Holiday Graduation

It is to my understanding that this assignment is meant to be created from a situation that is filled with context where we, UWRF students, have little to no experience in communicating. Then we are to list social rules that can be described in the situation. I have chosen a place that I have been before because my current access to a “unique” situation is quite limited in River Falls, WI. As a minority, I believe that this situation is still appropriate because it is an experience that allowed me to be the predominant culture and analyze both myself and the other culture in that position.
Even though I've always enjoyed watching human communication, whether it was at the Mall of America or in my own mother's kitchen, it is funny to know that others have observed similar situations. They are the social linguists, the anthropologists, communication specialists, etc. In their power they have been able to gift me with actual words and concepts. The ability to articulate these interactions, however, brings to me the ethical concern of over simplifying the human condition. I realized this ethical dilemma by observing human communication through the lens of social science. I began the journey of what would be described in the context I was in, as a creeper, to observe human interactions at my little brother's graduation party.
I looked for signs of anxiety and uncertainty according to the anxiety uncertainty management theory of William Gudykunst. The theory is based on strategies people use when they encounter a situation that brings up uncertainty and therefore anxiety. When you’re in an environment that exposes your “minority” culture fully to the initial predominant culture, you best believe that there will be anxiety.The environment consisted of a boisterous family and close friends. The context is located in a small, cramped, suburban townhome. There is a dance floor that is directly in the middle of the living room. Generalized, there are two primary cultures: the “Afrocentric” culture and what could be described as the “Eurocentric” culture. The rules that exist in these cultures are both different, and therefore some interesting observations can be made.
The first group, the group that could be described as the “Eurocentric” culture, shared close distance zones with their peers. The bodies faced toward each other and away from the context that would bring them uncertainty, and therefore anxiety. The Eagan High School students formed a tight circle around the living room dance floor where the “Afrocentrics” predominantly resided in the context. For this day, in America, we were the context and someone else didn’t know what to do.
It was humorous to watch my auntie and my big brother’s stepmother try to involve all the partygoers and watch the non-participatory audience walk away shyly. There were rules in both cultures in the context of the party. The “Afrocentric” culture required participants to actively participate in actions that could be described as overly-enthusiastic or were perhaps too involved. This would include, close distance zones with others, loud talking and laughing, and affectionate touches. The “Eurocentric” culture had distance zones with more space, softer talking, and more conservative body movements.
I felt bilingual in the "unique" situation of outgoing, overly enthusiastic, blacks in a room with awkward, white, suburban, teens because of my close experience in both worlds. I felt a sense of ethnocentrism when I came across the lost audience. They don’t know how to have fun, I thought. I stopped immediately and realized what I had done. I had just stumbled over what could be the beginning of my own irrational hate. To assume that my cultures way of doing things was better over another’s is part that beginning. I had forgotten where I came from. I forgotten my own “Eurocentric” characteristics of going to college, speaking “articulately”, and the unique qualities that my person possesses. I embraced my “afrocentricity” and used it for my own glorification. I began to feel biracial in the situation and immediately began to help my brother’s overly affectionate stepmother and crazy auntie unite the two groups. I wanted to bring people together. It is not wrong to have pride in your culture, but it is wrong to assume that one’s culture is superior to another’s.

Question for assgn #2: Could it be true that the conversational constraints theory could be described as being more appropriate for large scale cultural differences where the anxiety uncertainty Management theory would be more for analyzing enclaves that existed for more than 200 years (ex: black and whites)?