I found this post to be unbelievably eye opening. I also was not expecting to read many of the things that this “lifer” wrote or wrote about. When Sam and Laurie mentioned how they visit “lifers” at Rockview or that they know people that are “lifers,” I am not afraid to admit that I thought that was very weird and was quick to judge them both. But when Laurie spoke more about how these lifers are actually pretty deep people, it was like for that moment, I remembered that these lifers were once free people as well, that not everyone in prison is deemed some crazy criminal. It was very intriguing to know that despite being locked up for life without ever having a chance for parole, these people still going on thinking and living. Nothing could prevent this man from having deep thoughts that anyone out in the free world is capable of. I was curious to know the details surrounding his crime, but it was understandable that someone wouldn’t be comfortable to write about that like it’s no big deal. I liked how he wrote/described the scene of what happened when he realized that anyone can be compassionate, no matter where they are. I thought he was describing the setting/scenario surrounding the crime for which he is in prison in life for so I was very taken aback when I read it was a hug out of compassion towards someone who received bad news. I also, for a split second, thought that he had murdered one of the two people hugging because his description almost made me think it was something anti-homosexual related (like how he stated the two people hated each other and we didn’t like one or both of them as well) so I jumped the gun and thought that I knew exactly where it was headed. I’m glad to say I was very surprised. I think it was a shame that someone who seems just like one of us out in the free world and is just as smart committed a crime for which he is basically stuck in jail for. I feel like he definitely has learned a lot from being in jail and has had SO much time to think and reflect on many thoughts and many actions (not to be mean, but what else is he going to do in there until he dies?). His letter just really had a big impact on me because this man killed someone, but reading the letter, you kind of forget who the writer is or his background/where he is. It was good to see something from a different perspective and not immediately view this man as just a crazy criminal. To view him from different lens, just seeing him as a person was something I felt I couldn’t do before. I immediately think low of anyone who has been in prison regardless of the crime! Even Martha Stewart. So I am pretty happy to say that it’s nice to know there are still some compassionate and deep people in prison, even if they are stuck there for life.

First off, as an Asian American person, amongst my group of friends, I’m considered an “ABC,” an “American born Chinese.” My mom deeply regrets not teaching me Chinese from a young age because she went right back to work within a month or so of having me. I was taken care of by my grandmother, who is Argentinean, so needless to say I was learning Spanish and when at home, my mom was speaking to me in English. She regrets not speaking to me in Chinese because of how much China has become a superpower within the past 20 years. I, too, regret not learning it. She sent me to “Chinese School,” which was basically a class every Saturday learning Chinese, but I remember begging my mom to not send me there anymore. My biggest argument was: “How can I learn what anything means if they’re talking only in Chinese?? At least at my Argentina School, they told me what things meant in English (I was also enrolled in a Spanish speaking school for kindergarten.)!” my instructor, from what I remember, never once said what she was ranting on about in English. So, naturally, how was I supposed to know what the heck she was saying?

In my middle school, they brought the three “top” classes to the auditorium and basically had us choose which “side” to go to meaning which language to choose. I chose Spanish, like everyone else, because for me, it’d be an easy grade. But the teacher who was standing on the side for Italian gave me the puppy dog face that expressed “Please choose my side?” and so I went and learned Italian (and now I’m an Italian major!). Had they offered Chinese, I’m still not sure if I would’ve signed up for it.

I decided to learn Mandarin my sophomore year here, partly to make my mom proud of me, partly for my own benefit, and partly to be able to communicate with my relatives in Taiwan (it kind of sucks to be only able to say Hi, how are you, I’m good, okay you too, bye). I took it for two semesters and my general opinion is that Mandarin is a hard language to learn. It is definitely a language to be taught at a young age, making pronunciation, memorization, and understanding of the language a much easier process. Anyways, it became too much for me to keep up with.
Interesting that this topic came up because my mom was just in China and then visited our family in Taiwan for 2 weeks and sent me an email asking me if I basically wanted to go to Mandarin camp in Taiwan for a month OR participate in a program where you teach English, but you’re immersed in learning Mandarin. I turned both options with an easy “no.” I plan on referencing my textbooks if anything or buying Rosetta Stone. I understand how knowing Chinese is such a great asset in today’s business world. Even our dentist, who is Malaysian, makes a fuss to my mom and to myself each time we’re there insisting how “Erika should learn Chinese, yeah?” Yeah, I will buddy. The biggest thing that turns me off is the difficulty, my lack of time, and my strong focus on trying to find something at the moment that’ll be financially stable enough for me to support my failure self. Spanish has definitely come in handy. I feel that it’s a shame that more schools in America don’t enforce learning another language. While I was in Italy, I met so many people who knew so many other languages, meanwhile some students in my study abroad program could barely utter a phrase they had just learned. It’s pitiful. What else I think is pitiful is that these teachers were getting basically a stipend of $13,000 which I think is not enough to compensate for what they’re doing.

