WEEK TEN. JAPANESE

If I can still remember the history I did some times back, then the Second World War seems like it was very devastating to many countries. During this period, Japan attacked China and they were using up their resources. America placed an embargo on Japan which made Japan to face some difficulties in getting material to continue with the war. Japan then turn to Dutch East Indies for raw material. Japan knew quite well that their action on Dutch East Indies will attract America and they decided to attack Peal Harbor in order to disturbed America from stopping them from continuing with Dutch East Indies.

All these made America to respond by capturing those Japanese in America and detaining them. The worst part is that most of them were children who were even American citizens. In this case, one can say that sometimes when people are angry, they turn to take some decisions without thinking. It did not make any sense for the U S to be detaining Japanese who are already Citizens. They argued that those Japanese were considered as potential threats to national security. Yes one can understand but not kids.

When I read that article, I felt terrible because I did not know before that kids were also picked up in that case. I began to imagine if I were in their position, how would I have felt? I have been in the country for long and I gave birth to my kids here. They are citizen as well as I and if such a thing were going to happen to me and my kids, I will be the saddest person in the world. Sometimes, it is really hard to accept certain decisions being taken. We turn to ask a lot of questions in such cases.

On the other hand, Americans were just angry and had to react. So they just did what they thought could work best for them.

WEEK NINE

Is gender inequality a product of nature or nurture?

From my point of view, gender inequality is more of nurture than nature. There are many things that society imposes on us. To begin with, when a child is born, people believe strongly that a girl child should dress on pink and purple cloths while a boy should have blue. Furthermore, the way people take to boys even at young age already signifies authority. There are a lot of things that when people do, others looked at them as abnormal because of the way society looks at them.

Let’s begin from the way new born babies are being talked to even in the hospitals. People talk to boys in a hard and commanding voice, calling them soldiers indicating that they are supposed to be strong and fighters. But when it comes to girls, they are even handled with care and talked to in a soft and caring voice and are called princess demonstrating the fact that they are supposed to be protected at all time. According to our society, boys are supposed to be tough. If a boy comes out and starts crying too much, they will say she is a woman and not a man that he is supposed to be. This demonstrates the way society starts molding gender inequality with kids from birth.

Also, in some societies, certain things are only supposed to be done to men and not women. For example, in my country Cameroon, fire fighters are only supposed to be men and not women. If a woman finally succeeds to become one, everybody will like at her as if she is regretting the fact that she was a woman. Men will try to challenge her and talk to her in a dreadful way. When we as kids witnessed all these happen, and when we grow up instead of us questioning the inequality, we just accept it and the cycle continues.

On the other hand, some schools of thought believe that gender inequality is a product of nature. They said men because of their testosterones turn to behave the way they do. Some goes ahead to talk about the influence of hormones. To a greater extent, nurture is a product of gender inequality rather than nature.

WEEK EIGHT

GLOBAL INEQUALITY

Global inequality affects every country since it is seen as the difference in wealth and power between countries. The world is progressively more interconnected with the idea of globalization. If inequalities exist between any countries, it will affect the world at large. That is why it is very important that developed countries should step up to help the less developed countries when they are in need.

The governments in third world countries also have a lot to do when it comes to the idea of inequality. The governments have to help promote the economic development and subsidize certain things for their citizen, give out loans and promote the country’s literacy rate. Some of the governments in the third world countries instead interfere in the country’s economic development which intends keeps the country behind.

Wealth, education, health care, and technology constitute what brings inequalities in the world. In this case, if developed countries like America, France, Britain and others can step in to assist third world countries from their illiteracy level by providing schools and the learning materials, they will move a step away from inequality. Some of these countries are suffering from Epidemics, such as AIDS, Tuberculosis and malaria that are killing most of the individual citizens. If that is not solved, I am of the opinion that they might mutate and become the world’s problem.

To round it up, global inequality is something to care about because it is affecting but the whole world

WEEK SEVEN

                                               Social Class in America

Social class in America matters a lot because once you found yourself in any of the class; it becomes very difficult to get out of it. The most interesting part is that some or if not, most of those classes are being inherited. The upper class in America mostly are those people who successfully inherited their wealth via a particular folkway and if they use it wisely, they pass it to their kids and their kids pass it as well to their children too. The upper middle class usually made their own money. Just like the upper class, those at the lower level of the scale (lower class) also inherit poverty from their parents. They turn to follow the same style of living that their parents have been living and fail to understand that they find their way out of it either by getting education.

If someone could ask what class I fall in, I will say I fall in the lower class because even though you go to work every day and you are able to pay your bills and put fuel in you car, life to me is still so hard compared to what I had when I was with my parents. When we were young, my father was in one of the influential position in Government in my country. We were living a good life with butlers around helping us do a lot of things. We also went to good schools and my siblings ended up with good jobs. When I came to America, I discovered that life is so different; I had to learn how to do a lot of things by myself. Social class differ from country to country. In America, I discovered that I was found in the lower class since I could not even afford money to pay for butlers as we had in Africa and I had to start working seven days a week in order to muddle through. I was living from pay check to pay check.

It became very difficult for me to get a better job since my degree was from Africa. Some times one is tempted to say that this idea of social class is being affected by some degree of segregation. I have been at my job for five years now and been putting in application to become a manager but yet to no avail. People get hired and I train them with what they are supposed to do but still I am never qualified for that position so they said.

The Era of Technology and the Dead of Socialization as we know it?

The era of rapid technological advancement has held the world spellbound. For those who lived in a period when socialization was thought to be the process through which humans developed the skills to function as acceptable members of society, and that through socialization we could have a true learning experience, one in which not only biology but the environment also determined our culture and how we survived as human beings. No one I believe ever thought of the effect technology would have on us humans. I can attest and sincerely too, without an iota of doubt, that socialization as we knew it is slowly but surely evolving or could I say dead? Our social systems as we know them are gradually being taken over by monsters we hardly recognize. Now we are in a new epoch, a period when we have to reexamine what we generalized in the past as making sense which no longer makes sense.

While I really do love technology, I am beginning to think that the rate at which it is changing my life seems threatening indeed.  Nonetheless I find irresistible the nanoseconds it takes for me to communicate with my relatives in the interiors of Africa. In the past I use to go to the post office to send a mail to my mom and then have to wait weeks to get her reply that is, if no one ripped open the mail before it got to her. I am sure I would not like to go back to that! Nowadays I can get answers to my queries without even leaving the comfort of my bed by simply browsing from my phone. Though I know I have put on a few pounds ever since these “make-life-easy days” it makes no sense getting out of my comfort zone if I can avoid it. I assume I really adore life this way, and I am persuaded there are few people who don’t. Nevertheless I can’t help worrying at what price will we be getting all these easy days?

Yet while I am so amazed, I still know this high tech world still beats my imagination. My kids see their homework as a bore prefer to spend a lot of time on tinny gadgets that do amazing things, and tells me if they don’t watch television they might make A’s but would be social misfits. I know their definition of socialization is definitely not what I thought all these years it was. I keep on wondering why schools are not incorporating these new changes into their curricula to make learning more adaptive to the rapid changes we are now observing in our children’s world. So if you asked me, I would clearly state that technology is gradually but steadily establishing new relationships, but unfortunately not between humans, but between humans and high-tech gadgets in which we have buried our lives. We can unquestionably say goodbye to socialization and our society as we knew it, and welcome this new monster that we are just beginning to know.