Social Institutions

In society, there are many institutions that are put in place to categorize people; these categories are used to divide the human population of the world.  Gender, race, sexuality, class, nationality, religion, education, etc. These categories have been systematically put in place by the society at large in order to judge others, and in effect, disassociate themselves from others.

Personally, I don't buy into any of it.  My skin might be physically white, but I don't identify as white. I don't identify as black either.  I identify as me.  The same goes with any other institution set in place to categorize people.  It is automatically assumed that I'm white (we'll stick with race for the time being), but I don't even know enough about my genealogy to know if there are any members of my past family that were Black, Asian, or Hispanic.  Knowing this gives me the ability to claim to fall outside any of the socially "normal" categories.  I attend an HBCU.  My skin may be white but that doesn't stop me from being friends with, or identifying with those whose skin may be black. 

Race is a touchy subject in America. For example, as long as Barack Obama is the "first black president" instead of the "44th President of the United State of America," race will still be a problem.  All of this notion that we've "moved past race" as a culture is clearly hogwash.  As long as FSU students remain afraid to go south of Gaines St. or go out on the FAMU homecoming weekend, we clearly still have an issue with racism.  There may scientifically be three races (Mongoloid, Negroid and Caucasoid) but all three are still human beings.  Every person on this earth bleeds the same color: red.  That is something that won't change no matter what color skin we might have, what socioeconomic class we might fall under, who we go to sleep with at night, or what gender we identify with.  We all need food, water, shelter, compassion and most importantly, we need each other. 

Backing out of race and moving into another touchy subject: sexuality.  I am automatically assumed to be a heterosexual when I meet someone new.  Why?  I may not be homosexual OR heterosexual, but I don't understand why all humans must have this preconceived notion of others before even getting to know them.  Human beings are just sexual, just like any other creature on the earth.  Scientists have found that many animals have sex with members of the same sex.  I feel that I must reiterate, humans are still animals, which means we retain many animal qualities.  Sex is a natural part of life, a part that humans partake in just like most other animals. 

Nationality is another institution that has some sketchy beginnings.  Why are we "proud" of a country that we didn't choose to be born in.  I didn't choose to be born in America, nor did someone from Switzerland choose to be born there.  That is a decision made prenatally by our parents (and partially by world governments denying or admitting emigrants). 

I must reiterate that social institutions are SOCIALLY and CULTURALLY bound.  Everyone behavior is their own decision, and should have no automated responses to certain stimuli.  There are many institutions that I don't buy into.  I only went into two of the big ones, but there are definitely smaller ones that I feel the human race should not entertain. 

Should I Double Major?

Well, today I talked to dad about some possibilities for my future and he had some good points.  He said that there will be some news firms that will only hire someone who has a degree in journalism, which I won't have if I don't transfer to FAMU or double major in journalism.

I thought about double majoring and the minoring in Spanish because I'm so close to having a Spanish minor anyway.

I'm not sure yet, we'll see.  I'm going to talk to Dr. Grable tomorrow about it and see what she thinks.

More to come on this later.