Sexuality and Society as We Know It

Scientist believe that gender is constructed, or created, through our interactions with other members of society. Dr. War, (Name of prof changed for security purposes), a Professor at the CUNY Graduate Center,  spoke with my class this past week about sexuality and Gender, and shared his outlook on the topic, and made some really valid points. He began by explaining that sexuality and gender consist of five institutions, which are: (G.R.E.E.F. for short)

1.      Government

2.      Religion

3.      Economics

4.      Education

5.      Family

For example, raising children would be categorized under family, but if those children were put into foster care, they now would be categorized under government, because ACS is run by the government. In one way or another, their all connected.

            Sex also has a lot to do with biology. In the United States, we tend to classify people as being male or female, but in other societies, they have a different classification system and people are treated differently based on the norms associated with that system. Nevertheless, gender refers to the culture and performance of masculinity and femininity.  Gender also, is a range of physical, biological and mental behavioral characteristics associated differently between male and female. To illustrate, when you go out on a date for first time, one of the first questions asked is “What do you do for a living?”, and usually based on that answer, you will determine if you will pursue that relationship any further.

Sexuality also ia mental aspect of being human throughout life, and deals with sex and gender, and identities with roles played in society. In other words, sexual orientation, eroticism, fascism, intimacy, and reproduction, are all examples of those roles. Sexuality can also be experienced through thoughts, like fantasies, desires, attitudes, and values, which are roles practiced in relationships. Another example would be, when you get dressed in the morning, you pick out your best looking clothes to wear, and for woman, they take their time looking in the mirror, and make sure their makeup is on properly.

            Other important components involved with sexuality are:

1.      Sexual desire: Attraction to another human being

2.      Behavioral: what you will and will not do

3.      Identifying: How someone defines their sense of self as a sexual human being.

             Sexuality and gender is also linked to power, relationships, institutions, and a system of regulation and reward. For instance, in a relationship, the man knows if he treats his woman good,  his reward might be sex. With that being said, the woman is the one holding the power, because if she’s not happy, no love making for you buddy.

            Sex and gender also affects a significant aspect of our lives; even lifespan is different by gender. Women are also disadvantaged in institutional settings in our society. Woman tend to be associated with doing house work, earning less on average that males in the work place, and remain more likely to live in poverty.

            To summarize, gender and sexuality plays a major role in our lives through out the world. It can give emotion and feelings in a relationship between a man and a woman. It can show testosterone, by having a man want to portray that tough guy role to impress a woman. It can have a man who is a male on the outside, but feels like woman on the inside, trying to figure out, where they stand in society. It could have that woman whose a female outside, but feels like a guy on the inside, confused or looking for answers, that they can't find at home. All of these things are part of this equation, and learning about it, helps us better understand this complicated miracle, known as a Human being, not a Color.

What Color are You?

When people see the election of President Barack Obama, they assume that America has conquered racism. People think this country is a “Post Racial Society”, and no longer live in racially divided times. In a 3 part video series entitled, “Race – The Power of illusion”, which deals with how Americans are fascinated with dividing individuals into distinct groups of color, red, white, or yellow people. The film also questions the idea of race as biologically playing a part in the creation of the human species, suggesting that a belief in race is no more real than, Saint Nick coming down the chimney. What we do know as fact is, that race definitely shapes your life chances and future opportunities.

Episode 1 examines genetics, and how common sense perceptions, and the obvious physical differences we see between each other, develop into patterns of human variation. Noticeably, some gene forms are more mutual than others. To add, student from different racial backgrounds conducted an experiment testing the DNA of each student, and found that, in their genetic findings were similar to Richard Lewontin's genetic findings thirty years ago. Because of our history of moving, mating, and mixing, most human variation, especially that of older complex traits can be found within any population, most of it from a common source in Africa. In fact, people do believe black people are superior when it comes to performance in athletics. Furthermore, 100 years ago, people believed that the black race would die out, being that disease and mortality rates were so high, but in reality, it was poverty, poor sanitation in their neighborhoods, and most important, the Jim Crow segregation laws that made it bad for blacks. We all have abilities, again, blacks play sports well, Asians have great music ability, but what does this mean biologically?  Race may not be biological, but your race will dictate where you live, where you go school, where you will work.

