Financial Regulation Affects IT Spending

According to an article I read on EWeek.com, titled “Financial Regulation Will Boost IT Infrastructure Needs in 2010,” it is believed that Obama’s strict financial regulations will directly affect IT spending. When reading the news these past few months, it has been impossible to escape article after article geared towards the government’s plans for financial regulation. After Obama’s extensive bailout plan, the country has been left with the ever increasing burden of the nation’s massive deficit, and U.S. citizens are wondering when it will stop.

In response to the inquiries of many discouraged citizens Obama has began to tighten the reins on the country’s financial sector. In the Financial Reform Bill passed in December 2009, the government called for the creation of a new organization called the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, geared towards regulating financial services firms. (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/30497.html) This organization would reinforce the ban on unjust credit rate increases, set strict guidelines/requirements for loans, and regulate mortgage lending, to name a few items. (http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474978025795&grpId=3659174697244817) With the increased regulation of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency and other government initiatives, as mentioned, there is an increased demand for technological capabilities to track these restrictions/guidelines. For this reason, it is expected that IT spending will boom given acceptance of these government initiatives.

EWeek.com’s article focuses on the expected demand for IT infrastructure while also considering that many firms have restricted their spending. Therefore, while IT companies may experience higher demand for their products, there is also a strong concern to minimize costs in attempt to offer their IT products for lower prices, making them more marketable to large firms with low IT budgets. Companies such as SAP have already begun taking their customer’s considerations into account before moving forward with research and development. (http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Finance-IT/Financial-Regulation-Will-Boost-IT-Infrastructure-Needs-in-2010-Says-Analyst-115405/) So the question arises- who is in charge here? Will the IT companies benefit in the end, earning higher profits, or are the financial firms, despite increased government regulation, going to remain the frontrunners?

I think this is a tough question to answer. Given that policy is constantly changing and new financial regulations seem to be tossed around, companies may be reluctant to spend money implementing new IT infrastructure that will become obsolete within a year. Additionally, many of the firms feeling the pressure of Washington’s increased financial regulation are the large banks such as Goldman Sachs and Bank of America, who are suffering from an earlier repayment of TARP funds while also contributing to the “repayment” of TARP funds through Washington’s new taxation laws. This seemingly “wise” plan to lower the national deficit in actuality is hurting companies that would have otherwise been profitable. Furthermore, Obama’s favoring of small businesses may hurt large institutions and thus contribute to a lowering of available funds to budget IT spending.

But, despite the potential losses IT companies may incur from the decreased spending of large financial institutions, companies such as Oracle and SAP have restructured their business model to sell their products to smaller/mid-sized business who are going to be the recipients of government aid/incentives (decreased taxation, facilitated access to loans, etc.). This is a smart move for IT companies in harsh economic times. Small businesses may yet overpower previously dominant firms. By capitalizing on governmental policies in more than one way, IT companies just may have a chance to reap large gains in 2010.

Article: http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Finance-IT/Financial-Regulation-Will-Boost-IT-Infrastructure-Needs-in-2010-Says-Analyst-115405/

On Tuesday, May 1st, Loyola College held the event, “Celebrating Baltimore Artists.” This event had the work of at least 10 different artists from the Baltimore area up for sale and viewing. In addition, we were able to talk with the artists, mingle, free to ask them questions about their work. The artists ranged from photographers to watercolor painters, to mosaic artists. I thought this was a really great event because not only does it stay within the theme of Year of the City—literally bringing Baltimore to Loyola, but also it was a chance for the Loyola community to experience art. I feel like in this school, since we are a “business school,” we sort of forget about the other fields to go into. I can’t even remember the amount of times I’ve been asked, “Oh really, you’re a photo major?—Here at Loyola? Oh that’s cool.” It gets somewhat frustrating to be in such a close-minded environment that thinks that the only acceptable life path is one that lands you in a business suit and office. It was really nice to be able to attend an event here, in this environment, which was about more than the business suit—the art. It was about uniting the community, with one underlying passion—art. Some of the artists are good friends with one of my photo teachers, and it was just really great to talk with everyone, and be introduced, and talk to people who know who Spencer Tunick is, and who Diane Arbus was, and who understand and “get” Picasso. Having this event be the last one I attend this year brought the year full circle for me. It just showed me that as a community, we are a “tossed salad,” there is a little bit of every type of person here, much like a city.

Race: The Power of an Illusion

For this week’s event analysis, I attended the viewing of a documentary concerning race in the basement lecture room of Knott Hall on Tuesday, April 24th. The documentary was titled, “Race: The Power of an Illusion”, and consisted of two different part. The first part was called “The Difference between Us” and the second part was called “The House We Live In.” This document and the discussion that ensued gave me a very good understanding of what race really is and the realities that different races are challenged with every day.

In Part I, “The Difference between Us,” the documentary is mainly concerned with a classroom of students who are studying genetic code and how it compares to race of a person. The students first take guesses to see who they believe they share most in common in terms of biological or genetic code. Automatically, the students assume that they are going to have the most in common with the people who share the same race as them. Eventually, the students find out by surprise that race does not necessarily mean that each person shares a similar genetic code, or most commonly known as DNA. This discovery was also fairly large surprise to me as well. For years, scientists have been trying to figure out how to classify and characterize the different races, but they have not found any concrete solutions. So in reality, the difference between races is really just the minor differences in appearance. Even though it is extremely hard to believe for some, race is not a biological fact.

In Part II, “The House We Live In,” the documentary takes a new focus which is concerned with the so-called downward spiral that minorities must struggle with when moving into a predominately white neighborhood. When nonwhites begin to move in, any white homebuyers now begin to perceive that the neighborhood is in a decline. Next, more and more white residents will move out and leave the community due to the fear of losing property value. As a result, the whites take their wealth them and the value the property does in fact decline. The consequences of this occurrence are that taxes will go up and services will suffer. This can be understood as one of the causes for tension between the various races. However in reality, there is no particular race to place the guilt with, as we all share responsibility in a community.

Returning to the first part of documentary, we learn that race is not biological, but yet racism still exists in the real world. “Race is a powerful social idea that gives people different access to opportunities and resources.”[1] Throughout history, the government and other social institutions have given advantages and better resources to people considered to be of the white race. At the end of the first part, the students in the class are asked whether or not they would change their race if they had the chance. Due to the fact that I am happy to be born the person that I am, I would not trade skin colors with another person if possible. This documentary has helped me recognize that I sometimes take my status of being a white male for granted. It is not only important, but it is also the responsibility of the white class to support and aid people of a minority status. Whether they are aware of it or not, the white majority class has been channeled with wealth, power, resources that needs to be shared among all.

[1] Ten Things Everyone Should Know About Race (Taken from the handout given at the lecture).

My last Blog

On April 25th I attended the event in the Sellinger VIP lounge to attend Christopher Jack Hill’s discussion of women in the ministry sponsored by the Women’s Center. Hill is a graduate student from Johns Hopkins university, a woman’s activist, a minister, and journalist, who has written a book and strictly focused on the women in the ministry and the history of religion.
Hill opened his lecture late and managed to continue regardless of the elderly woman in the audience who continually distracted him and complained about not being able to hear. He started out with how women today are struggling with their identity in industrialized society, and how it is causing friction between men and women in the workplace. Hill believes that society needs to adjust to create a fair family structure where daughters are valued just as equally as sons. He also made other references to pop culture and currents events when he discussed the song title “A Woman’s Worth” by Alicia Keys, as well as how women’s history has evolved from suffrage and the right to vote to where Hillary Clinton has become a forerunner of president of the United States.
Hill feels that as a social activist he needs to further the progression of women in the ministry, as they have furthered themselves to equal rights as men. He then turned to the religious aspect of his lecture, where he began discussing women in references from the Bible. He starts out by discussion the misconception of Eve from Adam and Eve and the story of creation. He furthers his argument by discussion how the book of Genesis is not actually about creation and how creation is more accurately found in the book of Job. Hill believes that Genesis serves the purpose of confirming specifically what men and women’s purpose is and how they are distinct from animals. He continues by addressing the idea of how Eve is the downfall of Adam, but in all actuality Eve had intention not of those to deceive Adam. Eve could have eaten the forbidden fruit herself, but she shared it with her husband.
The purpose of women may be in the professional world, says Hill, it may not be. It depends on a woman’s value of her own self-worth, no one can determine that for her. He states that intentionalism does not minimize consequence, and that even though Eve did not have the intention of harming Adam, there is still the same consequence, but she should not be unforgiven. The purpose of men and women is to help eachother towards God’s ultimate goal.
Hill concluded with the idea of the power and influence that women have. HE stated that behind every successful man is a successful women, and how women were the first to see Jesus after he resurrected, and the last ones with him at the bottom of his cross when he died. He continued his closing with the personal aspect from his life of how his mother was a great influence in his life and a lasting authority figure that he has never had a greater fear over. He finished by leading the women at the lecture to repeat with him empowering statements of equality and recognition of their worth.
What I took most from this lecture is the realization of how much tolerance has evolved that now women are viewed as equals to men, and how at one point it was not like that. I related it to the Jesuit education idea of both “men and women working for the greater good.” Not people or mankind, men AND women as equals. Also, of how the Jesuit Education discusses equal treatment and stresses the golden rule, where women are not to be viewed as inferiors, but as partners aiding men in the pursuit of God’s ultimate goal.

