Final Paper

Done!! And so relieved! Thanks to work and other school projects, I did not have much time to dedicate to this paper, but I finished it and got it in on time. I am happy with the final result and actually learned a lot more then I thought I would. I dug so deep into my topic that I feel like its like my own life now. I am going to miss this class, for it is very fun and interesting to learn so much about other societies besides mine. I never knew how good I had it, and I really have been taking it for granted. Thats gonna change now. I'm gonna live every day like its a gift, thats why its called the present.

Funny

Its funny how people think that Native Americans are such bad people. Although they have the highest mortality rates related to alcohol use. Other races have higher mortality rates in the catergories of firearms or drugs (Http://www.azdhs.gov/phs/tribal/pdf/pao_hshandout021605.pdf). People just point out all of the bad things, they don't notice the good things. Such as all of the families that manage to stay away from alcohol and have a successful family. Native Americans did have the highest mortality rate overall, but Blacks were not far behing, followed by Hispanics, and then Whites. Racism and stereotypes help contribute to these a lot, at least I believe they do. In my personal life, of all the Native Americans I know, majority of them are good, successful, honest people. But out of all the white people I know, a lot of them are alcoholics or drugs addicts; over all, in my eyes it is the white people who are the worst people, but I have been in contact with way more white people then other races. In the end I think that race does not matter if you are a good or a bad person, its just your own personal morals.

Annoyance

I was talking to my Native buddy and he was telling me a story about one time that his family was in the hospital waiting on someone who was getting surgery or something, but him and his family were wearing like sandals and shorts and all that since it was a nice day and someone in the hospital came up to them and asked, "are you guys Samoan?" Granted, him and his family could be classified as a little larger, but either way I see that as a kind of racism. I know that if I was wrongly classified because of what I was wearing, it would bug me. It is easy for me to be classified, since I am white. But if I had the same problems as those guys, it would really bug me a lot. Especially since that happens a lot.

Open Mic Night

I will be going to the open mic night tomorrow and it seems like it will be fun. All the American Indians I know are pretty friendly actually. Its too bad they won't be able to see my artistic response though, I think that they would find it funny and accurate. Its about how racism is bad and how we should overcome our differences and just dance. Here's the site if anyone on here wants to watch it: http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/11356404/Stereotypes_are_bad%21

Reflection from Artistic Response

Neither Omar nor I are very artistic, so we teamed up to do a ‘not very artistic’ artistic response. Our aim was to make a semi funny video that also got a point across. The basic point was that stereotypes are bad (note the title, ‘Stereotypes are bad!’).  We both have problems with stereotyping and also are stereotyped as well, so we put a little twist on the stereotyping subject. We revealed some stereotypes that some people have against white people too. Overall, all stereotyping is bad; we understand that it is natural to just someone just by their looks, race, or religion, but that doesn’t mean it is okay. What Omar and I have both tried to do is eliminate our prejudices. When we see someone of a different race, religion, gender, or anything else; we try to ignore our instinctual thoughts and wait until we are able to talk with those people to find out how they really are.

      Our project was meant to hit on a few big stereotypes for Native Americans and White People also. We know that it is not normal to view white people as the usual target of racist remarks, and we just wanted to show how they also could suffer from that. We know that the American Indians think that most white people don’t know anything about American Indians and just stereotype them a lot; but by doing that, they are also being racist, although they might not know it. Our suffrage of racism is not near as severe as the American Indians, but it is does exist

      We had a lot of fun making this video and comparing the stereotypes of both sides was pretty interesting as well.

