Social Change - Step by Step

The Introduction to Sociology class has helped me put many names to systems, ideals, and practices I already knew of, but more importantly it has helped me to understand my short-comings in acting and analyzing the social world.

A lot of critiques I've made of the past have left people off the hook. I lea

rned that this practice is called "reification." Going forward, I understand now that it will take a lot of work to really figure out who is

behind the perpetuation of systems of inequality. Despite the amount of vigilance and research that I will undertake to dig up these people, it will be worth it in the end, for I believe a transparency and accountability are parts of a healthy society.

Another thing I need to pay attention to is the functionalist view of how society works. From the readings that we've done, and arguments I've heard in the past, it is usually a functionalist view that is used to maintain the status quo, and all the inequality and oppression that that carries with it.

Although, for me, it is much easier and simpler to argue the conflict perspective, but, for the sak

e of meeting people where they are at, it is a priority of mine to begin analyzing social practices in a functionalist perspective as well. I feel that Merton's Typologies of Deviance will certainly help me along this path.

Finally, this class has helped me gain a deeper understanding of three big "-isms" that continue to privilege a few and oppress many: racism, classism, and sexism. It is my intent to understand how I personally play a part in all of these systems of oppression, and to pick apart the seams that tie them together. To better understand how I can change these systems, I first have to have a better understanding of myself and the socialization I underwent in my respective class, race, and gender assignment. From there, I hope to be an ally in which ever way possible. I hope to take part in an anti-racist training for white activists next Summer with the Catalyst Project, up in San Francisco.

Because I am privileged from so many angles, I've been spread thin over where to put my energy. Also, because I've taken on anarchist ideals, its easy for me to get involved any struggle to lift oppression. However, what I must remember is that every bit helps. I've already been in the practice of challenging people's preconceived notions of what it means to be a male or female, and I've already been pointing out what privilege looks like in various situations. Soon, I will actively and deeply engage myself in food justice, because it is there that I see a lot of intersecting struggles.

I hope my spirit remains genuine, and my cause just. By letting the human need for love and compassion guide me, I know change is only a matter of time. Here's a clip to remind us of our Bay Area history, and to encourage us to keep marching forward for justice.

Gender

I was born, then I was socialized to be male. Going into how this was done would take a whole book, so I'll just stick to the prompt and discuss the advantages and disadvantages.

I'll list the advantages that I've experienced, as a male, in a way that's similar to Peggy McIntosh's "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack:"

1. My gender gets first introductions in mixed gendered groups meeting for the first time, and first "good-byes" upon leaving
2. If eye contact is made, people usually acknowledge me with a nod, wave, smile, etc.
3. People assume I know what is going on
4. People are less likely to talk about me behind my back or judge me upfront
5. Walking down the street, I am not prone to feeling eye-fucked by everyone
6. There are no expectations to how I should look
7. I do not have to smell "pretty"
8. People will listen to what I have to say, and not take it for granted

For now, that's all I can think of. But here are the disadvantages of being a male:

1. I can be called upon at anytime to defend myself from violent and aggressive people
2. I am expected to stick up for others in a disagreement
3. In my sex life, I am called upon to be the "dominant" person
4. I am expected to make the decisions
5. I must be independent to be worthwhile
6. Emotions, sensitivities, and insecurities must be kept to a visible minimum
7. Affectionate touch comes only from lovers
8. I can be drafted into the military
9. Drivers automatically assume I am spiting them and act aggressively toward me when I might accidentally cut them off or get too far into their path
10. People are less likely to have intimate discussions with me

Now, that's about all I can think of for how society perceives me as a male. I primarily identify as a queer, so I feel it's worthwhile visiting those advantages, then disadvantages:

1. I can dress in whatever feels right at that moment
2. I can be with whomever attracts me
3. I can disregard traditional roles in intimate and public settings
4. I can be expressive and emotional
5. I can be called upon for emotional support and caregiving, no matter what gender the person is who decides to call

Disadvantages:

1. The workplace is very hetero-normative and not always an easy place to be myself
2. I must explain what being "queer" means to a lot of people
3. I am called upon to justify my identity by relating non-heterosexual experiences
4. Some male, heterosexual friends act insecure or threatened by how I interact with them
5. Some female, heterosexual friends dismiss my being open to men as not having any interest in them

I am more attached to my gender-queer identity, although I cannot completely do away with the male gender people ascribe to me.