Women in Ministry

As a young woman who attends a Jesuit school it is next to impossible not to consider religion in everyday life. After taking theology last semester I pretty much decided I did not really believe in a certain religion. I feel that I am more spiritual. I concluded this after being told throughout the course that most of my questions should just not be asked. But how was I supposed to just accept that woman were responsible for so much evil? That was only the beginning of my doubts concerning religion. Although I have personal confusions at this current time I really did enjoy the Women in Ministry speaker.
On April 25th I went to the Women in Ministry event given by Minister Christopher Jack Hill in the VIP Sellinger lounge, although it was not literally in Sellinger. After some preliminary issues of wandering the floors of Sellinger we finally found the correct place above the student center. In the small room there were a handful of people, most of which didn’t attend Loyola. When Hill finally began, a good twenty minutes late, a woman entered who didn’t realize he was speaking and started talking to the crowd, stealing his thunder in a way. She announced to the group, or perhaps just herself that she needed to go to the bathroom. As Hill continued the woman re entered and interrupted again. She sat down next to us and continually said very loud that she couldn’t hear what was going on. Although this seems like a random detail it really affected the speaker and the audience as the attention was directed more toward this lady.
Hill spoke about woman in ministry and the vital role that they play. I was confused at first because being brought up Catholic I know woman don’t really have a place in the church. Hill explained that woman face many defamations and that women are still not equal to men in many ways. Women do not get as much as money as men do. Many times during the speech we were asked to repeat certain phrases. One of my favorite ones was “Girls need to be valued equally as boys by their parents.” Although I am one of three girls and just have one little brother I can see how he is valued differently. For example I was not allowed to drive on the highway until I physically had my license. My little brother drives on the highway when he just has his permit. I often wonder why is he allowed to and yet I was not?
Women also affect politics. As Hill explained women have the power to sway votes. And despite women’s obvious importance to the world they are still being treated unfairly. Hill explained that since the start of organized religion women are always valued less then men. Hill explained that he believes the bible, specifically Genesis, is misread. He believes that Genesis is not about creation but is a social literary text that confirms people are created different from animals for Gods purpose. Hill than continued to give examples about how important women were. For example Eve, who many blame for sin, is not totally at fault. Sara is also an important biblical character. One thing that interested me was that out of the 1400 names mentioned in Genesis only 111 names are women.
Hill finished his speech with explaining how important it was that women knew their own self worth. Personally I believe I always fight for what I deserve. I never really tell myself that I am not as good as my male counterparts. I do realize though that I don’t actively strive to make other women strong. I am still not sure how I feel about organized religion. Maybe I am just in that stage in my life where I am confused and question everything. Or maybe I do know my self worth and don’t want to face defamation in my religious life. I do however believe Jesuit education is very important. At Loyola I never feel that I am worse then the boys. I get the sense that Jesuit education is more about bettering oneself and learning. I would like to see women have more power in the church. And whatever I can do to contribute to that happening is a future goal of mine to accomplish.

Blog 11

On April 11 I attended the Charm City Cinema program which was scheduled to show the films The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces and Little Castles. The first film, The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, however, was unable to be played. The second file, Little Castles, is a 1998 film that is one of the “first in-depth, historical examinations of the concrete creation.” The film was edited and directed by Skizz Cyzyk. Researcher and producer Lillian Bowers describes the use of Formstone in Baltimore.

The movie is a documentary that is mostly conversation with people who have worked with Formstone in some way. Men and women who made formstone, sold formstone, bought formstone, installed formstone, as well as historians worked together to help contribute to the study of this material for the film. It is a material that was first made and is found widely scattered throughout Baltimore. Formstone is a cement-based fake stone. It has been used for over 60 years as a substitute for the locally made bricks that were brittle. Formstone is found mostly in working class neighborhoods of Baltimore. It was cheaper than the solid bricks used in neighborhoods such as Mount Vernon, Charles Village, and Bolton Hill.

Formstone was developed by Albert Knight in the 1930s and it was designed to be put on single-family, suburban houses and also houses with additions where you wanted to unify the look. He was very surprised that the material became so popular in city housing in Baltimore in the 1940s. Cyzyk commented that the film really brought the crew into the city. After beginning the film in 1995, Cyzyk and the crew drove around the different areas of Baltimore that were built with formstone knocking door to door interviewing residents about the formstone that their homes were built.

Formstone has become part of Baltimore’s identity. For the past 60 years it has been a source of inexpensive alternative to bricks and painting exterior of homes. In areas like Federal Hill and Canton residents have done their best in recent years to purge formstone from their buildings. Despite this, formstone has remained an important part of Baltimore’s history. It will always be associated with Baltimore.

Last Blog

On Wednesday, the 24th I attended a lecture about women in the ministry. The lecture was given by Christopher Jack Hill, a journalist, author, and social activist. Hill graduated from Johns Hopkins University and he serves as Youth and Young Adult Director at Baltimore’s Bethel AME church. Hill is also the co-author of Who’s Got the Power: Black Church, Black Politics and Black Family, alongside Senior Pastor Reverend Dr. Frank M. Reid, which will be released next year. His work has been featured in Baltimore’s Afro-American Newspaper, Black Issues Book Review, The Baltimore Sun, NNPA, The Humanist Magazine, and NSBE Magazine.
In his lecture, Hill talked about how many women struggle with identity today and how there is this friction between men and women. Women have become disgruntled about who they are today because of the powerful role that men automatically play in society. Although Hill brought up a very interesting point about how women are capable of being equal to men and this opportunity is through education. Women are able to achieve a higher education, and as women we must create a fair family in which daughters are valued just as much as sons. At the same time though this places a burden on the church.
Hill said that Alicia Keys presented a very valid question asking, “What is a woman’s worth?” We struggle with this question especially in the ministry since men have always played the stronger and more important roles in the ministry. Hill also talked about Hilary Clinton’s important role in society, pointing out the fact that she is a top front-runner for women especially with the presidential election approaching.
Hill also talked about the Book of Genesis, and how it is about creation. He pointed out an interesting fact that out of some 1,500 scriptures, only 10 were written by women. Genesis is a social literary text; two very important characters are Adam and Eve. Eve is the life bearer and Adam is the dust from the Earth, this further proves that God can create almost anything from scratch. Hill mentioned a very interesting point saying that Eve bit the apple and shared it with her husband, but the question is “But why did she share?” He further talked about how women always play the lesser role in the ministry and that is something that most definitely needs to be fixed. Hill’s most significant point was that behind every successful man is somewhere a successful woman, and this is very true. Women are taking a stride towards becoming more independent and powerful; many women are also fighting for total equality between men and women.
This lecture made me realize how important equality between men and women is. For many years now men have had the upper hand in society in terms of jobs, money and the ministry. After attending this talk I realized that women can be just as powerful as men and they can definitely be just as smart. Hill left me with an open mind towards my future, by making me see that I can hold a very prestigious job position such as CEO of a successful company and I can make as much money as please if I work hard enough to earn it. Society is letting down this boundary which has caused such inequality between sexes and men and women are finally starting off with equal opportunities.

Race: The Power of an Illusion

For all my life I have assumed that the differences between races were based, at least in part, on genetics. According to the documentary “Race: The Power of an Illusion,” I’m not the only one who also thinks this. What the majority of our world does not know, however, is that genetics plays no part in race. Race is simply a human invention. The documentary showed teenagers from all different races conducting an experiment to test each of their DNA and compare them. Before the experiment the kids all assumed that their DNA would be most similar to those of similar or same race as them. As it turned out, after comparing the DNA results, many of the kids were just as genetically different, or even less different, to peers of a different race than to peers from their similar race. This conclusion has been found numerous times and is strongly supported by science; genetically, we are the most similar of all the species. Even penguins have twice as much genetic variation within their species and flies have 10 times more genetic variation than the human species does. There is just as much genetic variation within your own races as there is between races. The conclusion; race is not biological. In the 1920s, when immigrants and African Americans were plagued with poverty and disease, mostly due to social differences, the general public attributed these differences to biology, saying, “extinction is encoded in their blood.”

