Admittedly, I am not a fan of football. I just don't get the game. I've tried, I just cannot grasp the concept, probably because I really do not care about the sport. However, I did watch the Superbowl Halftime show this year, in part because I wanted to see what all the hoopla was about. Bad Bunny is not an artist I am instantly familiar with. My daughter enjoys his music and what I know from him is through being in the car with her while his music is on. What struck me about the halftime show was the outcry surrounding it. I do not recall in recent history an alternate show being available. The "All-American Halftime Show" provided an alternative to those who could not bear to listen to a Spanish speaking singer. Its about 15 minutes long. And the alternative was called the "All-American" as to imply that Bad Bunny's was not American? So that's all I knew until reading Jose Gomez's post. His post was informative. I enjoyed how he explained the electric poles symbolism, something that even though I have visited Puerto Rico five times, I never knew about.
I appreciated the energetic, impressive halftime show for the entertaining break from a very boring sport. I am fortunate to have Gomez spell out the nuances and symbols and nods to Puerto Rican culture that I missed during the performance. But you know what, that wasn't for me and THAT'S OK. It's OK that on one of the country's biggest stages, the entertainment wasn't geared towards white people. It's OK that English speaking white people were not his target audience. I am thankful to Jose Gomez for including us by enlightening me on the significance of the performance.
Colorblindness is the New Racism; I mostly agreed with Armstrong and Wildman on their argument that colorblindness is the new racism. It's like the cry was "We want equality!!" and the reply was "Best we can do is coloblindness." There were a couple of points were I made notes because I wanted to explore it a little further. They were discussing colorblindness in regards to education and, yes! Let's take the SAT for example. It is widely known that the SAT favors white students with the cultural references, and approving questions that do better with white students than nonwhite students. Not to mention, the SAT favors those who can afford to hire private tutors, take the test numerous times and don't have to worry about outside factors like transportation, taking time out of work, and caretaking of family members. We are fed a narrative of, "work harder and anyone can be successful". But is it fair that white, affluent students are reaping the same rewards by putting in a fraction of the "work"?
I did not grasp the idea of the Power Line chart and what it was supposed to illustrate.
I'm not sure I agree with "Combating Stereotype by Looking for the Me in Each Individual". I don't think you have to look for the "me" to understand others. The article states, "Culp (1991) explained that his use of autobiography conveyed more than an effort to put his students at ease about his qualifications..." (pg 74) and it went on to say that Culp shared his story about his father being a poor coal miner. See, now I feel like he shouldn't have to state that he came from humble beginnings and worked his way up. He was obviously a qualified law professor and he explained where he obtained his education. I don't think that was asking whites to see the "me" in him, I think it was allowing whites to require further explanation as to why he, a black man, deserved to be where he was. They would never require that same background information of a white law professor.
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