Race In Running

When we talked about race and running in class today, it held a particular significance to me because I am on the track and cross country team.I had heard the "fast twitch theory" before, the idea that African-Americans are faster sprinters because their fast-twitch muscles are more proficient than white peoples'. It was interesting to me that there seems to be no actual biological evidence that African-Americans are faster runners. My question now is...so why are they?

At the state track meet in May I saw a definite distinction between the skin color of people in the short distance events to people in the longer distance events. In fact, 5/5 of the top finishers in the 200m were black, as opposed to the 5/5 top finishers in the 3200m who where white. Is it possible that the expectations on the athletes play a part in what event they choose to run? Is an African-American girl who shows talent in both elite distance running and elite sprinting more likely to chose sprinting that's where she feels she belongs based on previous sprinting feats by black women? If this is true than that could mean that African-Americans aren't neccessarily better at sprinting, there are just more of them that focus on sprinting instead of disntence because they expect to be better at it and it is "cooler" for that "race" (race is loosely defined after our in-class discussion).

The Discussion on Race

In class this week we've been having a discussion on whether or not slavery is the cause of differences between African-Americans and white Americans today. The discussion was introduced through a quote from Obama's speech on race, where he said that slavery was the original sin and the remnants are still with us today. I totally agree that slavery is the original reason why African-Americans and whites didn't start out in the same place economically. Slavery stunted their growth as a whole and prevented them from progressing. With that being said, I also think there are other factors contributing to the differences.


In our society today we have an obsession with not being racist. Especially in the younger generation, mentioning any difference between races is often taboo. Even though there are clear differences in statistics between African-Americans and whites (for example, African-Americans have a lower life expectancy), mentioning even factual evidence could lead to an accusation of stereotyping. During our discussion in AS, I realized that it was the first in-class discussion I'd had at school where we could openly talk about race. This preoccupation with not being racist actually leads to a heightened sense of race because a person has to focus so much on not noticing differences that they in turn notice them more. This leads to a kind of "us and them" mentality, and it changes the way people react with each other. Someone may be more cautious or say something differently when speaking to someone of a different race.
By doing this we are digging a deep hole for ourselves. We are creating an atmosphere where we can't even talk about race. If we don't feel comfortable talking about racial differences how are we ever going to get around to solving them? I thought our conversation in AS was a step in the right direction, people were sharing their ideas freely with out worrying about judgement, and it made for a very interesting discussion.

My mornings must be really busy...

Today in class we discussed sidewalks and how they are linear and angular as apposed to a garden's winding path. We discussed how the latter encourages pondering and discovering the world around us while sidewalks are only for getting someplace. I noticed something about my daily routine while having that discussion. My backyard has a path leading from my back door to my garage. The path is winding, not straight. It is meant to look pretty and one could argue that it is also meant to encourage a more relaxed pace when walking on it. Even so, every morning I take the most direct route possible, walking in a perfectly straight line and ignoring the path (see screenshot below). It might only take a few extra seconds to avoid getting my shoes dirty from mud and take the path but instead I make a beeline for the door. Since we we're talking about how angles in a society and the way they think about roads and city structure say something about them, what does my way of getting to the garage from my house say about me? 

9/11: A Bigger Perspective

As I write this blog I still have tears in my eyes. A half-hour ago I took Mr. Bolos and Mr. O'Connor's advice and went on StoryCorps to hear some stories. I chose to hear the 9/11 stories first, seeing as it's so relevent with what we've been discussing in class. It took only one story to break me down, and by the end of the second I was sobbing an embarassing amount. I ended up listening to every single 9/11 account. The news coverage we watched in class of 9/11 was very moving, but I find the personal stories of the regular people who found themselves in a tragic situation a lot more compelling. It's one thing to watch the towers fall and think "this is horrible there must be so many people in there," but it is completely different to hear the stories of those effected. To hear about a 10-year-old boy's favorite things to do with his grandpa before he died in 9/11, to hear about what it was like to have your husband on the 100th floor and have a final conversation on the phone when you knew he was going to die, to hear real, normal, completely average people just like us sob. I can feel their pain. To me, hearing someone's story and feeling their pain along with them gives the event more gravity, makes it more devastating, and more important than watching it happen from the outside.

What would you do?

