Feb. 23 In your journals: Who are you and where are your from? Agenda: Defining culture and race and looking at who we are and where we came from Facebook posts due Friday Have family tree out on desk

Checking out our trees Leave family tree on desk with name on it Everyone will take two minutes to go around and look at some family trees of people you might like to get to know better

Culture What is it?

Culture Defined All the different things that identify you and where you are from-like race, ethnicity, and religion, if any, you practice What are some other examples of culture?

Culture All the ways people live together and define themselves. We each participate in family, community, school, geographic, linguistic, economic, and religious cultures based on who we are and who we associate ourselves with-which we in turn modify and pass on to our families when we have them.

Because of thousands of years of migration and intermarriage, and outright violence like conquest and rape-people are not biologically distinct from each other except in superficial characteristics such as eye color, hair color, skin color and facial features. Even in these areas it is sometimes hard to make generalization about social or cultural differences based on physical differences.

Unfortunately… This has not kept people from using such differences to justify unequal treatment of and injustice towards others

Racism and Anti-Semitism Systems of exploitation of people that use superficial physical, cultural , religious, o heritage differences between people to justify inequality and violence. The injustice of racism, the exploitation of people of color, damages the lives of people of color and white people alike

Anti Semitism Alive in western society for over 2500 years Continuous religious exploitation on a full scale (Holocaust/Russian Pogroms/Egyptians) Exploitation is when one group of people takes advantage of a power imbalance to rob/ripoff the land, money, labor, artifacts, culture, and traditions of another group

Pair up with someone You don’t know very well Two minutes each: State your full name Define your culture-say as much as you know about your racial/ethnic, religious/nonreligious background Mention someone in your ancestry you look up to and why. Share anything new you found out when doing your family tree Try not to identify yourselves as a mixture. Be clear where your family came from.

Racial/Cultural Identity People are often mistreated unequally based upon where they are from and who they are. Some of this treatment reflects the ways people came to be part of the US and the places they occupy in society. Today and tomorrow we will look at oppression that separates people along these lines-how it effects us, and what we can do about it.

Racial/Cultural Identity Who and why is there hatred Racial/Cultural Identity Who and why is there hatred? (refer to power chart) African-American Arab-American Asian-American Native-American Pacific Islander White/European-American Christian Jewish Islamic Buddhist Multiheritage (one of color)

Oppression One of the ways oppression works to separate us from each other is by teaching lies about the people in these groups

Brown Eyes Blue Eyes http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/class-divided/ Frontline What did the children's body language indicate about the impact of discrimination? How did the negative and positive labels placed on a group become self-fulfilling prophecies? How did Elliott's discrimination create no-win situations for those placed in the inferior group? How did she selectively interpret behavior to confirm the stereotypes she had assigned?

On large paper: Groups of three

Group 1 Think of the earliest messages of any kind that you received that people of color were different from or less valuable than white people. State how it makes you feel and how it felt to get this information. What derogatory or slang words encourage oppression to this group?

Group 2 Think of the earliest messages of any kind that you received that Jewish people were different than or any less valuable than Christians. State what happened and how it felt to get this information What derogatory or slang words encourage oppression to this group?

Group 3 Think of the earliest messages of any kind that you received that immigrants, refugees, or non English speakers were different from, or less valuable than, English speaking people in the US. How did it feel to get this information What slang or derogatory words do you know that make keep these people oppressed?

Groups Present

Group Discussion Handout: Who Came here When?