People Like Us (documentary)

The documentary "people like us" was so eye opening for me and it was so interesting, i wanted to hear more stories and more opinions on other peoples perspectives of each social class. Its funny how the documentary says that there are over 1000 types of social class in the United States and how difficult is is to change from the class you were born in. We are labeled by the clothes we wear, types of cars, way we speak, our income, friends, education, were you live, where you were born, and so on. Yet its funny to me how a young teenage girl stands in the middle of the school hall way and watches her classmates walk by, and judges them just by giving them a glimpse. She would just look at the way they walk, and clothing they wear an immediately says if he/she is a "dork", "popular", "jock", "geek", so on. 
Throughout the film, it was shown a group of upperclass young adults going to a bar a poor side of town, and they communicated with the people in the bar, had a few drinks with them, played games, and though the upper class people felt comfortable because they were not being judge by their action in this bar (because in a bar from their town they would be judged), the working class in the bar immediately know that these people don't belong in their bar, "they don't belong to our family, they just come here so their neighbors won't see what they are really doing." says a working class man from the bar. which takes me to  theory that a man said in the documentary, he said that its almost impossible to completely change from social class, even if you marry a rich person and move to mansions, you will always have the working class norms and values inside of you. These young adults that were at the bar were trying to fit in a small class but people still knew they didn't belong in that area. Which is really upsetting because no matter what you do people will always categorize you.

Poor vs Rich

This week I was assigned a reading, "Positive Functions of Undeserving Poor: Uses of the Underclass in America" by Herbert J. Gans. He described thirteen ways that poor people have a positive contribute to society, even when it seems wrong.

1. Risk Reduction
2. Scapegoating and displacement
3. Economic banishment
4. Supplying illegal goods
5. Job Creation
6. Moral legitimization
7. Norm reinforcement
8. Supplying popular cultural villains
9. Institutional scapegoating 
10. Conservation power shifting
11. Spatial purification
12. Reproduction of stigma and stigmatized
13. Extermination of surplus

This reading was very interesting to read, it opened my eyes to view things from another prospective and helped me think outside of the box when it comes to how the poor people are seem as today. Herbert explained how the poor are useful to rich people in multiple ways, for example if criminals continue in the street, the security job rates wouldn't go down. So therefore, judges, lawyers, police officers, etc, have jobs because of criminals being the the street.
Herbert also stated another way that the poor are useful to rich is that the poor exist! (page three, paragraph 5) without poor their wouldn't be teachers, doctors, school for the "special" in need, drug treatment centers and anger management programs and what not, because if they are trying to control they poor, they have a job, so as people are trying to lower the poor population and try to create a positive life for them, for example teaching them and persuading them to go to school, teachers have a job. And while, the government is trying to prevent the poor from spreading diseases such as HIV and AIDS, and are trying to inform them about how to stay healthy, doctors continue to have a job. And what Herbert is trying to say is that no one looks at the poor as a positive contribution but as a bad thing.
Herbert states that this shouldn't continue but without it the world as we know it wouldn't be the same.

Deviance

Deviance is refusing to follow the norms and breaking the rules, its kind of being a "bad girl" or "bad boy" or just simply sticking up for what you believe in. Sometimes people break rules just for the fun of it, to make their parents mad, to make a statement, to feel grown up, whatever the reason most of us just do it for fun. I must admit I have done deviant acts before, in highschool junior year I would skip class just for fun to hang out with my friends, I would talk back to the principal to make a statement as if saying "I do what I want." or just because I would be bored and wanted to do somthign fun. I never went as to do a crime though, a crime is a law that we break, for example selling cocaine, steeling, or killing another person doesnt matter what the curcumstances are. Although some things that are concidered crimes or deviant isnt realy a bad thing from our point of view- what may be legal in some places may be illegal in others. For example, in vegas people could walk around topless, yet in New York or New Jersey walking around topless is a crime and you could serve jail time for that.
I believe that in order to be a criminal or be deviant you need to know the rules, because sometimes we dont know the rules and are unaware of what we are doing, and we also need to learn the concequences, the people that are selling cocaine know that if they get caught they could be sent by to go to a rehabilation center, go to jail, and will have a criminal file forever. Other deviant acts such as speaking loudly in the library aren't as bad and dont have much concequence. But how would we know when breaking a rule is being too deviant?