Prejudice and segregation was first based on the belief that other races were biologically inferior to the majority race. Hitler used this reasoning to convince Germany that Jews, homosexuals, and Gypsies were biologically weak and unfit to live. For centuries scientists have searched for some sort of biological difference between blacks and whites that could prove the superiority of the whites and inferiority of the blacks. Measurements of skull sizes, hair texture, skin color, and bones have all been taken and we still have not found a biological reason as to why blacks should be treated as “less than human.” Nevertheless, assumed biological differences still justified discrimination. When America was faced with setting requirements for citizenship they only allowed whites to be citizens, however, they had to define what “white” and “black” was. In Virginia a black person was anyone with a 1/16 African ancestry, in Florida it was anyone with at least 1/8 African ancestry, and in Alabama it was anyone with any amount of African ancestry. Therefore, you could cross a state border and legally change your race!

I feel that Baltimore is still facing the effects of this age-old policy of segregation. As Baltimore suburbs were being settled after WWII, blacks were not even allowed to live in the new communities. After 1968 when the Fair Housing Act was passed and blacks started moving into white neighborhoods, whites began to move out and form their own communities, sometimes even putting us walls between white and black neighborhoods. As white neighborhoods received the better mortgages and blacks were sold houses at inflated prices, black neighborhoods became run-down because they received none of the state’s taxes. Schools became under-funded and were not able to deliver a good education, houses because even more out-of-date and unfixable, and now we have situations like we see in East Baltimore.

The effects of this past half-century are still clearly seen in Baltimore. As it was stated in the documentary, “the advantages of being white accumulate from one generation to the next,” whether or not you are racist whites are still given the spoils of the racial system. Because your father’s father had money, your father had money to send you to school so you could get a job to make money and make sure your kids have a good life. It reminds me of what I learned on my U.N.I.T.E weekend, similarly to how the cycle of wealth passes from one generation to the next, poverty cycles from one generation to the next as well. But how do we break this system? Ideally, America should be colorblind, but we can start the breaking down of these cycles by breaking down our own personal boundaries and borders between the “us” and the “them.” I believe the phrase “we all” needs to become a more integral part of our vocabulary in describing the human species. While I believe in embracing all of the many cultures and ethnicities that we have in this world, we need to begin to think of them as all equal. I must admit, even with all my education, it’s difficult to look at someone and not notice the color of his or her skin. It’s been psychologically proven that humans are attracted to people that are similar to them, which includes similarities in personality, but also external similarities. Attractive people are attracted to other attractive people; white people are attracted to other white people, and so on. It’s not that we should fight our own biology, but it’s the assumptions that need to be replaced with understanding. We need to understand that not all black people can run fast, that not all Asians are good at math, and not all white people believe that success is defined by how much money you make. Although it will take centuries to defeat the racism that has been built upon itself, we can find encouragement in the fact that, we made it, and we can fix it.

4/25

As much as we like to believe that racism is not a problem in our world, it unfortunately still exists in our daily lives. It acts as a barrier for people of all races to accomplish their goals. The films were very intriguing by offering different insights on the basis of racism.

Contrary to what many people believe, genetics have nothing to do with race. Over 200 years of medical research, no publications or evidence suggests that the root of one’s race can be found at the genetic level. However, despite this extensive research, people still believe that there is something at the genetic level that influences the color of our skin. Some go as far to say it is inevitable that African-Americans will face extinction because there is a gene that will cause this. Upon hearing this, I was more shocked than angered. How stupid could a person be to actually believe that black people will inevitably face extinction because of a certain gene they carry? This thought is absurd and appalling to hear. In an age of incredible diversity, why do people still think that others that aren’t their skin color are inferior? Since segregation ended in America, we have flourished with more knowledge offered by people from different races. The movie continued to explore what really influences skin color. It explained that climate and sun exposure can make the skin react differently. This is why skin colors are different, not because other races are inferior. It is unreasonable to believe anything other than what has been proven.

The next video focused on segregation and the social effects of racism. I never considered the concept of America as a “melting pot” to have a negative connotation. However, after the video said races that aren’t white act as the firewood for the pot, I began to understand why the phrase was frowned upon. I always thought of a large cauldron with a light brown substance representing all of the races in America. History, however, would suggest that the melting pot that I always envisioned never truly existed. Japanese internment camps, segregation, and hate crimes completely contradict the idea of a melting pot I had. When the video went in to economic factors, I was reminded of the block-busting that realtors did for years. They played the race card and scared white people out of nice neighborhoods because of the threat a new black family placed on them economically. Because a black family was in their neighborhood, their house was supposedly going to depreciate in value. Many things like this construe the idea of a melting pot.

This event was very insightful and interesting. It offered me a lot of knowledge that I never considered before. Genetics clearly don’t play a role in someone’s race, and the barriers created between races are formed by an illusion. It is outrageous to consider the entire black race cursed and doomed for extinction, but there are these types of mindsets. Although America is a free country, other races were not (and in some cases still not) accepted in society. Furthermore racism is still prevalent in a country that is supposed to be looked upon positively as a melting pot.

race: the power of an illusion

After attending the event Race: The Power of an Illusion this past Tuesday evening in Knott Hall, I was forced to reevaluate many of my previous notions regarding race. Until then, I had considered myself to be fairly conscious of the various social and racial hierarchies existing within the community. But, as I sat there listening to the modern theories concerning race, I began to realize that my view of racism was entirely one-sided.

As a white person, I have consistently been taught to believe that racism is something that puts others at a disadvantage, not something that puts me at an advantage. Not once, in all my years of education, have I ever considered myself to be an oppressor, an unfairly advantaged person, or a participant in a damaged culture. Rather, I have always viewed myself from the perspective of an individual whose moral state is entirely dependent on free will. However, after being prompted to consider the ways in which social and racial hierarchies are intertwined and reflect on the numerous times I have benefited from racial stereotyping, it becomes relatively simple to see myself as self-centered and oppressive.

I have been so entirely “untutored” as to the effects of “white privilege” that I am often unaware of their existence. I have grown accustomed to living in a world where I am justly represented within the political realm and can obtain medical help without difficulty. I take refuge in the fact that I am able to succeed corporately without the backlash of affirmative action and voice my opinions without being viewed as a traitor to American society. And, in accepting these “privileges”, what I do not realize, or in some cases choose to remain oblivious to, is that “privilege” is not simply something that is earned or conferred by luck or birth. In a racial sense, “privilege” is highlighted simply in the ways in which conditions, like those above, systematically favor one race over another. Thus, whereas whites have come to accept such “privileges” as inherent rights, it is often difficult to assess whether we are or are not being oppressive.

Consequently, because whites are often taught to see their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, can any act of volunteerism or comunity service, essentially, be seen as an effort to make others more like us? Are our efforts thus contradictory? Are they misguided? Is “white privilege” as misconstrued as “black oppression”? Surprisingly, I was leaving the auditorium with more questions about race than when I walked in. Although I had been under the impression that the lecture would help me to further understand race by focusing entirely on racial issues within Baltimore, I feel that it only complicated things more. While I did learn a significant amount about the city and its struggles with race, I feel that the lecture was not really about Baltimore at all. Instead, I feel as if it were devised as a mechanism by which to extract students from what has become known as the Loyola bubble. Rather than overwhelming us with statistics concerning poverty and literacy within the city and incorporating them with themes of racial injustice, the presentation attempted to broaden our understanding of race by catering to individual perspective.

