Prejudice

The socialization process bascially says that a child will go by the belief's of their parents. I think that this is very true, a lot of poeple do have the same religion as their parents, at least in the early years of their life. When someone goes out on their own, then they will naturally take what they have learned, and form their own beliefs. This is the case most of the time, in my opinion. I think that prejudices start this way, because since our parents are usually the ones socializing the child, then the child is more likely to believe the parent. Think of it this way, if your mom told you not to talk to strangers, would you? No, becasue you know it's bad, that's always the case, parents usually do this in a manner to either make it sound like a minority s bad and that you are better. This absolutley disgusts me, I think it is the job of the parent to provided guidelines on how to make the right choices on their own. How do people think racism begins, it started with one generation, and the child hears about certain groups of people being "bad." That's all it takes for a child to inherit a parent's beliefs. So, it is inevitbe for a child not to grow up with most of their parents' beliefs instilled in them, but that is not to say that they will discover beliefs of their own along the way. The process of socialization does not explain where these ideas descend from, but how they are spread, which is mostly through a parent.

Thomas Jefferson

When many people think of Thomas Jefferson, they usually think of him as the 2nd president and the creator of Declaration of Independence. He was the one who wrote about equality for all men, and that they are all created equal, each having the same rights for freedom and the pursuit of happiness. This is one of our greatest documents, and what shocks me the most is that the founders of this country chose a person that contradicted these beliefs to write it. We get this impression that he is a guy all for freedom, when in fact if you look at his family portrait, you clearly see people of both races. Now, who's to say whether or not they are valid relatives or not, the point is he was promoting freedom while at the same time he contradicted his writings by his actions. I don't think it was uncommon at that time to have slaves, but to have kids and marry a slave during that time period seems to us a little out of the ordinary. I think he believed that people would all have the same rights, but that maybe the timing was off, maybe at that time he could not put forth these details into the Declaration of Independence. But, also when I look at the photo, I tend to think that maybe some of those people who claim to be related to him, might not be. It is very well possible that it could be a hoax, designed to portray Jefferson as someone who was not writing truthfully to his own beliefs. It has always been my philosophy not to judge a person until we get to know them, so in conclusion I would like to say that this picture could bring up controversy, but that we should not judge Thomas Jefferson's character based on this photo alone. We must also look at the way the document and the person who wrote it had an impact on our life.

Cora Tucker vs. Willy Loman

Cora Tucker is a woman who finds happiness in life, whereas Willy does not. Cora is successful. Willy is not successful. Is Cora successful because she is "well-liked?" I think that this idea has some effect on her success, but that depends on how you define success. If you are like Willy, then success is described as being "Well-liked." Cora finds success in the smallest things, and she doesn't need fame and fortune.
But, at the same time, they do want different things; Cora wants her ideas to be heard, while Willy wants to be well liked. They are very different people, and I don't think that they would be able to get along very well if they were put in the same room together. Willy tries to be well liked, but he does this by trying to please others, instead of himself. He relies on his entire image, which is the same image that could destroy him. Cora is not quite as weak as Willy, she seems to be strong-willed, and pushing her ideas towards other people. This causes a lot of people to not agree with her ideas. Despite all of this, I do admire Cora, since she is the one who has succeeded more than WIlly. If Willy had half the strength that Cora did, then he would not have failed at being "Well-liked."

Willy "WELL-LIKED"

When I first read this book, I thought that it was really depressing, and I thought that Willy was a pathetic character. But, when you look beyond the surface of Willy, you find that he is a sad man, and this is all because he wanted to be "Well Liked." Well, I don't believe that other people define you, but that you are defined by your actions, and only you can rely on yourself. THis is exactly what Emerson was talkng about, how you can't depend on other people like Willy did, Willy wanted everyone's approval for himslef and his sons. What he doesn't realize is that if he would focus more on his own actions, and less on what other people think of him, then he could be a better salesman.
Another aspect of this is that he wants to be like another salesman that was very great, and a lot of people came to his funeral. willy will never be that same salesman, especially if he is comparing himslef to that other salesman.
Willy's son Happy is seen in WIlly's eyes as beign "not well liked," and maybe he is, but at least he is not living up to the fake standards of his father like Biff. It is not Biff's fault that Willy sees him as being "Well liked," but is Willy's fault for not seeing how Biff is just a farmhand who can't do math. Even in high school Willy saw Biff as being popular and smart. This is precisley the reason why Biff is so unsuccessful. Meanwhile, Biff's friend Bernard is not very popular in high school, and now he is married and happy, while Biff is not.
I honestly think that Willy is a complicated, yet at the same time a very shallow character, and it was not a surprise for me when I read that he died.

10/8/07 Self-Reliance

What Emerson is saying is that in order to be self-successful, you must first become self-trusted. If you cannot trust yourself, then whom can you trust? If you can't believe in yourself and your decisions, and trust yourself, then you will never get anywhere in life. If you believe you can do it, then you can. Failure is only a possibility if you think you are going to fail. So, essentially he is saying that you are setting yourself up to fail. If you do believe in yourself, then you are setting yourself up for success in other areas of life, and it gives you an idea of what you are capable of.
People will always be there for other people, but just because they believe in you, doesn't mean that they have the ability to push you forward. They just care about you, and support you, but only you are responsible for your destiny. Another note, if you don't believe in yourself, then nobody else will, because they will have no reason to believe in somebody who has no confidence in themselves.
There are things that you can control and things that you can't control. This has to be taken in to consideration, since you can't control what might happen in the future. I believe that self-trust depends on how you look at yourself, and that there won't always be someone there to boost your confidence and put your trust in. Trusting yourself gives you an advantage; it doesn't mean that everything will turn out the way you want it to.

10/10/07 last day of speeches

Today we had had some very well performed speeches. I think that everyone knew their organization well, and was able to sway their audience. My only concern was that a couple of the speeches sounded like all the others, which is not a bad thing since we have a lot of foundations in Indiana like those. There were also a couple of presenters that I thought did very well, and presented a good speech, but by personal preference decided not to donate to them. I only wish that there was a little more diversity in the ways people did their speech. I thought that they all had very good speeches and valid points and data to support these points. Everyone was able to make a rebuttal, and support it. Overall, I think that we all did a good job on getting our points across. I really liked how Maggie made this presentation seem like a business meeting. I thought that it was good how Tina had a PowerPoint, even though it wouldn’t show up on the projector, but she pulled it off very nicely without a visual aid. I would donate to all of these foundations if I could, but I only had $20.

10/9/07 1st day of speeches

Today, I felt like most of the class was prepared for their speech, but weren’t as prepared as they thought they could be. The first speech by Alex M. was very well done, and really set the pace. He knew his topic very well, and was able to include statistics, without bombarding us with a bunch of numbers. He did a wonderful job of representing Goodwill, and even made me want to donate to Goodwill. There were also one or two speeches that were good, but could’ve been better if they practiced it a few more times. I was able to get their purpose, but found myself uninterested in the cause, which was not good. I really liked how Ieysha had a PowerPoint, and it made it very interesting. I also liked how Eli was able to make a connection and share a story from Dads Inc. This was a very good start to the speeches.