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Biography of a Chocolate Bar

To return to our opening story, consider writing a biography of a chocolate bar? Buy one and put it on your desk. What are the ingredients? Where do they come from? Start with cocoa, the primary ingredient, and Côte d’Ivoire, which produces more than 40% of the worlds cocoa. Ask yourself the following questions:

The ingredients of a Snickers Candy Bar are as follows: milk chocolate (sugar, cocoa butter,chocolate, skim milk, lactose, milk fat, soy lecithin, artificial flavor), corn syrup, peanuts, sugar, palm oil, skim milk, lactose, salt, egg whites, spice, natural and artificial flavors, chili extract. Cote d’Ivoire, also known as the Ivory Coast is a west African country that produces more than 40% of the world’s cocoa in a major city called Abidjan. 

What are the working and living conditions of the people who produce the cocoa?

The people who produce the cocoa are people of Guyana. Guyana is an impoverished country in South America with an annual income of about $4,000. With that being said, the living and working conditions of Guyanese people is very poor.  

How is it produced? Are child laborers involved?

A lot of the cocoa is produced via child labor.

How do the producers get the cocoa to the market?

Producers get the cocoa to the market by overworking underpaid people who watch and harvest the pods. 

How are prices set?

As of 2016, the price of a Snickers bar is based upon how “angry” the internet is, In other words, it’s based on how much the candy bar is being talked about. 

Which international corporations dominate the chocolate trade?Who regulates it?

Hershey and Mars dominate the chocolate trade while the International Cocoa Organization regulates it. 

How is chocolate marketed?

Chocolate is marketed as something that’s supposed to be an all around feel good kind of snack because it comes from the earth. It’s made to look rich and luxurious with “exotic” words and gold decals and decorations. 

Where did you buy it?

I bought this Snicker at the university bookstore in the University Student Center. 

 How much profit does a store owner make on a bar of chocolate?

As of 2012, the average profit on a bar of chocolate from a large manufacturer such as Mars or Hershey was 9.19%. 

Are there hidden cost that are not included in the price you paid? Consider under payment of labor; environmental impact; government subsidies that are direct (to the company) and indirect (infrastructure such as roads, ports, bridges, and water systems) ; and the health care costs created by harvesting transporting processing or eating the food? How are these costs obscured?

Yes there are hidden costs that are not included in the price I paid, as there are in almost everything that we buy. These costs are obscured with other ridiculous amounts of money in the beginning so that things such as labor and environmental impact are basically free. 

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Company with Fair Trade Practices

Gildan practices fair trade in North American and is recognized by the Fair Labor Trade Organization. 

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Social Class and Inequality

This story illustrates social class by using Bourdieu’s theories by elaborating on the fact that the rich learn an adapt to their rich ways often from each other. Prior to discussing how Faridi got to such a high place on the class scale, Mahdawi references the fact that Faridi is an example of intragenerational mobility. His father was a cab driver and for the early years of his own life, he followed in his footsteps. With that being said, the question “Who teaches the rich the rules of being rich?” comes into play. It’s clear that Mahdawi has doubts about Faridi’s motto of  “It’s not just hard work that propels you up the social ladder, Success...is often parts luck.” 

Bourdieu’s theory says that social agents adapt to their habitus among many other things. Faridi being the child of Muslim immigrants was taught to work, work, work because that’s what was necessary as someone who came to New York with little to nothing. Then at the college age, after law school, he began to just copy what he saw other on campus doing. He said he wore a lot of cuff links because “...that was the thing to do,”. He also mentioned that he watched videos on how to use and place cutlery to prepare for dinners with colleagues and once went up to shake the judges hand in law school as a clerk because he didn’t want the judge to think he was disrespectful. 

So the question “How do you learn the rules of being rich?” when you weren’t born rich can be answered in more than one way depending on why you're learning them in the first place. If one is learning the ways of the wealthy due to a prestigious job, then one may have to just simply observe those around them. If there is no time for that, then the internet is always there. if you need to learn the ways because perhaps you married into money, your partner may be there to assist or also, the internet, like where I found this article. 

