Entry 3_Trần Thị Thúy_09e2_k43

         Entry 3:    INDENTIFYING BIAS

Item 1:             Short Story

The first day I was told by my mother that I will be coming to Italy, I was very delighted. I arrived in Italy on the 25th of November 2005; it was like a dream come true.

The first few weeks were good and fun, until a day when I and my family were going to the church. After we boarded a bus, I sat down close to an Italian woman. It seems at first she was very calm, although she had some look on me. Then some minutes later she jumped up and started grumbling in a high tone. I thought she was telling the driver to stop or perhaps the driver must have taken her past her place of stop. I felt concern and was trying to calm her down.

But when I tried to talking to her about what was wrong even when she might not understand my English Language, she started talking in a loud voice saying “I don’t like black” which she spoke in Italian language. That was later interpreted to me. Everyone in the bus was looking at me as if I had done something wrong to her. I was embarrassed. Even my mother tried speaking to her, but she never stopped. It was at the next stop the Bus ticket controllers came into the bus, so they met the scene and wanted to know what happened. So I narrated to them in English. I was so glad they spoke in English, even though not perfect.

After the conversation, it was then some passenger in the bus got the real story and they were amazed, so the matter was settled and she was ordered to go and sit elsewhere in the bus. Soon the bus stop, she got off still talking. Then, I sat down thinking what I have done wrong. But down inside me, I was hurt, then I said to myself is it because I am “black”, tears began running down my cheeks. It was when my mum noticed me crying she came petting me.

Source: www.strarete.it/razzismo/shortstory.htm

µ Type of Bias:             Discrimination on race

@ Analysis:

             In this story, the discrimination is based on race. In other word, it is racial discrimination and the little child is the typical victim. Maybe the journey would have been wonderful if there had had no the Italian woman’s behavior.  She looked on the child, jumped up and grumbled in a high tone and finally said “I don’t like black” This woman badly treated the child just because he is a black person. Clearly, this women’s attitude was discriminating against the Black. More seriously, it hurt the little boy’s soul. Particularly, when the Italian woman did so, other people on this bus did not do anything but looking at this boy as if he had done something wrong with the woman. Thus, it seems to be that this woman is not a unique person who discriminates against the Black. The society seems to think like this woman.

Item 2:             A funny picture

Source:

http://self-learning-eoicoruna.blogspot.com/2008/11/british-stereotypes.html

µ  Type of bias:             Stereotype

@Analysis:

           These are stereotypes about the British. From the picture, we can see that there are various characteristics of the British which have still been leaving fixed ideas and views on the people all around the world. The life has changed with great many variations so the set ideas about something will no longer true and valuable. In the same ways, the stereotype images of the British also shift to new side. Moreover, we can notice of stereotypes because of the mental images of group on opinion without paying attention to the individual differences. Therefore, the images of indifferent, reserved British, craziness about dogs, bad ability to learn foreign language are now no longer accurate. If we still hold the ideas about the British like that we will create stereotypes about the British.

Item 3:                   Report

Here are two reports of a Harris poll on schoolchildren and violence:

Los Angeles Times – July 20, 1993,59% of Schoolchildren Surveyed Say Handguns Are Easy to Get Citing an emerging “gun culture” among school-age children, a new poll released Monday found that more than half the nation’s sixth-through 12th-graders said they “could get a handgun if they wanted one” and more than a third that they believe they could get it “within an hour.” The Louis Harris poll, sponsored by the Joyce Foundation in Chicago and prepared for the Harvard School of Public Health, found that 59% of the students surveyed nationwide said guns are easily obtainable, while 35% said it would take them less than 60 minutes to get one.

New York Times – July 20, 1993, Student Poll Finds Many Using Guns A new nationwide survey finds startling numbers of students in the 6th to 12th grades who say they have shot at someone or have been shot at themselves. Nine percent said they had shot at someone at some time; 11 percent said they themselves had been shot at in the past year. Nearly 40 percent of the students said they knew someone who had been killed or injured by a gun, and 15 percent said they had carried a gun within 30 days of the survey.

Source: http://www.umich.edu/~newsbias/omissions.html

µ Type of Bias:    Bias caused by omission

@Analysis:

§  Omission occurs when important information is not reported or is reported incompletely. We can think of omission as being news that should have been reported but is left out of the news we read, see and hear. When important news is omitted, we get a biased perspective.

§  In this example, the two above reports are about the same topic “a Harris poll on schoolchildren and violence.” However, the way each the report approaches to this problem is different. It is because the information of each report is expressed differently: some information is covered while some are neglected. As a result, readers have a different understanding of the issue. In the first article, the data is pointed out with high figure such as 59% and 35% to emphasize that the children get gun more and more easily and guns are becoming more and more available. It means that the gun culture is getting popular, even in school children. In the different approach, the second report also gives the data related to this survey, but unlike the first one, these data lay emphasis on the fear of the children who experience and do witness more and more scene related to guns.

Q Through the way selecting information and expressions, each report brings the readers a different understanding about the same issue. The first one gives readers under impression that more and more children nowadays are actively involved in “gun culture”, while the second one focuses on showing that the children are passive with gun and not many of them own gun.