Chapter 14 Fieldwork 

12/4/20

-10:00 I went out to go get breakfast at Ihop. The food that is distrubuted here is checked and regulated by the FDA before shipping out the food.

- 11:00 I had English class, and the state helps me pay for school so I could be in this class this day. They provide loans which make it possibly to even attend college and participate in these classes. 

-11:30 I began to drink my daily gallon of water, which is distributed by the state when we  pay for our water bills. 

-12:00 Watched the news in which the state regulates the news that is being out there for the people 

-12:30 Went on social media for an hour 

- 1:00 Got in the car to drive to my friends house and drove past 3 cops. The cops are sent by the state to make sure people are not driving reckless. 

1:05 Stopped at 2 traffic lights and 3 stop signs. The state put these so that the are making stops when needed to avoid accidents. 

- 1:10 Took a trip to the bank to take some cash out of my account. 

1:30 Went to the mall with my friend. Some of the stores we went to, the employees were wearing uniforms such as footlocker, and other stores were not such as H and M

- 2:00 Got a mail mackage from the post office man. These workers are supplied jobs by the state and our taxes are used for them. 

For my interview, I decided to choose one of my pops best friends. This man came to the United States at the age of 18, but before that he was living in Kenya. During his time in Kenya he was living in a village, where there wasn’t much and opportunities to become rich. This man lived with his mother who had 5 sons and 4 daughters. His mom was a single parent trying to feed and take care of the mouths of 9 children. This gave him the motivation to do something so that they didn’t have to live in poverty forever. Luckily this man was 6′5, and a very toned face that lead him into modeling. He worked on the farm all day, and eventually saved up so that this opportunity could come. His name started getting buzz and he was called by a modeling agency in LA, United States. From here he only got bigger and bigger, and made his way out of poverty. He moved his mother the united States with him, and ever since they both have been living the American dream. 

Snickers

For my candy, I chose snickers. The main ingredients are cocoa, milk chocolate, peanuts, corn syrup, sugar, palm oil, skim milk, lactose, salt, and egg whites. Snickers get their ingredients from a company called Mars Inc in New Jersey, USA, but the ingredients come from all around America. The snickers is made with a nougat base made with egg whites, sugar, and vanilla. After that the roasted peanuts gets covered in caramel. The caramel mixture is then layered on top of the nougat and the machines cut this mixture into bars. The people who produce the cocoa for snickers are kids who are forced to work against their will in terrible conditions, picking cocoa beans that make their way into Mars  company. After the harvesting, ripe pods are cut open and the beans are taken out. The cocoa beans are then fermented, dried, cleaned and packed to be shipped. The prices are set by commodity markets based on supply and demand levels. Mars, Ferrero, and Mondelez dominate the chocolate trades. Trades are regulated by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration). Snickers is marketed by innovative ads via electronic and print media in television, radio, newspaper, magazines, and billboards. Also the use of social media. I buy snickers from the gas station, CVS, Walgreens, etc.  A storeowner usually takes around  55-75%  of the profit for chocolate bars. The hidden cost for snickers would be the shipping that's included but we do not realize. 

Marx theory of social class indicates that modern society only has two classes; Bourgeois and proletarians. Bourgeois are the capitalist class that owns the means of production, meanwhile proletariats only own their own labor. Marx believed that the bourgeoisie exploited the proletariat class. They pay the workers just enough to afford food and have a living space, but the workers see the owners as a life saver, and continue to rely on the boss. A huge example of this can be seen with Apple. Apple is a huge company which has been flourishing for years, and continues to grow each year. Behind this success they have the ones who create so many of these phones and distribute them worldwide. Not many don’t see the work that they put in, but they put a tremendous amount of work in order to keep the business successful. You would think that they would be paid a lot for the amount of labor they do, but they get paid pretty much minimum wage. This can be seen a lot in China. http://www.chinalaborwatch.org/report/144

Max Weber believed that stratification is identified with distinct components (class, status, power) . Class being a certain group of people who have a similar level of wealth and income. Status being people who have the same prestige or lifestyle, and power being the ability to exercise one’s will over others. Basically one's influence over others is not only influenced by one. For example, Quentin Miller is said to be the ghost writer of Drake. Quentin Miller still has a lot of money, but he doesn’t have the status and the power because he isn’t known, and didn’t reveal himself for a while. Therefore, although he wrote Drake’s songs, he will never have the same power and influence as Drake. https://www.complex.com/music/2020/02/quentin-miller-on-5-years-drakes-if-youre-reading-this-its-too-late-ghostwriting-controversy

Bouridieu believes that cultural capital plays an important role when people pursue status and power in society. A combination of cultural, economic, and social capital contribute to the inequalities we see today in this world. He believed that social class is not defined by property but by the structure of relations between all the pertinent properties. We can see this in Robert Horry, a NBA basketball player who played alongside Kobe Bryant and Shaq. Robert Horry wasn’t the best player but because of the relations he had with Kobe and the rest of his great team, he started getting recognition and respect. One of his greatest moments was hitting the buzzer beater against the Kings, in the Western Conference Finals to go to the finals. Kobe and his team gave him the confidence and the energy to be able to hit a big shot like that and gain recognition worldwide. https://www.nba.com/lakers/news/180829-lakers-day-big-shot-robert-horry-stuns-kings

My mom has two sisters who both got married and gave me the cousins I have on my moms side. My dad had a sister who got married and a brother who got married and gave me the cousins I have on my dads side. Most of my cousins are cross cousins, and I have not yet encountered parallel cousins. I have a decent amount of cousins but not too much of which I see often. Some of my cousins on my moms side reside in Alabama where my grandfather currently lives so I don’t see them as much. Most of my dads side of the family lives in New Jersey.

