JOMC 441 A Field Trip to the Women's Center

I have been past the Carolina Women's Center dozens of times, but until today had never stepped through its doors. It wasn't that I wasn't interested in women's issues or feminism or anything like that, because I am, but I never had a specific reason to visit.

The Center itself is pretty modest-- a few offices for directors, a meeting room, and a small cozy library-- but you can tell a lot of big things happen there. First, there are directors and associates who all specialize in different subjects. Dr. Fogle, the head director, concentrates on the issue of human trafficking, and there are other center leaders who specialize in gender identity issues, pregnancy, and other topics relating to women's struggles. Though most of the women were out of the office this morning, I did get a chance to pick up literature on several of these topics to see what the Center had to offer.

I was most impressed, though, by the library, located in the small annex beside the Center. The main room has hundreds of books and DVDs available for check out by UNC students interested in learning more about women's issues. Also, there are a few small rooms off from the main room where meetings take place, and a lactation room for students who are nursing.

After having visited the Center, I wish I had gotten more involved earlier in my college career. Their programming all seems really exciting, their resources were interesting, and the people there were incredibly friendly. I plan to spend more time there in my last semester at Carolina so as to leave this place a stronger woman than when I arrived.

JOMC441 - John Freeman talk

I didn't get to stay for the entire lecture because of class, but the 45 minutes of the John Freeman talk I did get to attend were definitely interesting.

John is a journalist living in Philadelphia who works with Harvest USA, a Christian counseling group dealing mostly with sexual issues-- homosexuality, pornography addiction, etc. From an early age he identified as gay (he attributes this to peer influence, it seems), but at age 21 decided that had a lot more to do with inner turmoil than it did with his actual sexuality.

The majority of his talk dealt with the idea that Jesus sees us for what's inside, and that's his main concern-- not who we hang out with or who we present ourselves as being. Using passages from the Bible and several C.S. Lewis books, he emphasized that a lot of the issues we face on a daily basis and over long periods of time come from problems we aren't addressing on the inside, things weighing heavily on our hearts. And we don't want to ask for God's help, because God never gives us exactly the help we need and stops-- we'll get the "full treatment."

I'm not sure quite how I felt about the talk as a whole. It made me really uncomfortable that he was implying that homosexuals were all struggling with morality. I think everyone has issues that weigh heavy on their hearts-- we're humans and flawed -- but he never really said that. He mentioned praying for gay people, but never mentioned praying for everyone you meet. I'm sure many, many straight people have issues worse than being attracted to someone of the same sex, and we need to listen to them and pray for them as much or more than we do gay people. Also, when he talked about listening to stories and not writing people off, it was almost in a patronizing way that implied you shouldn't give up on them because they could change. What if they never change? Anyway, I think had the talk focused on, like he said at one point, the fact that "we become outwardly what we give our hearts to," it would have been much more inclusive and much more easily identified with. Instead, it came off as a way to "fix" homosexuality, which I don't think is possible or necessary.

JOMC 441- Reaction to Brett Chambers' lecture

On the 25-word introduction:

It was really difficult to start writing exactly what I wanted to say, because I was too concerned with questioning what he wanted to hear, which I think says a lot about my personality in and of itself. I'm a people pleaser. Once I finally got down to it, though, it was really interesting to see what I came up with. My highest priority is that people know I care. I often come off as sarcastic, since that's my style of humor, but I love listening and helping, and I would do anything for my loved ones. Also, I thought it was important that I describe what inspires my actions every day-- learning, growing, loving, being creative, inspiring, expressing myself, staying positive, being productive. Those are the things that I believe people often misinterpret about me, so I like having them out in the open early on. After thinking about it, I suppose the fact that I'm from a small town in the south does affect who I am, and people who don't know me from home would benefit from knowing that. So here's my final version. (I went four words over. Oops.)

I'm from a small, southern town but I have far-reaching interests. My loved ones are my highest priority. I live everyday to learn, grow, create, inspire, and entertain.

On the lecture as a whole:

I found the lecture by Professor Chambers to be incredibly interesting. From the very first statement, which was that diversity and inclusion were not the same thing, my attention was held. I really enjoyed discussing how everyone has different stories and different ways of defining themselves or describing themselves, but I think the part that will most stick with me was the story about his newsroom misunderstanding. He told the story about "A white woman attacked in north Durham" and asked what we assumed, and our assumptions were generally the same. Basically he made a point as to how preconceptions affect what we take from the news, especially as it pertains to reinforcing our stereotypes. I honestly had never thought of how our beliefs put together pieces there, but they really do-- even when a lot of information is left out.

From this lecture, I've been inspired to take time to really get to know people and listen to what they're saying, free of my preconceptions. Hopefully with practice, this will get a lot easier so, as a journalist, I can give the whole story.

JOMC 441 IAT Post

I took the Asian IAT, and after ten incredibly overwhelming, stressful minutes, got the result "a little to somewhat biased," which sort of surprised me. Not going to lie, my first reaction was, "but I'm not racist!" This post, though it may seem like it, is not about blaming someone else. Obviously I was the one who took the test. But I do think a lot of factors went into my results.

First, the test itself was a little crazy. It took way more effort for me to remember which category was on which side than it did for me to associate Asian people with American things or vice versa. I, for some reason, just could not wrap my head around the categories. Then that ominous, "Don't take too much time or your results won't be accurate" thing came up, which made me really nervous, so I'm not sure how focused I actually was.

Secondly, coming from a small town where I knew two Asian people, it probably shouldn't be very surprising that most of my exposure to Asian-American people was the media, which meant stereotyping their "non-American" attributes. After years of this, I think anyone would be "a little to somewhat" biased.

Anyway, the test gave me interesting things to think about, and I plan on taking a few more of the tests in the future, if I can get my stress levels down from the first time.