Last Blog

Yesterday, April 24, 2007, I attended the program in Knott Hall based on the documentary “Race: The Power of an Illusion.” The program consisted of Part I, titled “The Difference Between Us,” a brief intermission, Part II called “The House We Live In,” followed by reflections by Dr. H Lovell Smith of Loyola’s Sociology department and discussion.
Part I of the documentary, “The Difference Between Us,” discussed the topic of race and how people define it. While some believed it to be biologically based, the audience was revealed that race is not based on biology and that such an idea is a myth. Within this part of the documentary, a group of about eight high school aged students of different races were asked to participate in conducting how closely each individual’s DNA were to one another. Scientifically, they students examined their blood and mouth tissue cells. While they were waiting for the results, each student was asked to reflect on which student’s DNA would match his or hers the closest. The students of African American descent believed their DNA samples would match the closest, the students of Caucasian descent believed their DNA samples would match the closest, and so on. The documentary then revealed that some students of one race were most closely related to a student of a completely different race. This amazed most of the students and audience; however in the end many people realized that most genetic variation is within, not between races. “Of the small amount of total human variation, 85% exists within any local population, such as Italians, Koreans, or Cherokees. About 94% exists within any continent. Two random Koreans may be as genetically different as a Korean and an Italian.” Towards the conclusion of Part I of the documentary, an eye opening point was made. One person reflecting stated, “Just because race is not biological, doesn’t mean it is not real.” In fact, race is very much so real that it determines the place on lives, the schools one attends, and the jobs one holds and so on. Another smart point stated was, “Race is a human invention. We made it… we can un-make it.”
Part II of the documentary, “The House We Live In,” discussed why we see racial differences today. Basically, the federal government put programs and policies into act to help white families returning from war to achieve the “American Dream.” Such policies and programs simultaneously made it difficult for minorities to buy homes and achieve wealth. Such government programs included Social Security created in 1935, whose provisions excluded agricultural workers and domestic servants, who were predominantly minorities; Federal housing programs encouraged suburb growth between the 1930s-40s, which unfairly provided minority and mixed neighborhoods the lowest ratings and were mostly denied loans. A handout from the program stated, “Residential segregation didn’t happen by accident. The U.S. federal government took many steps to channel resources and opportunities to whites and away from nonwhites, resulting in an enormous wealth gap that persists today.”
It was after watching the documentary “Race: The Power of an Illusion” that I felt overwhelmed with different emotions. For one, I felt that I take little things in life for granted, like the color of my skin which superficially is my so-called “race.” I feel that because I am white I am automatically given the privilege to go to college, own a house and so on. I also felt guilty for being white, even though I can not control it, while others or different races do not receive the privileges that I and other whites receive; but because I am white I feel that it was whites that caused racial diversity in the first place and inevitably are responsible for the idea. During the reflection by Dr. Smith and discussion among the congregation, Dr. Smith’s co-worker also reflected. He told us that we should not feel guilty about what our ancestors have done, but we should feel guilty for not doing anything about it today. The discussion was very important for me because it was there that I realized all the services conducted, events analyzed and other outside of class events that I had participated in were all about lessening this gap between the community outside of Loyola and the community within Loyola. In other words, all the lectures on housing, schooling and Baltimore city dealing with the racial and socioeconomic “problems” were all produced by us in the first place. It is almost our duty as humans, or Americans, to look out for our fellow neighbors and fix the on-going problems. Also, the problems might not be fixable, but the attitudes and opposing views might be by building relationships with the outside communities. I hear all the time about the Primo’s workers or any campus workers calling is “spoiled” and “rich” while meanwhile they don’t really know us. At the same time, I hear people calling the workers “slow, lazy” and “mean,” but once again, we don’t really know them. It is until we can bridge the gap between such communities that such separation in communities is going to continue.
Overall the event was one of my favorites because it was very insightful to what’s going on in the world outside of Loyola, what its causes are and its possible solutions. The documentary, reflection and discussion were a great way to sum up our class’s view of Jesuit education at Loyola because it taught me to bridge myself to the community around me and create relationships.

Blog 10

Tonight I attended the Humanities Symposium’s showing of “Little Castles.” (Unfortunately there were technical difficulties and I was unable to view “The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces.”) The thirty- minute video that was played in the Reading Room was very interesting because it discussed in great detail the concrete formation of form stone; a major characteristic of Baltimore’s architecture for the past sixty years. Historically, form stone changed the city of Baltimore from red to grey after the Second World War when many people could afford it. Many inhabitants of the areas of Baltimore stemmed from Eastern European countries, who found the stone appealing and resembling to their own “castles” back home. The demand for form stone, although slow and not very profitable at first, increased dramatically and drove numerous people into work and competition.
Form stone, found all over the city of Baltimore’s buildings, was created to cover up bricks to reduce the maintenance of painting them every year. Red painted bricks outlined in white paint were soon covered with a concrete mixture that was sculpted into look-a-like stones that were spray painted and called form stone. Form stone equaled low maintenance and cost the same as three coats of brick paint. In other words, form stone was “America’s #1 Beauty Treatment.” To have form stone on your house “was to be a nobleman; to have brick on your house was to be a ‘nobody’,” said one Baltimore resident. Many older folks raved about the character it brought to Baltimore and how it was a trademark of the city along with the Orioles and Baltimore crabs; however another population “doesn’t particularly like it.”
I found the opposing opinions of form stone very humorous because on one hand there was form stone all over Baltimore, especially the row houses which give character to the city, and on the other hand, the residents of the homes and buildings didn’t like the look of it. One movie director from Baltimore explained what form stone was according to his view. He started off that he didn’t particularly like it because it reminded him of a fake wall in a movie set. He then continued to say that he was so used to it, how ugly it was that he actually liked it.
People’s mixed opinions about form stone were seen throughout the entire thirty minutes. To many it symbolized the working class of Baltimore and the hard work they put into their homes. It became a way of living for many. To others, they would remove it if they had the money. Many new buyers of form stone buildings and homes dislike the look of it and do not appreciate it for its low maintenance, high quality job, but rather just see it as something ugly covering their residence. These newcomers don’t see the need to preserve the character it adds to Baltimore. I find this interesting because as an outsider to Baltimore’s community, I would feel the same way. I never knew the history of the “fake looking stone” (as I always called it in my head) that covers the city in which I go to school, but now I do and I will look at the city in a new way. This movie gave me a great insight that knowing a few simple facts makes one’s view of something so much different.
“Little Castles” was a great movie to attend as a part of Loyola’s Year of the City because the movie went into the community of Baltimore to ask what they thought of the city’s appearance. As an outsider, I never knew such opinions and controversies were discussed, nor did I have any clue that such a topic of discussion was so important to residents of Baltimore. Loyola’s Year of the City event opened my eyes to see that there is more underneath things than what simply meets the eye. Now that I am aware, I can appreciate what the rest of the community, with whom I temporarily live, the importance of form stone. I will now look at the “beautiful” yet “phony” form stone of Baltimore as a member of the community instead of the outsider I used to be.

"Why"

As the last blog of the semester I thought it would be best to reflect on a day I went to St. Katherine’s elementary school to spend time with the children there. It was by far the deepest into Baltimore I have ever been, and one of the most revealing experiences I’ve had at Loyola.

Driving down North Charles Street into the city, a path familiar to me as it was the road usually taken into the harbor and fells point, our car suddenly turned left into territory I had never entered. As the houses got smaller and smaller, closer and closer together, I noticed the demographics of the area changing. Little by little there were more broken windows, more holes in the roofs. We were truly in Baltimore now. After almost being hit by cars oblivious to their surroundings, we arrived at St. Katherine’s. Everyone in the car seemed to hesitate before getting up. We were in a neighborhood very different than Loyola College. Every person that walked by was a potential threat. I was appalled by my own nervousness. Who was I to judge people based merely on where they lived. Walking into the school we were brought into a classroom where the after school activities were taking place.

As we were introduced to the children we split up, some of us to play board games, other sports, and others arts and crafts. I went into the arts and crafts room and met Katie, a first grader at the school. “Why are you all white?” was the very first thing she said to me. How does one respond to such a question? I was completely speechless and all I could do was smile and say “I really don’t know.” She shrugged her shoulders and continued to draw. As we continued to talk she told me of how she loved Jesus. He was her best friend, she told me, and with him she could do anything. As we sat drawing cats, rainbows, dogs, and flowers she continued to chat away about her family. Her mother had recently had a baby girl, and Katie was very proud to be a new big sister. Up until the end of our time at St. Katherine’s I had a sweet experience with a little girl, but then just before we were leaving she turned to me and said, “You should pray for poor people. You really should.” And nodded her head to confirm her statement. I looked at her in awe and said that I would. Upon getting up to leave she begged me to stay, asking if I was coming back the next day.

This experience reminded me of a photography exhibit I visited earlier in the year depicting Baltimore. I remember seeing pictures of small children in the streets. Innocent school girls dancing around a lamppost, 12 year old boys holding guns. Children have been marked by the problems in Baltimore and as students at Loyola, and as members of the Jesuit community, we need to help those who are less fortunate than us, and try to better understand how the gaps have been formed. We have to realize that it is not just the Inner Harbor and Fells Point that make Baltimore Baltimore. It is St. Katherine’s Elementary School, it is York Road, it’s Katie, a little girl who dares to ask questions about our society.

Meeting Katie truly changed my perspective of Baltimore. Here was a little girl who saw in black and white, poor and rich. She had God in her heart and had questions that I had never asked myself at age 19. Why were we all white? Why are there people who are rich and people who are poor? In order to truly be a part of Baltimore, and a part of this world I think it is important to ask these questions. Why is there such a difference in income in Baltimore? Why do people still to this day see in black and white? I don’t know the answers to these questions but I am beginning to ask them, and I believe that is the first step. Loyola College and St. Katherine’s have completely different student populations, and despite the fact that the students of Loyola have more money, I believe the students of St. Katherine’s have a better understanding of community, race, love, and God than many students of Loyola. I never thought such a young girl could be so bold to ask “Why.”

