Soc. 3251W Race, Class, and Gender

I am responding by the question asking what it will take for our society to stop being colorblind. I think the way that our future is headed will involve a wider spectrum of race, class, and gender. America is increasing in size along with culture. Soon, Whites will be the minority while other races head to the majority. It may take this increase in cultural differences for America to realize how it is much deeper than black and white. I think as parents of further generations we must not be afraid to speak of issues such as this, but make our children aware of race, class, and gender. Our generation can make a huge impact.

I think for our society to stop being colorblind we need to go out and socialize with people of other races, genders and classes. Until we know what people are really like we will continue to use stereotypes to classify people. I do not think this is a very effective way to decide what a person is really like. I don't feel stereotypes will ever really go away, as long as we have media in our society. To me this is the main way children and adults learn about people of other races and classes, and I think it does a poor job of representing every population in our society.

For our society to stop being colorblind when it comes to the issues of race and gender our generation needs to step up and show the older generations that the world is changing. People are getting to know more about different cultures and respecting them, genders are becoming more equal as in jobs and other areas. Class I believe will always have a huge gap between who is poor and who is rich. That is because I believe the rich think of themselves as being to good to help the unfortunate. With that state of mind they may have, it doesn't give the lower classes a chance to come up in the world and become financially satisfied.

For our society to stop being colorblind when it comes to the issues of race and gender our generation needs to step up and show the older generations that the world is changing. People are getting to know more about different cultures and respecting them, genders are becoming more equal as in jobs and other areas. Class I believe will always have a huge gap between who is poor and who is rich. That is because I believe the rich think of themselves as being to good to help the unfortunate. With that state of mind they may have, it doesn't give the lower classes a chance to come up in the world and become financially satisfied.

In response to your first question on how the system can be changed in to a system of equality. I think that in this country is harder to create a system of equality than in other countries, the reason for this is that our country is made up of mainly immigrants and we have people from many different backgrounds and different cultures and values. To create a system that would accommodate everyone would be difficult, however there are some systems that should be regulated to be assured that regardless of gender, race or class you would have the right to some basic needs. The first thing would be employment; there should be strict guidelines for employers on the type of people they should hire. Another major system is the education system; access to financial help should be available for good students with out making any discrimination on race, class and gender. The health and welfare systems are also very important, the guidelines to qualify should be modified to be able to accommodate more people and not discriminate. There are many small systems we can change to better accommodate people but the roots of this problem stand within society and it is not until we as a society realize what we are doing, that we will see a change. Setting an example help, people around you can see that you are not discriminative and that you want the same for every one regardless of their class, race and gender. People around you can hopefully learn from you and generation after generation the inequality will begin to diminish.

I think in order to address the issue of equality, the most important thing is to eliminate segregation. We will never learn how to see each other as equals if we don't start living with each other. I also think that the people who can make a difference should take action and make a difference by reaching out to those who need mentors and social networks. We continue to live in this mind set that we only do things to benifit ourselves, but creating equality will benefit everyone which will always be the greater good.

In a few years the United States will have a new majority. It will not be the white race either. The idea of being colorblind isn't necessarily something that we need to change...it is something that is going to be changed. If we as a society want to eliminate inequality, we should start by giving the media less say in our society. The media has such a big impact on everyone that lives here. If they stopped portraying races/classes in specific roles, this would be a start in the right direction. It is ridiculous to think that there are still racist people out there, when every single race/class/gender has benefited our society (the world). As bad as it sounds, some people are lost already. There are eighty year old people who won't change their mind about races. Can we change this? I don't think so, but we should take this energy and focus on the children, because they will have the power one day.

The term "colorblind" allows me to create a picture of a society where color is not acknowledged. In the United States, however, I think our society places far too much emphasis on color. When we meet someone, we instantly establish a preconcieved notion according to their race and gender, which is where discrimination emanates from. I believe that our society needs to actually become colorblind in the sense that we need to embrace humanity as an equal whole. Distinctions, such as race, should be recognized, but not used to judge character like they are currently.

It's difficult to say that our society is colorblind. As we've learned one of the first things people notice when they meet someone is their race and gender. To a certain perhaps acknowledging that we are not colorblind might be the first step to create more equality. Once people acknowledge that they do notice race, perhaps at that point they can begin to get past that. People could begin to discover that race actually has very little to do with who a person is.