First off, now I finally know what “hentai” is. I used to think that those Japanese comic books, or anime, was just something those nerdy kids would read, especially the “in their own world” Asians that were in my High School (the ones you could consider FOBs –fresh off the boat- and yes, I know it’s a rude and offensive term). However, I didn’t know that some of the things depicted in these anime books weren’t strictly “stories,” but hentai also included pornographic anime, basically. I never understood what the appeal to anime was, but I guess now, for some people, I understand why they were so into it. And it’s just gross.

To go so far as to make video games based on these hentai anime books is disturbing and gross. The fact that the Japanese government allows this, though, doesn’t surprise me. I remember reading in “Disposable People” how many women were brought from Japan to be sold as sex slaves and this leads me to believe that the value of women is little to none so I feel like many aren’t even bothered by the fact that these games “goals” are to rape women (or whatever else it is that was just horrid). I do not agree that it is okay to let these video games be made, sold, and circulated because it promotes something that is so severe and harming, but I feel like it’s in a culture, environment, and government that doesn’t really pay much mind to something like that. No matter how degrading it is to women, I don’t think they really care about it.

Without a doubt, these video games would not be allowed in our society, or (since I’m not a big video game buff and don’t know much about it or its regulations, I’m just spit-balling here) it would have the Mature-Content rating. Even if it got the Adult content rating, you can bet that many people would be up in arms about this game and it would be very controversial. I also realized that the creators of the video games were profiting from this atrocity and I don’t know how they’re proud of their “accomplishments” or how they even, if they do, continue to respect their mothers, sisters, wives, girlfriends, whatever female person they may have relations with. It makes me wonder if they have some sort of conscience. It makes me think: if they could have the opportunity to carry out these “actions” in real life, would they? Or would they know that it’s wrong? And if so, then why carry it out in a fictional game? Despite being a game, it’s still disgusting. In the end of the day, it comes down to what gives them a money maker and anime and hentai are really popular not just in Japan, Asian countries, but also in America. I’ve seen so many “loners” who were absorbed in their hentai comics. They themselves are probably itching to play this sordid game.

I think this post was pretty interesting and eye-opening mainly because I felt as though the things my mother used to say (whether jokingly or not, I don’t know) were well on its way to becoming true. My mom used to always say how “Soon, the white people will not be the majority any more and we will be. They are going to become the minorities very soon.” The funny part of those phrases/predictions she used to say was what she was basing that on. She would base her “predictions” on the fact that our neighborhood, surrounding neighborhoods, random neighborhoods we’d visit, random malls we’d find ourselves shopping in being overrun by Asians. We are also Asian so it was almost as if my mom and I were becoming so American that we were now becoming “self-hating Asians.” Granted, scientifically, my mom could not base her “predictions” on simply what she saw wherever fate would take her, but she did. Queens, let alone our neighborhood, is SUPER Asian: Vietnamese Pho Banh restaurants, Korean barbeque’s, Japanese hibachi, “Kam Lun” supermarkets, Flushing markets where even billboards and street signs were written in Mandarin or even in a certain area of Manhattan (Koreatown, coincidentally) has street signs written in Korean. And based on this magically convenient surplus of Asians around my mom, she used this deduce that we, the minorities, would soon be the majority. It’s funny to see that this is going to rapidly become a reality.

I doubt my mom was including the other minority races in her little “theory,” but according to this article, she was right without even knowing it. I thought it was interesting that the article brought up how the numbers of white births were decreasing. Part of me felt like it was partially due to the fact that so many white people are breeding with different races. The expressions “Yellow Fever”, “Latin Fever”, and “Jungle Fever,” come to mind. My boyfriend is a part of this white group by dating me. So many white males I’ve met in Maryland through family members have Korean or other Pacific-Asian ethnicity wives. I should be alive around 2050 and to be honest, at that point, I think I’m going to be pretty thrilled that the tables will have turned. I’ll no longer have to have some hoity toity white girl prancing by thinking she’s God’s gift to the world because she’s white and privileged and because “Daddy” bought her the new purse on her arm. Give me a break, white girl. My ancestors built a lot of these railroad tracks that have been used to transport many of the things you have on your body.

I definitely agreed with your comment/response. The fact that there is "action" being taken to kind of undo the wrong doings makes things a little bit better. I felt this basically paralleled what we spoke about in class when it came to the land of the Native American Indians. It has the same idea: that we took away their land. But the only difference was that they have certain rights/perks that was a result of a "forgive us" type of deal from the US government. The indigenous Hawaiians haven't seen that and like the Native American Indians, they are suffering and are pretty much the ethnic group that is on the bottom of every negative statistic out there for Hawaii. However, I wasn't too clear as to what they were trying to get esablished if the certain bill got passed. If they're trying to restore the old monarchy i think that's a major "FAIL" because Hawaii is STILL a part of the USA, they can't just up and go and decide to have a monarchy on a little portion of territory. That's very off and I don't see how it would bring better and fortunate situations to an already horrid situation for the indigenous group. Either way, it was very interesting especially since I visited Hawaii when I was younger and having the welfare of the indigenous people on my mind was NOT even close to being something on my agenda of "things to think of while in Hawaii."

