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From: John P. Pavelec
Date: 1/18/01
Time: 11:16:30 PM
Remote Name: 64.12.103.32
Hi. I'm JP. I'm a senior and am majoring in political science. Currently, I am also pursuing a minor in journalism.
I took this course with the expectation to learn about how we cover people whow are different. I have every intention of, someday anyway, working reporting on political events and maneuvers on the national level and so it would be interesting to note how we report on people of different races, genders, and sexual orientations so as to best report on them. We do, in political science, to classify people as to ethnic groups and perhaps even lump them into similar interest groups (blacks = democrats, protestants = republicans) however innaccurate that may be. So I do have the intention of broadening my horizons and understanding why we think as we do.
To begin with that, I would like to extend upon an issue already brought up. In one of the e-mails, one of you fellow classmates wrote about an incident involving the death of a dog. The dog was stomped to death, if I recall from the e-mail. The student said, quite candidly, that he or thought the dog was killed by a white man and not, as it turned out, by a black man.
that is most interseting, because, I am sure there have been occassions when I, too, visualized quite innaccurately, who was doing whatever was occurring. I'm believe I did that because I associated that action. Can the writer, and I guess I'm asking him/her primarily, be associating those actions because he or she associates dogs with middle-income, familiar, perhaps suburban family? Or is it more of a feeling than a statistic? Is it because he or she has associated with whites all of his or her life and rarely, has been around those of other races?
as you may have known, I just admitted that I believe this person who wrote the case to be white. I don't know whether I base it on the reasons mentioned above or because that person associated with whites and that therefore I assumed he most likely is white.
Interested to hear back.