Monopoly: Reality Style

This week in class we began the week by playing Monopoly with an adapted set of rules. We all started with different amounts of money, based on the social class we randomly got at the beginning of class. This game was supposed to show us how difficult it is to move up at all in social class in real life, and how easy it is to fall down the social ladder at any point. I thought this was such an interesting way to demonstrate this idea of social immobility, and it definitely gave me a different perspective on people in various social classes. People that are in the working class or middle class are working just as hard, if not harder, than the people in the upper-middle to upper classes. Their only disadvantage is being born into a lower social group. How is that their fault? It isn't. I had never thought about social standing in this manner before. Monday night a few of us went to Uptown Cafe. If there's one experience I would recommend to anyone, this would be the one. Living in a community like the Buffalo Grove/Lincolnshire area, we really aren't too exposed to people of wide varieties of social standing. Going to Uptown Cafe showed me that it isn't just people who don't care to go to work, or are living on the street. It's people who are just down on their luck and can't make enough money to support their families above the poverty line. I met teachers, religious leaders...so many people that are educated, but simply can't seem to stay afloat. Many people aren't really aware of this class of people because they haven't been exposed to that type of environment. As our version of Monopoly taught us this week, it's sad, but it's reality.

Social Class

Before we watched the movie about social class this week in sociology, I really hadn't given social class much thought. I mean, I was aware that there were social classes, but didn't really stop and think about who fit in where, or how truly different the people from these different classes could really be. Through watching this film, I learned that there are such vast extremes in society still today that most people are unaware of. There are the people who still have small-town festivities like carnivals and festivals, and there are the social elite that only associate really with one another. Even in our everyday life in the suburbs of Chicago, it's very rare, at least for me, to encounter someone who is much outside of my social class. Sure, there are people ranging from middle class to upper-middle class to upper class that all live in this relative area. However, I think it's really important that, at some point in their lives, people experience life outside of their social class, and learn how different each lifestyle truly is. For me, it was an eye-opening experience that made me appreciate what I have even more.

Guilty Until Proven Innocent? Wait....

The court system in this country appears to be relatively effective at a glance, but when you look closely, there are so many flaws in this. From the minute the arrested people arrive at the prison to await trial, they are treated like prisoners. This doesn't even begin to describe what they go through, though. These people, that supposedly have not even been proven guilty yet, are treated like animals kept in cages. In some ways, it does make sense that the guards have to treat the people awaiting trial in such a harsh manner because the guards are vastly outnumbered and have no weapons to defend themselves if any riots should break out. However, this doesn't make a very good name for the justice system, if the system itself is unjust. All the name-calling, and saying that they don't care what happens to these people and how they're already guilty, is simply unnecessary, and there are definitely other ways to handle these people. I understand that these people are often convicted of some serious crimes, but until they're proven guilty in court, there's no reason to treat them as criminals. Being strict is one thing, but being inhumane is another concept entirely.

OTC or Felony?

Yesterday in class we were given a description of various drugs and their side effects. We were asked to classify them on a scale of 1-4: 1 being over-the-counter, and 4 being a felony. I was extremely surprised by how wrong our predictions were. After we rated the drugs ourselves, we went through and found out what drug matched each description, and were shocked. We had given things like alcohol and nicotine a 4, but marijuana and heroin a 2. This directly relates to the idea of deviance in our society. Certain drugs aren't legally allowed, but based solely on their descriptions you would naturally think otherwise. When comparing the effects of nicotine and marijuana, it was crazy how it seemed that these two substances should actually be reversed in society. The effects of nicotine are so much more severe than that of marijuana, and we realized that it was because of deviance that people saw marijuana as worse than nicotine. If you look at the facts, the results will be extremely different. Since deviance is relative to time and place, I think that this has a direct relationship to the beginning of legal changes for medicinal marijuana, which I think could eventually be nationwide. It's amazing to me how people see certain drugs as worse for you, just based on their legal status.