Question 2

First off I learned some statistical information about how the average person only has a 25 per cent listening rate efficiency, of which I thought was very low considering we are only listening 1/4 of what we could be listening to. This suggests that people could learn and understand more if they even increased their listening efficiency by 25-50%. The first step I learned about is that when listening we need to find an area of interest rather than tuning the speaker out simply because we have made up our minds that the conversation is boring to us. Second, involves judging content rather than delivery and I can relate to this because I am guilty of tuning someone out because of the way they are delivering the message. The third concept I learned was about the overstimulation we can be guilty of when we immediately feel the desire to argue based on our convictions. We should refrain from doing this because we are being selfish rather than truly hearing the other persons point of view. Fourth is about listening for ideas rather than just for facts. When we concentrate on particular facts we may end up losing a lot of information in the process.The fifth step involves flexibility on what we are listening to, and the ability to make meaningful notes. The sixth concept I learned is listening is something we have to work on in order to improve communication for all parties involved. When we listen better, people speak better, and both aspects improve the communication process. Seventh, we must avoid distractions no matter how tempting they may be. Cell phones are a communication medium that people use in positive and negative ways during communication. When someone is talking to another person yet they are also flipping through their text messages or Facebook mobile edition, how much of that the conversation are they really listening to? The eighth concept is keeping your mind up to date with what you are listening rather than assuming it is too difficult to interpret and then giving up on it. To follow that the ninth concept involves keeping an open mind in regard to conversation, including the specific area of hearing certain words that may cause a change in listening due to the listener thinking too much into it. Lastly we must make the most out of the fact that our listening speed surpasses the rate of words per minute of a speaker. We should make the most of this by listening better rather than getting distracted or tuning speakers out because they are too slow for our listening process.

An Interesting Concept

One interesting concept that stood out to me in our reading of Chapter Six was an area on Selecting and Organizing Material-About how louder, out of the ordinary communication styles have an effect on the way people listen. Our text gave an example of an Asian American student who said that Caucasians "often ignore what she says because speaks softly and unassertively" (Wood, pg.149). I can see where the concept of mindfulness would work well for situations like these, because if the first step of listening involves being mindful, then a person should be able to look past soft spoken and unassertive mannerisms. I come from a family where everyone competes to be heard, and in order for others to listen we tend to speak loud or talk over one another. My girlfriend comes from a family of soft-spoken speakers such as the example in our book, and this has caused some issues before during family functions. I think that I should be more mindful of the possibility that I am not listening as effectively to others who don't have a similar communication style as myself. One thing the text doesn't mention is an example of how it can also go the other way around too because sometimes people who are more soft-spoken seem to be annoyed and agitated by speakers with louder mannerisms. My girlfriend has accused me before of talking too loud in an angry tone of voice when I was actually just trying to make an opinion about something. When this happens it makes me feel as though she is not listening to my words because she is annoyed, so I think that mindfulness can help everyone in that aspect.

Question 1

I propose the rainbow and family quilt metaphor because a rainbow is one bow of many colors that all shine together in a beautiful way. When we look up and see a rainbow we see it for what it is, the whole rainbow. A family quilt is a soft blanket of which every portion of the quilt contributes equally to create one large comfortable blanket. Although I doubt the person who first used the "melting pot" meant any harm by creating it, I do think that it creates a visual that we are all blending together to become one, and in this process our differences are no longer noticeable. Our differences are what creates this diversity in the first place, and by trying to make us all the same I think we would lose the beauty in all of the differences we have from each other. When asked this question in the past I thought that a salad metaphor was appropriate because so many different things go into making the salad taste good, whereas each part on it's own may be good, but becomes even better when mixed together with other ingredients. The only problem with using that one is that I can see where some people may imply that the lettuce or dressing is more important than the tomatoes or croutons, etc. These are the reasons I like the rainbow and family quilt metaphor because each part of the whole equation is equal and necessary for the sum. In the case of American society I believe that our differences are what makes us America. 

Question 3

An interesting concept in this reading was the specific area discussing particular terms that have been coined out of specific situations. Some examples of this in the text were date rape, marital rape, domestic partnership, and trans being short for transgender. I always looked at the term date rape, and marital rape in a negative way because I felt that the word rape should be used alone in any situation involving rape. In our text there was an important part that stood out to me where Wood was discussing the terms sexual harassment and marital rape as "activities previously perceived as acceptable". This is where I realized that terms such as date rape are the evolution of the words that we use to communicate relay meaning. Marital rape, and date rape may be used when trying to explain it to someone who may assume that a person can't be raped who is married or on a date with someone. The term domestic partnership was also mentioned in our text, and this applies to me personally. I have been with my girlfriend for five years now, and I rarely use the term "marriage" when referring to our life because I know that I can't actually marry her legally the way I would like to. Wood explains that language is a "tool that social movements use to change cultural life and meanings". We see this around as new terms evolve out of previous terms, and one becomes less appropriate or in the case of young people less cool. If our language and culture do reflect each other as read, then new terms will continue to arise out of change to society.

