The Stereotype Threat

The minority under performance phenomenon, an event in which minority groups average worse scores than whites and Asians on standardized tests and academic endeavors in general. At this point the question becomes why.

The answer it seems, may lie in the idea of “stereotype threat”, an idea that certain stereotypes can subconsciously influence certain groups of people to perform better or worse based on their stereotype. A psychologist at the University of Harvard, Claude M. Steele, tested this theory by conducting an experiment. His theory was that once a group believes a stereotype, they will subconsciously behave in a manner to make it true.  He picked three groups of students, with a mix of African American and white students from Stanford University and gave them a test containing verbal acuity questions from the Graduate Records Exam (GRE). 

He conducted the test with two groups of students, both a mix of genders and races. The first group was told that the test would measure their intellectual ability and the second group was told it would measure their problem solving ability. The results conformed with Steele's hypothesis, in the first group African American students were threatened by the possibility of them conforming to their stereotype and they performed much worse then they did in the second group. The white students weren't under this same threat since there wasn't any negative stereotypes about their intellectual ability so they performed the same throughout. 

A similar experiment was conducted by a group of social Psychologists at Princeton University led by Jeff Stone who tested white vs. black student performance on a golf course. The white students who were told the course was to measure their “natural athletic ability” under performed unlike black students who were unaffected. And the black students who were told the experiment measured "sports intelligence" under performed. 

The day my life forever changed

The Night I Most Regret

               I glare red eyed across the dance floor, and take another swig of my drink. I ain’t regret anything so much as I do now. He said I was a natural, a natural, and I know for a fact that if me old lady hadn’t stole that letter I’d be out there in fancy clothes and gettin’ pitchers took of me. If only, if only she hadn’t stole that letter. I finish my drink with one more large swallow and go to get some more.

               As I take a step forward, a man steps in front of me. He has a brown face and brown eyes and his curly hair is the first thing to catch my attention. He's round my age and not bad lookin’. “Hey beautiful, fancy a dance?” He say to me his eyes moving up and down my body.

 Well why not? If it distracts me from how my Momma betrayed me and stole the letter from the guy in the pitchers and ruined my career, I’d gladly do anything. We dance for a little while and I start to feel lively again. He flatters me in that seductive tone and I giggle. We flirt a little and I'm briefly reminded of my dream. If I was in the pitchers guys'd do this kind o thing to me all the time. But the thought is quickly vanquished from my tipsy head as we twirl and swing.
 We dance one more dance and he turns to me. “How you fancy bein’ my wife?” He inquires. I realize this is a crystal chance to get away from my mother who doesn’t understand my talent! My new husband surely won’t steal letters from me! (The drink in my brainpan made me a little tipsy and unable to think clearly as well.) But then again...me old lady'd get really mad if I left...My head starts to pound and a fog takes over my mind. Before I confuse myself even more I grasp onto the little bit of sense I can make with my drunk brain and reply "yes." Biggest mistake of my life.

He lives in a ranch. A ranch. Who’d want to live there, when they could have had fancy clothes and lived one o’ those rich people hotels?! And my husband, I don’ even want to call him that. He’s so mean! He won’ even let me out o’ the house! What'd I ever see in him?! An no one wants ta talk. Slim, a skinner here’s a nice lookin guy and he’s the only one of these guys whose even remotely civil ta me. The rest jus yell. Specially my husband. If you don do what he wants you to, its yelling, yelling, and yelling. Not a single one of me give me the respect I'm owed. I coulda been in the pitchures! I betcha they couldn't even dream of  commin near the pitchures! Instead these bindly buffs dream of the fatta the lan an rabbits. Imagine rabbits! They all so mean ta me when I coulda been in the pitchers but they can't even get a couple o rabbits! They even call me a tart when I don’t do anything and they all think they’re all better than me jus cause I’m a woman. I’d rather be back with me old lady. Even if she is s letter stealer.

