Wise Points

Tim Wise's speech was both engaging and eye-opening. Particularly poignant was his point that this society finds it easy to acknowledge the discrimination of the '60s, yet we cannot or will not see or hear those speaking out about discrimination today.

Of all my college classes, the critical thinking courses are the ones I value most because they open my eyes-at least a little bit. We as a society are so blind to discrimination, racism, sexism, etc., it is ridiculous. You only have to turn on the TV for 15 minutes and watch 2 segments of commercial breaks to see the biased ideas that still pervade our society. In a 30 second advertisement, we accept more of this propaganda than we realize.

Take any TV commercial for a product used for laundry, cleaning, cooking, or other domestic duties for an example. How many times do you see a man washing dishes, doing laundry, or picking the kids up from soccer practice? Where they? Look no further than the next Bud Light commercial- to find the men at a bar watching sports. The same thing goes for people of color in advertisements. Magazine ads only have a split second to communicate an idea to you, and oftentimes they are even worse than a 60 second TV commercial. If you don't believe me, next time you see an ad ask yourself: what does this say about women or men, whites or minorities?

Yet we accept all this without thinking most of the time. Just YouTube a commercial from the 50s and 60s. I guarantee you'll laugh at the blatant stereotypes (especially those of women and blacks) you'll find there. If you look hard enough at commercials today, you'll laugh too- just like people will be laughing at our foolishness 50 years from now.

Ivy Chamness

KIN 338; sec 06