Grossmont College Perception Discussion
Select 3 ideas from chapter 3 in the textbook regarding perception!
Write a paragraph about each idea.
In the paragraph explain:
What is the idea?
Why is it important to you?
How will you use the idea in your life?
You will end of up with three paragraphs or more if you like.
PLEASE DO NOT WRITE ONE LONG RUN ON PARAGRAPH!
It is important to use citations from the textbook to support your ideas.
When you use information from the text, cite the source or the video (Saba, Chapter 3.1)
Use text citations in your post and in replies to student post.
Remember reply to 2 student posts.
book chapter 3 Defining Perception
Perception is the way we experience the world. We use the five senses as a basic way of taking in information to make sense of the world around us. Shelly D. Lane in her book Interpersonal Communication defines perception as “the process of selecting, organizing and interpreting sensory information.” (p. 36)
Selecting Sensory Information
Selecting sensory information means deciding what to pay attention to in the environment. If you are driving on a freeway, there are many objects competing for your attention, such as other cars, bill boards, and the road itself. It is impossible to focus on all the objects at the same time. Therefore, it is important to make a mental decision as to what will occupy your attention during a particular moment.
Organizing Sensory Information
Organizing sensory information refers to the ability to arrange information in a way that makes sense to you. For example, if a noise wakes you up in the night it is important to organize the sound, that is, identify what it is and whether it requires your attention. Interpreting sensory information implies making a judgement, an evaluation as whether the stimulus is positive or negative, good or bad, or worthy or unworthy.
One of the fundamental tools of the perception process is our five senses:
- Seeing: To gain knowledge through the eyes.
- Hearing: Special sense by which noises and tones are received as stimuli.Hearing | Definition of Hearing by Merriam-Webster
- Tasting: The sense that is stimulated by contact of a substance with the taste buds on the surface of the tongue and is capable of distinguishing between sweet, sour, salt, and bitter.(Merriam Webster Dictionary: Springfield, MA, USA, 1997, ISBN:0-87779-911-3, p. 740)
- Smelling: To be aware of by means of the olfactory nerves. A substance is perceived by stimulation of the olfactory nerves in the nasal cavity. (Merriam Webster Dictionary: Springfield, MA, USA, 1997, ISBN:0-87779-911-3, p. 687)
- Touching: The sense by which pressure or traction on the skin or mucus membrane is perceived. (Merriam Webster Dictionary: Springfield, MA, USA, 1997, ISBN:0-87779-911-3, p. 763)
s means you
Personal Insight Regarding Perception
As an African-American female who grew up in racially segregated Mississippi, it was critical to change my perception in order to flourish as a human being.
The inherent nature of segregation sent continuous negative messages, such as you are not white, therefore, you are not good enough. You are not white, therefore, you are not smart. You are not white, therefore, you are not beautiful.
My generation, through the civil rights movement, challenged this perception in cooperation with our elder leaders. We challenged the status quo perceptions of our family, schools, churches, city, county, state, and federal government. We supported Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, Fannie Lou Hamer, and other famous and unknown civil rights workers who challenged the legality and morality of segregation. My generation had to see life through a different lens in order to unlearn the limiting perceptions we were taught, and find a new lens through which to view the world.
One tool we used to broaden our perception was Freedom School. Freedom Schools were organized to provide education on political, social, and economic development of African-Americans. During the summer of 1964, when the Civil Rights Movement was in full swing, many of these schools were set up to help African-Americans change their perceptions of themselves and the communities in which they lived.
One historical event that significantly affected my perception of myself and the world was Freedom Summer 1964, when I attended Freedom School at the Old Baptist Seminary in Meridian Mississippi. The Congress for Racial Equality (CORE) had organized Freedom Summer to register blacks to vote all over the south. Michael Schwerner and his wife Rita came to Meridian as CORE volunteers. They were instrumental in organizing the Freedom School to teach black students, young and old about their Civil Rights, including the right to vote. (
Michael Schwerner Biography, Life, Interesting Facts
).
On June 21, 1964 three of the CORE volunteers went to Longdale, Mississippi, about fifty miles from Meridian, to investigate the burning of Mount Zion United Methodist Church. The Church had been burned five days earlier. Speculations were rampant about the connection between the burning of the Church, and the fact that it had been a meeting place for Civil Rights groups. It was generally suspected that the Ku Klux Klan was involved in the burning of the Church. (
Three Missing Civil Rights Workers in 1964 Mississippi
).
