Reading response #4

Bostitis- #1

David Bostitis writes about the insufficiencies in the gathering of minority groups’ views and opinions due to polling issues. Many reports are misleading because of several factors in the polling process. Sample sizes are too small, giving a large margin of error. There are normally appointed spokespeople of the selected group to make a statement, giving only one idea of the entire story. Also, polls usually target a large general minority group, not looking at subpopulations. Bostitis discusses the problems with attaining a truly accurate idea of what minorities’ are needing and feeling. Most of the problems have to do with the expenses in personal phone calls to those of a target subpopulation, as well as the need for translators in some cases. But the need for polling these minority groups is great- their views are often drastically different from non-hispanic white people, and the differences in demographics in these groups (Differences in age and gender) are often attributed to different attitudes about things. It is important to accurately obtain minorities’ opinions about politics and government, and to get an accurate notion of what they are in need of.

This essay is evaluative in that it aims to convince readers that this is a real problem and gives sufficient reasons why. It is proposal in that it presents a problem and possible solutions to fix it- like having smaller research groups go into local minority communities to conduct surveys. Bostitis is making the proposal that minority groups aren’t being heard correctly, but there are ways to get around the obstacles to fix this issue.

Tannen-#1

Tannen explains the complex relationship that is between a mother and daughter. Mother/daughter communication is difficult because it stems from such an early root, and there is such an undeniable pressure for the daughter to become like her mother, or please her mother. My personal take on it is that the mother wants the daughter to become like her, or if she doesn’t, she wants the daughter to become someone whom the mother has respect for. Much of the time it is a case where a mother wants to instill the things she’s learned in life within her daughter, not wanting the daughter to make the same mistakes- even if that means being a little controlling. In my opinion there’s also some very underlying jealously of the daughter by the mother. In a Freudian-like sense, as a woman ages she might be looking back and thinking about things she wishes she would have done, and sees the youth in her daughter with envy and wants only for her daughter to do those things she might have wanted to do. A mother/son relationship is in fact much different. Because boys are often much less dependent on mom for advice- whether that be about clothes, makeup, girlfriends, etc., that type of connection isn’t there. There is a different kind of bond though, that a mother wants her son to be successful and a eligible candidate for a nice girl someday. A mother/son relationship, then, is definitely less complex but not necessarily less close.

Page 827 #1

These advertisements are not just simply saying- don’t do drugs. What they do is try to relate to the most vulnerable group for drug/alcohol use, and ignite a wanting to be better than that. The “courage” one is saying- “hey, we know it’s hard to confront someone you care about, it’s scary. But if you care, you have to be courageous, and you could save them from this.” It depicts a young black couple, in what looks like a normal inner city neighborhood. One of the most at-risk groups is young black individuals in low income areas, so this ad will hit many people personally. It shows the true fact that relationships are ever-so-important in the teen age, and can be fragile when there’s still-developing maturity levels involved. So just by using this picture, and these words, it makes the message “don’t do drugs” so much more effective and meaningful. In the “regret” advertisement, the picture is the most captivating part. An image of a mangled pink bicycle tire is universal in what it means- a little girl was riding it, and now she’s probably dead. This ad doesn’t just say “smoking weed is bad”, it says “smoking weed can get people killed.” They used an extreme method by doing this, but it’s likely to really hit home to any human being with feelings. The “i-am” messages use pictures of youth who, on the outside, look like your typical trouble maker. They’re how TV portrays troubled teens, how movies portray troubled teens, etc., so it says to kids “you don’t have to morph into what people expect of you.” The text in them shows that even though people are going to make assumptions, they know that they’re above that- they have accomplishments and goals. They may be surrounded by those who choose drugs and alcohol, but they’ve set goals higher than that.