In ancient times judged by language, custom, class, and mainly religion, people weren’t sorted by their race, or physical differences. According to the film, race is a recent term that was created a couple of hundred years ago, which could be traced back to the United States. The second episode, called, “The Story We Tell”, traced the origins of the creation of the word race back to the European takeover of the New World and American Slavery. Historian James Horton points out, enslavement of Africans was a choice, and it had nothing to do with beliefs or ancestry. The whites made a choice, and their choice was to enslave Africans and use them as an unlimited labor supply. Social inequalities are real, and this film shows that America promoted this, and still promoting this today whether people realize it or not.

In part 3, called, The House We Live In”, focused on the ways our institutions and polices of the government, are built to empower whites, and hurt minorities. In America, it’s clear the caucations usually are the ones that benefits from this countries policies. For example, the Rockefeller law was built to give stiff jail penalties for selling crack cocaine, because they know, it’s a drug that’s heavily sold in minority neighborhoods, but if you get caught selling cocaine, you get a slap on the wrist, because cocaine is an expensive drug, which most white people sell.  It’s not because of hard work, or merit, but because of policies, and the laws, and most important, HOUSING. The film also speaks of how Italians, Hebrews, Greeks, and Spanish were considered separate races. I found it crazy that the film stated that their “Whitness” had to be earned. Furthermore, I found the net worth of an average black family is about 1/8, that of the average white family, with most of the differences coming from the value of the family and your residence. For example, Houses in white neighborhoods, sell for much more than those in a black and Hispanic communities.

In closing, we continue to have laws, and policies, built to keep racial inequalities alive whether we have a black president or not, this lets you know how powerful this thing we call racism is. Our President can’t even do anything about it. The customs of racism are embedded into the fabric of this country, and we have a long way to go, if we want to have change in the future.

THE GOVERNMENTS CREATION

Max Webers, Life Chances, emphasizes the likelihood a person has, of obtaining valued, economic and cultural resources. This focus on Life Chances allowed the introduction of middle class,. In the Podcast entitled, “House Rules”, narrated by Nancy Updike and Nikole Hannah, it looked at and researched how racism still exists to this day. Yes, we’ve come a long way, but now a days; racism is done in the dark, meaning that, its happening right in front of your eyes, and you don't even see it. The fact is, that this country admits that they wrote in documents that, “You have to take proactive steps to dismantle the segregation that you helped create”, speaking in essence about the government redlining of African Americans and refusal to grant them loans to purchase homes.

Act one reveals how Superintendants of buildings were discriminating against African American citizens looking to rent apartments in NYC. A non-profit organization called Fair Housing Justice Center would send black and white men and women out in the city of NY to attempt to rent apartments. The land lords, or supers, would tell the black men and women that  they didn’t have any apartments available  for them specifically, but always find one available for the white testers. They would even charge the white tenants less than the quote that they would give to the blacks. This explains how people who share a common class position, often share conditions and experiences, this includes, health, education, work, lifestyles, and most important, politics. The government created things this way for a reason, which is to keep poverty stricken citizens merged together in one particular community, with no way out, and it seems the supers feel the same way, or were given an order to act this way, one or the other. Your character doesn’t matter, neither does your income for that matter. Eventually, law suites began to be brought to court against these building owners. Nicole Hannah Jones wrote, housing can affect every part of your life,  “ Cancer rates, infant mortality, unemployment, education, access to fresh food, acces to parks, whether or not the city repairs the roads in your neighborhoods”,  all these things are a reflection of where you live.

Act one starts out discussing how many segregated blacks and whites still live in segregated communities in America. What stood out to me was how Nancy Updike noted that, cities like Chicago and New York with large African American populations have plenty of all black communities, but all white neighborhoods rarely exist anymore. She further explains, that the best way to visualize the segregation in certain cities, is when you fide the train. For example, when I was younger and rode a crowded train; I would go and stand in front of a white person, because I knew they weren’t going no further than 96 st. Nowadays, this isn’t true, being that whites have been migrating uptown for the past couple of years. Furthermore, in the 1930’s the government understood that ownership would be the way to build and structure middle class. The Roosevelt Administration began to give back loans, but only to whites to create what we have today, and undercover racist structure. This was a process called redlining, which banks and others used to deny loans to minorities based on race. People believed banks popularized this practice, when in reality it was the federal government. What eventually happens is, between 1934 and 1964, 98% of home loans insured by the federal government , go to white Americans, creating white middle class, by allowing them to become home owners. (98% SMH)