Last Blog

A couple weeks I attended Kenneth Jackson’s talk called The Road to Hell. Kenneth Jackson graduated from Columbia University and was here to talk about the move many of Americans are making from cities to suburbs. He talked about this trend that’s happening in most cities, but specifically the change occurring in Baltimore.
Jackson started his talk by giving the history behind Baltimore. He said, “Baltimore was once the Sin City of Eastern Coast.” It was chartered in 1729. The Baltimore-Ohio Railroad was the “first real railroad in America”. Baltimore was always diverse; in fact, the diversity has actually decreased in the recent years. The reason why it has always been diverse is because it was the second largest port of entry for immigrants, behind New York City alone. The population peaked in 1950 and has steadily declined since.
The reason for this is that more and more Americans are choosing to live in the suburbs. One reason Americans are moving out of the city and into the suburbs is for economic reasons. You get more land for less money. It’s economically wiser for a large family to move to the suburbs. Appearance is another cause for this trend. Today’s houses are built to be admired. A third reason is the government. The government has made it more appealing for Americans to live in the suburbs. The Home Owners Loan Association has made it easier for families to take out loans and afford owning a home instead of renting in the city. Also citizens receive larger tax deductions if they own a home.
There are several reasons why we choose to live this way. Many feel it is more desirable to live in the spacious suburbs. Other deterrents to a city life could be things like Baltimore’s homicide. For reasons such as the decline of racial consciousness Kenneth Jackson believes there will eventually be a return to growth of cities.
I’m not surprised to see that many Americans prefer to live in the suburbs. The suburbs are aesthetically and economically more pleasing, and for a lot of Americans the city’s living structures don’t fulfill their needs. What does concern me is that the decline in city population will cause a decline in the benefits cities provide. Cities are the heart of our country. It is in city that diversity and culture flourishes. Without the people in cities all the rewards of the city may decrease. I think that’s why it is important for people of the suburbs to take advantage of what the city has to offer and help keep cities functioning. This year at Loyola I learned there are several ways to give to the city. One way to help is to volunteer somewhere like local city schools. I also learned that even traveling into the city and just observing a city is helping. By taking public transportation, going to a museum, or buying food at a city restaurant you are helping. You don’t have to live in the city to experience what it has to offer, and it is important to preserve cities that have been the backbone of our country since the beginning.

Last Blog

On Tuesday April 17^th I attended a lecture by Keith D. Liley which was called, “Moral topographies of the medieval city: Marginality, otherness and the placing of bodies in an urban world.” He was a historian from Northern Ireland and he described the structural make up of the city and how the certain social classes were placed in the city. He then related how these make ups and social structure can still be found in modern urban areas.

During the lecture he described that the medieval times was a time of growing and a time of making sense of the world. The social structure was based on where you lived in the city. The cities were made in circle where the middle of the city would be the elites, then outside this area would be the lower class, and still next outside that would be the outcasts. Where you lived in the city gave you your social identity. Social identify is your place in society. Also, where you were in the city foretold what occupation you would have. In the middle of the city was where the market is so many of the people who lived there would be market owners. The city was called a hierarchical city because the middle and elite were head of the rest of the city, but each group had to work together to make the city function as a whole.

This medieval structure can still be found in urban areas today such as Baltimore. It may not be in the same exact way but there are similarities. There are certain areas of the city that the higher classes live in and certain areas where the lower classes live. These areas are what give you your social identity. People that live in nicer areas are thought to be wealthier and better educated. While those living in the lower income areas are thought to be the exact opposite, poor and uneducated. Also where you live affects the jobs that are available to you. The wealthier people will acquire better jobs than those of lower income areas. One more similarity between these two cities are that the elite controls the lower classes, but all the classes have to work together to make the city function properly. The lower classes encompass the jobs that are the foundation of the city and without them the higher classes would not be able to function.

Year of the City

For this week’s event analysis, I attended the ceremony for the end of the Year of the City, “Looking Back and Moving Forward.” The event began with a musical selection from the Loyola College Chapel Choir that reflected the ideals of the Year of the City initiative. The words spoke of freedom for all, the ability for all to live without fear, the ability for all to have food to eat and water to drink, the ability to live in a shelter, the ability for all to belong, and the ability for everyone to be heard. Each of the events of the Year of the City in some way allowed for people in Baltimore to experience these freedoms.
Fr. Linnane began by a few short remarks on the Year of the City. He talked about what inspired him to make this year the Year of the City and said that after hurricane Katrina, a great American city was destroyed and it changed the way we think about racial and class politics. Unlike many of us who are blessed enough to have family and friends to rely on when in need, a majority of the residents of New Orleans did not at the time and still do not have access to such resources, and they were forgotten. In a similar way, many of the residents of Baltimore are forgotten; they are lost in between all of the shops, restaurant and other tourist attractions. Fr. Linnane said that the events made him question how we interact with Baltimore and I had never really thought about how we interact with the city we live in until Fr. Linnane mentioned how connected the history of Baltimore is with the history of Loyola. It makes us think about how distanced we really are from the city and its inhabitants while we remain within the “bubble” that Loyola, the College of Notre Dame and Johns Hopkins University create. The transportation assignment allowed me to see how sheltered I have been from the reality of Baltimore. Behind all of the glamour of the city live people who do not have many of the comforts of daily life that we take for granted everyday. I felt that a major part of this event was to inspire the Loyola College community to continue to make a difference in Baltimore and in the lives of people who matter, and as Fr. Linnane said, we should take what we have learned from this year into our educational experience in the future.
The speaker was Rodney Barker who created the Baltimore Cultural Tour and had three students from Loyola come to the event and speak about their experiences. Although each student had different experiences, many felt that the Baltimore Cultural Tour had exposed them to a side of Baltimore that did not know existed. The second student talked about how much he had dreaded a trip to Fort McHenry and regrets feeling that way because he said it was one of the best trips he had been on. He learned about the history of the Star Spangled Banner that was written as Francis Scott Key over looked Fort McHenry. It made me realize how much history this city built upon and took me back to the visit that I made to the Reginald D. Lewis Museum of African American History. So much of Baltimore is what it is today because of the contributions made by African Americans in history and we forget this so easily. I had not known the Baltimore seafood industry is successful today because of the hard labor put in by slaves and the effective methods they created through their learning process, and there are many other museums that highlight the significance of many forgotten historical figures in Baltimore.
Jessica Kimak of Loyola’s Habitat for Humanity House talked a lot about what it is that has been done to help the homeless in Baltimore. What really made me think about the high rate of homlessness in Baltimore was when she mentioned what a friend had asked her. Her friend wanted to know why it is that there are so many unoccupied homes in Baltimore if there are so many that have no homes. As I drive home everyday, and leave the city, I pass hundreds of old homes that are boarded up and nearby are old men and women begging passing cars for money. It is hard not only to watch them beg in their condition but what is more difficult is watching them stand in front of these empty homes while they have no place to stay. She then said that a woman from Habitat from Humanity told them that the organization could easily obtain these homes if they had the funds to do it. I found it interesting that many politicians seek to further the tourist industry and forget about their people that make this city what it is today. More important than generating revenue and attracting tourists is taking care and remembering the inhabitants if the city and making sure that they have at least have their basic needs fulfilled. The members of this organization built a home for a woman named Katherine, which took two years and cost around $50,000. Jessica said that many may think that its just one home, but from the look on the Katherine’s face, it was one home that was worth building. After watching the power point of the building process and the presentation ceremony, I thought that even though it may just be one woman or home, it is one less homeless person on the streets of Baltimore and one more home that is making a difference.
My personal favorite presentation was made by Amy Maher, from the St. Mary’s School of the Assumption/ Loyola College Partnership. She began by telling us her favorite saying, “It is not that people do not care, it is that they do not know.” After hearing that, I again thought of how much raising awareness could do to help make a difference. I was never that I did not care about the rising levels of crime, violence, and poverty in Baltimore; it was just that I had never taken the time out to know. I had never actually ventured out into the city to see how it was that I could make a difference in the growing number of homeless people, and the times that I think to help I never knew how to. Her presentation highlighted the difference that the partnership between St. Mary’s School of the Assumption and Loyola College made in the lives of the children. From what I have heard from friends who volunteer at that school, I have come to realize that even a small contribution makes a difference and what could be more important than helping a child less fortunate that yourself. I have worked with children whose families faced financial problems and their parents face difficulties everyday as they venture out into the city looking for work, and are unable to find anything because they do not speak English. When I was in high school, my friends and I volunteered at the St. John’s Lane Elementary School P.A.C.E program. Every night, we could help children and their parents learn about American culture and language and at first it was difficult for me to understand why it was that many gave up in the process. I take for granted everyday that I can speak English and am able to communicate with the people around and I could not see the frustration that these parents faced as they attempted to learn a new language do they may be able to support their families. It sounded strange to me that English stood in the way of these families living the very comfortable life that I live. More rewarding than the recognition that we received while we volunteered was the look on the parent’s faces as they slowly began to comprehend the language after much struggle, and happiness of the children as they saw the hopeful look on the faces of their parents. Amy’s power point highlighted the rewards of making a difference in the lives of young children and from the laughter in their faces, it was easy to see that the smallest thing can in every child no matter how small make a lasting impression.
It was not until this event that I truly understood the purpose of the Year of the City and I have fully realized the great impact it has had on Baltimore. From the building of a new home, to working with children in the city, every event has made a difference in the lives of the inhabitants of Baltimore. The Year of the City has inspired many to venture out into Baltimore; beyond the boundaries of Loyola and other the other institutions that surround the area, and take the time to help those in need and remember the forgotten people that live in this city.

