moment

There were so many identity and culture moments that took place over a span of one week it was ridiculous. It is interesting when I try to write an identity and culture moment in my life because I learn a lot more about myself. I start asking myself questions, I would never think about or, let alone, know how to answer the question. It is kind of weird for me to ask myself questions that I cannot answer because I like to answer questions. However, I think the answers I come up with shock me and I am start to learn more about myself from this class. Anyway, back to my identity and culture moment. I have changed this draft so many times. I finish what I am going to post, but then I run across an even better moment and start over. So sorry, but I hope this moment is a good one. I was channel surfing one night while editing dinner. As I turned to channel 8 thinking I was going to be watching deal or no deal. However, instead of seeing the models holding numbered briefcases, I just saw people standing on little numbered platforms. I decided to leave it on this channel for a while, to figure out what this new show was. After watching this game for a while I realized what it was. It was basically a game that rewarded people for stereotyping others. This game is called, "Identity" on NBC, it is an exhilarating game where the contestants try to match up a group of strangers to their identities, ranging from a profession to a shoe size. The contestants can be rewarded up to $500,000 for correctly matching up the 12 strangers to their identities. While watching this show, I came across some very disturbing conclusion. I realized how stupid some stereotypes that are stuck in people's minds are very stupid. Also, I came to realize I have a lot of stereotypes against certain people. When I heard a certain occupation, I immediately could picture a certain person in my mind. That brought me back to the question we talked about in identity and culture, Can we control ourselves from stereotyping others? This game show made me realize I am somewhat of a hypocrite. After playing “identity” and matching strangers with different identities, I was pretty mad. I was mad because I did not think I that was who I was. Yes, some of the stereotypes were true, but not all. I thought it was unfair that people who would think these things of me before meeting me. This game show made me realize I do this to other people. When this lady was playing the game, she had to match one of the strangers to a police officer, she immediately thought it would be a guy. However, the police officer ended up being a woman. I thought this game was so stupid and full of dumb stereotypes. One of the identities was a hula dancer. The lady, who was playing the game said, “Well I have been in Hawaii and they speak Japanese, so it must be the Japanese girl”. It turns out she was correct, but it still made me mad that she thought the tourist were the kind of people that lived in Hawaii. I ended up watching the rest of the show and the lady ended up winning $500,000. It was a weird mix of emotions. I was mad because I thought, how can they make up a game where they rewarded people for stereotyping others. I was shocked some one could win this huge amount of money for stereotyping people. However, as I watched this game I realized, I was guessing along with the contestant. I had the same stereotypes of these certain identities running in my head. It made me think, how could I be so mad about something I do? Do I stereotype people? Why do I stereotype people, if I feel so strongly against it? Do I have control over this? How can I stereotype people, when I hate being stereotyped? Where did I learn these stereotypes? Why do we have these stereotypes? So many questions were running through my mind and I was not able to answer them. I was so unsure of everything. I still do not know how to answer these questions, but I think it is good I am thinking about them. It is crazy how now a stupid TV show can make me think of these deep questions :]