Tag: culture
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Free Time?
“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains,” Jean-Jacques Rousseau. We are conditioned to make friends, become successful and contribute to society. We are conditioned to these things in way that differs from the normal and natural progression of the human experience. Millennials especially, value themselves based on their achievements, goals and acquaintances more than…
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There is room
“Sometimes you have two children born at the same time; one is stillborn but the other one alive and healthy because the dead one gave the other a life transfusion in the womb and in essence sacrificed itself” Edwidge Danticat’s. Danticat likens discrimination, and the subsequent prejudice and oppression, caused by a perceived scarcity of…
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Include Yourself
We often exclude ourselves. One of my professors, a Brooklyn Native, told my class how she befriends and interacts with members of her Puerto Rican culture who weren’t born in the continental US. She spoke about how much fun they have together. As the only American, she is often asked about cultural norms and policies, but…
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Give Me Gemeinschaft, or Give Me Greatness
gemeinschaft [German guh–mahyn-shahf-tuh n] Sociology. a society or group characterized chiefly by a strong sense of common identity, close personal relationships, and an attachment to traditional and sentimental concerns. We know the dangers of groupthink, the atrocities that occur, the prejudices it produces, the wars it wages and the inclusion it inhibits. Groupthink can be comfortable, it’s familiar and builds a sense of community at the expense of the exclusion of diversity. “Diversity, the act of thinking independently together.” …
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Is Assimilation Always Bad?
Assimilate: to bring into conformity with the customs, attitudes, etc., of a group, nation, or the like; to adapt or adjust dictionary.com In my Afro-Caribbean Literature class, we have studied the themes of identity and assimilation. After…
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Everyone Has a Story
We are increasingly open to understanding how we are all connected and that if we sink the ship that we are all on, we all drown. However, we have simultaneously become so focused on our own life experiences that we think we are alone. -Yuhuda Berg
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What I Learn, While I’m Learning
I’ve always been intrigued by new frames of thought; especially, in the fields of culture and communication. I’m entering my Junior year of university, and my second year as a Research and Assessment Intern for the Office of Diversity and Inclusion. I’m responsible for studying cultural competency and leadership development theories and then creating assessments…
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Tales from the Alhambra
Never was the annihilation of a people more complete than the Morisco-Spaniards. Where are they? A few broken monuments are all that remain to bear witness to their power and dominion. Such is the Alhambra. A Moslem pile in the midst of a Christian land. An elegant momento of a brave, intelligent, and graceful people,…
Kalen Nicole 