Final Essay
Kiera Simanovsky
1. When Johnson refers to race as “The Proverbial Elephant” he is meaning that there is a problem, and people do not want to talk about because they do want to get into an argument. They want to keep it peaceful. People know that race is there but no one wants to bring it up. That everyone is even and everyone is on the same level. No race is better than another race. An example is that no one wants to talk about slavery when there is an African American In the room. White’s feel like the African American’s will be defensive if they do talk about slavery. They feel uncomfortable bringing up the subject when slavery was happening, it was a hug deal. It is a trouble we share, nobody likes or feels comfortable talking …show more content…
Johnson says that differences aren’t naturally what cause people to not want to understand people, it is how we learn to be scared of other people other than ourselves. We learn these traits it is not natural, we make the differences up. People learn this from the start of their young childhood. We are afraid of people different than ourselves. As Jonson states, “if we feel afraid, it is not what we do not know that frightens us, it is what we think we do know (p13)”. For an example some people are afraid of black communities because people think that the African American’s are the people that are dangerous as in crimes and shootings. No one feels comfortable in those area of towns and cities. They are very uncomfortable being alone with them especially at night. People get more uncomfortable with others because of what we learn during our lives. As time goes on, we learn more, hear more stories, and we read more. We get more fearful of what might happen. We do not understand each other because we do not take the time to really understand one another, we learn the stereotypes and the most generalized personalities of who each other are. Each person is different, we have out own personalities, our own history, and on a chart or graph no one will land on the same spot. Difference is socially constructed because we make up these thoughts to make people different. We set those differences up to make people lesser or more powerful. People who are in there “own world” do not know about anyone else’s. As Johnson mentioned, he wrote about an African American women and how she knew she was African American, but she did not know that she was black. She would not stereotyped as that until she went into a society that people made up those differences of people. It was the dominant race or the “norm”. Another social constructed norm we have is the average height of a human. What actually is the normal height of people, and the right height? People who are taller or shorter
Kiera Simanovsky
1. When Johnson refers to race as “The Proverbial Elephant” he is meaning that there is a problem, and people do not want to talk about because they do want to get into an argument. They want to keep it peaceful. People know that race is there but no one wants to bring it up. That everyone is even and everyone is on the same level. No race is better than another race. An example is that no one wants to talk about slavery when there is an African American In the room. White’s feel like the African American’s will be defensive if they do talk about slavery. They feel uncomfortable bringing up the subject when slavery was happening, it was a hug deal. It is a trouble we share, nobody likes or feels comfortable talking …show more content…
Johnson says that differences aren’t naturally what cause people to not want to understand people, it is how we learn to be scared of other people other than ourselves. We learn these traits it is not natural, we make the differences up. People learn this from the start of their young childhood. We are afraid of people different than ourselves. As Jonson states, “if we feel afraid, it is not what we do not know that frightens us, it is what we think we do know (p13)”. For an example some people are afraid of black communities because people think that the African American’s are the people that are dangerous as in crimes and shootings. No one feels comfortable in those area of towns and cities. They are very uncomfortable being alone with them especially at night. People get more uncomfortable with others because of what we learn during our lives. As time goes on, we learn more, hear more stories, and we read more. We get more fearful of what might happen. We do not understand each other because we do not take the time to really understand one another, we learn the stereotypes and the most generalized personalities of who each other are. Each person is different, we have out own personalities, our own history, and on a chart or graph no one will land on the same spot. Difference is socially constructed because we make up these thoughts to make people different. We set those differences up to make people lesser or more powerful. People who are in there “own world” do not know about anyone else’s. As Johnson mentioned, he wrote about an African American women and how she knew she was African American, but she did not know that she was black. She would not stereotyped as that until she went into a society that people made up those differences of people. It was the dominant race or the “norm”. Another social constructed norm we have is the average height of a human. What actually is the normal height of people, and the right height? People who are taller or shorter