WIP – 3 Best Passion Posts
My Passion Blog this semester continued to focus on the deeper issues of relevant celebrity stories. My favorite posts were the ones that took an issue and really got to the root and asked thoughtful questions in order to encourage debate.
https://sites.psu.edu/taliatyndall/2013/04/11/rap-and-rape-culture/
– This post delved into the issue of date rape and it downplay in the media. Rick Ross’s new song has lyrics about drugging a girl and having sex with her. This issue means a lot to me because I have family members that have suffered sexual abuse and I wanted to bring awareness to the severity of the issue.
https://sites.psu.edu/taliatyndall/2013/03/28/baby-kimyesus/
– This post focused on diversity and how biracial children should be taught about race. Kim Kardashian says that she doesn’t want her child to see color. The issue in this seemingly harmless statement is that in doing so she erases the heritage that both her and Kanye give to their child. Diversity is very important to me and I wanted to touch upon this issue and also share a personal story as to why I wrote this post
https://sites.psu.edu/taliatyndall/2013/01/24/politics-and-the-public-eye/
– I really liked this post because I talked about how we all get caught up in the glamor of “celebrity life”. Even an event as monumental as the second inauguration of our first black president was sidetracked by other things such as Michelle’s hair or Beyonce’s weave. As my entire blog is an indication of, celebrities are all around us.
Read MoreThroughout this semester I have been focusing on the issue of diversity and the various views associated with it. I’ve analyzed diversity form the perspective of a college campus, on a national scale and even on the international scale. I’ve posed questions about the meaning of diversity and its importance in today’s society. The consensus seems to be that without diversity we as a society cannot move forward and without the acknowledgement of this fact we actually move backwards. Today I’m going to get a little more personal and talk about what diversity means to me and how my life experiences have shaped my opinion.
Throughout my life I have been exposed to situations where problems concerning diversity have arisen. From grade Kindergarten to 3rd grade I attended a Catholic school in a rather urban area. Most of my classmates were black which gave me the opportunity to interact with kids my own race. However, after 3rd grade my family and I moved to another town and the school I attended was predominantly white. In fact, I was one of maybe 2 or 3 other black kids. I still remember my first day and the stares I got from children who had never seen a black person before. I got asked questions like, “Are you in a gang?” and “If you’re black, does your skin taste like chocolate”. These curiosities eventually led to deeper problems of racist teachers and exclusions by other girls because of my skin color; something I was aware of even at such a young age.
Even though there were times I felt out of place at a school where I saw little to no color I can say I’m glad that I went through that experience. Looking back, I was able to learn how to interact with people of all cultures and I learned by the examples of others how not to act. Hard situations are supposed to build character. I hope that through my CI blogs I have provided an insight into diversity and the issues associated with it.
Read MoreBaby Kimyesus
I want to kind of connect my passion post this week with what I’ve been focusing my Civic Issues blogs on: Issues of race and diversity.
As you all probably know, Baby Kimyesus is upon us. The baby that will try and probably fail to top adorable Blue Ivy. This child will probably be born with a leather diaper, 5 gold chains and stilettos no matter what the gender is. At least we still have a few months to prepare before the arrival of Kim Kardashian’s child (Am I the only one still amazed that she is actually having a child??). As we all know the father of Kim’s baby is none other than rap superstar Kanye West. Kim was asked during an interview if she would be prepared to raise a bi-racial baby seeing as she is Armenian and white and Kanye is Black. Kim’s response was, “the way I want to raise my children is to not see color”.
I can see where Kim’s good intentions lie. It’s difficult to be bi-racial in this world, especially in a country where everyone obsesses over what race they are and how they’re 177th % this or that. It will be hard for Kim and Kanye to teach their child that discrimination exists for people of mixed races and that there will be inevitable struggles down the road for their child. However, the solution to these problems is not to just pretend that race or racism does not exist. For one it is impossible. If their child won’t learn it at home they will soon be made aware of their race by the outside world. Also the implications of teaching your child to ignore color can be detrimental.
For one, if Kim does not show her child what race is she will be denying the cultures that herself and Kanye both come from. Cultures that have gone through tremendous hardship but also are beautiful and rich in culture. Raising someone to be “color blind” makes them just that, blind to influence of race on a person. Your heritage, culture, and language shapes their past, present, and future and this is a lesson that no one should be denied of.
