This is the start of a project I’ve been wanting to do for a long while. I sincerely want to make a difference, but I realize that the change I perceive is needed and the change that others feel is necessary may be completely different. In my effort to understand what other people think is needed and how they believe change will be had, I’ve started interviewing people in my social circle to see how closely my sentiments match there’s. First up is MJ, a lady I have known for a very long time and trust very much. My questions are in regular type and her responses are in bold.
- Where were you born? I was born in Baltimore, Maryland.
- Where were you raised? I moved to Vallejo at 10, and grew up there.
- Where do you live now? I live in Oakland, where I’ve been the last 24 years.
- What do you do for a living? Right now I’m a RV Marine Loan Officer.
- How do you like it? Eh, I don’t like it very much at all. Its too repetitive.
- What is your ideal Society? My ideal Society in one in which the weak is taken care of. Its awful how we treat people nowadays. There would be alot more positive cooperation between the country and the people.
- What’s stopping it from being a reality? Competitiveness…greed…I think those are the main reasons. Not understanding other cultures probably has a lot to do with it as well. What we don’t understand we generally fear.
- Is there anything you want to change in our current society? Yes! I’d like to make it a requirement to learn more about different cultures in schools. It might help for children to have greater understanding of others when they grow up. I think this would help us to be more tolerant of others.
- Have you gotten involved in organizing and social action? No, I’ve had to concentration on raising children, help my husband grow his business and my own career.
- Are you focused on any causes in particular? I would say, mostly helping young women; trying to help them have a better outlook of themselves. Too many don’t have a high opinion of themselves.
- What do these causes need to be a success? More involvement. There needs to be a willingness of older women to mentor the young ones. We have a lot more experience than they do and can help them avoid certain pitfalls.
- How can more people become informed of these causes? Social media can help a lot…features on the news. Positive happenings of these types of organizations need to talked about. So many people don’t watch the news because everything seems negative. If they saw positive things it may help them become involved.
- How do you define consciousness? I define it as awareness of your outside environment. When I think about consciousness, the first thing that comes to mind is social conscious. This involves not being so self-absorbed and thinking of the community as a whole. As a society, we have been drifting away from this concept for some time.
- How many conscious people do you know? I’m ashamed to say only about ten.
- How can this be improved? I don’t know, honestly.
- How many people do you believe think like you? I would say, maybe 60% of the country. We mean well but we get all involved in our own lives. We don’t see…don’t pay attention to the world at large. Having gotten so passionate in a cause we know how to pursue, we lose sight of all the other important things in the periphery.
- Is this good or bad? Bad, because 60% of people wish they could do something but cant. It seems like no change can be made. There needs to be more people willing to take the step to get involved rather than just thinking something sounds good. We romanticize the idea of actually doing something, but have grown fearful of action.
- How do we make it better? We have to take action! If one person tells three people maybe things can snowball…or if we can find a way to make it easy for people to get involved (although I know there is no easy answer)…Maybe creative fundraising at work. We must Appeal to people’s self interest in order to get them to help the community. So I guess creative ways to fund raise or appealing to people’s self interest are the primary routes we must take to make things better.
- If America were to fix her problems, how would it happen and what are the biggest problems to fix? The people need more of a say in how things happen, almost like taking politics away from politicians. A lot of politicians bow to whoever screams the loudest. When special interest groups frame issues, their appeals aren’t for the good of everyone. If 80% of people actually got involved things would be fixed. The main problems are violence, homelessness and getting Americans back to work. Money management is also a big deal. I sincerely believe that if we all put our heads together we could come up with a good solution to the mess we find ourselves in.
- Are American citizens ready to face the problems created by this country? No. If they were, things would be a lot better already. We just aren’t ready. We can’t get a majority to agree on anything; we are too splintered up in self-interest.
- Does the good our country has done outweigh the bad? Can you explain? Yes, America is a good place to live. There are opportunities to be had. Social system is pretty open. You can overcome problems, even though it takes a lot of fortitiude not everyone has. In other countries social norms are so entrenched people can’t get around them. Here you can come from a poor place and really succeed
- Anything else you’d like to say? This is the end of the interview. This interview has definitely made me think about what I can do to contribute to society, but I also feel overwhelmed by it all.
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