Night to His Day & Tough Guise

Tough guise is a really interesting film, it shows how the dominant culture, men, cause more violence then women do, and no one really acknowledges that men are doing it. for example, when school shootings occurred, all the killers were male, but in the news papers what the title will be are "kids killing kids" instead of "boys killing boys", yet if a female would commit so much crimes and do something illegal, the main topic would be "a WOMAN is committing murder."

• 85% of murder is committed by men
• 90% of assault is committed by men
• 95% of domestic violence is committed by men
• 95% dating violence is committed by men
• 95% child abuse is caused by men
• 99.8% of men are in jail because of rape

yet, no one really puts the thought on why men are doing these crimes, well as i said before, men have to live upon this "man box", in the man box men have to behave a certain way, physical, strong, dominant, etc. and because of the media, and over exaggerating what a man should be, men feel the need to act a certain way to prove they are men, when in reality some men act tough, and when behind close doors, they are the most emotional, loving beings. 

The media has portrayed black people as the "gangsters, and always in the hood, causing trouble and hustling", the media has portrayed latinos as "boxers and tough guys in the barrio", and asians are always portrayed as "kong fu fighters, assassins, ninjas, etc." (Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan) so the boys and men feel as if they need to live up to this expectation. In the video, a few teenage boys were asked what will they be called if they don't remain in the man box, they're response was:

• wuss
• wimp
• mommas boy
• queer
• weak
• soft
• emotional
• sissy
• and much more horrible words that will really drive someone over the edge

The wizard of oz represents that being a tough man is an act, in the video they explained when toto uncovers the curtains to the great wizard where he is mechanically portraying a tougher version of himself as an act, the wizard explains he's actually a nice person. if a child is abused, most likely when they get older they would become abusers and usually men take out their anger on other men (men are the main victims violence committed by other men)

the reason that violent men are not the main topic of discussion is because we focus more on the subordinate group instead of the dominant, in the video they showed a little chart that explained this:

• when we hear the word race, we think of African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans and Native Americans, and never think of White, because they already are the dominant race.
• when we hear the words sexual orientation we often think of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender, never we think of the dominant group which are the heterosexuals.
• when we hear the word gender, we think of women, not of men.

what this is trying to explain is that the dominant group (white, heterosexual, and men) are somewhat invisible.


The article "night to his day" written by Judith Lorber, is an article explaining that there would always be a difference between men and women, besides the biological perspective of it. even though now a days there are more tom boys in the world, more women working at either the Marines or the Army, and more children having unisex names and clothing, there is always something different about boys and girls. In the mid 1950's women just began to be allowed to join the Marines yet, a woman in the Marines had to take hair care classes, and make up classes, and also had to wear make up (at least eye shadow and lip stick) a tom boy would always have earrings on and so on, so the point is there will always be a segregation agents men and women.

Beyond Black and White and Race Matters

Beyond Black and White: Remaking Race in America, written by Jennifer Lee and Frank D. Bean explains how intermarriages are more common now then it was before, now its legal. in 1967 intermarriage was illegal in 16 states, the government did want to allow intermariages because that would give liberty to the minorities for Voting Rights, less help for minorities will be provided, and because it was hard to determine who is actually an America. Although blacks were considered the lowest race in the nation back then, they were still considered American, because many didn't come from Africa. In the census blacks were categorized as a race, yet as the number of multicultural families began to rise, the census began to change, in 1850, the census added the words "mulatto", "quadroon", and "octoroon", to define the percentage of black people were:

• Mulatto: mixed black and white
• Quadroon: one fourth black "blood"
• Octoroon:  one-eighth black blood

Quadroon and Octoroon were removed in 1900, because there was many confussion and Mulatto was removed in 1930 because it was concidered racist.
After this people were only aloud to mark one race in the census, which was called the "one- drop rule", later on in 1980, there was a debate if Hispanics and Asians were considered as Americas, so in the 1980 census, Hispanics was not a race, they were separated. So in other words, if you were a Hispanic or Latino, or Asian were labeled as "other". Years passed by and in 1997, an announcement was made that Americans could now identify themseleves on more then two races. When the 2000 census came, people could classify themselves and their children as more then one race; except Hispanics and Latinos.
In the 2000 census the options were:

• Black
• White
• Native Hawaiian
• Asian
• Other Pacific Islander
• American Indian
• Alaska Native
• Other

they concidered that Latinos and Hispanics could be any race. Though as years passed by, it was noticeable that more and more Latinos and Asians, were getting mixed with "white" blood, meaning they had to be considered American if you are born here or become a United States citizen.

The reading "Race Matters" by Cornel West explains that no matter what happens and how this world has evolve they believe black people are still a problem in America. Conservatives still see black people as a problem, they don't care about problems blacks have, they believe that in order for black people to fir in their "society" they have to:

• Behave properly
• be worth of acceptence 
• and have to follow the way of living of the conservatives (the life style)

as of liberals they believe that black believe have to be included into one society, like put in a corner or something, and what Cornel West explains in this article is that black people don't that away from America as they seem to be portrayed to the liberals and conservatives, but "rather constitutive elements to that life." Meaning American society has problems all around and the finger shouldn't be pointed to black Americas. 

its sad to see that Americans can't move on from the past.