I thought this article was unbelievably interesting and so cool. It’s pretty rare (usually, actually, I’m not quite sure, I just know you don’t see it often) to see black Jewish people. It is something that becomes almost a joke, but not in the rude way, but more so in the way where it’s funny because it’s such a rarity. The only time I’d ever seen a black Jew was on the train and the only reason I knew that black man was a Jew was because he was wearing those shawl things that the Jewish males typically wear underneath their shirts/clothing. When you hear “Jewish,” it’s safe to say that most people assume an idea of a person who is light skinned.

In any case, I found this article so interesting because of the claims that this was a tribe that was “lost,” but seems to have been “found” now. What people forget, though, is that “Jewish” isn’t a race, but a religion and a culture. It’s totally possible that the Lemba people in Zimbabwe are people that practice a culture that is closely similar to that of the Jewish faith/culture. The faith will always be passed on because with the children they have and future generations and such, the culture will be passed on as well.

I just think this article was something of such great interest because of how rare it is to see a combination of different circumstances.

After viewing this video, my only comment is “Hah, wow.” I’m so “surprised” that corporate fired her. UTTER SARCASM. It’s ridiculous. I sadly, (yes I’m not proud to admit that I work there), work at the Abercrombie & Fitch downtown, and I’ve heard so many of my own little race related comments (as I’ve mentioned in my discussion group). I remember at work once, the managers, who I’m pretty good friends with were talking about how we haven’t met quota yet. And I asked what they were talking about. Apparently, we hadn’t met the quota that’s set by corporate: the number of people we should at least have per race, and apparently we were slacking on the Asian/Pacific Islander portion of this pie chart. This was last semester. Just a few days ago, before break, I was told we still need to hire one or two more “Pacific Islanders,” and the manager jokingly said, “Where does one even find Pacific Islanders!?” Having dealt with this and “exposed” to the stupidity of this company, I could only react with a laugh and the attitude of not being surprised that this girl was fired for wearing a hijab. Abercrombie’s look policy is ridiculous, but also understandable. They simply want the employees to wear the things that represent the clothes they are trying to sell, which, logically, what kind of company doesn’t do the same. The extent to which they mandate this, however, is where it becomes a bit overboard. Playing devil’s advocate, their whole spiel is to look as natural as possible (in terms of their makeup) so they actually require that the females do not slather on makeup to go to work and to maintain light/pink/neutral colored nail polish, for example. But despite these “guidelines” for the look policy, it’s a bit unfair and drastic and just so angering to the point of being “fed-up” with Abercrombie’s idiotic antic’s and “policies,” especially when it come’s to this poor girl who was fired for wearing a hijab. Haven’t we covered all this already; it’s 2010, people. This reminds me of the previous blog posts regarding the hijab ban laws in France (or the possibility of making it a law). Either way, it’s ridiculous. It was being worn for a religious purpose and having this girl wear it shouldn’t deter from sales, unless people were simply choosing not to buy from this store because a girl wearing a hijab was on the sales floor. Grow up, it’s just a head scarf, it’s not like she’s concealing a device that removes the sensors in there. Ahh, Mike Jeffries (CEO of the Abercrombie & Fitch companies-Hollister included), you’re a joke.

I understand people also think it's about preserving the image of the brand because...of course, it'd be like having the most uber-prep style person trying to sell the items at Hot Topic: it just doesn't click. However, this girl could still work there, be representing of the Cali-surfer style Hollister gives off and SITLL wear her hijab. Her hijab doesn't mean that she's anti "Cali-style".

So the question is: what can do students do? I feel like all the students are attacking Sam because they feel like he’s saying these things almost in a “placing blame” way and is speaking about a solution. However, I don’t think that’s how it sould be taken. I think what Sam is doing is simply informing us of undeniable facts, plain and simple. What sucks is that there isn’t much we CAN do. Through years and years of expanding American land and colonizing their territory and placing the on reservations and going through mass amounts of warfare, the American government and fellow colonizers of America’s past has decimated their population and, in a way, left them to fend for themselves.