Suburbanization Lecture

On April 12, I attended Kenneth Jackson’s lecture, “The Road to Hell: Race, Suburbanization, and the Changing Fortunes of Baltimore.” During this lecture, Jackson reminded his audience that Baltimore city’s population is diminishing, decreasing 30% in about fifty years, while its suburbs now have double and triple the amount of inhabitants as the city itself. Surprisingly, the city of Baltimore has even become less diverse than it was during the post-Civil War era. Following the Civil War, many African Americans moved to Baltimore to get out of the South, and at the time there were many opportunities for them in the industrial field. However, with the changing of the economy to a service and skill-based economy in recent years, it has become much harder to find a job with little education, as now the largest employer in Baltimore is Johns Hopkins University. This caused many of the minorities who were uneducated to migrate away from the city and towards the suburbs, where the land is cheaper and more plentiful.
This migration to the suburbs is not necessarily a good thing because it could mean the death of many “great American cities,” as Jane Jacobs would say. Cities, particularly Baltimore, are hubs of history, religious heritage, and culture that date back to the 1700s and to glaze over their significance would do an injustice to the history of our country. There may be crime and poverty in the cities, but along with these, there are also many positive aspects. People just must do as the crow does in Joy Harjo’s “The Path to the Milky Way Leads through Los Angeles” and “find gold in the trash of humans” (line 23).
Kenneth Jackson does, however, think that eventually there will be a return to the cities, and in future years these centers of history, culture, and heritage will experience a revival and an increase in population. Towards the end of his lecture, his tone changed as he expressed his hope for the future of the American cities and a decline in racial consciousness. People will realize their need for the constant human contact and the feeling of community that comes with being a city dweller.
People will also return to the cities for practical reasons, such as the best in resources, especially hospitals. In the suburbs, many times hospitals are scattered throughout large areas, yet they are not necessarily considered the best in care. The large city hospitals are usually the ones that are considered the best because they offer specialization, the most resources, and doctors who are at the top of their fields.
Kenneth Jackson’s lecture was eye-opening for me because after living in the city of Baltimore over the past eight months and celebrating The Year of the City through Loyola, I could not believe that the city was dying. I have seen too many of the city’s strong points to think that cities could eventually be phased out. After living in the suburbs for most of my life, I can understand the draw, but I do not think this should come at the expense of the cities. I agree with Jackson that the cities will experience a revival because people will eventually realize all of the resources that the city offers and return to the place where they once called “home.”

Blog #11

A couple weeks ago I attended Kenneth Jackson’s lecture entitled The Road to Hell: Race and Suburbanization in Baltimore. He discussed the changing cities all over the US, but mostly focused on Baltimore. He began by saying that the original reason people came to Baltimore was because it was considered the Sin City of the east coast. Businessmen would stop off in Baltimore’s red light district before continuing on their journeys. At that time there was no such thing as the “inner harbor” Baltimore was an industrial city, and the water was for industrial ships only.

Jackson continued, by asking the question, which he wished to focus on and answer throughout his talk: what makes a city distinctive? Just as the excerpt from Jane Jacobs book, “The Life and Death of Great American Cities” that we read in the beginning of the year he stated, that there is always a reason that a city has formed where it has, and it usually related to easy transportation. For example Boston is on the Charles River, which runs into the ocean. Then Jackson went on to discuss the specifics about Baltimore city itself and its history.

Baltimore was chartered in 1979, so it was not as old as some cities, but it still had an important role. Baltimore was important for its Catholic standpoint, among other things Baltimore was home to the first bishop. Up until the Civil War Baltimore was the third most important city. Baltimore was constantly growing because it was constantly in a competition with Philadelphia. Both cities were trying to bring in tourists and money and were both important in travel. They both built roads, canals, and most importantly railroads. Baltimore built the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which was the first real railroad in the United States. But Baltimore soon slipped from the third to the sixth most important city after the Civil War ended. Among other things Baltimore was the second largest port of entry into the United States. All the history that Jackson told us about Baltimore was shocking. I could never picture Baltimore as a large industrial port, with immigrants coming in as if it were New York. Living here now is so different from the picture that Jackson painted of Baltimore long ago. During the lecture, I was sitting next to my friend who lives in Maryland and she kept turning to me and asking me if he was still talking about Baltimore. It was hard to picture the old Baltimore in comparison to it today. But as the talk went on the information just got more and more unbelievable.

Jackson continued his talk by talking about the changing times in Baltimore’s population. In 1950 Baltimore reached its population peak of around 950,000 people, today the population has decreased to only 650,000. One third of the population has moved out of the city. But as the city decreased the suburbs grew. Baltimore’s suburbs are three times the size of Baltimore. After Baltimore’s density rapidly and significantly decreased there was a lack of confidence. No office buildings were built from 1929 to the 1970’s. The city also noticed a growth in African Americans. Baltimore was built on a port and was a city about industrialization. The majority of the jobs were industrial jobs. But since 1950 eighty percent of industrial jobs were lost. He said that Baltimore had become a service economy, and joked that the African Americans just came a little too late, they came at the wrong time. Baltimore was once one of the most important industrial cities in the world, and now it was plagued with increased poverty, building abandonment and so on. The department stores were a huge part of life in the city. But riots became more frequent and the department stores closed giving people no reason to go shopping downtown. They now went shopping elsewhere, like to shopping malls. There was a rise in crime and it stopped being as diverse as it once was, it was no longer attracting immigrants.

Jackson stated that this wasn’t just in Baltimore, as a nation we decided to live in the suburbs. It was inexpensive land, inexpensive transport, gas was less expensive than any other country and remains to be till this day. But what I found most interesting was the rules that the FHA set up in the 1930’s. They wrote underwriting guidelines deeming which residential areas were more suitable than other to live in. They drew out residential security maps redlining areas with a high population of African Americans and Jews. I found this so fascinating, that the city would actually zone based on what race or religion you were. This pushed a lot of the poor into the inner city and therefore the poor were isolated, and not scattered. This prejudice caused African Americans to suffer because people left the city and with that so did the appeal and the jobs. Jackson gave an interesting and informative talk. It was so fascinating learning what Baltimore used to be like, when he discussed the mothers and daughters in their white gloves taking the trolley downtown to go shopping at the department stores gave an entirely different image than what I could ever picture. It made me realize that beauty and history that Baltimore has. It reminded me of the poems we have read, such as “In a Station of the Metro” which talk about finding that beauty in seemingly ugly things. Baltimore may have some bad neighborhoods, but it still has its beautiful inner harbor, the blossoming cherry trees, the square in Canton, and the “boardwalk” along the water in Canton. There is so much beauty in Baltimore but we are too busy focusing on all the bad things to venture out and find these little wonders. Even on the streets. I was in Canton last Friday and I was walking along the sidewalk when on one of the only trees on the street there was a swarm of honeybees that had probably just formed. It was amazing seeing something like that on the streets of Baltimore. If I had been scared of the stereotypical Baltimore I would have never gotten to witness the beauty that is subtly hidden throughout this city.

The Last Blog!

Last week I attended an event in the student center about Jesuits in music. I wasn’t sure at all what to expect; I didn’t even know what “Jesuits in music” meant. Father Linnane introduced the event as being the last of the Catholic Studies lectures, “Jesuits Making Music: The City or the Culture.” He spoke very highly of the lecturer, Father T. Frank Kennedy, a music director at Boston College.

