and I did not realize the role it had in my life. I feel like the majority of the high school students that I speak to at LBJ do not understand some of these concepts completely, but I hope to increase their understanding of how the University of Texas does accept African-American and minority students, but it requires work that is nowhere near the same level as high school. I hope to encourage the students to attend any school that they like, including out-of-state schools, HBCU's, and community colleges. I feel like the students will benefit from me speaking because I am an African American male, and it is rare that people see students like me attending UT.

Blog #8 - Affirmative Action

I personally feel that the article "Affirmative Action: Racist by nature" is a bit biased. Although some acts of Affirmative Action may be considered reverse racism, I do not feel that every aspect of Affirmative Action is negative. However, I am a bit confused on what Fisher v. The University of Texas actually means for me and the school. The top 10% rule has allowed more minorities to attend UT, but many people overlook the fact that not every school is 100% hispanic and black. My school, for example, was more than 85% hispanic and black, yet the top 10% percent of my school had a higher percentage of asians and whites represented. In addition, at UT only 4% of the student body is African American, which is nowhere near the 12% of the population that is African American. I feel like I need more research to develop an educated opinion about the topic.

Here is an interesting article about Texas A&M's legacy admissions that was basically a form of affirmative action for the rich in, if you didn't hear about it:

*This was used until 2004 I believe

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Legislators-slam-A-M-over-legacy-admissions-1975642.php