The three volunteers, Michael Schwerner, a twenty-four-year old Jewish social worker and organizer of CORE volunteers, Andrew Goodman, a twenty-year-old anthropology student from New York, who had just arrived in Mississippi a few days before, and James Chaney, a twenty-one-year-old black male, who had been a student and a member of my confirmation class at St. Joseph’s Catholic School were murdered on that day, June 21, 1964.
I can imagine the young men, just back from a training on how to register black voters, feeling upset, curious, and defiant about the burning of the church, looking for evidence to support their perception of the racial climate in Mississippi. Freedom summer was organized by COFO, which was the Council of Federated Organizations. COFO was a coalition of organizations including SNCC: Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee; CORE: Congress of Racial Equality; NAACP: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and SCLC: Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
As COFO volunteers, they had been alerted in training to expect their descriptions and license numbers would be circulating among the White Citizens Council, a group organized to maintain white supremacy as a matter of principle and law in Mississippi. Reports of what happened that fateful afternoon generally agree that Cecil Price, a Neshoba County deputy and member of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, stopped the blue station wagon with the three young men. Chaney, the driver, was arrested for speeding, and Schwerner and Goodman were held for investigation. The young men were not allowed to make calls out, which was a part of the COFO security processes they had been taught, as well as their legal right. When the COFO Workers called the Neshoba County jail, the secretary stated, as she was instructed, they were not there.
As the young Americans were being held in jail, news reports indicated that Price contacted other white males who would plan and execute the murder of the civil rights workers. Chaney was charged $20.00 for the speeding ticket, after some time, and the three civil rights workers were released from jail. As they headed back to Meridian, Price pulled them over with his police siren. He held them until the Ku Klux Klan murderers arrived. All three men were shot to death. Their car was driven to the Bogue Chit to swamp and burned. Their bodies were burned and buried in an earthen dam. (
The KKK kills three civil rights activists
).
For six weeks of the summer of 1964, our previously unknown community was invaded with national attention, watching the search for the missing boys. Fear gripped our community. I was a scared teenager. Our parents were afraid for our safety. We were outraged at the behavior of our local and state government.
Even though this was something that I was both indirectly and directly involved in, to the extent that I lived in this community and participated in activities designed to obtain civil rights, it had a much more profound effect on my perception than I understood at the time. The experience of fear in the hearts of young and old, the mystery of not knowing what happened to the young men hung over our community like a ball of Mississippi humidity from top to bottom. The historical record of racism in both the Ku Klux Klan and the state of Mississippi was intensified by the Civil Rights Movement. Our world was changing, and we began to demand our rights rather than accept the oppression that was imposed upon us.
There were some indictments but no one was convicted of the murder of Schwerner, Goodman, or Cheney until 2005. Edgar Ray Killen, who was described as the man who planned and directed the murders of the three civil rights workers was convicted of three counts of manslaughter. Killen, who was then 80 years old, was sentenced to three terms of 20 years in prison. “He appealed, claiming that no jury of his peers would have convicted him at the time on the evidence presented. The Mississippi Supreme Court confirmed the verdict in 2007,” according to an online article entitled Civil Rights Movement Veterans.
When I am asked what life was like growing up in Mississippi, I consistently say, “The white people of Mississippi were very well organized.” They had a complete system that supported racial superiority for themselves, and they reinforced racial inferiority of blacks in Mississippi. The threats and innuendoes, which caused fear to permeate us, were real. I mean, just think about seeing a group of Ku Klux Klanners (KKK) parade down the main street of your hometown! The KKK spread the word when they were going to have a parade, because they really did not want black people in their sight and they did not feel that blacks had a right to be present when they were “doing their thing. This was our reality.
Somehow, we had to fight to get out of the status quo, because, it would not allow us to live a decent life. Change causes fear. Everyone was afraid of what the new world would bring . . . heaven help us . . . get rid of the “white and colored signs,” let’s eat and worship together . . . It was a frightening time. We could either accept the status quo, or move with the change.
I had to dream bigger than my small community. I had to step out of the black and white world, and see a world bigger than the one I was experiencing—there had to be more to life. Education was my vehicle. I used school as a tool to learn how to read and write, so that I could discover more than I was presented. To become educated, I had to move beyond the black and white screen I had been presented. I had to learn to remember the white people who had been kind and helpful to me. I had to learn to look past a racist stare, to move beyond my own perception to gain the knowledge that I knew was in the world.will have three paragraphs with at least three citations.
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