_____In the essay "What’s in a name?" Henry Louis Gates recalls a traumatic incident from the days when prejudice ran rampant through the United States of America. One called Mr. Wilson, and aging white male, seemed to personify the worst person of the time(in the eyes of the author). Mr. Wilson, an unfriendly soul, liked to characterize or stereotype people into categories. However, this type of behavior would not be within the limits according to one race. No person of race, creed or ethnicity was safe from the old man nor any person with closed-minded prejudices. Too many events of prejudice are not easily forgettable. Remembering back to my days of youth I can recall many occurrences, where I remained silent for fear of retribution. Not to my surprise they shaped the way I think and feel. To this day silence is the only option for many young people. In schools today and yesterday there is a great hierarchy. Formed because by nature humans fear and belittle entities that do not fit the norm or people who may even be better than them in some ways. Children feel the greatest consequences by such conduct.
_____When an eager young student finally reached the status of Junior high school student, he will immediately be placed into this slanted classification by his peers. An order this student might enter, if he were able to treat others as non-entities would be the ‘In-crowd.’ This group bands together creating a tightly knit social fraternity with all other on the outside. Though, you cannot just enter this clan at will, because the ’In-crowd’ mentality establishes itself at an early age. This allows children to perfect their attitude toward others earlier than most. The quest in the competition for the most fashionable clothing, or the nicest car, and the best looks are some principle driving forces for stereotyping and violence against peers.
_____If the student is unable to find a place in the ‘In-crowd’ he/she could move along to the next level down known as ‘Piners.’ This clique by definition is much large than the previous set, moreover, a significant number of these children also use stereotyping and violence. Since most children in the association could not be as cold and unfeeling as their counterparts in the ‘In-crowd’ They were only accepted into the ‘Piners." Failure to reach the ’In-crowd’ also results in even harsher treatment by the peer group. No one’s friend, Mr. Wilson, most likely came from a groups such as the ‘Piners’, because his constant stereotyping. Had he been a members of the ‘Incrowd’ Mr. Wilson would have use more colorful metaphors when referring to people.
_____If the young person is found to be honest and upright, he may enter the ‘Pacifist’ realm of the hierarchy. By name it is the nicest of all the circles. Pacifists’ generally enjoy school and do not use violence of any kind toward others, unfortunately, this group is small and greatly outnumbered by all. As a result "Pacifists" become defenders of injustice among their peers and will tell the truth when they witness an act of violence by another.
_____Many more young people, who are surrounded by the ‘In-crowd’ and ‘Piners’ are forced into the last group, ‘Serfs.’ These unlucky students bear the brunt of attacks by the upper classes. ‘Serfs’ like going to school and learning, but the constant beratings by others make them withdraw detaching themselves from the educational process. Left with no alternative most ‘Serfs’ often receives 90% of the punishment while the aggressors get a simple slap on the hand. Other students such as exceptionally computer literate and smart children are faced with even more violence on the school campus. Even the daily lunch line proves to be a hazardous proposal for most. Special education students fall into the ‘Serfs’ cliques as well , because most learn differently they have no choice but to endure the hardships fellow students place upon them.
_____Still our hierarchy of educational society is a far cry from the equity of the one room school house. Mr. Wilson, in Henry Louis Gate’s essay, presents a unique slant on the problem. Fear, jealousy and envy have so poisoned our society that the children are not safe from the perilous dangers that are created by our culture. Many adults teach, by example, to fear and ridicule objects or people who are different. Countless parents supply their children with expensive articles, which in turn create a great deal of envy among peers. Envy and this fear combine to form an adamant jealousy on each other. For this reason silence is the only alternative. Although, it is the nature of things for creatures like ourselves to act this way, but not necessary. Children must be taught when they are young that this is unacceptable behavior. Otherwise, the world will soon overflow with Mr. Wilson’s. Top|Home
Visions of Reality _____Today one's social worth is determined by fitness, fashion sense, and good looks. Our bodies have become the supreme coins of the realm or of great importance. The value of the coins represents the number of years of life shortened by attempts to echo television and magazine standard for beauty. Many women try to emulate what's shown by the media as the 'norm'. Diversions from the slim, tall, blond, blue eyed beauties are more noticeable. Body image variations from the 'norm' causes women to criticize themselves and never be satisfied with their body.
