Sydney Svoboda

Reflection #8

Professor Getachew

April 21, 15

            While reflecting on this chapter it has really put into a bigger picture why some are culturally incompetent. I think that the motivation definition has a big factor to play in why many aren’t culturally competent. Not only Americans but also all of us can say we have been ethnocentric at some points in our life, when it comes to things we do in our daily lives involving our own culture. Since many think like this it may also factor in the idea that most are unmotivated to learn about others cultures. Some may find it a waste of time because they think that their own culture is better than others or that it wouldn’t benefit them in anyway. Others may not travel often, or when they do travel they only see the “American” side of traveling to other countries. Because of the low motivation I think that pop-culture could play a role to help motivate people to cultural competency. If pop-culture wouldn’t derive from only the United States, and wasn’t filled with certain stereotypes of other cultures people would be motivated to travel and learn more. I also think pop-culture generalizes certain places for example, Africa, America, or Asia as making up one culture, which is also not true, but rather they are made up of thousands of cultures. A lot of the things we see in pop-culture are the same assumed stereotypes of every race and culture. If only one could break those stereotypes and fill our mass media with more of the truth and what the roots of a certain culture really are, I think people would be more interested in traveling and learning more about these awesome cultures that reside all over the globe.