Sum Blog Three Religion

It’s taken me way too long to get going on this for some reason but I think I’ve finally asked myself enough questions to get something to start with. A few of these questions being; why is there religion?  Was there one true faith that started it all and everyone else just liked the idea and ran off with something of their own? Being pretty certain that not all religions can be true, means that a few have to be false. So with a socially constructed religion, what would be the motive for creating it? Power, control, money, even sex are simple things that people desire and scheme to gain. When you think of religion’s that revolve around the gain of these things plain and simple you think of cults; The Manson Family, Branch Davidians, Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, etc. It’s counter intuitive to have a religion covet such impurities but people fall for it every day. Many centuries ago in the catholic faith a person could buy indulgencies to avail their loved ones from purgatory; “a place or state of suffering inhabited by the souls of sinners who are expiating their sins before going to heaven.” Religion’s kind of a messed up thing when you look at all of it together. There’s this band I like but haven’t listened to in a while that serendipitously shuffled its way into my headphones the day our class was talking about religion that I now have to share with you guys but it encompasses and flaunts how embarrassing people can be.

Song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16vmlbmIEkQ

Lyrics: http://www.verselib.com/they-call-that-religion-lyrics-devil-makes-three,-the/A6DB62

In regard to inequality I think the song highlights well how people always want to stand over the other and take advantage of any situation they can. Now all religion isn’t bad but it’s just the junk that people create of it that makes it sick.

SumBlog2 Disability

Whether or not you have a dichotic definition of a person and being disabled or abled, or if you view the differences between the two on more of a spectrum, there is still a line drawn somewhere that separates the two from each other. I myself am more of a spectrum person but when/where/how did the separations begin? Or have they always been there? Has being disabled always been a stigma? I’ve never really known and have never before thought to ask. While stumbling around the internet I found a thing or two that offered a few new ideas that have given me a thing or two to think about. According to www.english-heritage.org.uk , beginning in the 1660’s the ideas of God or astrology causing disability and madness began to fade. Madness was previously seen as a possession of the soul and disability transitioned from a divine message from a higher power into now a misfortune deserving charity. This is the part where W.I. Thomas would step in and say “As far as disability is concerned, if it is seen as a tragedy, then disabled people will be treated as if they are the victims of some tragic happening or circumstance.” In other words, the interpretation of the situation causes the action. In that transitional phase the people with these disabilities lost their divinity and for the first time were starting to be seen as inferior because their characteristics were only viewed as holding them back from functioning as efficiently as people without any condition. I’ve never liked how things have most often centered around the majority, especially when it creates inequality.  I found this excerpt from a website with several articles discussing different issues surrounding disability in society and really liked how it brought up the spectrum view between abled and disabled. It is also fresh to hear how it gets back to talking about people as one people, avoiding the dichotic classification.

Another trend involves trying to break down the categorical binary between abled and disabled people, instead recognizing that there is a spectrum of ability. For example, this icon (source): 

Ultimately, Powell and Ben-Moshe hope that access will be so universally designed into public buildings that it will eliminate the need for an icon at all: architecture would no longer be designed around a specific type of person considered “normal,” but instead would be designed for the range of people who will use the spaces.  This full integration would mean that differently-abled people would be considered just “people” and we wouldn’t need an icon at all.

Sum Blog One

          Racial Formations by Omi and Winant overall discussed the dimensions and dynamics of the construction of race. Race as an invention of people was conceived to stratify people and recognize more differences between the types. People have and still do try to claim, biologically, that the differences between races are large enough to justify the inequality between them. When in all actuality the differences, in regard to race, are only present in the features or characteristics of the person, not their function. We all start from the exact same place, what determines our differences are the experiences we have as we grow up. What really grabbed me about this reading was coming across the sentence where they discuss the term “passing”, I had to stop and think about that word. I gave it a moment before continuing and realized that was the title of a book that I had read a long time ago by Nella Larson about two sisters in the 1920’s who weren’t 100% black or white but a mixture somewhere in between. One could pass for white but the other fell under the ‘one drop’ rule and assimilated to the black culture of the time. It’s a really good book that ties into our class reading well. The racial etiquettes of the 1920’s between blacks and whites were seemingly polar opposite and it was reflected in the “presentations of self” when looking at the differences between what was acceptable for people who were either black or white. In our society “we utilize race to provide clues about who a person is” (pg. 22) because we group their differences with certain characteristics that we assume to be exclusive to them. This is the basis of many stereotypes that can be seen in everyday life. In the movie “The Jerk” featuring Steve Martin, he plays a white character that grew up in a black family that doesn’t recognize he isn’t blood related but is still acting under characteristics that are supposedly unique to the white race; like enjoying mayonnaise and not having any rhythm.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHB4TzHzi2A