Whether the Concept of Race has any Validity - Article Example

Reflective Journal Writing Name Course Tutor Date Reflective Journal Writing A reflective account of view of ‘race’, and discussion whether the concept of race has any validity In many aspects, the term race is one of the regularly used today. Race is apparently a contentious issue across the globe. For many who watch football like me understand the vice has been on the rise in the recent years. For instance, many African players have faced racism in Europe due to their physical appearance and skin color. A case in point was when Barcelona footballer Dani Alves was compared to a monkey by Villarreal fans in April 2014. It is from this perspective that I believe in many ways, race has divided humanity than united them. Just like its definition, it has made us categorize people based on ethnic, cultural, genetic, historical, linguistic, geographical, religious, social and anatomical, affiliation. As a person who is born in Melbourne, Australia where people of many races live and work, I have learnt a lot and hold various views on this topic. I hold the view that the difference in race makes people see themselves in terms of in-groups and out-groups; in a nutshell, us against them. In Melbourne, I have seen people of one race staying in one neighborhood away from other races. Similarly, they take their children to the same school and have the same religion where there are no other races. Growing up and residing in a mostly white dominated neighborhood, I continuously believed to be different from other people. Race made us form an ethnic majority and felt I belonged in that clique and excluded myself from other races in school. It made me believe that I have a sense of belonging and everything, including government decisions should always be our way. In this manner, I can argue that, my clique rejected equity in terms of the larger societal group. My opinion is that race makes us listens to what we want to hear and reject what do not suit us. My knowledge of race and identity is that it is intuitively internalized daily through regular social interactions. Even though the race concepts are constructed within the society and their consequences are real. Their impacts in the social world are normally observed in social orientation from the institution one wants to work for, music one listens to, media house one is inclined and even groups. In many times, race has been equated to opportunities. While growing up, one is isolated from other people and goes in different ways, it is also same with what form of career one is expected to pursue. In one spectrum, one race is expected to do white collar jobs which are “easy” while on the other end, another race is expected to do tough jobs. Racism has also manifested in physical appearance and skin colour. For example, African race is always stereotyped to do hard labour because of their physique. In this way, race influences our way of thinking and many do not verify sources of information to prove fact from fiction. However, I would argue that race should make us appreciate our difference and not limit us from reaching our potential. In the long run, it can isolate a region or country from growth when everyone starts thinking in terms of us against them. Therefore, I conclude that the concept of race is not valid. Reflection on whether Australia has a ‘national’ culture and the characteristics of that culture I would suggest that culture often makes up the widest influence on numerous human behaviors’ dimensions. Culture has been in the forefront of influence on how we do things based on values, norms, vision, beliefs, working language, behavior, ideals and symbols. Culture can be divided into has many layers including national culture, regional culture, gender differences, generational, social class and corporate. However, the most discussed culture is the national culture which is actually the work of one time IBM personnel manager, Geert Hofstede. In his research, he provided an extremely crucial insight into cross-cultural dynamic relationships. The research provided how countries have national cultures which are different among them. Personally, I believe the research had its faults because some countries have immigrants from other countries who came together to form a culture. Therefore, they transferred a culture of their original country to their new country. One of such countries is Australia, in which its culture has been influenced by western culture. In that perspective, Australia can be categorized as one of the countries that do not have a national culture. As a person who have grown up in Australia and have travelled in various parts of the world including the UK and US, I have observed that Australia borrow several aspects from western culture especially Britain and the US. The Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal people who make the largest population were influenced by British earlier. Similarly, there are different multi-ethnic migration waves which followed Aboriginal people in Australia that make it difficult for Australia to have a national culture. Having studied Geert Hofstede research and comparison of countries, I realized United States makes the benchmark upon which comparison is done. Looking at a comparison between US and Australia on national cultures, I realized many similarities and few differences. Hofstede did his comparison using his five dimensions of culture, including Individualism versus collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, power distance, masculinity versus femininity, and Long-term versus short-term orientation. These dimensions of culture normally affects the performance of employees when they are sent to work in countries with different cultures. However, since