in resonse to Davis' post - by Emily

I was going to just write a comment to Davis' post, but I don't know if people actually read those so I'm just writing a separate post.

I was a little bit surprised by your post. To me, Penny did not come across as uneducated at all. She works as a nurse, and she obviously cared very much for the woman who she is currently working for. She also talked about her plans to return to school for sociology. I am not very the south (Florida may be in the south of the US, but it's definitely not "the south"), so I come from a different background. I actually did not even realize that she had a very strong accent at all.

However, on that note, I was watching a rerun of America's Next Top Model yesterday, and one of the contestants was a black girl from rural Arkansas. She was told that the only reason she may not win the competition was that she had a strong accent and needed to learn how to speak eloquently to be a Cover Girl model. Maybe your feelings that accents are seen as an identifying socioeconomic feature of people are more wide spread than I thought.

Also, I was interested in your comments about how/when/where we should talk about race relations. While I think it is very important that those conversations occur, I think it is just as important to have fun, more light hearted conversations in order to build community. Going to the pool, watching movies, and just hanging out help to create a closer community. That can help create trust which will lead to better conversations. We have structured time to discuss important issues like race relations, and I agree that we should not completely isolate those conversations to those structured times. But I also appreciate the importance of having more fun conversations and activities.

-Emily