D Block Crime, Media & Society 12
- Today we'll look at race and ethnicity connected to moral panics and crime
waves. American and Canadian social histories are littered with the rise and
fall of drug panics. From marijuana, heroin, alcohol and crack, varying levels
of moral outrage and repression have been thrown at those blamed for "the sweet
pill that makes life better". If you look historically, media depictions of
crack are most often associated with African Americans (blacks) and violent
crime, while methamphetamine is most commonly associated with Caucasians (whites)
and is framed as a "public health problem". As you can see, the "depravity" of a
"ghetto drug" like crack, and the creeping of meth into the ‘‘mainstream’’ belie
racial stereotypes of black and white in North America. Meth brings the
depravity of urban drug panics to new spaces. The next Racial Moral Panic and
Crime Wave? Mexican Drug Cartels flooding Meth into White Suburban USA. So how
is this portrayed in Crime Media, Walter White? 48 Hours Mystery aired an episode titled "The Curse of Small Town U.S.A". The description from their website reads like this:
Methamphetamine is a powerful, cheap drug and it is a growing problem in some surprising parts of America. Unlike crack cocaine, which primarily targeted the inner-city during its reign of terror in the 1980's, crank is making it's mark in Small Town, U.S.A. The drug's users range from middle class and well-educated people to teens -- even mothers who have passed on their addictions to their babies. One of the reasons crank is growing so quickly is that methamphetamine is easily produced in makeshift labs from inexpensive raw materials. In addition, users experience a "high" lasting up to 30 hours -- much longer than many other drugs. "Methamphetamine may be the worst drug ever to hit America," says retired General Barry McAffrey, the nation's Drug Czar. "It's expanding in a very bizarre manner. It's all over the Midwest. It's in Idaho, Arizona, Hawaii, San Francisco, Southern California. It's now showing up in Georgia." Crank's explosive growth is being fueled by mass production labs run by Mexican nationals. Authorities say they produce up to 95% of the crank on America's streets. CBS News 48 Hours took a close look at methamphetamine on Thursday, and found a drug that threatens to tear apart the lives of countless Americans. Could your community be at risk?
So we'll watch parts of the 1990's 48 Hours episode "On Crack Street"
and then we'll watch the Discovery Channel documentary American Underworld: Homemade Illegal Drugs"
So after watching today's videos I'll ask you to answer the following:
- What messages about race and drug use do the videos show? (think about who uses meth, who makes meth, and who sells it).
C & B Blocks Social Studies 11 - Today I'd like you to watch a brilliant commercial about access to fresh water from World Vision...
FYI: World Vision is a non-profit organization (however it is denominational - Christian) that works in three areas for the developing world: disaster management, development assistance and advocacy (human rights, economic justice and peace). We'll continue looking at the connection between the social problems (gender, health, children, etc.) in HIPC's with economic development. We will examine traditional economies which are based in primary industries and subsistence farming and compare those with developing and developed economies. This will help us understand the challenges that exist to development around the world. After this, we'll take a look at the Human Development Index which focuses on health, poverty and hunger, education, and environmental issues in countries around the world. A good resource is the UNDP HDI Report. We'll try to understand what HIPC's (Highly Indebted Poor Countries) are along with the cycle of poverty looking at two power points about material wealth and food (based on photography from Peter Menzel). Later we will make a connection between the social problems (gender, health, children, etc.) in HIPC's with economic development. We will examine traditional economies which are based in primary industries and subsistence farming and compare those with developing and developed economies.
There is an excellent news story on the CNN Freedom Project called Chocolate's Child Slaves.
From the CNN site: It may be unthinkable that the chocolate we enjoy could come from the hands of children working as slaves. In the Ivory Coast and other cocoa-producing countries, there are an estimated 100,000 children working the fields, many against their will, to create the chocolate delicacies enjoyed around the world.
This story is a good example of the social problems associated with development and the reliance upon monoculture for economies in developing countries. So today's question I would like you to tackle (which connects to our Infographic activity next week) is:
- Three conditions that seem to be linked to the lack of development of countries are: political instability; lack of technology; and domestic and international conflict. Explain how each factor contributes to a lack of development...This is question 5 from page 418 of the Counterpoints text. Look at Chapter 14 along with pages 403-409 to help.
A Block Geography 12 - To start the class, we will discuss Jared Diamond's book Collapse, trying to make sense of how civilizations in the past collapsed (Maya & Rapa Nui) and extrapolating his findings to our modern society today. We'll look at the twelve major modern environmental problems that Diamond identifies and examine his conclusions about our potential future. Remember to ask me about bunnies and Australia, specifically the 24 bunnies that the British brought with them in 1859 and how much the Australian government spends annually to control them. See Diamond talk at TED here. After, if there's time, we'll watch the National Geographic special Collapse.
From Nat Geo...
Imagine if hundreds of years from now, scientists excavated the abandoned ruins of some of our largest cities, what conclusions would they come to? It happened to the Romans, the Anasazi, and the Mayans and, inevitably, one day our own modern civilisation will also fall. In this two hour special discover how a future civilisation might be baffled as to why the population of these once-great cities would suddenly abandon their technology and architecture, and turn their homes into ghost towns. Some experts believe that there is a very real risk this could happen, and the collapse of the world as we know it is closer than we think. Examining the parallels between cultures separated by hundreds of years, explore whether the key to preventing such a global collapse today could lie in finding renewable alternatives to our dwindling energy supplies and sustainable resources. Can we learn from the mistakes of the past before it's too late?
Remember it's too late to be a pessimist.
Business Insider asks: Is the Anthropocene real? That is, the vigorously debated concept of a new geological epoch driven by humans. Our environmental impact is indeed profound — there is little debate about that — but is it significant on a geological timescale, measured over millions of years? And will humans leave a distinctive mark upon the layers of rocks that geologists of 100,000,000AD might use to investigate the present day?
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