Australia and United States have almost the same scores in terms of individualism, uncertainty avoidance and power distance, employees from Australia can comfortably work in US and vice versa. As an Australian citizen, I can attest that most employees favor being close to power. In most cases, the managers are close and are accessible by employees, and hence consultation is enhanced between the two over important matters. Since there is low power distance, constant communication is often seen which is informal, participative and direct. Having lived in the US for sometime, I have witnessed the level of individualism which is just similar to my home country Australia. This depicts that both countries share some cultures like particular individualism. In the world of business, during recruitment and promotion, interviewing panel makes decisions on the basis of evidence and merit of a candidate on individual capacity. Similarly, companies expect the workforce to display initiative and be self-reliant in projects. My comparison of Australia and the UK also reveals some similarities based on the five dimensions of culture. Other aspects of culture that Australia borrows from UK is English language and English common law. Therefore, Australia does not have a national culture. Reflection on the role of colonization in the discrepancies highlighted by the research on living standard and life expectancies by United Nations Reports and Australian Bureau of Statistics Colonization has done more harm than good in Australia in the 21st century. To be precise, it has created more discrepancies in Australia over the years, as demonstrated by the research by United Nations Reports and Australian Bureau of Statistics. Even though the country was colonized in the 18th century, its effects have remained to haunt Australia upto date. In my view, increase in population of immigrants in Australia more so from its former colony Britain, has led to discrepancies in research touching on the lives and economic development of the country. For instance, in one research conducted by the United Nations, it ranked Australia as the country with the highest life expectancies and second-highest living standard in the world. Another research carried out by the Australian Bureau of Statistics held that Aboriginal Australians’ life expectancy is 20 years lower compared to that of non-Aboriginals, and is also ranked the lowest life expectancy of aboriginal countries around the globe. From my study, many British and other immigrants have since acquired Australian citizenship and forms large percentage of Australian nationals. Hence, the population of non-Aboriginals has led to distortion of the research conducted by these two bodies. For nearly two centuries, most of the settlers have come from Britain and Ireland. In brief, majority of the Australian people are basically British and Irish. I believe colonization took place a long time ago and people who moved to Australia from Britain and Ireland have since internalized with Aboriginals in terms of culture have become very difficult to differentiate between Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals. Similarly, new children of non-Aboriginals have been born who may not know their true origin. As such, it makes it difficult for external bodies like the United Nations to conduct a credible research which matches that of the Australian Bureau of Statistics. On the other hand, British people and Aboriginal have slightly different life expectancy and living standards. Since British immigrants still continue to arrive and take Australian citizens, l consider that the slight differences would affect the research. Australia has been practicing multicultural for quite sometimes so as to reduce racism and ethnicity, hence, people may not answer questions with origin and race. Since the population grows, it becomes hard to use old records about Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals concerning their life healthcare status and life expectancy. On my studies, I have learnt that multiculturalism concept in Australia was first set up in the 70s during the Labor government. From the time of its inauguration, it concentrated on immigrants and descendants. Multiculturalism concept was not incorporated into the Federal Charter but entrenched in a sequence of the Federal and State agencies. Reflection on the ways in which culture influences health beliefs Culture is a strong aspect of life which impacts our reasoning and behavior. Australian culture hold mechanism of health beliefs to describe what led to the disease, how it should be treated, and the person who ought to treat it. As an Aboriginal Australia, my decision to visit a health care institution is often impacted by the cultural phenomena and perceptions concerning the health. I have observed a situation where factors attributed by other people as ill health symptoms such as discomfort or pain, hallucinations or delusion and negative feelings being seen by some and Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal people to be spiritual or personal issue of cultural transgression. In a nutshell, the degree to which patients identify a patient education to have cultural significance could have a deep influence on reaction to information offered and their motivation to exercise it. Similarly, I have seen some Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal who are influenced by western culture perceive the disease as being caused by natural scientific factors, supports medical cure which employ sophisticated technology to detect and cure the disease. Some old Aboriginals people consider that the disease has been resulted by supernatural factors. Therefore, they encourage prayer or the spiritual intercessions which would counteract the believed