Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Blog #5

To be completely honest, the thought of developing a MOOC is a little frightening only because I have no background experience with it and never knew of MOOC before last weeks class. Though it is comforting to know that Dr. Zamora as well as a few classmates are very familiar with this type of project. I'm sure that I am not the only one who is unfamiliar with MOOC (well, I hope that I am not). That would truly make me feel like the undergrad that I am!

In all seriousness, I think this is great idea because it seems very powerful. Powerful in the sense that we will reach people beyond our classroom in an active learning environment about why race matters. I whole-heartedly believe that this idea of a MOOC will leave room for more conversation and make this topic not so "silent" or "sensitive" any longer.

As for our projects, I have been waiting to get the ball rolling with the video that Kathy and I are working on by putting together experiences from classmates, strangers, family, and professors with microaggression. Hopefully today will be the day that our consent form will be approved so that we can finally get started! We are also composing a visual of negative comments towards microaggression that shows the OTHER side of this topic. The people who think microaggression isn't racist at all and that we are simply being too "sensitive" and need to get over it.. we will explore this with the class by pulling comments that stand out to us and see which ones stand out to YOU and why you think some people feel that this is unimportant as well as the people that feel this is indeed important.



Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Blog #4 Why this MATTERS

Saturday night I was hanging out with my older brother, Michael. He's 28 and works as a graphic designer and he is also one of my absolute best friends. Anyways, we got to talking about the particular topic of why race matters (because I brought it up in conversation since we are learning so much I just HAD to share it with him too). And my brother's first response to me was, "Isn't that a subject that is still just too sensitive?"

And he was right. Of course its a sensitive subject, but the more we talk about it, the less "sensitive" it will be! AND THAT'S WHY THIS MATTERS!

He was very interested in knowing about micro aggression, in which I then proceeded to tell him about the twitter hashtag and to check it out cause we have some good stuff under there. A little class promotion never hurt, right?

We began talking about micro aggression that we have experienced in our life (which is only a small amount compared to other stories that I have heard) and his response to THAT was that he always considered those kind of remarks as racist and never saw the "micro" in it.

We were at Chevys, which in case you were wondering is not as good as Jose Tejas. My brother and I love Mexican food and he often makes it a lot at home too. A few weeks ago some of his friends were over his place and they said it smelled like Mexican food and he told them he has just cooked some really good tacos and one of his friends said something like. "Oh you must be Spanish." For cooking tacos. Damn, what does it take to be considered American then? Having a house that smells like McDonalds? I just don't get it...

I was happy to inform at least one person of this topic. Imagine what it would be like to inform MILLIONS. We need to make it a topic that people aren't afraid to talk about.