_____Interpersonal factors are often the cause of many hours of self degradation that is harmful to any psyche. Constant teasing, and pestering create a self critic. The effects of this barrage can last for untold years. Still, some decades later, she recounts when asked about her body image. "No matter how thin I became I always feel like the fat kit everyone made fun of." When the time comes to judge ourselves other peoples perceptions of us means a great deal.
_____An opinion by another also effects young women. Forty percent of women viewed such opinions, by others, very important to self image. There is a major connection between the way we feel about ourselves and the way others perceive, or feel about us. After a negative response the self image decreases due to self criticism and low selfesteem. "My partner's feelings about me and my looks mean everything to me. If my mate had an unfavorable opinion, it would be devastating." Replied a woman taking the 1997 body image survey.
_____Woman’s mood shifts play a part in the way they feel and think about themselves. Mood has a definite determination about what a woman actually sees in a mirror. A young woman feeling down from a bad peer interaction will have an extremely negative reaction. She doubts herself and her self worth. Thus, the cycle of negativity continues. Several women from the survey felt the same as this woman when she stated. "When I am in a bad mood about something else, my focus goes right to my body weight and I either feel fat or I obsess about food." While our minds are racing with negative energy the physical body follows right behind.
_____It is important for some 'to look like the perfect women' or 'feel that she is beautiful in the eyes of others'. Just how far would you go to achieve perfection? According ,Body Mania, Psychology Today, revealed that 15 percent out of 3,452 women said they would give up more than five years of life to reach their idea body weight. Twenty Four percent said they would trade three or more. It is a high price to pay in pursuit of societies image, airbrushed. Young women are not susceptible to selfhatred when they're older, but younger. At early ages feelings of body dissatisfaction are initiated and often hard to undo. Coupled with the need for others approval most women pay a terrible price in exchange for looking like other people want them to.
Body Mania, by Judith Rodin, Psychology Today
The 1997 body Image survey results, David M, psychology T
The Elastic body, Philip Myers, Journal of Communication
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It’s too Late _____In "It's Too Late" Calvin Trillion reveals many possible explanations for Fanee Coopers death. Some of his causes include: Fanee's parents inability to express themselves with her, Fanee's association with, in her mothers words "the Union County Group," and Leo Cooper chasing Steven's car down a narrow mountain road. These reasons, though, do not really explain why Fanee went on her "devil trip." Youth have a habit of wanting to be a part of the scheme of things. The eventual isolation from Fanee's family, the loss of her grandmother, and the progression to a "mental dropout" resulted in the ultimately to Fanee's demise.
_____Fanee as a young child, "found it easy to tell her parents she loved them, but difficult to confide in them." For many years Leo and Joann Cooper thought she was the good little child everyone wants or expects. As misfortune would have it, Joann Cooper learned Fanee had been smoking. No longer the Ideal daughter Fanee rebelled. Consequently, over time the family grew apart.
_____Several months later Fanee's grandmother died and truly left her standing there alone and in her "Circus of imagination." A short "in memory" poem describes some feelings Fanee had about her grandmother; "....Rejoice with me in the presence of angels in heaven." Fanee's parents made the plight worse when they discovered a few keepsakes. Fanee was extremely upset with her parents when they explained to her that she could not keep the remembrances. The double loss hurt Fanee, and still she had no one really to talk to.
_____In school Fanee was said to be "super intelligent," and sometimes "profound and disturbing." She found some support there for a short time, but soon after a favorite teacher turned her in for skipping. Fanee again stood alone, and could turn to no one but the boys and girls in the "Union County Group." Often, she would write about death including this, "While tornadoes derail and ever so swiftly destroy every car in my train of thought." Mostly "Strained formalities" were exchanged between most friends and family, allowing Fanee to become further detached from the world.
_____Fanee's feelings of sadness and perplexes compounded when her father Leo Cooper, the principal of Gresham Junior High School, asked Jim Griffin to have a few words to Fanee. As a male worker of the Juvenile Court, Leo Cooper had hoped Griffin would scare Fanee back in line. However, Fanee, had different ideas, and in anguish could only reply "it's too late!" After Griffin's long talk with Fanee about her eyes he noted, "the coldest, most distant, but at the same time, the most knowing eyes I'd ever seen."