I consider myself proud to know my heritage and how my race overcame and went through struggles and still is beautiful. Even though I did struggle with identity when it comes to my culture at times I can say that I’m glad that someone took the time to sit me down and tell me of where I came from and the experiences of others like me. I hope that Kim and Kanye come to the realization that denying race does no good, even with the best of intentions.
Comment below with your thoughts!
Read MoreGlobal Diversity
In my previous post I examined how diversity plays out across the nation on various types of college campuses. I explained the differences between Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Predominantly White Colleges and how the different experiences that a student might have at each type of school would affect their life past college. Now, I want to examine how diversity plays out on an international scale. Do other countries value diversity and consider it an issue as we do here in the states? How diverse are other countries compared to America? On a scale where diversity is measured in the difference in ethnicity language, and religion America gains a very high rank while countries such as South Korea are described as ethnically homogeneous and those who are not Korean are discriminated against or shunned. .
In America and other countries such as Canada and England, there are organizations that work to promote diversity not only in everyday life but also the workplace. Foundations such as Global Diversity (The company and the organization). These organizations believe that diverse societies are the only way that people can truly express themselves in a society. How is diversity seen in places such as third world countries? There are countries where there simply is no word for diversity due to the fact that on the grand scale of issues, diversity does not rank so high. It sounds harsh but in a place where food and water are not always guaranteed I don’t think the citizens are going to be too focused on how high their country ranks on the diversity index. It seems that the view of diversity as a cultural issue is something that only first world countries deal with.
If we as a society are to come to terms with how diversity is looked at and dealt with it seems that first there should be a recognized, worldwide view on what exactly a fundamental right is. We need to gauge if by “diversity” some countries mean in terms of gender, race, or other terms. There also needs to be a re-examination of how important diversity is in other cultures. In some parts of Europe, diversity is sometimes an illegal issue to talk about and not at all discussed like it is here By doing this we can then begin to address the various problems that come along with diversity.
After reading various articles on the subject of diversity on a global scale, I feel that the issue should be kept on more of a regional scale. For instance, each country or state should choose how they want to deal with diversity. The reason for this is that because there can really be no way to move forward in terms of diversity if not everyone views the issue the same way which I mentioned is the case with third world countries.
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Diversity Talks
In my last post, I focused on the issue of diversity within college campuses . I brought up the issue of how diversity can be seen differently in various contexts such as the lack of diversity on a campus such as Penn State’s. Some of the comments on my last post encouraged me to explore the various contexts in which diversity plays out around the country. Through some research I saw exactly what some teaching institutions in this country have to offer in terms of diversity. As I explained in my last post Penn State can be considered a Predominantly White University or PWI. There are also schools called HBCU’s or Historically Black Colleges and Universities that have a predominantly black population. The education at both types of institutions is the same but people may view what exactly you get out of attending these types of schools. Both of these types of universities are considered extremes of the spectrum and the students who attend them have various ideas about the experience one would receive by attending. The debate has raged on for years on which type of education is better. The ideal choice seems to be schools like Rutgers or Stanford that have the highest diversity ratings in the country with a 0.76. For comparison, Penn State has a diversity rating of 0.32. Ultimately I think that one school makes you appreciate the other. It’s like a “the grass is greener on the other side” situation. One isn’t really better than the other, it simply relies on perception.
Personally, I was encouraged to attend an HBCU but I decided not to because I know that the world is not only inhabited by black people so my university shouldn’t be like that. However, I also have friends who go here who would rather attend an HBCU simply for the experience of being around people with similar experiences. This brings up the information from Chapter 2 of Gastil’s PCD that people are more comfortable with people more like themselves. This begs the question; can we ever have a truly diverse society if we are fundamentally drawn to others like us? From a scientific standpoint, diversity is seen as a fundamental element between humans and a socio-ecosystem. We attend college to get us ready for the “real world”. It’s important to make diversity an important part of one’s life now before you enter into the workforce with a false sense of society. Diversity in an educational setting will ultimately foster diversity in a real setting.
Does a school’s lack of diversity cause certain problems for the institution? We all remember the heat that girls from the sorority Chi Omega came under for posing with racially insensitive signs and costumes. If the diverse on campus was more prominent, this situation might not have occurred simply for the reason that one is less likely to say something about a certain minority group they are surrounded by.Comment below on what you think!
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