SumBlog 7: Anna Julia Cooper and Genocide

   When most people hear the word genocide, they think of the Holocaust because it is the most widely known and most often used example. My mind however goes to the Rwandan Genocide, which is far less known. Anna Julia Cooper's ideas on how society deals with minority groups are very applicable today, and when we learned about the genocide aspect, I was intrigued to learn more. Genocide is a way to "deal with" minority groups because it is basically elimination of the group. They are different in some aspect from the majority group, so this majority group eradicates them through savage means. Genocide is obviously the worst way to handle minorities, but it still happens more frequently than we would hope. We didn't talk about any specific examples of genocide in class, so I was interested in doing some more research.

   The Rwandan Genocide happened almost 20 years ago now, though that seems kind of hard to believe because I only first learned of it four years ago when I read a memoir written by a survivor. The reason why it is a lesser known example of genocide is that it was sort of ignored by developed areas such as the U.S. and the United Nations because those countries didn't want to get involved and they didn't want to take sides. The genocide grew out of a conflict between the majority Hutus, who were in control of the government, and the minority Tutsis. Within the nearly 100 days of fighting, it is estimated that between five hundred thousand and one million people were brutally murdered, which was about 70% of the Tutsi population. The book I read, Left To Tell by Immaculée Ilibagiza, was very detailed and in-depth regarding exactly what those people experienced. Immaculée was able to survive for 91 days by hiding in 3-foot by 4-foot room with seven other women. I don't think I need to go into anymore detail on how extreme this situation was.

   Genocide in any form is a tragedy, but Anna Julia Cooper was accurate in saying it's a way to deal with minority groups, just not a positive way. Some of her other ideas such as assimilation and pluralism would be much better choices and would result in much less conflict. It always surprises me how much these theories are still relevant today because they were written so long ago. I'm always worried that one day on the news we will hear of another mass genocide happening somewhere in the world, and I just hope this time the countries who are able to help will actually step up and give aid before it's too late. 

   This YouTube video is a good concise overview of the Rwandan Genocide, though some of the images are very revealing and grotesque. 

SumBlog 6: Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Androcentrism

The class discussion this week about Charlotte Perkins Gilman and her ideas about the androcentric culture was very engaging for me because I have some strong feelings about that issue myself, so I could relate very well to what we were learning and talking about. 

Androcentric culture is the idea that the world, and the culture and history of the world, tends to be viewed through the male perspective, and this is done unknowingly or unintentionally a lot of the time. Basically what I got from it is that when you look out at society, a lot of what you see is centered around the male, related to the male or dominated by the male. Even today people have this idea in their mind that women can or should only do certain things, and the rest should be left to the men. This fact disappoints me a lot because I feel that women can do almost everything in the "male" category without a problem.

In class, quite a few examples of Androcentrism were brought up, including superheroes being predominantly male, athletics and sports events being geared more towards men, and that politics in the U.S. are dominated by men, mostly because women are disregarded and deemed too emotional to handle political positions. Another one I liked was the video game example. I play a few different online games, and even though I am a woman, I still assume for some reason that the person I'm playing against or in a group with is a male because when you think of video games, you relate them to men only most of the time. 

When I was going over the material again before writing this SumBlog, I thought of another example of Androcentrism. I went through my movie collection, picked out a handful of movies, and looked up who directed the movie. Almost all of the directors were male, which I guess really didn't surprise me that much because a lot of the big name directors we hear about, such as Steven Spielberg, Alfred Hitchcock and Clint Eastwood, are obviously men. I googled "famous directors" and was linked to list of the 50 greatest directors, all of which are men. I just thought that was an interesting fact because it's not like only men are watching these movies, women watch them too, so you would think that women would be more involved in the creation of the movie. Male direction often leads to a male-domniated main cast as well, or even if there is a female main role, a man is almost always attached to her in some way. Take The Hunger Games trilogy for example. Sure, Katniss is the main character, but she has two guys to support her role. I guess I would just like to see a main female role where there isn't a male in almost every scene as well.

I thought this comic was kinda funny and very fitting for my movie example. It just adds to the fact that movies are often male dominated, and when women do have roles, they are minor.

Sum Blog 4: Max Weber and Charismatic Authority

  For this week's discussions in class, we read about Max Weber and focused for awhile on his idea of what power and authority mean. I found it interesting that there are different types of authority according to Weber because that was something I had not previously known. Out of the three types of authority, I think I could relate the most with charismatic authority because it seems as if I've had more experience with it than the other two types. I was a political science major for awhile, so the charisma of politics and political parties is familiar to me.
  Charismatic authority belongs to people or groups of people who are able to convince and sway other people in a certain direction and who also strongly believe in what they are trying to persuade. A few examples we talked about in class were the music industry, the green movement, and the tea party movement. I think all three of those are good examples of charismatic authority because they are all trying to convince the general public of something, whether it's listening to a certain genre of music, increasing the sustainability of the environment or believing in certain political ideas. I can for sure say that Weber's idea of charismatic authority has held strong and moved into today's society because everywhere you look you're constantly being persuaded to do certain things, from buying advertised products to voting for a candidate who had a very convincing campaign.
  As I was trying to think of my own example that wasn't discussed in class, my mind kept focusing on an organization in the town where I live called Walls of Wittenberg because I consider them to be very charismatic. The group is responsible for the placement and creation of various murals located throughout Wittenberg, and to get the murals placed where they want and to have them painted by certain painters, they have to have charismatic authority to convince people. So far, 22 murals have been painted, the most recent being a Green Bay Packers mural. This last mural in my opinion required the highest amount of charisma from the group because it really wasn't that easy to put together and fund. The whole town had to be persuaded to donate money to the cause, and in return they would get their picture painted on the mural. Also, the Green Bay Packer owners and players themselves had to be persuaded to allow this mural to be painted, as well as the owners of the grocery store where the mural is located. When all is said and done, the Walls of Wittenberg organization has to show a great amount of charisma to make the things they want to achieve actually happen. Below is a picture of the Green Bay Packers mural, titled "Go Pack Go!", showcasing Donald Driver and Jordy Nelson, as well as an array of avid Packer's fans.