Directions

Please respond to all of the questions in paragraph form with the question numbers labeled. You should incorporate concepts from the readings into your answers and cite the readings as needed. The paper should be 2-4 pages.

1.  Mobile home residents are not the only stigmatized group who establish their decency by distancing themselves from others.

 Who else does this?

 How do they do it?

 Why do they do this rather than approaching others with empathy?

 How does this approach reproduce inequality?

2.  Watch the trailer and read the description of The Blind Side, the dramatization of football player Michael Ohers success, which earned over $255 million at the box office and earned Sandra Bullock an Oscar for Best Leading Actress (and ).

 What emotions dominated while you watched?

 What strategies did the director and actors use to conjure those different feelings?

 Now consider the racial undertones of the movie or read some racial critiques-

 How do you think most white individuals feel when watching this movie?

 What about African Americans?

 To what extent are these portrayals conscious on the part of the movie makers?

 Does thinking about the racial content change your emotional experience? Why or why not?

 Where else do we see racial portrayals that are designed to evoke particular emotional responses?

 Read the National Association of Black Social Workers- What is their position? Why?

3.  Generate a list of the social identities most important to you. Then organize the list according to their salience to you and label each section of the chart.

 Looking at the list, which social identity is most important to you?

 What kinds of benefits do you get from this identity? If you suddenly could no longer claim this identity, how would you feel?

 What relationships and resources would you lose? Would you lose other social benefits?

 Think of a behavior or two that is repugnant to people within that group. What social conditions could compel you to act that way? Do you know people who have engaged in that behavior?

 How did they reconcile the conflict between their identity and their actions?

 What sort of vocabularies of motive did theyor could youuse to convince themselves and others to act in that way?