(Affective#1) Chapter 2 – Social Reality Construction and Global Social Justice By- Charles Quist Adade (Social Justice Issues in Local and Global Contexts)

• What is the reading about?

This chapter discusses social constructionism, critical constructionism, hegemony, social justice and global social justice. Basically, in the beginning of the chapter, it is illustrated of how people take ‘time’ for granted by assuming it is something that is natural but as a result, it is not natural, nor is it normal. We come across the theory of social constructionism which is based on the assumption that there is nothing natural or normal about the world we inhabit, and that social reality is created by individuals to represent their interests in a world that’s not necessarily of their making. This chapter also introduces the concept of critical constructionism which basically means that due to critical constructionism, we learn how to problematize, challenge, and disrupt embedded, naturalized and invisibilized oppressive social structures and practices such as patriarchy, sexism, racism, and heterosexist. Also, the term hegemony is brought to attention of being a process of control and domination. Hegemony is the perpetuation of social injustices. Basically hegemony is perceived as taking leadership and power over others. In addition readers understand the concepts of what is social justice and global social justice. Social justice is perceived by individuals of being something that is equally distributed amongst individuals living in a society and global social justice is basically a wider version of social justice.

• How do I FEEL about the reading I just finished?

I feel that this chapter really goes into depths about social justice and global justice and how to utilize critical and social constructionism. I do feel that other people, including myself take things such as ‘time’ for granted and that people interpret different meanings out of something that is completely different. The reason I feel that people do that is because individuals learn to perceive things in their way though their culture, background, ethnicity, and traditions.

• What do I THINK about the reading I just finished?

I think that its important to understand such concepts because it broadens ones thinking and understanding of our world and the society we live in. This chapter thoroughly explained the concepts and gave examples on how people utilize these concepts within their societies.

• What do I BELIEVE about the reading I just finished?

I believe that through the concept of critical constructionism, an individuals strives to learn how to problematize and challenge things. I do believe that you can adopt a critical approach to reality, thus the quote that people use today of “think critically”. Sometimes people believe what they perceive and is presented to them, even if what they see isn’t really true. By thinking critically, I believe your understanding goes more deep and you learn to interpret meanings differently. In short, “looks and things can be deceiving.”

• What do I KNOW about the reading I just finished?

I know that you shouldn’t take things for granted not even little things. Even small things have great impacts on ones life. Sometimes people take things like walking, for granted and if you look at those of the unfortunate, you realize and learn to appreciate things like walking. I also know that people can interpret mixed messages off of one meaning. To understand these concepts you have to further your understanding for instance, by thinking critically.

Group Presentation

Last week we did our group presentation on chapter two which was discrimination against the LGBT community from Issues of Justice textbook. The topic had many interesting points and it was a good experience of learning this particular topic. We had bought attention to the three premises that were sexuality and identity, marriage rights and employment and housing discrimination. Overall we had fun doing this presentation, we had communicated very well and helped each other out while working on our presentation. This chapter had taught us that no one should be discriminating others because of their cast, religion or culture. This community is multicultural and no should be pointing out fingers to one another. 

Chapter 1: Key Concepts and Recurring Themes in Social Justice Issues in Local and Global Context

 

What question does the chapter raise?	How did the text answer this question?	How does the matter match our own ideas and experiences?
What is cultural relativism?	Judging the other from standpoint of that other rather than from one’s own cultural perspective.	Cultural Relativism allows us to understand another person’ actions by actually knowing the persons’ actual cultural backgrounds that caused him/her to take that action. It also prevents us from thinking wrong things due to what the person is doing and allows us to keep an open mind towards all mankind. Put yourself in other’s shoes is the best phrase to describe cultural relativism.
What is Ethnocentrism?	Is when one views one’s own group as the center of everything, and all others are scaled and rated.	Ethnocentrism could cause racism due to someone feeling that they are superior and other people that are not from their culture are inferior. This also causes a lot of conflict between two groups who both feel they are superior. Also people in today’s’ world are very quick to judge; they will single out one person due to the way they look, dress, act and say things. Also people do not take out time to actually understand or gain knowledge of why the person is doing what they are doing.

