Thursday, October 25, 2012

Post -Reading :Race , Education, and Disability


·      There are a lot of factors that can influence a persons ‘misdiagnoses’ but the two factors that stick out to me are race and gender. People of color are most likely to be ‘misdiagnosed’ whereas white students are not. Our race and first language brings conflict to the classes. Teachers make an assumption that because you are a different color rather than white you do not know English, which causes misdiagnoses of a LD.
·      Learning Disabilities is a process started by white teachers could not figure out a different method of teaching students. So they came up with LD. Targeting people of color more so than white students. In the classroom normalcy is consider students being white, well behaved, and able. Normalcy is how teachers see students and when a student does not shoe these characteristics they begin to make conclusion about the student being either Emotionally Disturbed, Mentally Retarted or having a Learning Disability.
·      All three factors would play into diagnosing a student by their race, gender, and class. Race and gender are a huge part of this diagnoses because if the student is Hispanic or Black the will make the assumption the Hispanic student does not know English or the black student is a criminal and feel threaten by them in the classroom.  Class has a huge impact as well because white middle class student can seek help from other resources rather than being categorized has having a Learning Disability. Where as the working class will have to go along with the diagnoes because they do not have an outlet or other resources.
·      A social construct is a belief or theory someone comes up with to determine an answer to a cause. Race is a social construct. For example, we see Asians as smart in math and excel in academics so we make an assumption that all Asian are smart in math and academics.  Social construct and race play together because when a student is acting up in class and meeting the normalcy of the classroom. Teachers begin to think the student is either slow and has a learning disability.
·      Language is a huge barrier for determining a Learning Disability. The student’s first language reflects their understanding of English. Which can cause confusion between both languages. As for race people of color are placed in special education because of their background and not portraying the images teachers want their students to be.

word count 405 

Pre-Reading Week Eight


 LD, MR, and ED are all categories of learning disorder toward students. These categories relationship to special education are to help students get a head who struggle learning in a classroom. I believe students of color are over-represented in special education classes because they have a different a background than white student. White students have more privileges in education because their parents are middle class or upper class which they can seek help in helping their children get ahead outside of school with tutoring and special programs which the school may not know about. Where as color students are either poor class or struggling to be in the middle class. People of color are limited to education resources because most parents work day in and day out. Another reason why I see this statistic to be true is stereotyping. Stereotyping in a classroom is very common. For example, a black child who just sit in class and doesn’t do his work but is a smart student deep down. A teacher would diegost him with LD because he does not participate in any of the activities. Rather than looking at her teaching methods she jumps to the conclusion her black student has a LD, where he can very much learn but just not to her method. Teachers should be able to be diverse in their teaching and try different method before making the conclusion the student has a LD. Disability can impact how people experience their lives because they begin to believe something is wrong with them and even though they are very able to learn they do not. In the reading, Michael Story the student was diegonst with a LD by a formal teacher of his. Michael was very capable of leaning and had the willingness, but once he was put into special education he was not able to get out. Year after year he was told he would get out of special education but he never did. Telling a student the next year they will get out and not releasing the student is crushing to the students self. Connors means the ideal of social construct is white privilege people have the mentality of a state being is in the middle class, able-body and white. Where as the non-social construct is working class, disable and people of color. I highly disagree with this statement because the working class are people who do the hard labor where the middle class just sits back and file papers.

word count-->415 

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Pre-reading week seven


Intersexuality occurs between sexes for example, the diversity between the black and white women. Both races fight for working opportunities but black women fight for a more equal pay labor because they have been working for many years where as white women are only see as house wife’s’. Studying intersexuality in ethnic studies is important because not only does it show the same gender working tighter to fight for similar rights but treated differently to resolve the cause. Domestic violence is a very common issue in our society today. Domestic violence is not only physical but emotional, financial, verbal, and abusive to an individual. Immigrants are victims of domestic violence. Although they have many resources they are afraid to use them because their abuser can harm them more. It is important to learn about domestic violence so we as students can learn the obstacles immigrants may go through to receive citizenship. Domestic violence is very different in races, class, language and nationality because the United States only speaks English and has a certain cultural. Although it is very diversity in the United States not all domestic violence survivors are American and may have to go through various obstacles to report abuse. For example, a Latina immigrant has been abuse for to years now, it has gotten to the point where she has been hit. She calls the police to report her abuser but does not speak English. The police arrive to her house but do not speak Spanish therefore she will have to wait for a translator to come in order to get a report. By this time her abuser has convince the police nothing has happen and leave. Due to the Latina not able to speak Spanish has limited her safety.  There are many conventional solutions for people in domestic violence relationship such as resources in helping the survivor move away from their partner. Shelters and people who help receive a visa for immigrants who are apart of an abusive relationship. There are also three types of visa a survivor can receive which are t-visa, u-visa and vawa.  Although not all resources are cable of helping the survivor  due to many nonsense policies that make it impossible to receive justice. For example, a survivor has been in a relationship with their abuser  and their relationship as taken a tool. The survivor is can not just leave the relationship he needs to have physical evidence and reports of the abuse in order to be process for a vawa.  These resources are possible for all survivors who want help in getting away. There are alternatives to resolving this situation because not all survivors speak English therefore they have to go through various obstacles to receive justice and put there abuser away.

word count 405

Friday, October 5, 2012

Post Reading :Week Five


Eduardo Bonilla-Silva refers to Color Blind Racism as “racism lite,” because whites have a great way of hiding their structural privilege with minorities who do not share the same privileges. For example, whites claim that minorities are “just lazy and in-cooperative in the society or the community,” in my opinion this is a false claim.  Color people have become highly educated but face many obstacles such as “remunerated jobs or jobs with limited opportunities.” Versus white people they are born into this world without any experiences but gain privileges because of their skin color. A claim that was upsetting to read was “Asians got in the higher level like, us so everyone can do it too.” This statement is claiming that it is the minorities’ decisions and actions that will justify them to be at the level of white people. Racism lite also claims that we all equal as a whole and there is no more discrimination between races, if this stamen was true then why are whites still at the top of power?
This video cannot be racist because she is pointing out how our society is today and how white people treat and act like color people. Racism is having power over another race, which in this case she has no power of whites and what they have already acted upon and said. There are many points she is trying to prove in this video but there are four points that really stood out to me. First, in the beginning of the video she says “Not to be racist but..” when someone starts out there sentence with those five words they are already claiming a racist statement. Second, when she states, “you can use the N word and I cant.” The N word was given to color people during the slavery era; black people use the term today to show pride. Third, the word “ghetto,” ghetto is used to claim something that is not worth much value or is not associated with to “style” society wants to portray. Lastly, referring to black people hair as “ nappy, real or fake.” White people gain from using colorblind racism because back in the 1950s they were able to be more blunt about segregating blacks and white. After the civial rights movement whites need to be more hidden about racism, so they did it by esblishing laws and letting the law do the work. We study CBR in Ethnic Studies to make us more aware of what privileges we truly have and view them in our point of view. Also, we study CBR to learn about diversity and how policties use the term. CBR, does matter in our pursuit of social justice because it gives us a better understanding of how our nation see us “color people” rather than how they see white people. I believe CBR is a useful tool in understanding race in the United States because it gives us a better understanding of how we are as a race and how our privileges are used against us and for us.


Word Count:512