part 5 and 6

Part 5 and 6 
         This story leaves me with nothing but the question, did George have the right to kill Lennie? I am turned more towards the no side because George new that Lennie wasn't always making the best decisions butt he didn't did not know. George killing Lennie is equivalent to punishing an infant. For instance if an infant broke a lamp or tipped over a chair and broke it, would you through it out in the cold? No. 
         I made this connection because Lennie didn't quite understand the harm he was making. Like earlier in the story when he hurt Curley, he did not fully understand the strength he actually had. Also the only reason I would be leaning towards the "right side" would be because in ythe end two people died and the second time was ajust a punishment for what Lennie had done. 
            In conclusion I think that I am more on the "George should not have done that side" because the solution to the problem should most deffinetly not have been to kill Lennie because he didn't even understand what he had done in the first place.  
 

Part 6

WHY DID GEORGE SHOOT LENNIE? (Use previous events, info, quotes to prove the foreshadowing AND the explanation for WHY he did it.)

 George shot Lennie because he knew Curly was going to anyway. Curly was going to shoot Lennie because Lennie was petting Curly's wife's hair and he accidentally broke her neck and killed her. George knew that when. Curly found out it was Lennie, he would do anything and everything to try to kill Lennie. I made a connection to the shooting of Candy's dog. Carlson shot Candy's dog because it was better for the society."He aint no good to you, Candy. An' he ain't no good to himself. Why'n't you shoot him, Candy?"  Candy's dog was no good for him and Lennie was no good for George. Throughout the whole book, people kept saying that Lennie was no help to George and held him back. Which I think all lead up to Lennie's death. 

Of Mice and Men Part 1

           In part one, there are many instance of irony. First of all, the actually character of Lennie and George, and their physical and mental description. “A huge man, shapeless of face, with large, pale eyes, with wide, sloping shoulders," yet throughout part one, it is revealed that Lennie has some sort of mental delay or disability, which prevents him from remembering things, reacting properly in certain situations, and being careful. He has the mind of a small child, and is very kind and submissive, but does not know his own strength. George, however is described as 'small and quick, dark of face, with restless eyes and sharp, strong features. Every part of him was defined: small strong hands, slender arms, a thin and bony nose.” Also, as you read, you find out he is very controlling of Lennie, and is clever with his words and actions. It is ironic because of Lennie's shear size and demeanor, you would think he would be the dominant, or at least some sort of leader out of the two men. Instead, he relies completely on George to be accepted into society, and George is the more prominent and more intelligent out of the two.

Is George a Bad Person?

If I asked you, or anyone else, "If somebody shot their best friend for making a mistake, would that make them a bad person?" Hopefully everybody would say yes. And why wouldn't they? In our society, and probably forever, killing another human is an unforgivable crime, and crime in which very little can be forgiven.

But, if I asked you, "If a grown man killed a young woman and tried to run away but somebody shot him before he could do anymore harm, is that a good person?" Although this would be a harder question to answer, my guess would be most people would lean towards yes.

This is what makes the story Of Mice and Men so complicated and hard to grasp at times. In a kid's world so much is black and white. I LOVE this food. I HATE homework. I am OBSESSED with my phone.  Piano lessons are the WORST. So how can something so concrete as one man killing another, be so debatable. This is how we figure out if George is a good person.

At the beginning of the book many of us pondered George. On the one hand he seemed so rude and brusque. George was constantly talking down to Lennie, and acting as though he were far superior which made most of us dislike his demeanor. However as a character George showed great compassion just by taking care of Lennie, and defending him against other men, and the harsh realities of the world. So what was George. A good person? Or a bad one? For some reason we feel the need to categorize. Pretty. Nice. Mean. Weird. Good. Bad. etc. Steinbeck made this incredibly difficult. He created one of the most complicated characters I have ever come across, causing us to think deeply. I had come to the conclusion that George was a kind person at hard and that was helping Lennie the best way he knew how: tough love. This is why the ending of the book is such a shocker. Nobody was expecting him to shoot his best friend.