There was a total of 5 commercials aimed at boys. There was a total of 4 commercials aimed at girls. Three of the commercials had no targeted gender. To attract the boys, they used toys like cars and action figures and the boys were a lot more aggressive in the commercial tending to their natural aggressive nature. To attract the girls, they used all girl actors which had on bright colors and played with dolls. These commercials teach gendered behaviors because it shows that boys are suppose to be more aggressive and on the rougher side, and girls are suppose to be all pretty and pink and play with toys of that manner. If a boy was playing with a doll at a young age, they would be looked at as weird because that is not the normal and if girls played with hot wheels and power ranger toys, they would seem out of place for girls.

Both of my parents were born in the United States. My mother was born in Mobile, Alabama while my father was born in Newark, New Jersey. My mom moved to New Jersey at the age of 4 with my grandmother, while my grandfather still lives in Alabama. Half of my family are in Alabama and the other half are in New Jersey. I visit Alabama twice a year to go see the side of my family that I don’t get to see often. I noticed that the culture on my moms side is way different from my dads side. It’s a lot more country out in Alabama, and they are overall a lot nicer. From a younging, they are taught manners and always respond in yes ma’am or yes sir. My family in New Jersey are not raised to respond in that manner, so they may come off as rude to my Alabama family.

1.Nativism- Nativism is favoring long term inhabitants(whites), over new immigrants. Many trump supporters today want innocent immigrants and foreigners completely out of our country. When you come across immigrants and foreigners, they are always the nicest type of people. All they want to do is work, and provide for their family but white people can’t seem to see this for some reason.

2. White supremacy- White supremacy is simply the belief that white people are superior to all other races. Police officers have been displaying this ideology since the civil rights and still till this day. White police officers abuse black victims and take their life away over and over again. This is stemed from the the belief of white supremacy. They believe they are above the law and are the law.

3. Microagressions- Nowadays, white people feel harmed by black people who are simply minding their business. These people in the picture are labeled as “Karen’s”, which is simply white women who can’t mind their own business and feel the need to put the black mans life in danger. They try to tell black people that they can’t do things of which are completely legal, and try to call the police on them for no reason.

4. Institutional Racism- The best way to keep the black man under control is to control their education, and white people clearly understand this. In school, we always read about all the great things white peoples do, but they never really mention all the great things black people have done. The main thing we hear about black people in school is slavery, and not all the others we did. They want to keep us in that mindset that we are slaves, and the white man is responsible for everything we have.

5. Colonialism- Christopher Columbus is the perfect example of colonialism. They came to the land of the indigenous people, and took everything they had. They claimed the land as theirs and took the indigenous people in as slaves. Nowadays, America claims that Christopher Columbus discovered America but we all know that the indigenous people were there first.

6. Jim Crow- This picture displays the Jim Crow laws in which white and black people were legally separated. Black people weren’t allowed to use the same bathroom, sit in the same area in restaurants, and more. If black people broke these laws they would be seriously hurt, and even killed.

1. In my health class, there were a total of 20 females, and 17 males. The men spoke 9 times during the class, while the females spoke 5 times. In this case, the men spoke more.

2. The people who spoke in the class spoke an average of 7-12 seconds. They also spoke an average of 25-35 words on average.

3. I noticed that the females spoke with more emotion than the men. There was more emphasis on words by the females than the men. The females also use their hands a lot when they spoke, which seems almost normal for them.

4. The men keep their cameras on more. Most of the females had their camera off but there were a few that kept them on.

5. My instructor is a woman. She encouraged communication by asking questions to the class pertaining to the lesson and also asking students for their input on certain topics. While doing this, she made sure that she had an engaging voice, and spoke clearly.

6. I feel as if the instructors gender doesn’t not affect the way they interact the class, because the same way my male instructors interact with the class, is the same with the females.

For my field I decided to go to a park. For my picture I drew a lot of different areas that composed of the park. I drew a basketball court, baseball field, ice skating rink, playground, and the parking lot. After sitting and observing for a hour, I noticed that that the park wasn’t as usual. Usually the park is filled with people, and active with teens and screaming babies but there wasn’t today. On the other hand, there was a lot more animals such as squirrels and birds at the park. The grass and the trees at the park were not as vibrant as they usually are. The main sounds were birds chirping, and the trees blowing from the wind. There was a few kids on the basketball court playing basketball, one parent with their kid on the ice skating rink, and few kids on the playground running around. Besides from those people, the park was pretty much empty. I believe that this is due to COVID. People are not willing to go out to parks where it’s crowded, and possibly get sick, so they are staying home

After completing this assignment, I realized that I spend a lot of money on things that I don’t need. Some of my expensive purchases were my phone and my tv, both of which are not needed. Not having these items could save me a lot of money in the long run. I also noticed that I spend a lot of money on clothes. I spend $400 on pants, $500 on shirts, $300 on jackets, and $100 on hats. These are others items that I could also cut my spending on. So my overall evaluation is that I spent too much money on electronics and clothes.

The earliest know brush was made animal bone and found in Syria. The brush Is dated from 8000 BC. Paint brushes are believed to be used 2.5 million years ago and were later Used for hair. Today people either Use brushes to style their hair, or to paint pictures and houses. Brushes are manufactured in China by the Chinese and they who make these brushes have a harsh life because they constantly have to work.

This is an example of flexible accumulation because they are increasing their sales from something of which has a popular demand