Digital Media

I have acquired the skills of being a good text messenger over the last several years. However, this was an odd process for me to learn before I could become a good text messenger. About three years ago, my half Mexican and half Puerto Rican friend from junior high school named Armando sent me a reply text message after I sent him a text message saying Happy Birthday. The communication media hindered the conversation because his reply said “Thanks, we might play basketball today. I’ll let u know l8tr.” The media hindered the conversation because when he used l8tr to abbreviate the word later, the lower case l looked very similar to the capital letter I in a text message, so even if I knew what l8tr meant, there could still be some confusion.
The context of where I was when I communicated effected what was said when the reply message was sent because I was at home so I asked my sister what l8tr meant. I asked her because my sister was knowledgeable about the language used in text messages. The medium did not have an effect on this communication. This was the case because the misinterpretation of the message caused the communication breakdown. The problem could be isolated to the message because I did not understand the message until I asked my sister. I could have asked Armando what the word l8tr meant, but I already sent a reply message telling him Ok. I also asked my sister for the meaning because when I sent the reply saying Ok, it signified the end of the conversation between Armando and me. This experience was the first of many times I tried to learn the language of text messages so there would be less ambiguity between me and whoever I communicated with through the use of text messages.

Popular Culture

After I looked around my room and in my closet, I noticed that I consume a decent amount of popular culture. I came to this conclusion because I own 20 sports jerseys and shirts combined. This would be considered a part of popular culture because sports products are cultural products known and shared by people all over the world. This is true because during a broadcast of an Olympic basketball game last year in Beijing, the announcers mentioned that Kobe Bryant and LeBron James, who are two National Basketball Association players, have the highest selling jerseys in China. This is amazing and expresses popular culture because these players are not only popular in America, but are two reasons why sports are a part of popular culture around the world.
The brand name clothes I wear consist of the companies Avirex, Southpole, Rocawear, Ecko, and Nike. Avirex is a popular clothing line from New York. Southpole is a clothing line from New Jersey. Rocawear is a clothing line made by Jay-Z, who is one of the most popular rappers of all time. Ecko is a clothing line creating by Marc Ecko, a popular fashion designer, and Nike is a global sports company all over the world. I have a poster of Julius Erving, who was a player in the NBA. I also have a poster of the rapper Eminem. The posters are examples of popular culture because Erving was one of the more popular players during his time, and Eminem is one of the most popular rappers over the last 10 years. Most people who watch the NBA know who Julius Erving is, and most people who listen to rap know about Eminem. Therefore, these two people have wide dissemination because the music of Eminem is popular in other countries just like many artists in the music industry, and several athletes including Michael Jordan have developed their styles of play to be similar to Erving’s. Also, people have easy access to Erving, Eminem by going to a local library and going to websites such as www.youtube.com, to see highlights of Erving, or to hear music by Eminem.
I refuse to buy products made by Tommy Hilfiger for social reasons. I feel this way because my family and friends have told me about Hilfiger being racist towards minorities. This is also for personal reasons because I refuse to knowingly support anyone who is a racist. My views on racism developed based on my own beliefs about cultural identity. All of these things fit with my cultural identity because I watched sports and listened to rap music growing up, so it would be difficult for me to stop watching sports or listening to rap music.

