U.S. Culture

In America, we have lots of slang and gestures that other cultures may not understand. For example, there is the hand shake that consists of the hand slide followed by the pound. Other cultures would be baffled at that hand shake. We also have slang terms like yo momma, bank as in money, and fly as in looking good. It would be very hard to try to translate what these mean to other cultures and in other languages, but these things are what make the U.S. unique in so many ways.

Social Contruction of Reality in "A Bronx Tale"

In "A Bronx Tale," the neighborhoods and how things run are very different from the neighborhoods we live in right now. In the movie, it seems like most of the neighborhood runs around Sonny because he is the most powerful guy and people fear him. People will do Sonny favors just so he won't cause them any trouble. One of the unwritten rules put in place was that there was a dress code for the bar, and the bartender wouldn't serve the bikers because they weren't dressed appropriately. The bikers asked nicely but then they started causing trouble and got a mobster beat down. Also, the neighborhood is divided by race with the white italians on one side and then black people on the other. Each race is supposed to stay within their own "racial area" in the neighborhood or else violence occurs.
The construction of people doing things for Sonny came about because Sonny started working some mob things and people found out how powerful he was and they did favors for him, so he could do some favors back. He also helped keep the neighborhood safe from outsiders starting trouble. The construction of the division of races proabably came about because it was around the times of the civil rights movement and people still wanted to be separated because not everyone could get along. So racial attitudes caused the separation of the neighborhoods because violence would occur if everyone mixed because the italian kids tried to burn down the store black people's store where they hang out.

Thug Life

So the reading we had in class really caught my attention because for some reason, gangs are interesting to learn about like the tv show gangland. The main character sounds crazy to just walk into the projects with a pad and ask people how it is to be poor. I feel like that would just make them angry and beat him up or something, but they ended up just keeping him around. T.J. thought he was just dumb coming in their and didn't see him as a threat though. I found it really interesting that they were never caught by the police because it was one of their largest drug dealing headquarters. In the end the sociologist brings them a 6-PACK not a case of beer and they chill for a bit, while he gets a feel for what its like to be in the hood. Its a real different life than mainstream society because most of the people are unemployed and just drug deal, smoke and drink all day...quite the life.

rock the boat

The boat activity we did in class last week was kind of stressful. If I really had to kick people off of a boat, I don't think I could've done it because there were old people, a pregnant woman, a fat guy, an epileptic college student and more. It would be very hard to have to choose over people's lives but you gotta do what you gotta do.