Socialization

The topic of socialization covered in Adam’s book got me thinking about my own socialization as a child and how it affects the perspectives I have now. I grew up in Austin surrounded by diversity- at least in my circles- and people with open minds. I am half black, half white- my mom is from Kenya and my dad is from South Dakota. In a way, I think the fact that I have always been surrounded by such open-mindedness has negatively affected my ability to have tolerance for close-minded people. Because I was not exposed to that as a child, which seems like a good thing, I often get baffled when I meet someone in person who, for instance, supports Donald Trump. Whenever I hear that, my mind immediately starts racing and I start making assumptions that the person is racist and wants to send all immigrants back to their countries and they want to turn back time a hundred years and bring back slavery and make America white again. Then I take a step back and realize that I am doing exactly what I am accusing them of doing, being close-minded. Without even getting to know that person, I have already made these assumptions and determined that they are a bad person, when, in reality- they could be super nice and open-minded. But when I look at how I was socialized, it makes sense that I would react this way. I was taught that everyone should be treated equally no matter their race, gender, sexual preference, etc. so when I hear someone who doesn’t believe that- I think less of them. So that is definitely something I need to work on if I want to be able work with people from all walks of life, including those I might not agree with.     

I found the video, Independent Lens: Park Avenue: Money, Power& the American Dream, to be very eye-opening. While I knew there was a large divide between the top 1% and the rest of the people, I had no idea the history behind it or how it has sky-rocketed in the past decade. In the beginning of the video, they used the board game, Monopoly to portray the politics of being rich and poor. In this board game, everyone starts out with the same amount of money and an equal chance to win but in the end there is only one winner and everyone else are losers. As someone who has played many games of Monopoly, I found this comparison to be quite interesting. Every summer as a kid, my dad, brother, and I would play Monopoly on a regular basis. The game would get intense at times but when the game was over, we always respected whoever won because we knew the game was played fairly and we all had an equal chance to win. In the real world though, that is not the case. The experiment they did gave a more realistic approach, starting some people off with more money while setting the other player back by only allowing him to roll one dice. As the video explained, it is very rare that someone from the lower class will ever get to make it to the top 1%. People who live in the Bronx will likely never make it to the Park Avenue.

The "Love Has No Labels" video brought about the issue of diversity in love in such a positive way. The skeletons dancing displayed such an important message. While there might be genetic differences that separate people by gender, race, and appearance- we are all just skeletons underneath. If you could believe that those dancing skeletons loved each other, then when the couple behind the board stepped out- regardless of the genetic makeup, it would make it easier for you to see past that and see their love for each other. I really appreciated how the video displayed love as not just a romantic love but also just love in general- whether that be between two neighbors, or young children, or just friends- it showed that love truly has no labels.