By 1967 Lyndon, who was the president at the time, signed into law the civil rights bill, but had no intention of moving forward with supporting the Fair Housing Act Law. The president brought along Walter Mandale, a young Senator from Detroit, along with him to help him lead the push for the housing bill in the senate. Nikole Hannah noted, that whenever Mondale brought up the housing bill, some o the liberal senators told him, “Your embarrassing us with this, your making us look like hypocrites by exposing our Hypocrisy”. Even Reverend Martin Luther King went to Chicago in support for Northern and Southern States, for what he called “Open Housing”. A lot of Americans found it blatant racism and discrimination that was totally unacceptable, but weren’t prepared for their own lives to change. Once Modale began to get testimony from African American Vietnam Veterans coming home from war, and finding it impossible to find housing because of their race, people began to really pay attention

Act three focused on the following election, which Nixon came to be president, and this time he chose George Romney, yes, Mitt Romney’s father, who when he was a senator was quoted as saying, “ The white suburbs had created a noose around the black inner cities”. He was given the job of Secretary of HUD, Department of Housing and Urban Development in 1968. Once there, he realized the US Department of housing was giving billions of dollars in grants for different projects in the country to develop communities across the country. Romney decides that if the communities are going to be taking federal dollars, then they’re going to have to be willing to let African Americans into those same communities. Nixon didn’t agree with Romney’s views, and once he began to get complaints, mainly from powerful political parties who had actually gotten him into office with their support, Nixon had cut contacts with Romney. Eventually Nixon had Romney transferred to Mexico as ambassador to make him go away. Romney ended up turning down his new position and later resigned. Later, Nixon has his team of attorneys look through the law books to make it seem as if he’s supporting the law and the lawyers come back and tell him, “ What Romney was doing was actually within the law, and I don’t think we can ignore this mandate to be active in breaking down segregation”. Nixon wasn’t pleased at all, told them to go look again.

In reality, this all leads to class and global inequality, In a time when you go to college and put in the money, the time, and the hard work, to still have doors slammed in your face. Again, it doesn’t matter if you’re smart or have a good job or not, its still a problem. The government’s capitalist class and status creation, has created a toxic structure in this country. The Fair Housing Act, is not that every black person in America has to have a white neighbor, it’s for everyone to have an equal opportunity at housing that they obviously can afford, not to have housing testers from some non-profit organization monitor every dishonest super of a building in this country.

I Need Help Helping Myself

Most of us have dreams and aspirations of attending college; gut for those who come from families with less financial resources, this dream can quickly become an overwhelming burden. I a era of motionless incomes and rising tuition, and substantial student debt, the weight of college cost on families and former college student is felt throughout the country.  In the reading entitled, “Class Conflict: Tuition Hikes Leave Collge Students in Debt and Torn between Paid Work and Course Work”, written by Ellen Mutari and Melaku Lakew, which details how students facing financial struggles affording a college education.

            Being a struggling college student myself, I can totally relate to this subject because I am one of those students. Having two children, with one in college, a family to support, plus rent and other expenses, makes it virtually impossible to afford college without financial aid and scholarships. I can’t speak for other people, but for me, I might have been just another statistic if it wasn’t for school.

            Next, most Americans believe in education as a way of assuring economic prosperity. We have politicians and business leaders proclaim college education as a means of out of poverty , but for people from upper class families have, but for children from upper class, have much less stress to deal with, such as their bills being paid by their parents, and having a vehicle fully paid for transportation. For example, a person from a low income family would have to use any would have major struggles, even with financial aid, loans, grants, etc., oppose to students coming from upper class families, who have the mental comfort of knowing all of their bills are paid for, and if they do decide to get a job, that money is mainly for drinking on weekends, or just straight partying.

            In comparison to the film entitled, “People Like Us:  Social Class in America”, we have a documentary film, that focuses on how most Americans believe they live in a complicated system of social classes believe that, things happen in this country are based on status. To me and others alike, you can tell a lot about a person’s class by how serious you get when the subject is brought up in conversation. People use status as a symbol, like having the latest Iphone, or keeping up with the Michael Jordan trend, to the lady’s having those LV bags. This how people in America, use these symbols in order to show others were we should be within the social hierarchy. These symbols are displayed through what’s known as conspicuous consumption. In society, the items we buy lead to the determination of your social status.

            In closing, social class plays a major part in who’s given the opportunity to attend college, and which neighborhoods get the best fresh produce from markets, to who gets the best quality of life in general. I've come to the point where I understand that, if you can't afford a house or a car, YOUR STATUS HAS BEEN CLAIMED.  When you add all these factors together, you find clear explanation of how social class determines our LIFE CHANCES.