        A few days ago in class we talked about the Harvard English professor who got arrested for entering his own house because African-American racial stereotypes prompted a neighbor to call the police. Recently I began watching an episode of the ABC show "What would you do?" where producers set up staged scenarios to see how everyday people react to situations. In one episode, they set up an actor playing a bike thief attempting to steal a bike in the middle of a busy park. I was happy to see that people were for the most part reacting, although not every person that walked by called out the thief. The white actor playing a bike thief was then replaced by an African-American actor. The police was called several times and people were far less hesitant to call out the actor. Their reactions were immediate and powerful. When asked about their super-speedy reactions in the interview after they'd been told it was just a set-up, every single reactor said that their quick reaction to the thief had "nothing to do with race."
          My problem with this is that it is obvious that none of these people are telling the truth. Racial steryotypes still exist in America. If there were no racial biases, the white actor and the African-American actor would have elicited the same reactions from onlookers. Ignoring the fact that racial steryotypes exist does not help solve the problem. This experiment was meant to demonstrate that Americans subconciously have a different reaction with different races. If the reactors would have admitted afterwords that race could have played a part in their reaction, then we could move on to the next step of correcting America's misrepresentation of African-Americans.

If you have never seen the show, click here to see the episode mentioned, and I encourage you to look at the other episodes.

Honoring the constitution or saving lives?

In class we've been talking about the use of media to make assumptions and conclusions. Recently there has been a lot of controversy over a Florida church's plan to burn a copy of the Quran this September 11th. Officials have strongly warned against doing this, saying that Islamic extremists throughout the world will use images to provoke more anti-american anger than ever before, even though the greater majority of Americans would never agree with the burning of a religious text. A hatred of America could lead to more terrorist attacks against the US, as well as endager the lives of Americans overseas. My question is: Do you think the government should take some sort of action to protect American lives, or honor the church's constitutional rights to freedom of speech and freedom to protest. What do you think the appropriate action is, if any? I am very conflicted over this issue. Even though I don't agree with the church's statement, in order to protect our constitution's validity we need to allow the burning of the Quran, but the statement is politically incorrect anyway, blaming an entire religion for the tragedy of September 11th.

Standardized tests: Are they truly unfair?

I'm the beginning of my junior year and this seems like a fitting time to start thinking about all the tests I'm going to have to take this year. The PSATS, SATs SAT2s, and ACTs are all on my schedule, and I've recently begun devoting 2.5 hours of my sunday mornings to a test prep course. In the past few years there has been a lot of controversy on whether or not standardized tests are an effective way to judge students. Click here for an article on the unfairness of standardized testing. My problem is that there are some high school students that would rather have a heavy emphasis placed on tests rather than grades or extracurricular activites. Don't get me wrong, I do plenty of things after school and my grades are alright, but my strongest area is my standardized test scores. Is arguing that standardized tests are unfairly catagorizing students based on a number punishing the kids who are great standardized test takers?

The idea of judging someone based on a single area of information also relates to what we've been talking about in class, the book "Into the Wild." I think a lot of my classmates got the impression that Chris McCandless was a really cool guy, and explorer, a brave adventurer. Is it possible that we are only making judgements on select information that Krakauer wanted us to see? We know from the book that John Krakauer saw a lot of himself in Chris McCandless. Maybe Krakauer was purposely giving us a good impression of McCandless to in a way protect his own reputation. Is it possible that with more research from unbiased sources we would have different opinions?

How important is privacy for the sake of research?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100831/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_malia_and_sasha

I came accross this article on my yahoo homepage and, since I'm always curious about the Sasha and Malia Obama and their seemingly charmed lives, I clicked on the link and read the article. It was interesting to find that the author of the article seemed to have a very strong opinion that too much information was being divulged about the Obama girls and their privacy should be firmly protected. I thought that most of the information given about the girls wasn't embarassing or unflattering at all. The girls have separate rooms, play the piano, and love tennis. Nothing too controversial. But the author used harsh words (ex. "The first lady is also guilty of breaching the privacy wall she and her husband put up around the girls") Do you think Sasha and Malia should be protected from all media coverage and have complete privacy even though they are so much in the limelight? 

This also got me thinking...are we breaching Mr. Bolos' privacy by continuing our extensive research on his life? I know one person in my group even went as far as contacting one of his family members. We are all guilty of facebook stalking, googling, and prying our way into Mr. Bolos' life. When is it time to stop looking for information? If you found something extremely interesting and important but also very embarassing or personal would you still use it in your paper about Mr. Bolos?