Same Sort of Suffering

Doing all this research on racism with Native Americans, I noticed some things which are the same that I personally have gone through. I was thinking that since I am a white male, I can't really relate to the racism that anybody goes through. But racism is just a type of prejudice and I realized that I do go suffer from a type of prejudice, religious. I am a christian. I have been made fun of this for a while, been made fun of for believing in God. When the United States were newly founded, Majority of the people belived in God. Nowadays, it seems like not many people do. Although something like 3/4s of Americans say that they are Christian or Catholic or a religion closely related, only about 1/4 of my friends strive to follow their religious guidelines.
Another similiarity is that my religion is dying out. It is written that the world will eventually turn 'bad,' for lack of a better term. That is when armegedon will happen. So, my religon was the main thing in the history of the USA; but today, it seems to almost not exist. The way people act has changed, and it seems like morals are almost disappearing from so many people. But times have changed and although I dislike this change, I have to learn to adapt. I am from a seamingly minority now, which makes it hard to stay this way. Which unlike Native Americans, I can changed my religion, but I do not want to. I want to stay faithful to this religion, not become weak and give in. Since I believe this is the right religion.

Smoke Signals

I am excited to go watch this movie on the Tulalip Reservation. Last time I was on that reservation, I was working in construction building a youth center. So I am sure this time will be more enjoyable. I did not know that the book which this movie is based off of is also by Sherman Alexie. I like him as an author and maybe I'll have to read this book soon. Either way I am excited to go kick it with some Native Americans, for I do not know many. The ones I know are pretty badass though, so hopefully I can make some more friends! But if anyone from English class needs a ride, hit me up on here. Comment to this blog and I'll get back to you.

From books to real life

For me, reading things in books or anything just doesn't seem to impact me a lot. Even if they are terrible and real things, such as reading about things revolving around my topic, alcoholism in Native American tribes. Statistics show how many indians die compared to every other race involving alcohol and Native Americans are about 75% of total deaths. Which is crazy, but to me, just a statistic. So none of these things really hit me until I hung out with my Native buddy. He has had 3 people pass away within the last few weeks in his family. Some involving alcohol. That is crazy, I have known this kid for years and I love him (no homo). So hearing this kinda hit home. He is taking it well since he is used to people close to him and bad things happening him. He is the one that shows me not only hot tough a Native Americans life can be, but also how tough a tribe member can be.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

This book was exceptional. I am not a big reader, but I was actually able to finish this book and enjoy it. Even though it was not 'absolutely true' I still think it gave me some good insight about living it tribes. Which would be a pretty tough life to live. Junior was an admirable character. What I respected about him most was that even though he was set up to fail, like most people living on reservations are, he fought to succeed. His Father was an alcoholic, his school was terriblely poor, and he was the nerdy kid. He did not have anything helping him, he only had himself. He transfered to a better school even though it would cause him to be hated by most of his people for turning against them. But he didn't want to be another alcoholic stuck on the reservation, he wanted to be something more and he did something about it.

My honest current opinion

Ok, so my opinion on all of these studies on racism I'm doing for my classes and in English 102 about the Tulalip trip and other Native American's struggles in America is one that most people won't agree with (I think). I am just posting it to see if my views will change after this quarter. I think that Native Americans and all other minorities are overreacting, they are making too big of a deal over something with could be way worse then it is. In the past, when countries would take control of territories; they would either kill or enslave all those who already lived in that territory. They did not let them keep land or give them special rights or anything like that. For modern day Native Americans - that sucks that you got your land stolen, but you should just get passed it and live with the situation that you've been put it. Other races that are minorities do this as well and honestly it bugs me a little bit. I hear it way too much and I know some people treat them meanly and call them names and stuff like that. White people have the same problems too though, I've been called wierd a lot and I get made fun of all the time. I just don't let it bug me, because truthfully I am a little wierd.
I grew up and live in a majorily white community. But I was good friends with most of the non white students at my school. All three black kids were my friends and a few of my closest friends are a Native American and a Mexican. I do have prejudices for all races though; some are good, some are bad. I think everyone has those, they are just natural. I have them for my own race too, does that make me racist against whites? I just don't see why something that is natural that people can't control could be such a big deal for the people its about. If someone is getting treated really badly, then thats not right. Even just calling someone a name is bad too. But there are those people who, for some reason, have to pick on other people to make themselves feel better. Whether they are making fun of someone with glasses, red hair, or dark skin I don't think it matters. I don't make fun of people unless they are my friends, then I make fun of them a lot. I believe that people should understand that race matters as much as hair color, in my opinion. This will probably sound bad and racist to some people but I think I have the best view on these things.