Reflection 15

Well it looks like this is pretty much it for the semester. This is the last blog post and i am not quite sure what to say. I did enjoy this class, no matter how many tons of reading or strenuous group projects we had to do. I guess that I wish I had maybe talked more in class, but that is something I always wish for when I am finished with a class. I know I am really quiet in class, but sitting in a room of 20 people, most of whom are more outspoken than me and seem to pull outside information into the class that I didn't even know existed, makes me severely intimidated. I really don't generally speak my mind unless I am having a conversation with a small group of people about something i know a lot about. Otherwise I just worry that i am going to get something horribly wrong and people are going to call me out on it.
But besides that, I did generally enjoy the class, and we did hit some issues I feel very strongly about, which I am sure will be quite obvious in my blog posts. I think more than anything I enjoyed having a class where everyone knows each other and can come talk to you about what you said in class later. It was slightly relieving to walk into the lounge the day before the mid term was due only to find seven people just as stressed out as me sitting in there rapidly typing on their computers. Luckily, that is not something that is going to change next semester, but it is something I think I will miss very much next year.

Reflection 14—

The simulation…would have been better if we had simply had one or two more class periods to hash out all of the different issues. The topic was extremely stimulating and interesting and I just wish that we had been able to see it through to at least some sort of conclusion. However, overall I would deem the experience to be a success given the parameters of the assignment, although it would have been beneficial if some groups had participated in the representation of their entity more thoroughly. This would have been a good stimulus for discussion and also prevented other outside groups from influencing their decisions based on outside interests rather than internal facts about their organization. Despite this minor setback, the different constituencies brought to the conference introduced a variety of interests that were on the whole well represented. This simulation was a great way to employ some of what we have learned this semester, while forcing us to once again represent a group that we might not typically side with. As a representative of McDonalds it was difficult to separate my personal thoughts from the objectives of the McDonalds Corporation. However, as a group I though McDonalds was extremely well represented, even if some views were manipulated to support what we as individuals thought was important. Overall the simulation was engaging and informative and left the class on a good note. Thanks for all the time and work Class, Erin, and PTJ.

Simulation Forecast

Tomorrow is the simulation. I am already anticipating being marginalized as the WWF. Many of the guidelines proposed are economically based and I don’t think groups are going to have the environment on their agenda at all. Although we are connecting our own purposes to the economically driven guidelines, I still feel that we are going to have to make an extra effort for our voices to be heard.

I am pleased with the way our video turned out, thanks to Rachel for taking ownership of its creation, and I am confident with the extensive research we have found. Kate was successful in finding relevant case study and her and I have combined our research on a few topics in a way that I think will make our presentation effective.   

I do expect to have to fight a little harder to keep our objectives from being pushed aside but with what we’ve prepared, I think we’ll be able to do it.

Reflection 13—

The Museum of the American Indian is inherently ironic in its formation. The dismissal of reality is an unfortunate product of our cultural and political contempt for the indigenous people of America. The government displays the mirage of honoring and representing Indian culture and history on our national mall, when it is more of a glossing over of the past and present Indian reality. We have to make the conscious choice of whether to fully acknowledge Native American history or at least do it the service of honestly ignoring it altogether. Instead of choosing one of these two truthful options, we have decided that it is better to misrepresent the Indian past by focusing on the rich and diverse cultures. This would be all well and good accept for the fact that it was these cultures that America dismantled, discounted, and disrespected. It is a futile enterprise of reconciliation to now acknowledge the cultures without also recognizing the gross misdeeds we have performed.

Reflection 14

I find it really ironic that we are reading the Todorov book this week. Of course, this week is thanksgiving, where we celebrate being together and being alive with mountains of food and time off of work and school. Of course, on the Original thanksgiving, the feast they made came from the help of the Native Americans, who taught the settlers of the Mayflower how to farm and hunt, and they celebrated the fact that the native Americans pretty much saved them from death. Then we go on to read Todorov, that offers deep insight into how the European settlers destroyed the Native American populations by killing them and giving them diseases. When I actually realized what was happening, I kind of laughed a little bit.
I thought about it a little more, and I realized how much the institution of thanksgiving in general directly correlates with constructivism. Thanksgiving is a purely American institution, where people spend hundreds of dollars traveling to family homes to spend a long weekend together, while for the rest of the world it's just another weekend. Thanksgiving gives the American public an identity completely unique to them, which distinguishes them from the rest of the world. And so thanksgiving also contributes to the theory of constructivism.

Reflection 13

I found the Native American museum this week very interesting. It was kind of funny actually, I was always really interested in Native American culture as a child, and going to the museum on Wednesday reminded me of that. I was always interested in the culture, history, and mythology of Native American tribes, and that led me to thinking about why that possibly was. Then I remembered, that at the time I was being taught about Native Americans, I was in the fourth grade, and had lived in this country for no more than two years. At this point, I did have some friends, but my transition into an American lifestyle was horrible, and, luckily*, it never became complete. I was tormented every day for the first year, my mom talked of nothing but how much she wished she were back in the UK, and I had to learn what different words meant (like eraser and pants) while getting accustomed to habits that I had been taught were impolite (like eating french fries with your fingers). Anyways, I digress. the reason this is important is because at that point in my life, I hated this country and came home from school near tears every day, just wanting to go back home with my friends and family. The only thing that was going well for me was my schoolwork. Then I learned about the Native Americans, and I discovered a part of American history that was completely different to anything I had learned up to that point. I guess it gave me a little bit of hope that not everything in this country is bad, which is lucky because when I was given the decision to go back to the UK or not in 4th grade, I decided to stay here. So it must have done something to change my views of the US. sure, I know now how much Native American culture is removed from US culture, but at the time it had an impact on me. Anyway, it was nice to feel nostalgic as I was walking through that museum.

*Just to clarify, I do not in anyway use that word to suggest I don't like the US or don't want to be an American. It is more to clarify that I love being who I am, and that is British. It is a joke I use a lot but I sometimes get myself into trouble for it, so I just had to clarify to anyone who took offense to that.

Blog 11—

Columbus is unique. His religious piety that he prized over wealth makes him a remarkable man. However, his progression from a respectful bewilderment of the Indians to an antagonistic force, bent on subjugating their culture, undeniably rests some degree of blame for the subsequent colonization on his shoulders.

Arguably any other European would have more quickly made the jump from assimilation to colonization, but the reality is that Columbus was the first European man with the ability to make that transition; which of course he did. It is clear that he delights in the natural aspects of the new world, which many other men would have viewed as secondary to wealth, but his discovery of Indian culture was altogether normal and predictable. Tzvetan Todorov asserts that Columbus possessed an extraordinary amount of pride, predisposing him to infuse irrevocable truth in the skewed observations he ascribes to the new world. This idea can be expanded to the sentiment of European superiority, so although other Europeans would have had the same enslaving colonialist doctrine as Columbus, it was Columbus who first shaped the Indian reality in that light.

Columbus began the inevitable progression from discovery to domination, and despite the fact that he went about the transformation in a slightly novel manner, he crossed that bridge. The subsequent actions of Spanish colonizers were dually part of their own subversive intentions as well as reflections of the precedent set by Columbus. With the great praise gifted to Columbus for his world altering discovery, there must also be dispensed an equally harsh degree of responsibility for the actions that his discovery initiated.