disservice of the powerful spirits. Cultural factors have a critical determination of patient compliance. I have also learnt that some Australians adults who are less formally educated normally make significant efforts to conform to a therapy, but only in way that is in agreement with their fundamental knowledge of how body work and treatment works. In some cases, part of Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal have by tradition perceived health as entailing physical, emotional, social, and spiritual health of a person and his or her wellbeing. My culture holds a strong connection between land and individual relationship with land of a person’s own people, in that, bad relationship with people in the land can lead to ill health. This has an identical role in people’s mental health and sense of identity to Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal. Still on that perspective, in Aboriginal culture, people favors the word emotional and social wellbeing as opposed to mental health, because it echoes a more holistic and positive strategy to health. In a broader sense, my culture influences the attitudes of the patient concerning medical care and the capability to analyze, cope and manage the cause of a disease. The patient and his or her immediate family normally raise culture-specific values and concept which relates to the health and illness concepts diagnosing of symptoms, anticipations of how treatment will be carried out, and ideas about medication. Such beliefs interfere with what the doctors think because the patient or the family has an already set mind. Healthcare practitioners are always professionals who have expertise in their work and know what to do; hence challenging him or her is interruption, intimidation and questioning his competency. Lastly, in my culture, an individual could feel inappropriate to talk about particular issues with the healthcare practitioner, especially about private parts. For that reason, some people would just go to a hospital facility when the condition is now severe when they have private part infections. However, the society, particularly Australian must move with speed to arrest these cases before it losses its workforce which represent the future of the country. Reflection on why there is a widespread stigma or shame associated with mental health issues, appearing in cultures with differing models of health and different perspectives on well-being. My observation is that, mental health has caused stigma to many people in Australia over the years. Today, Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal culture prefer mental health to be referred to as emotional and social wellbeing because it leads to a positive approach in treating it. In fact, I have noticed that several people with mental health fear admitting because of the perceived consequence. Certainly the patient of mental health often face complexities in getting work, participating in a social place and eventually turns out to be economically disadvantaged, resulting to several other problems. Stigma itself results to risk factors which can cause negative outcomes in treatment of mental health. The sufferer and the society in one way or the other have participated in stigma that has risen lately in Australia. That way, mental stigma has been categorized by health experts into two, i.e. perceived. In perceived stigma, people who are mentally ill, isolate themselves among other society members. This is because of how society is oriented. In my culture, people are classified based on how your life is progressing. That is to say, one’s health, level of schooling, occupation and social class. Mental health frequently affects their general health and disrupts them from doing some beneficial things in life like schooling, socialization and even getting a job. When mentally ill people see themselves or find themselves in a category where look like they have a better future, they isolate themselves from that group. Also, the same people hold negative thoughts about their knowledge and even how people see them. The situation increases the stigmatization hence leading to other health disorders like depression. On the other hand, in social stigma, the society prejudices mental health sufferers by underrating and isolating themselves from them. All through the history of my Australian culture, I witnessed sufferers of mental health being treated differently, even brutalized and excluded from social places. This treatment has always emerged from misguided opinions that people having mental illness are violent and unreasonable. Even though in some cases it is true, but not all mentally ill people possesses such attributes. Also, in most cases the society hold beliefs that people who are mentally ill have been bewitched and are possessed by evil or demonic spirit. As such, they isolate themselves from such people with the view that socialization would make such disease spread or get to their children. Some doctors and other healthcare practitioners also subscribe to the aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture, and consequently give less attention about these cases. It is why negative effects of social stigma is seen in the general healthcare institutions. In fact, people with mental problems have rare chances of benefiting from available mental healthcare services compared to people with other health cases. There is also a belief that mentally ill people have no better future this are not worth listening to. As I stated before, mental health distracts people from pursuing their careers, and are left at home to be taken care. Many people see them as burdens compared to normal human being. Hence, most of the time, they are isolated and would not be allowed into a discussion, schools and companies. Read More