Week 4: Structures and Institutions

The readings for this spoke to me on a lot of different levels! In Capitalism in America, it talked about the different things that often set off Americans, all which lead back to fiscal matters being tied into fairness. In the reading, it mentioned how unsentimental people get when local businesses get swept aside but those same people are willing to be open to innovation. I am still trying to understand how many Americans are business-minded but are not willing to help those businesses that are struggling to keep up with the consumer market. Individualization was talked about in Privatization of Hope, and with this ideology it manages to affect people from lower classes as it weakens the capacity to solve problems especially those who come from a prevailing system. A revolution happens once too many people are angered and bothered by a flaw in the system, and I believe that each day we are getting closer to having a social revolution take place by those who are unemployed and struggling economically. Even though it was mentioned in the reading I have been seeing the progression become stronger and stronger, and eventually the day will come where those people overthrow and punish the wealthy and privileged ones that placed the people in that position. In America, it is apparent that having a sense of individualism usually means that you have a strong sense of self-reliance based on America’s deep rooted history of immigrants. Coming from a family of immigrants, I realize that our voices are hardly heard; we are managed to be pushed back along with the other minorities. Aronson made the point that even our citizenship hardly makes a difference when it comes down to participation. Lower class people can be the ones to vote the most, and it “rarely offer[s] genuine alternatives to prevailing systems”; as minorities we stand on the side lines assuming that things for us and for those from lower classes will become better and fixed by voting but as history shows it is apparent that it will not happen. In chapter two of Privilege, Power, and Difference, Johnson did some calling out. I admire his ways of acknowledging his privilege and speaking about the problems that derive from it; privilege will always be at one’s expense since it is in relation to others. As much as minorities fight back and speak out, changes are much more difficult to happen without the help of those who are in power, A.K.A. white, middle class, college educated men. If they do not address the problems and trouble occurring, then almost nothing can be done about it, and that is the hard truth.

Learning more about education in less privileged areas makes me want to help more! In both the video, Dropout Nation, and the article, Can Schools be Fixed, they addressed the struggles students go through in high school and how the government can drastically hurt the education of students through underfunding and budget-cuts. The number of homeless children has doubled within the last few years, and it affects so much! Thanks to the smart act of No Child Left Behind, thousands of schools got shut down and negatively affected through coercion; if schools did not meet the expectations set up by the state, then funding would be cut and schools would even shut down. On top of all of that the government would not help fund schools in order to better them for the students; it’s all a way to filter out those from lower classes, and I’m glad it is no longer in play.