Group Relations

First and foremost - my IRB has been approved!! YES! So glad that stress is finally over.

So this post will be somewhat similar to the one prior about beauty perception. It is about an issue I have encountered time and time again here in America, and I am wondering if similar issues exist in Ghana. I think comparing and contrasting between what I known and what I will discover is effective in better understanding a foreign culture.

Actually, my post is about race relations, which is not a singular issue, but encompasses a world of issues that have perpetuated in America since its conception and remain today. Racism and related problems are basically always on my mind, but have been brought to the forefront of a lot of my news reading lately with the whole Trayvon Martin case. Although I realize it is often bad to come to hasty conclusions about murky scenarios, like what happened in Trayvon's gated community the day he died, the official information about the case is still enough to make me feel sick.

Basically, Trayvon, a black boy in a hoodie, was on his way back to his house in a gated neighborhood after walking to the store to buy skittles, was followed by a neighborhood watch volunteer, and eventually shot dead by the man before making it to his front door. The shooter claims he killed in self defense, because he was attacked, although witnesses claim they heard the boy yelling for help. The shooter says he had initially followed the boy because he looked suspicious, although he was just wearing a casual hoodie and tennis shoes, and the only things in his hands were skittles and iced tea. The shooter, although a neighborhood watch volunteer, did not have the legal authority to even be armed. When the boy's body was picked up, the shooter was not arrested, and the victim remained unidentified, some speculating because authorities could not believe a black boy in a hoodie actually lived in the gated community.

Now, a huge nationwide backlash has occured against the police department of the boy's city in Florida, criticizing the way the case was handled since the shooter has yet to even have been arrested, let off merely because he claimed self defense. An online petition gained over 800,000 signatures calling for justice for Trayvon's death. Many say had the shooter been a black man, and the victim a white boy, or of any race for that matter, he would have immediately been arrested, and harsh legal action would have been attempted against him. As much as I hate to say it, I basically agree.

I could go on and on about the deeper issues this story and similar ones say about the long, LONG way America has to go before it becomes post-racial, but this post is meant to relate to my project. This is where this post becomes similar to the beauty perception post. I am very interested in whether racial or ethnic differences affect society and culture in Ghana in the same large ways it does in America. Do Ghanaians treat others differently based on various racial, ethnic, or tribal identities? Are some groups faced with a perpetual perception as guests in their own country, or the fear of being viewed in the negative light of suspicion or condescension? How do these issues affect social classes, community structure, government, etc? These are some other issues I would like to at least passively keep in mind and observe during my time in Ghana.

Here is a fairly unbiased version of the updated story of Trayvon Martin, as of today:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/27/justice/florida-teen-shooting/?hpt=hp_t1

Beauty Perceptions

Last week I was talking to my friend Katherine who had the privilege of visiting Tanzania, Africa for three weeks for an observational study. She shared some of her experiences with me, and expressed how excited she was for me to live in Ghana. One of the things she related was simple yet thought-provoking. She said I would be surprised how much I would stop thinking about my external image, my clothing, my body shape, etc. I do not believe she meant at all that I would not care about being physically healthy. More she meant that with the absence of Western media saturation and the affects this takes on young minds in relation to body image, I would not worry so much about how my physicality was being perceived. This led into a conversation about the detrimental affects of American media shaping the way youth, and especially women, think about their bodies. Girls think they must conform to a certain body type/skin type/hair type/dress style etc, an impossibility for many, which leads to eating disorders and low self-esteem. Boys think that a certain body type/skin type/hair type/dress style is the epitome of beauty or should dictate attraction. I told Katherine about how I had felt the affects of this here at BYU, being one of the few students of African descent, I simply cannot fit in with many of the mainstream traits esteemed as beautiful in Provo culture. Even if I was as healthy as I possibly could be, I will never be as stick thin as some others of a different ethnicity. My genes give me irreversible curves and thickness. My facial features include a wider nose, and fuller lips. My hair is extremely curvy, and my skin is dark. Maybe I am overly sensitive, but I have often felt almost ashamed of some of my differences in relation to my homogenous surroundings, especially since the media glorifies the beauty of tall, white, stick-thin women, and I can see the affects of this on the way beauty is perceived in my own community.

I wonder how this will change in Ghana. How will beauty be perceived differently due to a very different racial and ethnic majority, as well as due to the lesser prevalence of Western media influences? How do these differences affect the way females in particular view themselves, and how do they affect courtship and attraction? This is something I would be interested in observing although my project does not address these issues.

There is definitely a lot to think about when you realize that beauty and attraction are so relative, that just by moving to another location you could be viewed as either less or more attractive according to cultural influences.

Here is a somewhat harsh site that really brings up some relevant issues about the recent onslaught of white indie culture in the U.S. that has pushed the prevalence of rail thin, retro white girls - think the type of girls you would see the majority of the time in Urban Outfitters advertising -

http://www.carefreewhitegirl.com/

Tribal Customs of the Primitive Peoples in America

Yesterday, I had the great privilege of watching my first full Grammy Awards show. This statement of course is heavy on the sarcasm right around the "privilege" part. Besides the fact that I personally despise country music, and it seemed this was Part 2 of the CMAs, the spectacle in general was somewhat disappointing, but thought-provoking. It seems like awards shows like these, clearly reserved for participation by the celebrity elite only, and blatantly set up so that the common masses can easily show their worshipful devotion, have begun to define major aspects of American culture. Celebrity is the center - it dominates our viewership and now even our conversation, more intensely through mediums like Twitter, which has been trending things like #grammys and #nicki minaj all night.

After watching America's prime sampling of upperclass culture, it was just so evident how blurred the lines of modernity and primitivity really are. I do not think I can believe in "primitive" culture. For one, obviously as I learn each day in development, we have to end the thought process that different from the Western way = underdeveloped, without question. However, I also gained this disbelief as I watched the most powerful and visible players in my own national society look absolutely "primitive" at the Grammys. Rihanna, Katy Perry, and Nicki Minaj's performances stand out in my mind - they ranged from overtly flashy to the point of sensory overload, sexual gyrations and thrusts almost continually, and downright dark and scary. Obviously, this is all subjective interpretation on my part - I am sure elsewhere in the country there are people who are hailing those performances as high class art.

However, that is the point. Culture is subjective, and so is the term "primitive". As I learn more about the values of Ghanaian people, which differ entirely from those in my home country, whether this be marriage rituals, the way people define family connections, or the distinction between gender roles, I see that these values are not inferior or less advanced, just different. Even if one was to argue that primitivity is real, I would think they may have a hard time deciding which was more primitive - the Ghanaians, or celebrity/money/sex obsessed Americans.