I immediately liked Father Kennedy. He had a very warm demeanor about him, was an excellent speaker, and exuded great passion about music. He began with showing us a clip from the movie The Mission, which I watched last semester for my Cultural Anthropology class. He showed us a particular scene depicting the effect of music on the indigenous peoples by the Jesuit priest. He continued to discuss the role music in the Jesuits’ history and showed us clips from several different operas.

Father Kennedy said, “Music is not just a score or sounds, it defines who we are and what we do.” Although I may not be thinking of the same music as Father Kennedy, I strongly agree with this statement. Everyone listens to music; therefore it has an incredible influence on listeners. The combination of human voices and musical instruments has the power to soothe, to excite, to anger, and to provoke many other types of feelings. I definitely have certain songs or singers I listen to when I need something specific. If I need to calm down, I listen to The Fray. If I need to get pumped up while working out, I listen to something with a good dance beat. If I need to just let my anger out, I listen to Fall Out Boy. I believe music is an important part—but certainly not the only part—of one’s personality; you can tell a lot about a person by the kind of music they listen to.

Father Kennedy also said, “Music links us to the past and bridges gaps because there doesn’t have to be any literal interpretations of it.” One song can mean something to one person and something completely different to another, either way it has significance in people’s lives. One of the things he said that I agreed with most was that “performances have the power to unify.” People can be of all different ages and ethnicities, male or female, yet still come together as one to enjoy a specific concert or performance.

This speech about music made me think of an event I attended in February. The Best of Baltimore program for freshmen at Loyola organized a trip to the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. That night there was a Mardi Gras themed performance by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra along with guest performers, which included a female jazz singer and an all male jazz quartet. We were without a doubt the youngest group in attendance, but that didn’t matter. Once the music started, the entire audience was standing up, clapping, and dancing to New Orleans style music. My friends and I have never been to New Orleans, nor were we known jazz fans, but the atmosphere of the event and the energy from the performers made it incredibly enjoyable. The music unified us.

“Best of Baltimore” is actually a great way to get students more involved in the city. Other activities this year have been baseball games, shows, restaurants, and more, but it doesn’t provide the same service opportunities as Year of the City. If promoted better, this program, paired with the Year of the City initiative, would be an excellent opportunity for students to see the good in Baltimore.

This week was a little more exciting at Mother Seton. Kelsey came in and immediately asked me excitedly, “You go to Loyola right?” This surprised me because she is a very quiet girl, almost never speaks unless spoken to. I told her I did and she said she had been at Loyola that day for the Health Fair. She told me all about it, and showed me all the cool free stuff she got here. They each got first-aid type goodies, and also a Loyola College t-shirt. She seemed upset that she didn’t get to see me on campus, but I had no idea she was going to be there.

Since this was the first week I had been to Mother Seton since my museum experience, I was thinking a lot about it while I helped Kelsey with her homework. She is smart, charming, funny, and she has a good head on her shoulders – not necessarily the first four attributes I would give to any kid running around Baltimore. She wants to go to college – something else unusual from what I’ve heard about inner city Baltimore kids. I’m glad to have had this experience, because it gave me a new perspective on my own perspectives. I don’t give people enough credit. While I’m not volunteering because of Year of the City, it did end up giving me a whole new view on Baltimore. Yes, there is crime – more often than in some other places – but there is also culture and beauty and good people. I think we often miss that.

I think Loyola’s Year of the City was an overall success. I would have liked to go to the wrap-up talk but I wasn’t here that night, so I don’t know what anyone else thinks about it. However, for me, it made a real difference. My work at Mother Seton, the lectures I’ve been to, and everything else related to living in this city have definitely changed my views and stereotypes. I know see the beauty in the city just as much as I see the bad. It puts into perspective the needs of our own home. Not only are people dying from starvation and poverty in Africa, but there are people in Baltimore too. Yes, the bigger population of these people may be in third world countries, but who is to say we shouldn’t help our own brothers and sisters right here right now. I know that there are people that need our help all over the world, but those easiest to help may be right before our eyes. The reason all this enlightenment came from Kelsey was because she told me once she had a sister who was 6 months younger than her. I asked how that was possible, and she nonchalantly replied “oh, we have different moms.” Her attitude towards this was so different than mine. I was appalled, when she was just happy to have a sister her age. I began to wonder what her family was like, and if they were living in poverty, or for all I know they could be richer than I thought. After all, they do have their kids in Catholic school. Who am I to judge what kind of people they are? If we weren’t in Baltimore, would I have the same stereotype? My Year of the City volunteering at least made me conscious of these questions, and now I just have to work on putting them into action, and recognizing when I do judge people who I have no right to judge.

Blog 11: Allan Tibbels Lecture

This past Tuesday, April 17, 2007, I attended a lecture held by Allan Tibbels. Tibbels is the co-executive director of the sandtown habitat. This sandtown neighborhood is located just a few miles outside of the Loyola College campus and is mostly comprised of African-Americans. Also, the community contains a lower class of residents and, as Tibbels explained, this makes it hard for the citizens in the area to make a forward move out of the neighborhood. Tibbels stated that when he had moved into the community almost twenty years ago, he was the only white resident within one mile of his house.

Tibbels began his lecture by explaining why it is so difficult for those who live in this community to make a move out. He explained that the majority of those who live in the sandtown community are forced to rent their houses. Since they have poor credit and not enough money to buy a house, they eventually pay so much rent for the houses that they have basically paid for the house almost three times. It continues to snowball because eventually the tenants run out of money, cannot pay their rent and finally are evicted.

The problems continue for the tenants in this neighborhood because while they are forced to pay ridiculous amounts of rent fairs, they lack the money to get out. They continue living in the community where they have an extremely hard time attempting to find a better job in order to make more money. Without money, their chances of leading a successful and fulfilling life are extremely low. The opportunities available for all of those who live in the community are scarce if they are even existent. The neighborhood almost gains the idea of a black hole, where the members, once in, have no feasible way out.

As Tibbels continued his lecture I began thinking about some of the works that we read this year that reminded me of the poverty and the tough conditions that surround Loyola College. One that came to mind right away was “Thank You, M’am” by Langston Hughes. In this story a young boy attempts to steal a woman’s purse in order to get money. In Tibbels lecture, he spoke about how crime in the community is a problem and that something needs to be done about it. In the short story the boy learns his lesson after the elderly woman teaches him many lessons. Despite all the problems and difficulties that this community is faced with, Tibbels and others are attempting to revitalize this neighborhood.

Tibbels and the others who work as directors for the sandtown community have not yet lost faith on the area. While others feel as though it is a lost cause to use resources to help the neighborhood, Tibbels still feels as though the community can be saved. Through him, new schools are being built in the community as well as recreational parks. This is extremely important for the children of the community because in school, they learn, which is the stepping stone to make it out of this poor community. Also, the recreational parks give the children a place to go after school to keep them out of trouble on a day to day basis. In addition, art centers are being constructed to help motivate those who live in the community to strive for something better in their lives.

Blog 11

For the last blog of the semester, I thought it fitting to attend the closing Year of the City event, "Looking Back and Moving Forward." The event was basically a wrap up of all aspects of the Year of the City. I found it very informative because there were certain parts of Year of the City that I had not heard about or experienced.
For instance, I was unaware of how Year of the City was born, but learned thanks to Father Linnane's speech. Year of the City was devised after Hurricane Katrina had destroyed parts of New Orleans. Father Linnane explained that this devestation changed the way we view the world after a great city had been destroyed. It exposed the negative way in which cities operate. Instead of focusing on negativity, positive elements should be discovered about a city, which is why in Year of the City, students are encouraged to find the treasures in Baltimore.
Loyola's place in Baltimore also had an effect on the birth of Year of the City. Althought Loyola and the city are deeply intertwined, Loyola looks over Baltimore, but rarely takes part in the city. The prupose of Year of the City was to get students immersed in all it has to offer.
After Father Linnane's speech, many people involved with different parts of Year of the City spoke about their involvement with the program. The speaker that stood out the most for me was Jessica Kimak, who spoke about Loyola's Habitat for Humanity House. In this part of Year of the City, students worked on renevating an old house in Baltimore for a homeless woman to live in. Students worked long and hard during some of the coldest months of the year for the simple pleasure of knowing they had just removed one homeless person from the harsh streets of Baltimore. Pictures accompanied Jessica's speech, and I'm sure that seeing the home recipient's smile made it worthwhile to the workers. This aspect of Year of the City showed what a positive impact Loyola students had on one person.
One speaker, Amy Maher, said that Year of the City allows Loyola students to know about Baltimore- the poverty, housing situations, different areas, etc. At this point, I started to think about my own experiences with Year of the City. During the year, I have visited many different areas of Baltimore, such as Federal Hill, Mount Vernon, and the Charles Theater. I have volunteered at the Chara House, working with poverty stricken children infected with HIV. All of these events were in some way a result of the Year of the City. Because of my immersion into Baltimore, my assumptions about the city have changed, which is one of the goals of the Year of the City program.
Also during this presentation, I began to think about my friends at home, spread out in colleges all over the country. I thought about how some of them were in the greatest cities in the country, New York, Boston, Miami, and yet none of them had gotten to know their cities the way I had gotten to know mine. They had never taken a public bus to an area they had never been in, explored that area and then get themselves back to campus. Their lives were defined by the walls of their campus, while mine was spilling out into the streets of downtown Baltimore.
In retrospect, I am so grateful for Year of the City because it forced me to experience many things I wouldn't have done on my own.

