I think it’s bogus. What hasn’t South Park made fun of at this point? It seems like anything and everything the writers can make fun of, they already have or they certainly will. Nothing is safe from South Park. (Sounds like I’m treating them like a super-monster that can’t be destroyed.) I think what makes it “okay” for them to poke fun at everything is that they are doing it in good fun. I really don’t think there was any anti-Muslim sentiment behind anything that was on the show. Although I haven’t seen the show, judging on the previous episodes, I’m sure it was all in good fun with no need to get worked up over it, no matter what religion you practice.

You bring up a good point. It doesn’t make sense. How can people go on with their normal, care-free lives when 300,000+ people were just killed or displaced in Haiti. Thinking about that to me is like thinking about the concept of death, or the concept of an infinite universe. The more I think about it and the more I try to make sense of it, the more I just don’t get it and the more frustrated I become. It is so easy – too easy – for people to care for a few moments, maybe send a $10 text to the Red Cross, and then wake up the next day and not let the thought of 300,000 people cross their mind once. It’s just easier on the human psyche to not think about it because no one wants to deal with it.

I really appreciate that this man wrote a little something for the blog and for our class. I was definitely touched by the piece, and if I had not known it was written by a lifer, I would this it was written by a priest, or some other religious figure. I have not had any direct contact with anyone in prison or lifers. I have never spoken to anyone and I have not visited. I guess I never really thought about what those people are like or how they might have changed. Logically, it is easy to think that they are all bad and that they deserve the punishment that they got – or else why would they be in prison for life? But once I really stopped and thought about it, knowing that prison life is all that they will ever know for the rest of their lives, I think it makes sense for them to find good in it. It is basic human nature to be good and to live a good life. I don’t people are born and set out to be mass murderers or to commit evil crimes. I think that people who are in those positions have a screw loose somewhere, and because of family issues or other factors, they choose to do terrible things that affect them for the rest of their life. But when a bunch of lifers are put together, I think they share in each other’s experiences (both inside and outside of prison) and they search to be better people. The letter that I read was sincere. I know this. The sincerity and truthfulness leapt off the screen when I was reading the letter. And I was straight up shocked that the same person who wrote this letter is the same person convicted of murder. Clearly something clicked in this person and they are now much different from who they used to be pre-prison. It made me stop and think that people who are in prison are still people. They are still human beings that strive for the basic human emotions that all of us do. They want to love and to be loved and they want/need to feel compassion, to console, and to have friends. What struck me the most was that they console each other on the natural disasters and the shameful events that go on in the world! They probably do a lot more and attempt to do more for the victims of those tragedies than some people who are “free” and living on the outside of the prison walls. I can’t really begin to explain it but the more I think about it the more it blows my mind.

This is the idea that I think a lot of Americans and Westerners in general need to understand. It is so easy to sit in our little world and claim that we are the good guy and everyone over there is the bad guy. If people took the time to educate themselves, this world would be a lot better off. I studied abroad in Spain for 4 months. In those 4 months, I changed so many stereotypes about people for the better and it opened my eyes to other views in the world. I think it should be required for every college student to spend time in a foreign country to educate themselves. Imagine if groups of Americans went to the Middle East and groups of Middle Easterners came here?

This was hands down one of the most moving and awe-inspiring lectures I have ever listened to. I feel like the things Sam were bringing up to the class during the lecture were so basic and obvious – yet I can honestly say I hadn’t thought about them in my life. And I feel as if I’m not alone. I’ve used the phrase, “Put yourself in their shoes,” many times in my life and conversely I’ve been told to put myself in people’s shoes many times, and I don’t think I ever really did until yesterday. I’ve said, “oh yeah, that would really suck,” or, “I feel so bad for them.” But I didn’t really get it. Yesterdays lecture was the first time in my life that I really understood what it was like to be in someone else’s shoes. If the war were solely for eliminating the terrorists that are a threat to the rest of the world, then that makes sense. Not that I am for it or against it, but it is a justifiable reason. But to go into someone else’s land and make the war about oil because OUR economy was suffering?! How is that justifiable! It’s like a stranger walking into your dorm and taking your computer because he NEEDS it, and you can’t fight back because he is 4 times your size. And if you try to call the cops, they won’t do anything because they are on his side. Yes, this is a bad example and on a much smaller scale, but the rational for both instances is the same. There is none! It’s so irrational, and I can’t believe that I didn’t see it until now. Just because we are running out of oil doesn’t mean we can invade a country and take theirs. It’s not their problem that we are wasteful and didn’t think about this beforehand. Not only that, but the government was able to use an event like 9/11 and rally the entire country behind the idea that “we need to do something about this before they attack again.” They garnered the entire country’s support and masks the oil war behind a war on terrorism. The other big thing that gets me is how we view Arabs and Muslims. It’s really sad to think that every single Muslim has a gun and runs around trying to gun down the “good guys.” That’s absurd. But it’s hard NOT to think that when the only images we see are negative ones. If people only understood that Muslims and Middle Easterners want peace just as much as we do, then I think this world would be a lot different. Sam – thank you for opening my eyes on this issue.

