Michael Jordan considered himself as a racist.

Last week we watched a documentary on Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. In the documentary many of the black players thought that white players weren't capable of playing basketball at the same level as black players. Because of the fact that they were white. It shows that whites aren't the only ones who can be racist. Anyone can be a racist no matter who you are.

Here is an article about Michael Jordan and it addresses his former views on race.

http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/10895553/michael-jordan-upbringing-detailed-new-book

Turned away because of my race?

Last week I was called by a, I guess you could say, tasting company who offered money if you came and tried a particular product. Anyway, the person went through a series of questions and when she got to the question about what race I consider myself (I'm half Asian and half Caucasian) and since I identified with the Asian half, she said that I was not be able to participate in the study. And I just felt bad, not only because I wasn't to get paid (who doesn't like money?) but that because I identify with a certain race that I am automatically turned away from what I considered a pretty cool opportunity.

Current update on Donald Sterling

In both small and big group we have been keeping up to date with what is going on with Donald Sterling.  I decided to look up the most recent actions and stumbled upon an article that was posted 3 hours ago, today, May 19.  The NBA has officially charged him with "engaged in conduct that has damaged and continues to damage the NBA and its teams. Among other things, Mr. Sterling disparaged African-Americans and 'minorities'; directed a female acquaintance not to associate publicly with African-Americans or to bring African-Americans to Clippers games; and criticized African-Americans for not supporting their communities."  

Sterling now has until the 27th of May to respond to the charges.  He also has a hearing on June 3 for the termination of his ownership.  

Read more here

Oprah continued

The other day in class we watched a video on Oprah and her talking about places and events in the past with extreme racism.  I was looking more into that and found Oprah talking about the current issue of racism, and how it is affecting the President.  She also presents the idea that racism will eventually go away when the racist generations die off.  If you are interested on learning more, here's the article!

Oprah Winfrey: Obama is a victim of racism

My New Friend Jonas

Yesterday i was playing basketball at Castro elementary and out of nowhere a small white kid with blond hair and blue eyes approached the court. He watched me play for a while until i passed him the ball, he looked at me and i told him to shoot. He did and he made it in the hoop, then i introduced myself and when he told me his name i heard voice and he had an accent. I asked him where he was from and he said Norway. I soon noticed that he didn't speak a lot of english but I was still able to understand him and him understand me. It was weird at first i had to change my word selection and sentence structure and use hand gestures a lot. I learned a lot from my friend he likes the lakers and Kobe also Barcelona and Man untied and he is a goalie in soccer. I learned from this experience that coming from a different country and not knowing the language is difficult but in my case it took patience and adaptivity in order to interact with Jonas who is 11.

Concentration Camps in US

http://nstarzone.com/CAMPS.html

There are around 800 empty, but fully guarded and operable, FEMA camps all around the US. The biggest one can hold around 2 million prisoners and they are all set up and guarded 24/7. They all of roads and railroad systems for easy transportation of prisoners, kinda like the Holocaust camps? This article also shares some of the executive orders associated with FEMA that have been on file for around 30 years. If these orders are put into action, the United States Constitution is suspended along with our Bill of Rights. I think this is why it is important for individuals in the US to have guns because the government is taking all of the first steps necessary to destroy a group of people. If the people have guns it will give us the chance to stop whatever madness is planning to occur.

Targeted Advertisement

In 2nd period today, we talked a bit about how in advertisement, advertisers will carefully control a commercial down to the smallest detail in order to utilize or avoid certain stereotypes. Like OJ with Hertz, as we saw in the documentary, they subtly made it seem like even white people accepted, respected, and even cheered on by white people so to avoid negative stereotypes.

We talked about some of the other ways advertisers will subtly twist or validate their product by simply choosing the right extras, or language, or setting, or facial expressions to covertly alter our opinions on their product. But there are some times when this subtle art of manipulation isn't handled with subtlety.

Remember the "Dr Pepper 10" commercial that kicked up so controversy? The one that oh so subtly targeted the male demographic by having the main character screaming "It's not for women!" behind a backdrop of explosions? Well they weren't the first and won't be the last to aim their ads at men, they weren't even the first soda company to do so. But come on, when your slogan is "It's not for women", it's not really discreet targeting. Was this a clever advertisement strategy or blatant blunder? Your call.


Article on it:
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/story/2011-10-10/dr-pepper-for-men/50717788/1

Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zza3GqEL5B0