Roma Citta Aperta

Roberto Rossellini’s Roma Citta’ Aperta was a part of this year’s International Film Series- “Reel Cities”. His movie, which translates to Open City in English, is about the Nazi occupation in Rome during World War II. It focuses on the Italian underground that tries to smuggle money out of Rome in order to aid resistance fighters. This Neorealist movie is considered to be a masterpiece of Italian Cinema. It uses on location shooting, the documentary effect, amateur actors, and regional dialects in order to create a realistic feel. But throughout the movie, even though the title sets the scene in Rome, viewers are given no indication of which city it takes place in. This could be because Rossellini wants viewers to acknowledge the fact that this could happen in any city- not just Rome. By highlighting the terrors of war that the people of Rome face, Rossellini shows outsiders what it was actually like during World War II. After watching the movie, I wondered to myself what it might be like if the War on Terror was being fought here in America. Throughout my lifetime, we have never had a real war experience, and watching Roma Citta' Aperta has made me very thankful for that fact.
In the movie, the people of Rome were never safe. There was always the fear of Nazis invading their homes or the possibility of breaking some unknown rule. For example, the movie talks about the 5 o’clock curfew imposed on Italian citizens. Only doctors, priests, and midwives were allowed out after curfew. This seems ridiculous when thinking about it from a modern point of view. I cannot imagine being restricted by the government as to when I could or could not leave my house. Furthermore, in the movie the Nazis invade the characters’ apartment building unexpectedly. The tenants are forced into a frenzy, and ushered out onto the streets. Then, when the Nazis found Francesco and took him in their truck, Pina chased after him not being able to bear him leaving, but the Nazis shot her in cold blood out on the street. There was always the ever-present fear of the unexpected, but there was also the hope for a better life, that things might one day get better. This was presented through the use of children in the film.
The way Rossellini presented hope for a better life reminded me of the teenagers’ lives chronicled in the article by the Baltimore Sun. The photos from this article, on display in the Urban Visions exhibit in the Julio Fine Arts Gallery in February, feature two homeless teenagers living in Baltimore. They also have the fear of the unexpected, like the Italian citizens in Roma Citta’ Aperta, not knowing what will happen to them next, where they will live next, or whom they will meet. But despite this fear of not knowing, these teenagers remain incredibly hopeful and still work hard for the idea that their lives might one day take a turn for the better. Even though both of the boys were orphaned/abandoned, they still had a sense of family within their communities that helped them survive from day to day. The way their communities stick together is reminiscent of the way the people of Rome bonded during World War II, always willing to help one another out. In the case of the two homeless teenagers, they bonded with their communities not through war, but through poverty. It is amazing how the two can be so similar and cause common reactions amongst people.
The end of the movie, Roma Citta’ Aperta, though it is devastating and many of the characters die, delivers a message of hope as the children march off and the ending scene shows the skyline of Rome. It shows how the people of Rome have survived so much already and can keep surviving. The children offer the hope for the future, while the scenes of Rome, such as the Forum and the Coliseum, serve as a reminder of all the past hardships Rome has already incurred. In the true Neorealist style, the movie ends without fluff. Everyone dies just as they would have during the War. There were no happy endings. I really cannot begin to imagine how different life would be if the War on Terror was being fought here in America. We would be forced to live with constant fear, never knowing when there would be an attack or an invasion. I think Roberto Rossellini tries to get his viewers to imagine the horrors of war and try to realize what it must have been like then and what it could be like even now if we continue to cause wars. It almost seems as a warning, reminding everyone that we should strive for peace so that our endings do not always have to be so unhappy.

Race-The Power of an Illusion

I attended the video and discussion event Race-The Power of an Illusion for this week’s event analysis. The event showed two films approaching race from different perspectives and a discussion, which was very interactive and challenged the students with many questions. Racism is something that continues to plague the world that we live in and hold people back from their true potential to succeed. The event provided many facts and insights into the myths that accompany segregation and the roots of racism.
The first film addressed the biological aspects of racism. Many people believe the notion that people of different races are genetically different. But data shows there are no known genetic markers that distinguish different races from one another. In fact, Homo sapiens have very little genetic variation among our species with 1 in every 1000 nucleotides differing from human to human. For over 200 years scientists have mapped the human body looking for differences. All published scientific research into this has been simply formed by societal influences, not based on the data observed. Societal differences have become naturalized by society. One paper even hinted towards the inevitable extinction of American Americans because it is encoded in their blood. This is just outrageous and makes me furious, let alone other African Americans. Science points towards skin color being related to UVB absorption. This impacts vitamin D levels and people very in skin tone due to the fact that they live in geographic regions that receive different intensities of light. Skin color is important in preventing sunburn and skin cancer as well as acquiring nutrients. It has not been shown in any studies as a correlation between height, weight, or any other physical features. There is no doubt that we live in a world of racial smog. Our skin color influences where we live, what schools we go to, job opportunities, meanings/assumptions, and even laws. And of course, since money seems to be everything in the world that we live in, wealth increases the capacity to do well in life.
During the intermission, it was really nice to see Loyola’s diversity in one room, interacting as friends and students alike. I felt very comfortable the entire time and enjoyed every minute of it. But the next video really hit me hard because although I have received many privileges by being born white, I have also inherited the merciless history of what my race has done to that of nearly every other race in the world. The video began with introducing the “American Melting Pot” notion of everyone who has immigrated to America becoming a homogeneous uniform white people. But one sociologist said that the Asians and Blacks could only be used as firewood for this melting pot. It was a humorous, yet agonizingly true reality reflecting on our social and political structure. Laws were even made distinguishing what it means to be black, with each state providing a different percentage as proof. So literally one could walk across a state line and be a whole different person. One story that really touched me was that of Takao Okawa. He was a Japanese-America who filed for citizenship on two bases. One was that his skin color was as white, if not whiter than many American Caucasians. The other was the race should not matter. Being an American should be based on beliefs, but the Supreme Court felt otherwise.
The next portion of that video deals with the economic factors of race. The New Deal Housing program set up to aid returning G.I’s was intended to help them build a home with only 10-20% down and the bank loaning them the other 80% which was to be paid back with a small interest rate over a 30 years period. The American Dream took a new name as Suburbia. Integrated neighborhoods were viewed as unstable socially and economically and were considered a financial risk. Less than 2% of all federal loan money went to non-whites. Even with the Fair Housing Act of 1968, Blockbusting and White flight occurred. These facts are astonishing and embarrassing because they have shaped the separated communities that we see in Baltimore and nearly every other area around the country. And whites have taken the resources needed to succeed economically with them leaving integrated communities to degrade and become slums.
The discussion was focused more on the power of illusion. We want to be colorblind and see the character of people, but the wealth gap continues to grow from one generation from the next. Wealth is as powerful a tool and biology because it refuses to be shared. Assets accumulate in life, but income does not. This is why Americans of different races that earn the same incomes generally have to the same opportunities and succeed accordingly.
I could go on for a long time discussion the various facts that were presented. But together, these facts basically just ask one question. What are we going to do about this? And this is the question that no one has seemed to be able to provide any true insight into besides saying that we all must begin to make a small difference in the way we treat others and act. This will cascade into much larger productivity and influence legislation and economics. But I feel like this struggle is so deep and intense, that many people will continue to inherit prejudice and fail to act the way we ought to towards one another. It is easy to say that I am not a racist, but it is harder to live a life absent of racism because there are always questions that point towards us being different than one another and hint at a failure to become acclimated with one another because we chose to. We make our judgments based on what we think instead of actually challenging ourselves to erase out comfort zone barriers and step into the worlds of others fully and naturally. It is a very difficult thing to do at Loyola because of the lack of diversity but it really is not a burden if only we try and look beyond our own preconceived notions.