Video clip #2

One very important video that we watched in class that really struck to me was the danger of a single story. In the video, Chimamanda Adichie illustrates how our lives and different cultures is more than one story that overlaps one another. We all experience different things in our variety of cultures and religions, but we are also interconnected and not that distinctly different. this article would help in decreasing the amount of discrimination. I feel that she was right in all of her arguments that she made. We as  society members should not judge people solely on their physical appearance or what we assume to be true of all races, but instead we should have an open mind when we communicate to any citizen. The personal examples that she used  of her experiences being an African citizen helped me understand what she was trying to say. I believe that more people should watch this video in order to learn to be more open and not be prejudice all the time. Yes, physically we may seem different, but internally we have a lot of things in common and this video helps state that argument. I now know that it is not right to make pre judgements about someone without really getting to know them. Just because they look a certain way and have different religious views, we should not assume that they are going to act a certain way. Chimamanda was really a good speaker. I was interested in the whole speech because she used great examples and it was easy to understand.

Dialectic: the Phantom of the Race: the Myth of Race and the reality of Racism

What question did the text/chapter raise?	How did the text answer this question?	How does the answer match our own ideas and experiences?
What is “race” and what is “racism”?	Race and Racism are paradoxically different things. In the scientific sense, race does not exist, but rather it is a phantom. Racism on the other hand, is a powerful reality, an invention that is absurd, illogical, irrational, and nonsensical. Race can be defined as a grouping of human population characterized by socially selected physical traits. Race is a social construct. Race is neither natural nor biological. Instead it is a concept that is created by human beings. What constitutes race is like beauty in the eye of the beholder. Race is a social, historical, and cultural construct. Racism is defined as a set of ideas and ideals that asserts or implies the superiority of one social group over another on the basis of biological or cultural characteristics, together with the institutionalized power to put these radicalized beliefs into practice in a way that has the intent or effect of denying or excluding minority men and women.	The definitions of race and racism defined as per this text match somewhat with our own ideas and experiences. Racism is a term that portrays negativity because we usually believe it to be something that puts down a minority culture. This however is not the only definition of racism as the text explains. When we refer to the term race, we immediately think of the physical characteristics of a certain group, such as skin color, hair color etc. We also sometimes attach this term to the culture or religion of a particular group.

Society

In our first lecture notes we discuss a very important term which was society creating a life of its own and how society is created by us human beings. This statement is true to a large extent because in this world no one another than us can create society but once it is created it ends up taking a life of its own power. An example for this statement would be law that’s created in a society and once a society is formed, we as a community develop laws or norms which are required by all of us to follow.  This will enable our society to function properly and people come to a certain agreement as to what the rightful laws should be. Every law are supposed to follow by every member of the community.  When society takes up a life of its own because once the community members start breaking the laws there are consequences for them and the individual that will be punished. If someone ran a red light, they would be eligible for a ticket since it is the law not to drive past a red light. The individual would therefore be helpless under the law since all members are required to follow it knowing that there are punishments if broken.

Article #1

Negotiation, Not Retribution

This article by Dr. Quist-Adade discusses how Western society turns a blind eye to what is happening around them. Instead of trying to find a peaceful solution to our world’s problems we are quick to place blame and then immediately resort to vilence to solve our problems. Those who are not in power, a.k.a the common citizen, believe everything they hear in the media because its convienient and fail to debunk the situation. What this article states is that in our society it has become normal for the government to resort to killing as a means of punishment when they could be spending there effort negotiating in a peacful manner. I think that this article demontstrates perhaps our biggest problem with our world. There is so much unnessecary hatred and competition. So much so that innocent lives are being taken and with very little shame. It is easy to say that this world is just imperfect and that life just goes on. But in truth so many people just accept what goes on in the middle east and in other parts of the world because we dont see it here. I think that September 11 was a wake up call for many people in that war really does exist and it is happening. For Western society however we are fortunate enough to not see it as often here but it doesnt mean it isnt happening every day somewhere else.