So is it acceptable? Given the fact that Lennie had just killed another (mostly) innocent human, the FAIR side of us kicks in saying a life for a life. But having read and bonded with Lennie, if only for 6 short chapters, we also feel compassion knowing that he never intended to do such things, and felt incredible remorse when he did.

All though it was a very hard conclusion to come to, I have decided that George did the right thing by shooting Lennie. I put myself in the place of his victims loved ones. If someone like that was loose and could potentially kill someone I loved, I would demand they be locked up.  Maybe shooting Lennie was an extreme but given the time and the circumstances, it was probably (sadly) the most humane way for Lennie to be subdued.

Ever After (5-6) [sorry its long]

George could tell that Candy was fearful. “You an’ me can get that little place, can’t we, George? Can’t we?”

The words echoed in the small man’s skull. You would have to have some serious cojones to do anything so stupid as to buy a land and property with the stock market in such a mush. But  George still hoped. He secretly did want their dream.  He could barely look at his hands nowadays, for it was his calloused hands that had been wrapped around that Luger, his hands that had stolen the life of his friend since he was just a kid. Currently, George was sitting at a bar not far from the barn, holding onto his dream and drowning in a sea of grief and alcohol. George was always slipping between being sober and drunk, ‘cus he had to distract himself from shooting his own friend. And Lennie was just so stupid, too. Never deserved such a punishment. But it was George who dealt the punishment. Now, he was either drinking or working, busying his hands with something, whether that be helping best he could on the farm with Slim and Candy and Carlson and not Curley, playing some solitaire, or drinking away his pain. He drifted in and out of sobriety, downing one shot of whiskey after another. The bartender looked at him with a funny look in her eye.

“Whatta you lookin’ at,” he snapped. What did she know? She had not shot and killed her best friend. The lady filled up his drink again and left quickly. He downed that one before she could help another guy with a big gut and a chubby face. George used his dirty hand, the filthy one still stained with blood that he would never be able to wash off, and wiped his forehead. He wondered how long it would be until Candy showed up and told him to sober up and come home. Candy took Lennie’s death just fine. He didn’t shoot him. Didn’t know the pain of losing a friend he’d known since he was just a kid, whom he was supposed to protect. As people blurred together, George drifted out of consciousness, his small, defined head landing hard on the sticky counter.

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Candy peered at the small man laying on his straw bed, asleep and drunk. Lennie would be confused. If he had an original thought in his darn head, Lennie would be ashamed to see George like this. His nine month old pup from Slim’s patch of three surviving mutts, Ollie, proudly skipped into the room. Ollie seemed to love licking George. This is just what she did. She jumped right up on his stomach and licked the sleeping man. Candy swatted her away with the stump of his wrist. She slumped to the floor and scurried around the bunkhouse. Ollie had been the only woman left on the farm until last month when a new woman, Margaret, replaced Curley’s late wife. Candy hated the idea of Candy marrying almost immediately after losing his wife, but he could not control the boss’ son. George lazily looked up.

“What happen’” he said lazily. Candy said his practiced answer.

“You don’ drunk yourself ta sleep. Now, get up. The farm ain't gonna work itself.”

“My head hurts like heck. Can’t a man just sleep through the Depression?”

“C’mon. Remember the house? The ten acres? Aw, George, if there was a carnival, we’d ask nobody, we’d just go to her. We can still do that, George. I been sendin’ money to the ol’ lady that owns the place. E’ry month. I am a month away. A month, George, then the house is ours. So, what do you say, can we do it?” George considered this carefully. His face played through many emotions.

“Candy, I want my own place. I want this new house. We gonna do it. We gonna own a house.” The light ran back into George’s eyes. He slowly got out of bed and the two men walked out of the bunkhouse.

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The path from there was rocky, but eventually, the two men stood in front of their new property. The nice old lady gave it to them for $450, just as George predicted. Now, it was just Candy, George, Ollie, and occasional visits from Slim, who had found himself a wife. They had finally found their happily ever after.