Games such as Grand Theft Auto and other war games actually do depict real events. How is a video game letting you live out gang violence and steal cars and shoot police cops not a realistic event? Things like this happen every day in the US and around the world. And there are war games out there that depict the actual events of both World Wars as well as the War in Iraq. I’ve played them. Just because they are events that you and I may not necessarily be exposed to on a day to day basis doesn’t mean they don’t occur and aren’t based on real events. I’m not saying I am in favor of the rape games, not do I condone 9/11 games or Columbine games, but I think there is a bigger issue here with the graphic video games that are on the market today that need to be addressed.

I’ve often thought about this at different points during the semester, and I wondered the same thing. I can honestly say that at this point in my life, none of my immediate opinions have changed on the issues that we discussed. However, and this is what I think is important for the class and for the morality of myself as a human being, I think deep inside certain triggers have been set off to change my mindset for the future. Both in terms of how I view the world and its people and how I interact with people of different cultures/ethnicities, I think things will be different. I don’t think I’ve necessarily changed at this moment, but I have been exposed to the opposite side of things and I am more aware of the issues that we discussed. I think that’s the most important thing.

On the onset, the idea behind these types of video games is appalling. I am not ashamed to admit that I am a hardcore gamer, and I have played my fare share of many different types of games – from realistic Iraqi War games to the Grand Theft auto series (which I’m sure everyone has heard about) to the “hitman” games where the objective is to stalk out and kill the victim. It is clear that these rape games take the video game world to another level and I am glad people are talking out about it. However, I have to agree on one hand with the British gamers who were interviewed over Skype. Why is there all of this uproar over the rape games when there is little, if any, uproar over most of the heavily violent shooter games. Rape is certainly a sensitive issue for both men and women and isn’t something that should be loosely joked around about, however I don’t think it is any better to portray realistic war games where you can capture, torture, and ultimately kill victims that are made to resemble actual Middle Eastern soldiers, or any soldiers for that matter. I think the bigger problem is what people are doing with the games that they play. I play an awful lot of war games, like Call of Duty, and I will admit that it is a thrill to get the bloodiest and nastiest kill that I can. However, when I turn the video game off for the night, everything that occurred on the screen stays on the screen. I do not think or act on any of the impulses that I did while I was playing the game. I think the same can be said for the rape games. At the end of the day, it is only a game. Companies want to sell their product. And sex sells! There is a hell of a lot of sexual innuendos and references and portrayals in other video games, where women are assaulted and even raped. The difference is that the actual gamer isn’t the one doing the crime, as is the case with the rape games. I think the big problem with the games is that when people start putting their fantasies into the game and have trouble deciphering between fantasy and reality: that is the problem. And I think it’s a universal problem with any violent or crude game. If people sit down to play the game knowing that they are getting pleasure in their real life from shooting soldiers in the face from point blank range, or by raping helpless women on the subways in Tokyo, that’s when the issue arises and that’s what needs to be cautioned, not the games themselves.

I had seen this video once prior, in my Women’s Studies class freshman year, so it is no surprise to me. Yet four years later, it is equally, if not more, disturbing. It is a shame that we live in a world where young children no older that 4 or 5 years old have those kind of ideas and notions rooted into their head. I am sure their parents aren’t teaching them these things. And I don’t think that other people, like white children, know any better to say things like that to the children of color. I think it’s just the portrayals in the media and the interactions that children get in the school system. When will it ever change though?

This article struck me for several reasons. One is that I think it’s going to take a lot more than birth rates to say that people of color will be holding most of the levels of control. I think that it stems from the top, and while the nation is being run by predominately white people, control will stay in the hands of white people. After all, as we talked about in class, white people want to see white people win (King of the mountain-esque). The second thing is that this article is common sense. It’s no secret that the US is welcoming of immigrants and people from the outside. As the immigrants continue to mingle with the whites, it was only a matter of time before that number of people surpassed the number of indigenous white births, no?