I found the Rose Cafe this week quite interesting. House Professor Garrick Blalock gave a talk about technology and its role–or lack thereof–in the lives of underprivileged people in our society. Something I found particularly intriguing was how interactive Professor Blalock made the cafe series. For example, he opened up the discussion by first asking how many of us in the audience owned/drove cars that weren’t electric (most of us raised our hands), then went on to ask if we agreed that greenhouse gases (such as those emitted from our cars) are bad for the planet. Everyone did. “There seems to be a disconnect,” Professor Blalock said then. And he was right: if we all believed that emitting harmful gases into our atmosphere was horrible, then why weren’t we making an effort to reduce our impact on Earth by driving more eco-friendly cars?

Going off of this, Professor Blalock discussed the process that usually goes into buying a car, starting with online research and on-site test drives and ending with signing the contracts and paying for insurance. But what about those individuals who don’t have access to computers or the Internet or a way to get to the car dealership to test drive the car at all? How do they make the best, most informed decision about purchasing the right vehicle, nevertheless a vehicle that will have the least damaging impact possible? By posing this question, Professor Blalock really made me think about how things that we, as individuals from well-to-do families, often take for granted, and how different life could be for other people if they had access to the things that we do, such as certain types of technology.

Further, in my Anthropology of Food and Cuisine class (ANTHR 2450 for anyone interested), we recently read a few articles about the difference in diets between poorer and middle-class families. While the latter usually don’t have to worry about where the next meal will come from, members of the former demographic don’t always have access to the best foods, let alone the most nutritious and sustaining foods. By combining what I’ve heard in both the Rose cafe and in my anthropology class, I want to make it a personal goal of mine to stop taking everything that I am lucky enough to have access to for granted and start thinking more about others.