Reference: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/feb/01/poor-americans-poverty-rich-class

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Kinship and Family 

This diagram shows the extension of the many children my family has out of wedlock. Since so many of my family members are children, myself included, this diagram is missing many of my adult cousins because their children are the adults that have these children out of wedlock. 

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How Gender Affects Everyday Life

-job settings (women getting hit on by the bosses, not having equal pay, etc)

-transgender people and using bathrooms

-when it comes to sports (assuming men okay football and women cheerlead and dance)

-when. a baby is born, they are often automatically “assigned” a color based on their sex

-men have more behavioral advantages than women

-patriarchy

-women have to move more cautious in public

-women are often objectified by men

-men are expected to be macho and strong

Brielle Owens and Elizabeth worked together in partnership of this assignment.

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Thomas Theorem

One example of the Thomas Theorem would be a child believing that the dark brings monsters to his room, specifically under his bed even though there are no such thing and there definitely aren’t any under the bed. Another would be believing that the world is ended and therefore thinking that every little thing is the start of God coming back to Earth. 

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Cultural Adaptation

Reflect on the cultural adaptation examples given in class on Tuesday. Consider how cultural innovations such as glasses and braces affect our biological evolution a species. Follow the directions below for full points.

The cultural adaptation of glasses has trumped natural selection by almost guaranteeing that any offspring of the first optically mutated human, will also have a changed DNA sequence of their eyes. 

The usage of glasses was somewhat explained in the National Geographic Naked Science:The Human Family Tree project. The host/narrator mentioned that all humans have 99.9% of the same DNA, but that 1% that makes us different can vary, In me, its my eyesight among other things. This came about via a mutation in one of my ancestors DNA being passed down. And due to this, all of my mothers’ offspring have issues with their eyesight as well as her mother’s and that impact will affect our offspring (should we choose to have any). This kind of trait seems to be taking a lead in our genes and is showing itself to be a dominant gene. This kind of thing is what leads to cultural adaptation, the past few generations of people in my family wearing glasses, is more than likely to place a dependency on the future generations to wear glasses because that’s all our eyes know. This is even more likely if I, or any of my siblings were to reproduce with another visually impaired person.                      

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Language and Gender in the Classroom

There are three men in this class and approximately thirteen women in the classroom. In this particular session, only one man spoke one time. Women definitely speak more often, but I attribute that to the fact that there are way more women there to speak in the first place. 

On average, this class spoke for less that :20 seconds with an average of 50 words, most of them filler words. 

In terms of body language and style of speaking, men tend to be more relaxed and monotone with the words they use and they speak less. Women tend to be loud, use their hands to express themselves, and talk for a longer amount of time trying to explain themselves. 

The instructor is a woman and she encourages communication by asking us several times if we have anything to say and if still, no one is volunteering themselves to speak, she’ll pick them anyway. Her body language is very relaxed and I don’t notice her making too much eye contact since I tend to always try. 

The instructor very seldom calls on men versus women because there aren’t many to call on in the first place and she often mentions how she enjoys the female dominated classroom. 

The instructor's gender definitely influences the way she interacts with the classroom for reasons stated above and because she may feel as though she can relate to the women of the classroom better because of what her education background and focus is.  When a woman of the classroom speaks, she tends to engage more and give more feedback whereas when a man speaks, she’ll respond with something along the lines of “Oh, okay.”