Question Two

Hate speech is defined as being "principally racist and anti-Semitic speech" by the Free Speech Museum page. I have also read other definitions that are broader, of which include speech that degrades people based on gender, sexual orientation, appearance, etc. From this page I learned that hate speech is protected by the First Amendment which means that unless there is another legal area that the speech falls into, the hate speech can't be prohibited by law. I think that hate speech is a touchy subject because so many of us have been on the giving and/or receiving end of hate speech. Words can be psychologically painful to people, but because these words do not harm us physically there is no law to support action against hate speech. There have been efforts against both censorship and  hate speech which has caused a debate between the opposing sides. I'm against censorship because I feel that hate speech is a reflection of our society, and by censoring it we are pushing it under a rug as if it is no longer there in society. If people are against hatred than let hate speech be a reflection of how far we still have to go to get to a place where people don't have so much hatred against others. I can understand how banning hate speech would help eliminate it based on the fact that it wouldn't be around us so much. But I would like to see less and less of hate speech because people are becoming more tolerant rather than the reason being that they are not allowed to express those feelings. I believe it does go against our constitutional right to freedom of speech by censoring hate speech. If people really want to decrease hate speech they have to get to the root of the speech, which is the negative views the person is carrying in the first place. Often enough people reach a point where they let their hatred consume them to the point where they will express it verbally in public places, and arresting someone for this is not going to change the fact that people feel this way in the first place. I think that more teachers and parents teaching tolerance is one great way to reduce hate speech.

Question 1

I chose to speak with my co-worker at work Doug, who is 51 years old. He said that when he was twenty years old men were expected to be actively working toward something such as a college, military, and family. He said that some of their behavior was similar to today's in the aspect of wanting to have a good time, meet girls, and party. When I spoke to my mother who is 57 years old she said that she felt that women had strong expectations to get married to a good man who her parents would respect. Although college was available for women, my mom said she did not feel as though her high school focused on how important it was for everyone. She said that womens' behavior was expected to be polite and caring, and that men were expected to be strong and supportive. Although they had expectations from their parents many of them still behaved like our youth today, which included the hipsters, party types, and those who were often disrespectful in a social aspect such as to elders, teachers, etc. My best friend's 80 year old grandmother, Rose, told me that when she was twenty years old most women including herself were already expected to be married to a gentleman who could support them. Women were expected to act "lady-like" and wear dresses or skirts, and always have their hair done. They were not expected to go to college, discuss political debates or the latest science breakthroughs, etc. My grandfather Tom, who is 82 years old, said that when he was twenty years old most of the men were expected to serve in military as well as work to support their families that were sometimes already established by this age. When most people talk about college aged kids they don't always get a "ladies and gentlemen" visual. One thing seems certain, and that is that today's twenty year old is not expected to have a family by that age, and they are also not expected to be that polite. Men are still expected to act "manly" and are often criticized when they do not. Women also have experiences with others criticizing their behavior for being too something or not enough of the other. Examples include how our society will trash talk a drunken college girl as being promiscuous or not classy, yet a drunken college guy is often just seen as displaying normal fraternity-like behavior.

Question 3

I found the section on 'particular others' to be interesting. Wood describes this term as the other people who are significant to us, which pretty much covers everyone except strangers in our lives. I agree that all of these people come into play regarding how we begin to see ourselves. I can't help but wonder now how I might see myself if I had not know how many other people see me. My whole life I was told by others that I was either reserved, or that I was intimidating based on physical characteristics, and a strong personality. I never understood why people felt this way because inside I always felt insecure and lacked the courage to do so many things I wanted. Maybe if other people had told me they saw me as an insecure person, I would have tried harder to go against that image, but I guess I'll never know. Another interesting part about particular others was when our text discussed how Latino and African American families are often more extended than Caucasion families. I agree with this because my mother is German-Irish, while my father is Mexican-American, and both of them have different perceptions of family members. My father will refer to second, and even third cousins as cousins, whereas my mother has no idea who her second cousins are. I also have a best friend who is Mexican-American and she refers to second aunts as aunts, and even to some of her moms cousins as her aunts. It can get very confusing sometimes and now when she is talking to me about her family I have to constantly ask, "Okay so this aunt you are talking about it your mom's cousin right?" because her mom doesn't have any sisters so from my experience my friend wouldn't have an aunt. In these cases people end up with more particular others in their lives who shape who they are. I think it's a good thing for kids to grow up meeting particular others with different life experiences, and this may even help them grow more comfortably in their own skin.