Silence

Silence in classes may cause awkwardness or consequences. An example of awkwardness in a class happened to me last year. The class was discussing the reluctance of heterosexual males and females to be romantically involved with each other. I suggested that males and females who grow up with each other may look at the other person as being like a brother or sister, so they do not want to lose that relationship. The professor and the rest of the class were quiet for about five seconds. This created awkwardness because I had a different view point on the topic. Silence may cause consequences in classes when students are unprepared for class discussions, which may lead to a pop quiz or extra work for the class.
Silence in conversations with friends creates awkwardness as well. My friend Corey was dropping me off at home after a party, and during the car ride home, there was silence for about three minutes. This rarely happens with most of my other friends because we are interested in the same sports, so we would not run out of ideas to discuss. However, Corey is not a big sports fan. I ended the silence by bringing up a topic about music, which I knew would work because he played the guitar in a band. This differed from silence in classes because there were no serious consequences caused by the silence.
Silence at home may signal anger, awkwardness, consequences, or disappointment. This happened to me when I came home at 6:00 a.m. without telling my mother that I was spending the night at a friend’s house. The silence lasted about 10 seconds before she asked me where I was and why I did not call. This conveyed to my mother that I was irresponsible by handling the situation this way. I did not feel too bad because I was 18 years old, so there was no curfew for me to worry about. However, I understood her view point of the situation. This differed from silence in the classroom because the consequences resulted in her not trusting me on a personal level, and the professor will not trust students on a professional level when the students do not participate in class discussions. This differed from silence with friends because the awkwardness with Corey could be broken by bringing up almost any topic, but this could not be done with the silence at home.

Family Origins

I interviewed my mother, and she told me that our ancestors originally came from Jackson, Mississippi. I was also told that they never relocated. Our family surname did not change during this time period. My preferred ethnic identification is African-American. I learned about my ethnicity from my parents and my grandmother on my mother’s side of the family. I learned about my ethnicity from my grandmother based on her experiences growing up in Jackson, Mississippi where she experienced treatments of racism because she was African-American. I learned about my ethnicity from my parents based on the foods that we ate and the music they listened to as I grew up. The most interesting part of the conversation with my mother was her explaining to me that my ancestral grandfather was an Irish-American and my ancestral grandmother was African-American. This was interesting because they had to experience discrimination being an interracial couple in a southern state during that time period.
About a year and a half ago, my friend Damien needed to get some ice cream out of his car so it would not melt. He asked me to go into seven-eleven to get him some cigarettes in order to save time. After he handed me the money, I was stopped by a police officer who asked me why Damien handed me money. The police officer explained that there had been a lot of robberies going on around the area. Even though I told him that I knew Damien from high school, I had to wait until Damien confirmed it. Then he asked for my ID and said “Are you broke?” I told him no and in the meantime, his partner went to ask Damien if he knew who I was. After that, the officer told me to have a good night. I felt as though this was discrimination because he saw my ID and knew that I was not old enough to buy alcohol for a minor, and his partner asked for Damien’s ID so he knew that Damien was old enough to buy cigarettes. As long as I was not committing a robbery, there was no need for the officer to ask about my financial status while waiting for his partner to confirm what I had already told him.

Assumptions

During senior year of high school, I took a course called sports and entertainment marketing. The class was discussing homosexuality in sports. Denny Neagle, a former major league baseball pitcher, was one of the athletes discussed. A classmate asked if Neagle was homosexual because our teacher mentioned rumors about him. The teacher answered no. I contributed to the conversation by saying that I thought Neagle was homosexual as well. This is when the cultural-individual dialectic problem started.
My teacher asked why I believed that Neagle was homosexual. My response was he kissed Larry Walker, who was his teammate at the time on the lips in the dugout during a baseball game on television. The teacher then asked “Why does that mean he is homosexual?” I responded by telling him that he kissed a man who he was not related to on the lips. Then two of my classmates made facial expressions which made me feel ignorant. The teacher then went on to say “That’s not a good reason!” In the culture and environment that I grew up in, males barely hugged other males even if they were relatives, unless they had not seen them for years. Then I saw two men kiss on the lips, and wrongfully jumped to conclusions.
As I sat in the class watching the documentary on homosexuality in sports, I thought to myself “I know I am right!” After class was over, I thought “How could I be so off base and not consider how ignorant that was?” I never looked at Neagle’s biography to find out his sexual orientation, I just assumed. Maybe that was just his way of communicating affection towards a friend and a teammate. I had become the culprit of what I hate being the victim of; stereotyping someone from a different culture or race because he communicated differently.