If I were a girl, and raised a girl, I'd assume life would have been a lot different. For one, my sister and I would probably have a better relationship. Secondly, I would probably be living at home or closer to home. I might still have found myself to be rebellious, being the younger child of the two, but who knows.

If I were to really consider this, I'd have to look at my sister's life. I might have just gone along for the academic ride, done what I was told, and became a teacher or found an area of interest in the medical field, since those professions both run in the family. However, I'd say I'm partly upon that path already. I've decided to not use my privilege and go across the states, in part so I can be more accountable to my family. I've learned massage therapy and now I'm on the path to studying nutritional science and/or sociology, which I plan on using to teach people. My life probably wouldn't be too materially different. It would be different in substance, however. I don't think I would have been through as many transformative situations as I have, in the sense that I've come to question class, gender, and race.

Race - First Experience

My first experience in which I was conscious of race was in elementary school. In fifth grade, I would stay after school and play in the yard. My play buddies where Anthony, who is black, Erica and Mirella, who are Latina, and Michael and Chris, who are white. I would walk to school with Chris and Michael, since they lived in the neighborhood just adjacent to the school and on the way.

Well, there came a time when I had a crush on Erica. Kid crushes are pretty simple, so I'm guessing I liked her because she was pretty good at playing tag, a pretty fast runner, and good at climbing the monkey bars. However, as time went by, I noticed that she took preference to Anthony, and they eventually became a "couple." (I say that in quotes, because I don't know how much of a couple kids can really be at that age, but then again my first kiss was in preschool).

It didn't really hurt me to know that she would prefer Anthony, because at that time I told myself that they would probably be better together because of their similarly darker (than mine) skin color. I figured she preferred him for that very reason.

But even that I'm not sure is the first official time of recognizing race. Is that really recognizing race if I thought that they were better together by belonging to the same "People of Color" group? To me, it doesn't represent the understanding of race, as not only one of separation based on color, but also of privilege. In my example, there is no privilege that was recognized, just skin color. It would almost be like saying that one pair of socks go better with those shoes.

Social Class

I hadn't been to a mall in ages, so this assignment was hard to do. Luckily for me, though, I was able to ground myself a little while I was there by going through the back corridors and having a bite of Cinnabon, things I used to do back in my mall rat days.

Valley Fair is made up of the "standard" mall shops: Vans, Hot Topic, MAC, Apple, Macy's, Forever 21, etc. I would say that the majority of the stores are catered to the low to middle classes.

For my study, I decided to focus on Hot Topic and the Apple Store. Hot Topic, as the name implies, adorns itself with the latest trendy counter-culture items. Basically the whole store is a commodification of that which is on the fringe of acceptance. The music is full of angst, as are the shirts. Because not many people went into there, I didn't feel like it was a good place to stake out. However, those that did walk in came with bags from places like the Sunglass Hut, Pacific Sunwear, and Levi's.

The apple store was strategically designed to put their newest item up front, the iPad. Tons of people hovered around these contraptions, but I don't recall seeing too many people actually purchasing any.

Here's what I used as status markers from both stores: shoes, bags (as in purses and shopping bags), and glasses. At Apple, there was a wide range of shoes. I often look at people's shoes to get a sense of their personality. However, in all these things, shoes notwithstanding, I've found that it's not so much what people carry on themselves or wear that determine class, but more their behaviors.

I didn't stick around long enough to observe individual behaviors, but in terms of classifying people into an economic status, at Valley Fair I'd say that a good majority are working-middle class. Those articles of clothing and accessories that stood out as "fancy," were the exception to the rule, and not the norm. It might be conspicuous consumption, where someone spends beyond their means to produce a false class status, or it might just be that those people are of the minority that had extra money to spend.

Either way, malls aren't fun for me. Looking back now, I should have probably gone across to Santana Row to really see the distinctions between the two groups of people.

Deviance - Propaganda by Deed

Very recently, a man named Faisal Shahzad had pleaded guilty in a New York City courtroom for attempting to set off a car bomb in Times Square.

