Minorities All the Same

            Upon completing my latest blog, I became curious about some of the other societal issues that John Quinones explores on the show What Would You Do? on ABC. I decided to watch several clips of different scenarios on youtube.com. One clip in particular seemed to relate to my previous blog. It was about shopping as an African American. It basically showed a racist storeowner investigating a black female in the store and in certain instances, having her searched by the security guard. Here’s the clip:

 

            I found the results that they got from this experiment to be quite interesting. The strongest reactions, according to Quinones, came from people of color. However, while there were a few reactions from white shoppers, most of them remained bystanders. In comparison with the experiment with the Muslim woman in the bakery, many more people not of her same race stood up for her than did for the black woman. In fact, only one person of a minority race was shown to side with the Muslim woman at the bakery, while the rest of them seemed to be white. However, most of the people defending the black woman were also black. Is this a coincidence, or is this a pattern?

            Why did more white people stand up for the Muslim woman than for the black woman? Do non-minority Americans feel more compelled to defend certain minorities over others? If so, why?

Discrimination vs. Patriotism

            Yesterday, I was standing in line at a Starbucks when I noticed a peculiar situation occurring. The man in front of me, who happened to be wearing a turban, seemed to cause a disturbance to some of the employees. I heard a lot of whispering back and forth behind the counter, and eventually, the man at the cash register asked for the man’s ID. Finally, after thoroughly checking it, he took the man’s order. I was slightly distressed by what had just happened, so I decided to ask the cashier why he asked the man in the turban for his ID. His response was quite shocking. He said, “I just wanted to take all the necessary precautions in case he turned out to be one of them.” I then rhetorically asked him what “one of them meant” and he replied, “you know, a terrorist.” I knew what he meant, but I didn’t want to know what he meant. Unfortunately, this kind of discriminatory behavior seems to happen more than we think it does.

I was able to recall an episode of What Would You Do? on the show 20/20 on ABC in which the director, John Quinones investigated what would happen when a Muslim woman wearing a traditional scarf was denied service by a racist cashier. Take a look…

As you can see, discrimination remains a very common behavior, even today. But what really shocked me about this clip was the fact that there was such a wide range of reactions at the same small town bakery. While some people commended the man’s behavior, others spoke out against it. It seemed as if both parties believed that what they were doing was “American.” Some of them thought that acting in a discriminatory way towards the Muslim woman was “American” because in their minds she could be a potential terrorist and they thought that by denying her service, the cashier was defending his country. However, others thought that defending the woman was the “American” thing to do because the United States was based on equal rights, and therefore, the woman should be given the same service as the rest of them.

Why do some Americans see discrimination towards Muslims to be patriotic while others don’t? What is patriotism and what makes people define certain things as patriotic and other things as not?

Good Enough?

A few days ago in American studies class, we were discussing different indicators of class, including income, occupation, and education. We were shown a chart that made me think twice about my own education. I always thought that if I settled for a bachelor's degree in college, I might as well just not go. I'm sure a lot of students at New Trier think this. But in reality, according to this chart, the majority of people in the United States do not have a bachelor's degree, meaning that having one would put someone in a high social class.

 After this discussion, ACT scores were sent out, and I knew that many students at New Trier would feel like failures because of their scores. In this skewed universe, I have come to learn that getting a 29 apparently means that you are going nowhere in life and will end up living on the streets. After a weeks of listening to people whine about their scores, I decided to look into it a little and see whether these people with 29s were really as dumb as they thought they were. According to the Chicago Tribune, the average ACT score at New Trier is a 27.5, which I will round to a 28 for convenience sake. Meanwhile, the state average is a 20.6, or a 21 which is around the National average as well. I then looked at some percentile rankings on the ACT website and these were really telling. If the average student at New Trier (who apparently is an idiot)gets a 28, they would place in the 91st percentile. That means that only 9 percent of students in the nation scored higher than them.

Unfortunately, in an environment like New Trier, students are forced into thinking they are mediocre, even though they are actually scoring higher than most other students in the nation. I would just like to point out to any of the "average" students at New Trier that although you think you're not that smart because you got a 28, you are not going to end up living on the streets like a hobo.

 This leads me to question: Why do average people in upper class societies see themselves as average failures and what is so bad about mediocrity?