Question 2

Before reading this chapter I was unaware of the "one drop rule" involving race in early America. I have taken several history courses, but this was knew knowledge to me. This really puts the concept of race into perspective and has me asking myself even more, what is race? I guess my first attempt to explain it would be that it's a way that people try to classify each other based on certain characteristics. As we learned, these characteristics are not always physical and are sometimes based on knowledge of, or presumed ancestry. To be honest, I would have to say race is complicated. It's one of those concepts that can have my mind going for quite awhile and it can sometimes bring frustration when we are faced with having to disclose our race for different reasons.There is a movie called The Human Stain starring Anthony Hopkins that highlightes a particular man's experience with race, and how what others thought they saw was not really the case. Society saw him as a white man so he was able to classify himself as white, and as the movie goes on we discover that he has kept a secret all of his career about his race; he is a black man. These are the very reasons that race can be complicated. I don't think race is always helpful because it creates barriers to the very things that people complain about (with good reason) and want to change in our society. If we agree that we want each other to stop discriminating based on characteristics we can't change, then why should we go around wearing labels all the time? I know it sounds much easier than it probably is, and there are benefits to people knowing about their ancestry, but in regard to our pursuit of educations, career, etc, maybe we should allow people to check the boxes that they honestly feel apply to them. I feel that the worst part about the boxes is that people feel forced to check things that don't apply to them. The worst box of all is "other" because it makes it seem as though a person who is multiracial is not a part of our society, and causes some people to pick one of their races over the other simply to avoid this box. I found an article where some people share their personal experiences with race and the Census in case anyone is interested. USA Today Article/Race

Question 3

An interesting part of the chapter was the part about our safety needs in regard to communication. The chapter gives the scenarios of having a sober friend drive, or speaking with law enforcement if you think you may need protection. This is an area that we often take for granted because we don't think about how important our communication skills are in these types of situations. If something bad were to happen to someone, they would need to have a certain level of communication skill just to explain the situation or to even ask for help. I liked the fact that this part of the chapter was easy to relate to some personal experiences in my life. I remember there was a time when someone was knocking on my door at a random hour during the night. I was not expecting visitors so I chose not to open the door. I called our apartment security and explained to them why this was a concern for me. I think that if I had approached it from a different angle the security might have just thought that it was a friend or someone coming to visit me. They were able to understand why I found this strange because I explained that I was not expecting any visitors nor did I order a pizza, etc. As paranoid as that may sound to some people, the time of day and the fact that the person was a stranger to me was a red flag not to open the door. My girlfriend had peered through the door and was able to recognize the person as someone we had seen before walking his dog around our complex. However just because we are neighbors doesn't change the fact that he was a stranger to us. We had never spoken before this night so I found it weird that for the first time he chose to talk to us was at such a late hour. Through communicating with security and the office staff we were able to sort everything out and also find out that the reason he was knocking was to ask me if I was planning to sell an older car that I rarely drove. Although he chose a bad time and place to ask me the question, the communication between everyone ended up giving me the peace of mind that I needed.

Question 2

A relationship that comes to mind for this question is one with my co-worker at my current job. When she was first hired our relationship was an I-It because I viewed her as an employee who would be working in the office, and not really as someone I cared to know. The reason for this is because I am a busy person who works a lot and outside of work school keeps me very busy. As much as I value a good friendship, when my co-worker first started I was not looking to make friends simply because I had a busy schedule so I felt unavailable in a social aspect. When I did have any downtime I liked to spend it with my girlfriend who also has a busy schedule as a teacher. Although I would see her once a week at work, I never felt close to her and we rarely talked about anything that was not work-related. After a month or so of working with her casual talk had progressed into us both disclosing personal information about our families and life in general. This was the transition from the I-It to the I-You period. We started relating a lot on different aspects of our lives, and this lead to us deciding to get together outside of work. Getting to know her better made me want to invite her along to some social gatherings with some of my other friends. We went out dancing to San Francisco quite a few weekends which ended up being a lot of fun. I felt that the I-You changed to the I-Thou after we became comfortable with each other outside of work. She started to tell me about some of the hard times she went through in her life, including a period of depression that her family couldn't pull her out of for quite some time. I also became comfortable telling her about my life, and we eventually added each other on Facebook. We Facebook and text message often about work, politics, personal life stuff, and I do consider her a friend now rather than a co-worker. I feel a genuine trust with her as well and that's very special to me because I know she understands all of the negative aspects of our current job. Our employers have shown us a lack of respect on several occasions and I always feel comfortable talking to her about this because she is always on the same page as a friend who happens to work for the same company. In the beginning it was harder to talk to her about these issues because I was unsure if I could trust her, and now I wouldn't think twice about venting to her on issues pertaining to our job.