In his plea, Faisal referred to himself as a "M

uslim soldier," and said that in the war the US engages itself in he is "part of the answer to the US terrorizing the Muslim nations and Muslim people."

In an attempt to legitimize the indiscriminate nature of his failed action, Faisal said "Living in the United States, Americans only care about their people, but they don't care about the people elsewhere in the world when they die."

I believe that Faisal raised a really good point in regards to the United State's engagement in terrorist activities. Is not occupying a country and subjugating that population of people based on looks or religious affiliation terror? Wouldn't

the constant threat of death by bullet or bomb, or the threat of losing a loved one or a cherished building, constitute terror?

Within the conflict view of deviance, the Labeling Theory explains how deviance is determined by the audience, and that an action is only deviant when it is labelled as such. In this case, the deviant behavior was the attempt to cause civilian casualties, and the label Faisal Shahzad received is "terrorist." Unfortunately for Faisal, he doesn't have the power in society for his accusation of the US being the "terrorist" entity for very much public opinion to be persuaded to his side. It also doesn't help that he stands out for his action, whereas those people in power in the US who decide to bomb areas that lead to many civilian casualties have the privilege of anonymity. The chain of command also limits liability and obscures accountability; a person acting on their own is much more vulnerable to scapegoating than those who act according to orders.

Although indiscriminate attacks on civilians, a.k.a. terrorist attacks, might seem new, they have actually been around for quite some time. When the US was more of a closed system than it is now, many radicals took up the banner of "propaganda by deed." The point was to show the general population of people that they have the power to take down powerful people and bring revolution closer by way of assassinations and bombings.

Émile Henry came to mind when I first read some of the things Faisal Shahzad said. Émile was a French anarchist who, in 1894, threw a bomb into a cafe that killed one person while wounding twenty. His reasons for indiscriminately targeting civilians were because "The whole of the bourgeoisie lives by the exploitation of the unfortunate," and he was out for revenge.

In his defense speech, Émile, like Faisal, doesn't proclaim to be innocent. In fact, the two of them have a similar level of righteous conviction for what they've done, or attempted to do. Both of them explain how their actions were done for the liberation of those most oppressed: for Émile, it was the working class families and families of the repressed radicals, namely the anarchists; for Faisal, it is the Muslim people who feel the weight of discrimination in the form of deadly arsenal raining down on them.

Group Think

Group think is difficult to avoid in this society, especially when a majority of us are conditioned for over 12 years to conform to certain standards in school. On top of that, we're taught to draw inside the lines, raise our hands before speaking, and follow the instructor's every word.

However much contrived and coerced group think may seem bad, especially when perpetuated by institutions such as compulsory education, it is my sincere belief that social group think, brought by peer pressure and willful ignorance, is what really damages our intellectual capabilities. Case in point, I had plenty of frie

nds growing up who would drink beyond their tolerances. Shit, I still have friends like that, but I diverge. Although binge drinking is never good, what is even worse is driving while intoxicated. I lost a friend to drunk driving because of two group think kinda behaviors: 1) people believing they are fine to drive after having too many drinks and 2) trusting too much in the protection of a car.

Drinking and driving is dumb, flat out. The pa

rt where group think comes in is when the group, as a whole, permits this behavior. But for my friend's death, the silence of his friends wasn't the only factor. As I mentioned above, an even bigger false belief, that people should also not have while driving sober, is that cars are perfectly safe.

An object weighing several thousand pounds moving at several times the speed and average person can run is a deadly object. It's a pretty simple deduction, really. Of course, the larger your car, the more safety you have at the expense of others. Because people perceive cars as safe, they engage in distracting behaviors such as talking on the phone, eating, shaving, etc., that takes attention away from the act of driving.

I was going to go into car culture, but I feel that would make this post obnoxiously long.

Reading News Articles

Think humans, think! Sometimes I wish I were an extraterrestrial, so then I feel less ashamed of the human capacity to absorb and repeat. This desire is all sparked by my friend, who employed his Facebook status as a means to disseminate his opinions about anarchists via an article he read in The Mercury News.