_____In the end its Fanee's "deep-brown-eyes, nearly black eyes" that longed for the pain to end. It's those eyes that reach out for comfort. Fanee chose the "wicked and strange things" of the "Union Country group" to fulfill that need to be a part of something. Events that occur in our youth will greatly affect the way we all deal with life's empty holes. Fanee was no exception. As a result of, the death of her grandmother, the whole family's inability to confide in one another, and Fanee's soured feeling's for school she was cast into the unfortunate and eventual path destruction(in the Pinto). The "Lovely Road of Life" became a journey into the "Afterlife." If Fanee had a person to share the precious young life she led, things would not have turned out so badly. Top|Home
Walking the Line _____Communication is very important between the sexes. When a man and a woman interpret just one "interchange ....they can find themselves leveling charges of selfishness and obstinacy at each other," Deborah Tannen says in "Can’t We Talk" , Readers Digest. These miss interpre-tations cause havoc where communication is concerned. In "Sex, Lies, and Conversation," Tannen puts forward the concept that "Men live in a hierarchical world where talk maintains independence and status," and men "are on guard from being put down and pushed around." This perception does seem to explain, to some extent, men's actions when talking to women and peer circles.
_____Ways of thinking, in general, begin at a young age. Male groups and social cliques are sometimes "larger, more inclusive, and hierarchical," and there is a never ending battle to evade a subordinate position. In gender and cross-gender communications men, most often, see their "conversational duty" as showing the opposite side of a given situation. One of Tannen’s examples involved a woman, Jane, who came home from surgery. Jane told Jim, her mate, about the scar that was left behind. Jim told Jane ‘she always could have plastic surgery.’ Jim understood Jane’s displeasure about the scar. Jane became upset, because Jim was not supportive. She felt he was challenging her. Often, women like Jane are looking for emotional support not Jim’s obvious solutions.
_____Throughout the complex peer groups of men and boys bonding "is based less on talking and more on doing things together." The active competition, not communi-cation, with each other produces the closed male hier-archical system. The system itself can inhibit good cross-gender communication, because most men are used to competing not listening. Some men, according to Tannen, feel "being the listener makes them feel one down, like a child listening to adults or an employee to a boss." Recently, researchers generated a new name for men who do not listen. Selective Deafness, the product of the hierarchical system, definitely hinders good conversation.
_____In McCall’s "How to close the communications gap between men and women" Tannen says, "people with direct styles of asking for things, including most men, perceive indirect requests as manipulative." It is true that after years of living with the male hierarchical system some men would rather a woman come out and ask for something in a more direct manner. Mia and Alex were driving along a modern highway and Mia cited "Let's stop for a drink." Alex thought for a moment and replied "No." "He was only stating his preference, but she took it as a final ruling," Tannen pronounced in "Can’t We Talk?". Had the initial suggestion been modified to a more direct statement like "I want to have a drink. Stop at that Cocktail Lounge just ahead." Thus, Alex may have been more receptive to the idea.
_____In conversations with men and men and women one thing is very important. We as people only have our own thoughts and feelings to look back upon. Many men enjoy relating current topics to things that have happened to them during their lifetime. This I believe is caused by a memory trigger. When a partner in a dialogue reveals a topic, most men will immediately affiliate it with a thought or event that occurred in the past. Each successive statement will manifest another memory trigger and a strong desire to relay the information to the other person. The memory trigger is a strong factor in communication. Tannen also said in "Can’t We Talk?" that "men approach the world as a place where people try to achieve and maintain status." To put it another way "Boys (and men) use language to seize center stage: by exhibiting their skill, displaying their knowledge, and ... resisting challenges," reports Tannen in "How men and women use language differently in their lives and in the classroom", The Education Digest.
_____Male and female dialogue vary greatly. That is according to Tannen, "Boys (and men)...bond by exchanging playful insults and put downs and through other sort of verbal sparring," Simultaneously, "little girls....create and maintain friendships by exchanging secrets, and women....regard conversation as the cornerstone of friendship." Often there is only a fine line between open paths of communication and closed ones. Following that narrow lane men and women should use this old proverb wisely: "Say what you mean, and mean what you say." Top|Home