As for what can we do to “make things better,” well, unfortunately there isn’t much we can do because it’s not like we can give them the land on which society has created dwellings, buildings, and many other structures. No one would be selfless enough to give up their own home to become homeless for the sake of giving up the land their on to give back to Native Americans: it’s sad, but it’s true. What we can do is donate our time, money, and other resources that we can provide them with. We learned in class that they are THE poorest Americans, which is completely unfortunate. For the White Americans ancestors to have taken their land, they didn’t even compensate them in a way that would’ve left them capable, or in some way, able to manage with a new lifestyle (or at least teach them how to farm, seeing as the government at that time set aside “plots” of land for them to have, although it was very NON-FERTILE land that the Whites didn’t want so it wasn’t usable anyways). We can donate money to reservations or organizations whose aims are to help the Native Americans. After viewing the Aljazeera video in class, it was terrible to see that they struggle to just feed their families. The American government is spending billions on useless things and meanwhile, they can’t even set aside a set amount of money to assist those that the past American government has basically raped and left scrambling for life. It’s terrible. So, in answer, what we can do is donate time, money, and help in anyway we can.

I definitely agree with so many of the things that have been said on these posts. I originally wanted to respond to this video question because I just wanted to simply flat out say it’s more “acceptable” and “tolerating” to see lesbians than gay male couples because society makes it okay! Nearly every male (at least the straight ones) are disgusted by other mens’ penis and that leads to them most definitely being disgusted with gay sex. They can claim to be okay with gay men and that’s fine, but if presented with pornography featuring two men going at it, you can be sure that the male that was “okay” with gay sex is probably squirming in his seat. Mean while, most men faun over the idea of two females making out with each other or in sexual positions, anything that will turn them on. To them, it’s arousing, but very far from disgusting. It’s like a ridiculous double standard. This, in addition to other things, really affects why society has unspoken tolerance towards lesbians versus gay males.

Porn is such a big part of our lives: so much of society stems from “sex sells” and getting things to appeal to consumers and their tastes. Women are historically more feminine and their bodies are treasured way more and I feel like part of that is part of the appeal in lesbians. Also, because women are historically more “gentle,” they don’t exhibit the abrasive qualities men can exude and therefore they come across as straight women would (despite the stereotype of the “butch lesbian” that is basically a woman with the qualities a man exhibits). I guess people deduce that even though they are lesbians, because they are women, they must still exhibit qualities a straight woman exudes and therefore, they’re generally accepted.

People may tend to think that gay men act overly “gay” and give in way too much to the stereotypes that they are excessively bitchy, prissy, and way more feminine than a woman herself and this in turn makes them irritating and leads to a possible reason as to why gay men aren’t as socially acceptable. Keep in mind, this is just my opinion. I have gay male friends and while I care about them, I certainly don’t care for their cranky attitudes and their whining sounds (not voices) nearly every hour of the day. It gets to be a bit much. With gender roles, most people expect men to be macho, protective and caring and when it comes to gay males, people see them as taking on the roles of a more feminine person which is NOT what they, as males, should be portraying and maybe this is another factor as to why gay males aren’t as accepted as lesbians.

I think it’s very depressing to read and hear that the last speaker of a language of a land that had been inhabited by a tribe for nearly 65, 000 years has passed away. I was so moved by the first screen shot display the words that I BlackBerry Messenger’ed my boyfriend and told him about it and then sent him the BBC article as well. Her singing almost sounds just like a bunch of noise, but despite the way it came across to me, I still felt respect towards it and valued it because it made it seem more valuable because she had died. It was like one of those ideas of placing value on something that is so scarce or wanting something that there is a very limited quantity of. In any case, it was just a shame to read about how so many tribes/ethnicities/speakers of different language have their own specific skills/talents and can only contribute those things to their world via their language, but when the language starts to become something that’ll die soon, it’s like the world will also lose out on what that group of speakers had to offer.

I mentioned that I sent the BBC article to my boyfriend and told him about the Bo language no longer existing and he said, “That’s sad. Why would you send that to me. Let’s learn Bo.” I replied back saying that the last person who spoke Bo died and I didn’t think it’d be possible to do so. But then I realized, or wondered rather, when the languages are on the verge of extinction because they’re being spoken by a handful (or less) of people, why don’t they try to teach their offspring and their younger generation family members the language to continue the big aspect of their identity? When it comes to people like Johnny Hill, Jr. who is the last speaker alive of the Chemehuevi tribe, it’s sad to hear that he had to learn English to communicate with other people. His grandmother taught him the Chemehuevi language, so why can’t he teach whomever may still be part of that tribe that same language? Why does it have to stop just because a person dies? Are these extinctions of languages happening because of the spread of English, the spread of a newer way of life?

The world we live in today is definitely different from those of the ancient past. Even with technology, a new language has formed in which we say things like: lol, lmao, rofl, tbh, nbd, bfd, ttyl, g2g, omg, and even use symbols to portray faces we’d make if we were talking to the person face to face such as -__- and >.<. This becomes the things that the new generation learns as a language dies because it couldn’t be maintained. I think it’s just sad and ridiculous that no one can show the honest effort to learn a language to keep it going.