If you've taken a history class or an anthropology course, you should know that first-hand accounts and documents are the most valuable to any story. What the Mercury News did was get testimony from the captain of the police force and utilized a video provided by ABC 7 with participant footage and next day thoughts from Santa Cruz students and business owners. The whole thing was sensationalized, pitting the "violent" protesters against the victimized businesses. Several things were misrepresented:

1. It was not a protest, like the Merc and ABC 7 say it was, but a street party, in a Reclaim The Streets fashion.

2. The "fire" on the patio was protesters putting their torches down, with no visible sign of burning seen by the workers the next day.

Well, my friend took the face-value information, from the Merc, and announced his feelings about anarchists based on his ill-informed opinions. Several things should be learned from this:

1. In reading an article in corporate media, dig deeper to find the source. My friend didn't do this, so he assumed the anarchists were endangering children and immigrants, when really the party was billed as a dance party at night with an ambiguous notion to either have a lot of fun partying or fucking shit up.

2. After finding the source, check out what other people have to say. From the following link, you can read other peoples' responses as well as follow other links to other accounts.

3. After you have a general idea of what happened, remember that the people in the story you read about don't represent everyone who share a similar identity, or title. My friend stated that he's fed up with anarchists since they do this shit all the time. That is a blanket statement, where one specific group of people are used, usually very stereotypically, to define a whole variety of groups. For instance, all white people are greedy. You know this is not true as long as you know me, and of course there are others. I could have just as easily said that socialists are elitist, but I know that that is not always the case. In this specific instance, these anarchists that performed destructive acts (note how I do not say "violent") against property are insurrectionary anarchists, and really don't help in the anarchist cause unless there does come a day when the government decides to make the USA a police state, which some feel it is already. Although I recognize we are living in a semi-police state, I also recognize the need for structure and coordination among anarchist groups in order to build an international solidarity base.

4. Finally, once you've identified the specific group who are the actors in the story, it relies on you to fill in the missing links in the story based on informed opinion. So basically, this step is to emphasize asking "Why?" On this note, we need to look a lot deeper into the reasons behind specific actions and tactics.

In this instance of insurrectionary anarchists, what drives them to destroy property, without distinguishing between local, family-owned businesses and the corporate chains?

Because I share similar feelings - albeit different tactics, mind you - and a similar world view, I believe I can answer this based on my own feelings. Private property, ever since its inception, has put people out of work and displaced people from a place in which to dwell. Before private property, people held the land and worked the land in common. Granted, the land belonged to royalty, but at least they had a place to live and food to eat. Now, people who own property use up all the resources on the land, they horde it all to themselves, or they sell it for profit. This makes property owners those with the most power and voice ("vote with your dollar" bullshit) in this society, as it is the working class that must sell their labor to these property owners in order for them to survive and pay for necessities. When one has this view, it would be easy to engage in destructive acts against property without distinguishing between corporate and family-owned.

Also, why would the insurrectionists choose to veil themselves in a street party and engage in property destruction then?

As I mentioned earlier, some people already believe we are in an all-out police state. With that said, most insurrectionary anarchists will veil themselves with bandanas and dress all in black so identifying features do not stand out to cameras and can't be reported to police. Because we live in an age of mass misinformation, these anarchists feel it is also necessary to veil themselves from the general public because the general public, in their eyes, are most often sheep to the slaughter, and therefore corroborators to the police. When engaged in acts of liberation, against property and non-consensual authority, many anarchists adopt this masked and blacked out costume. In terms of doing it during a street party, their aims may have been to disguise their destruction of property as a celebration of free space, or they really felt inclined to just take the party a step further. The street party was already breaking the laws of obstructing property and being an unpermitted march, so breaking windows of the institutions that keep people powerless wouldn't be much of a leap. What's true of any act of liberation, is that it snow balls. When one person demonstrates that they can cast off the shackles of society, or unjust laws that favor the property owners and not the dispossessed, then what generally happens is that others follow suit. When done as a solitary act, as in an assassination or arson attempt, it doesn't have much power and usually becomes discredited as an act of terrorism. But when people do it in crowds, it has the possibility of invoking revolt, insurrection, and even revolution. The problem with the black bloc, as the blacked out and masked anarchists are called, is that their costumes often alienate the rest of the crowd, who aren't likely to follow suit when the individuals they see performing the action isn't someone with whom they can identify.

As you can see, the situation is more complex than one makes it out to be. Thoughts?