Final Blogtastic Reflection (#4)

For my final blog reflection for 4th quarter, I chose "Blagojevich on 'Celebrity Apprentice'" as my favorite blog post. The reason I like this one so much is because I feel very strongly about the subject. This usually characterizes my favorite posts. When you're really passionate about what you're writing about, it just makes it a lot more fun to write. And when I saw that Blagojevich was on a reality t.v. show and not in jail, I was just outraged. I was also able to incorporate a bunch of sources in this post, which I think adds depth and more credibility to a post. And from those sources, I used direct quotes and dissected them to prove my point even more. It just had more substance than some of my other posts.
This year I have really developed as a blogger. Not that I blogged before this class, but my style has changed since the beginning of the year. I started my blogging career by mostly writing about certain issues that I encountered in my everyday life, but didn't necessarily connect to class. But as the year continued, my posts started to become extensions of class discussions, which is what I think Mr. Bolos and Mr. O'Connor intended them to be. And when I could not extend the discussion to my blogging, I wrote about prominent issues in the news. Not always, but I tried to.
I have really enjoyed blogging this year because I do like to write, but essays can often times be laborious and they take a long time to do. On the other hand, a blog post doesn't have to be long. You can write a little about a lot, and that's what I've really liked about blogging this year.

Monday, May 24, 2010

Tokenism in Real Life

     So after our class discussion on tokenism on tv, I started to think about tokenism in my everyday life. The first thing that came to mind is kind of random, but it works: My mom's office. She is a lawyer and most of her co-workers are white. And as far as gender goes, I don't know the exact count, but I would say it is split pretty evenly between men and women. But the main lawyers she works with are white. However, her paralegal, which is basically just her assistant, is an African American woman and the secretary at the front desk is also an African American woman. To me, this is a perfect example of tokenism in real life. The African American women do not have the highest paid job in the office by any means. They are there to simply assist the white lawyers who dominate the office. They are the token black workers, so the firm can say that they are diverse.
     There is also tokenism at New Trier. There are not many African American teachers or faculty. I honestly cannot think of one teacher who is African American. But there are several African Americans who work on the PPS staff. And that is definitely tokenism. They are not teachers, so not in the spotlight, and they do not have the highest paid jobs, but they are there. So who could argue against New Trier that the staff is not diverse? We're diverse. Sort of. If you can call African American janitors diverse.
     So those are some of the real life examples that I could think of. I had never really noticed tokenism before Mr. Bolos' discussion. But now that I'm aware of it, it's amazing how often I see it. Everyone thinks America has come so far, but how far have we've really come?
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2 comments:

  1. Sam HMay 24, 2010 at 1:25 PM

    I think that the main reason that there are so few teachers of color at NT is that there are simply less black teachers in the US. Only about 2 percent of American teachers are black males, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

    Why are there so few black educators? Quite frankly I don't know. Personally, I have to think that the only reason would be that it is hard to live on the small salaries of a teacher and college students of color, who tend to come from more disadvantaged means than those of a strictly European background, simply cannot afford to become teachers after the years of schooling.

    Another reason that there is such a shortage of black educators could be mainstream education's reluctance to accept Ebonics and other black cultural creations as legitimate. If schools aren't teaching your heritage, why should you teach?

    the last reason, more specifically for black males, could be the culture of hyper-masculinity among predominately black high schools and cultures. Teaching may appear too weak to compare with other jobs.

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  2. Sam HMay 24, 2010 at 1:28 PM

    source for black male teachers

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/03/AR2009070302498.html

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