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Music and Language

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/dont-run/1136197106?i=1136197223

“Don’t Run” by PARTYNEXTDOOR

Gender: “Lotta n*****, lotta n*****, lotta n***** wanna be like me” -implying that a lot of his male counterparts want to emulate his lifestyle

Power: “Since when are you all grown up? Since when do you know more? Since when do you not come home?” -asking the woman since when does he get to make her own decisions without him

Dialect: “Out here with your Brampton tings, f****** all your pickering tings” -Jamaican patois for things and fake fans

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Mapping a Block

3. Create a map of the selected area, with symbols and a legend, to illustrate what you observed.

4. The location I chose is the exiting intersection of where I currently live back home. What drew me to it is partially the fact that I want to go home so bad and another part being that we’re moving out of this neighborhood soon. What I found is that my neighborhood is very symmetrical being that it is the projects and the developers didn’t put much thought into the way the homes looked. The people are what makes the neighborhood interesting despite the high crime rate and how loud they are in the summer time. I noticed in my observations the symmetry of the Peabody Projects. I also noticed that for Dillon to be such a small, short street, it’s awfully busy. What’s absent is the supervision of parents over their children because they’re so comfortable with where they live. You would typically expect to see someone watching the kids play in such a place with such a bad reputation. My observations honestly don’t vary very much due to the fact that the same people have lived here so long. If I were to go look midday on a summer day i might find that there are more policeman cruisers around or that the kids have opened the fire hydrant again, but that’s about it.

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The Culture of Consumerism

1.  

2. 

3. After doing this assignment, I’ve learned that I may or may not more inventory of items than I actually need. I don’t necessarily need $500 dollars in jeans and I certainly don’t need to buy such expensive jeans. The things that I need are really a products of the way I was raised. Somebody raised in a different environment that me wouldn’t need all the things that I need. I learned that I should try living from another person’s perspective of life with more minimal needs. 

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Concept  Map-St. Louisians/ St. Louis Culture

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Sports Culture (Phenomenon)

Beliefs: Lebron James is the greatest of all time, basketball is better than football

Attitudes: passionate hatred for opposing teams, win or lose fans

Values: jerseys, food, superbowl, tickets, mancaves, hats, video games, players

Knowledge: their team may not be the best, but supports them nevertheless

Institutions: stadiums, fields

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A Can of Coke

1. Take an picture of YOUR item (do not use google images) and answer the following questions in your post.

2. What is the history of the item?

The history behind the Morphe brand which makes this particular makeup brush is that the company was started in 2008 by a woman from Los Angeles, California. Makeup brushes in general were discovered in Saxon in between the years of 500 and 600 AD. Animal hair brushes have been used by the Japanese since before Christ. Shenzhen, a country outside of Hong Kong, China has since established over 200 makeup manufacturers. 

3. Where was your item made or manufactured?

This Morphe makeup brush for the face was made in China. The company chooses to manufacture in Asia via a private label to keep costs low. A private label in the beauty industry is a label or factory that mass produces a certain group or category of products for a super cheap price and sells them to larger companies out of country for a super large profit.  

4. What impact does the item have on your life?

I use this tool almost everyday because I wear makeup almost everyday. The impact it has on me is great because of the confidence it helps me achieve on a day to day (and night to night) basis. 

5. Who are the people directly involved with making or manufacturing this item? What is life like for them?

The people directly involved with making or manufacturing this item are often young Chinese women working for pennies (or renminbi)  at a time. Life for them is often not satisfactory because of the simple fact that they can often on afford to survive and not live so they really don’t have a life to enjoy outside of the workplace. 

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Uneven Development

Seeing as I come from the Midwest, I thought being on the east coast near New York would mean that there wouldn’t be as much poverty because there would be so many technological advancements to prevent or at least help that, but being in Baltimore I see that that’s not the case at all. If I’m being slightly biased, I would say that Baltimore infrastructure and school systems are a little under or evenly developed compared to the rest of the United States. I’m positive there are worse, but based on experience this is just what I notice. I think that speaking to a native, they might agree. This goes to show you that uneven development doesn’t always have to be on such a huge scale. Uneven development can be within your own country, state, or city. 

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Time Space Compression

https://youtu.be/3Kv-p6WU7Bk

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The technology in Japan allows commuters of work, school, and even those traveling for leisure to get from one place to another within a matter of minutes versus the traditional trains and subways in other parts of the world such as the US. People often think of the US as being one of the most, if not the most, advanced country in the world, but this just shows that we too can be “left behind” in the eyes of time-space compression.