Haven

  FEMINIST PARADOX     While watching this TED Talk with Thisari Randunu, I agreed with her when she had stated that feminist and feminism can be looked at as something crazy. She had also included how feminists and feminism can be extremely contradicting, which is disappointing because of the meaning and definition behind feminism. Randunu had said it very plain and simple when she explained how individuals who don't agree or don't like feminism are sexist individuals. She even included examples of sexism, such as, telling a man to 'man up' when they are crying or expressing their emotions, seeing a woman lifting weights and having a man say 'that's pretty good for a girl', etc.  Something else that stood out to me about this video was how Randunu discussed women feeling the need to wear makeup to look presentable or put together, while a lot of men don't have this to worry about. 

     TOO MUCH VIOLENCE      I really appreciated the fact that CJ had included a personal and emotional piece of her life to help project the fact that gun violence is extremely real and affects a great amount of people. Hearing that the US has the most school shootings by far was very saddening, frustrating, and scary because of the fact that many innocent lives are being lost to this issue. This issue has been going on for way too long and there appears to be nothing grand or big enough that has been done to put an end to the gun violence the US is suffering from.     I agreed with this group when they had discussed just how long this issue has been going on, such as one of the articles they had included for their 'group links' having been published by The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, which has been around since the 1970's. It is now 2022. This group presentation had also taken a deeper dive into the statistics on different types of gun viole...

  UNDERSTANDING     I enjoyed reading this article in particular because it explained just how gun legislation reform can be achieved and reached in the United States. Furthermore, it is stated that we can achieve this goal by dedicating some of our time and attention to understanding the differences and diversity on both sides of this debate in regards to gun violence and gun reform. We can work within a common middle ground and work together to do as much research as possible to resolve ambiguities about how to reduce fear and increase personal and public safety while doing so. I believe this article is a good source to solving gun violence because it encourages individuals to look at this issue from both sides. While I believe that gun violence is going to take some time to put an end to, putting the time and effort in doing research and reaching out to others can contribute a lot to fixing this issue! After reading a variety of articles on gun violence, I believe the ...

AWARENESS      This website projects the variety of results from gun violence and includes statistics and charts to illustrate this. What got me personally was reading about the amount of children who have died from gun violence because these are children whose lives ended way too early. The charts and statistics are noted since 2013 to 2020. This website shows the increase in deaths since 2013 and just proves that gun violence has been an issue for years, as well as the reason for many, many deaths.      After gaining this knowledge, I went to the About Us page and read that the information they share is collected from over 7,500 law enforcement, media, government and commercial sources every day in order to see the results of gun violence. I believe this website is something that needs to be shared in order to spread awareness on gun violence and can be used to engage in discussions and help propose regulations or legislation relating to gun safety. This ...

    PSYCHOLOGY      When I began this reading, I was already extremely interested on what information and knowledge I was going to gain because of the fact that this reading takes a deeper dive into the beliefs and behaviors exhibited by gun owners, as well as any motivations behind them keeping weapons. Learning that cultural context, racial biases, political affiliation and anger issues are related to gun ownership was eye opening. I say this because after further reading, it is stated that "Men who carry guns suffer from a 'crisis of confidence'". I found this to be sad because it is thought that carrying a gun is seen as a "masculine duty" and can help men "address social insecurities far beyond crime". This portrays how society has built onto gender roles and put owning or carrying a gun into the category of masculinity and being a part of the American dream. Thinking about the fact that men own guns for this reason is extremely underwhelming ...

     AMERICANS & GUNS      After reading the article, "Key Facts About Americans and Guns", I learned that there is about 30% of adults who personally own a gun or live in a household with a gun. The main reason for this is for personal protection. I do not find this hard to believe because I personally have talked to my peers and friends about whether or not they would want a gun in the house and the first thing they say is that they would own a gun if they feel they needed personal protection. I found it interesting when I read that 48% of Americans see gun violence as a huge problem in the country today because I feel there would have been way more people believing this and wanting to change this issue. Reading this statistic was honestly kind of disappointing and saddening because of the amount of horrible causes and innocent lives that have been lost due to gun violence. When I saw that race, ethnicity, and party and community type had to do with i...

GUNS IN AMERICA       Right off of the bat, I felt very emotional and frustrated while watching this film. This film is extremely heartfelt and scary because the first thing that comes to mind is, what if that was me, or my friends? I say that I felt frustrated while watching this film because these are innocent kids and these are peoples friends, family, co-workers, etc. that are dying from this gun violence. Seeing the protest scene and how one of the kids got to go to the white house to speak on the matter was extremely inspiring and hopeful. I say this because the film shows parents and kids projecting their voice and showing that there are people out there who are filled with a variety of emotions and will do whatever it will takes to keep students safe and spread awareness on gun violence. Hearing about the students who had died from the school shooting and hearing from their families, about their childhoods, the relationships they had, just how normal and inno...

GENDER IDENTITY      The two videos, "Gender Identity: 'How colonialism killed my culture's gender fluidity", and, "A Little More Blue", projected the battle that individuals can go through mentally and physically when it comes to one's gender identity. I feel that growing up in this generation, there has been a lot more awareness towards being open and understanding of gender identities and these two videos continued to do just that. Although gender identity is something that is talked about, it is something that still needs to be worked on, in the terms of people being respectful towards one another with what an individual may  chose to identify as.

     FETISHIZATION & EUROCENTRIC BEAUTY STANDARDS      After doing the four readings and watching the two films about fetishization of BIPOC features and Eurocentric beauty standards, I have learned just how much these fetishizations and beauty standards affect woman's day to day lives, as well as their mental health. It was extremely sad to hear these woman discuss how they didn't feel beautiful in their own skin and with the features that they have! This weeks topic has shown me and the students in my class how much of a hierarchy there is on the topic of beauty standards and woman's features, which needs to be changed!

BE YOU      After watching these five videos about identity, I have learned that identity is something that is difficult to understand. I feel everyone struggles with their identity a little bit and watching these videos and the significance that they bring has shown me that we people need to stop worrying so much about what others think of us or how we are viewed. Being yourself, doing what makes you happy, focusing on yourself and your emotions and feelings is what’s important! These videos stressed the fact that there comes a negative feeling when trying to uphold this specific image of yourself to other people, and that is not important in life. It shouldn’t be. That negative feeling is because of you trying to be someone else or you being yourself and not being accepted by others. None of that matters! Just be you, no matter what!

  POLICE CULTURE      After doing all of these readings and learning about how police officers believe they have so much power above people, I was extremely frustrated! I feel in today's society, police brutality, power trips, institutionalized racism, and lack of consequences is something us individuals see too often in the police community as well. These readings gave great information on these factors and opened my eyes even more than ever before! I hope this issue regarding police officers and this power trip and lack of accountability does get resolved soon.