The Nacirema

Part A
The Nacirema highly emphasizes the significance of body rituals in a series of purification and healing practices. Their culture can be described as follows:

1. Hierarchical
   Nacirema culture involves a structural organization of medicine men, holy-mouth-men, and listeners. Their services are compensated through gifts, especially those of medicine men, who sit at the top of the hierarchical ladder. Medicine men wield so much power since they are believed to supply potions and charms that are absolutely imperative for the people's survival. Holy-mouth-men use magical tools to perform mouth-rites that are important for sustaining morality and healthy social relationships.  Lastly, listeners possess the power of exorcism by drawing upon traumatic experiences. In this system of organization, the Nacirema worship these practitioners and are extremely dependent on them for their well-being.
2. Routinized
   The body rituals of the Nacirema follow a routine pattern that occur several times throughout the year. For example, rituals are repetitive and performed everyday in the shrine room. Moreover, the Nacirema pay a routine visit to the holy-mouth-men annually, and specialized body rituals such as the special women's rites mentioned, are executed at a fixed number of times during lunar months. In this manner, the Nacirema engage their time in a standardized way that are specific to each cultural practice. 
3. Gendered
   It is noted that gender differences exist in the body rituals of the Nacirema. In the discussion of sadism, Miner states that the contrasting rituals among men and women involves factors of severity and incidence. Men are engaged in harsh rites that occur on a daily basis, but women endure even more brutal rituals that last longer even though they only occur a few times throughout the month.
4. Dedicated
   The description of the Nacirema body rituals allow us to see their extreme level of dedication. As part of their culture that is learned, the Nacirema participate in these activities no matter how stringent and regardless of the results. For example, regarding the mouth-rites, Miner mentions, "The extremely sacred and traditional character of the rite is evident in the fact that the natives return to the holy-mouth-men year after year, despite the fact that their teeth continue to decay." Even though the magic substances are counteracting, the Nacirema are extremely adherent to their conventional beliefs and rituals. Furthermore, this fact is illustrated when Miner mentions the dangerousness of the temple ceremonies which, "...may even kill the neophyte, in no way decreases the people's faith in the medicine men." This goes back to the idea that the Nacirema show the utmost respect for the medicine men and are completely committed to the rituals, as they place all their trust in them even when undergoing risky behavior.      
5. Secretive
   The body rituals are characterized by how incredibly intimate, secretive, and exclusive they are. Miner reveals that the ceremonies are met with reservation even among family members and are only shared with children for initiation purposes. Moreover, there is also a sense of mistrust as the Nacirema shed suspicion on parents for casting evil spirits in this process.  

Part B

1. As an American, I feel like my choice of words are fairly accurate to describe the culture. We are definitely a society that is highly dependent on people in positions of power. Since we live in a country with advanced healthcare and it is readily available, we respect medical professionals and seek their advice. It is not only in this aspect, but even in the political sphere - Americans look up to the president to provide the solution to critical issues. Moreover, America is a society that values physical appearance. In this manner, the definition of "beauty" is constantly changing, and we are dedicated to keeping up with such ideals by adapting different styles and looks. Women are more commonly known to be concerned about their appearance, and therefore engage in routinized activities such as putting on make-up and getting a tan, plastic surgery, or nails/hair done. 
2. The word "secretive" might reveal a bias since it suggests negative assumptions that the people cannot be trusted and can therefore be equated with deception or trickery. The word "gendered" can also indicate a sense of judgment because it implies discrimination, that the culture does not treat men and women equally. On the other hand, I feel that the words "hierarchical," "routinized," and "dedicated" are relatively neutral because they simply describe the organization and functionality of the rituals in an objective way, and not a subjective manner in how they behave when performing such practices.
3. As a result, the word "secretive" could be replaced with the description that their knowledge is highly specialized or individualized. On the other hand, I'm not sure if gender is a concept that can ever be free from bias.
4. It is imperative that we try to limit ethnocentrism when describing other cultures because it inhibits us from truly understanding them without taking into consideration the context in which they arise from. People all over the world come from extremely diverse biological, economic, and social backgrounds, and therefore judgments based on our personal viewpoints result from a myopic perspective that imposes the values of our culture onto theirs. However, I think it is extremist to say that it is possible to completely avoid personal bias. Like the article on ethnocentrism suggests, "everybody is ethnocentric," and a means of alleviating this problem is critical awareness, recognition, and acknowledgement when bias occurs. We can attempt to control for it but we must not be ignorant and instead be alert and conscious of it and the importance of its avoidance in our overall understanding of cultures other than our own.