When it comes down to it don’t you think hard work should be enough? All throughout our years of growing up we have been told success comes with hard work and perseverance. Or even just, hey look at that kid he’s a hard worker, he knows what he’s doing, and so on. The phrase hard worker has so much meaning behind it when it comes to defining a person based on work ethic or even possibly lifestyle. In any case to be seen as a hard worker gives you a certain amount of respect amongst your peers and those above you. Being a hard worker allows you to be recognized. But that’s where it all starts, recognition. In the case of an illegal immigrant, being recognized as a hard worker is to be recognized as disrespectful, a cheater, etc. Now let’s look at the word cheat, how can one be cheating if they are working just as hard as you, in the same field just as you but the only difference is that you have the “right” to work. To actually sit down and think about it, the answer would be clear. If America is land of opportunities why is it that there must be restrictions on these opportunities? America is supposed to shelter those in need. People, who immigrate over here, come here on the reason to get away from a life that’s leading them nowhere and to try and begin anew. Majority of these people don’t have the money to do so and need assistance. The only way for them to get assistance is to work hard illegally and then somehow earn enough money to legally work. Here come the flip of the script, if you are one of these people who have a problem with immigrants who work illegally, would you be willing to lend a helping hand and set them on the right road. I’m pretty sure a lot of people wouldn’t. Maybe it’s because a majority of immigrants who work illegally are the ones who seem like they aren’t hard workers and just “steal” jobs away or maybe just the fact you don’t want to. Hey that’s your choice and nothing wrong with it but it’s another thing to go and give people a hard time over factors of their lives they can’t necessarily control. So I’m basically saying that hard work earns money. If money just comes to you, hey that’s fine but what if one day it just stops coming. What are you going to do? You must always start somewhere with something, the starting point of receiving money is finding a source, once you find that source, you work hard to get it, maintain it, and enjoy it.

Well well well where can we start? I guess first of this game is really not ok. But at the same time I’m being a hypocrite, ill touch on that later. Any who, this game is highly ridiculous, how can you go around groping girls in a videogame, with the intentions of later raping them or bringing them in the situation of rape. Can such a game tell you about a person, honestly yes and no. The reasoning behind this is that for someone to actually sit down and ENJOY the game with a passion, I don’t know how I feel about that. To me that seems like you’re the type of person to actually experiment with what goes on in the game. When you think about it, there have been many girls and woman who have been raped in society. The reason as to why we don’t think there’s so many is because these victims don’t speak up. I’m not asking this woman to speak, I’m definitely not but I’m just making the point is that these woman have been emotionally scarred beyond my comprehension. If you would stop to think about that, would you really play such a game or even think about making it. It just boggles my mind how heartless or soulless people can be. On the other hand, to actually speak up for the people who find pleasure in it may find it as a way to control those hidden urges and find it as a means to prevent themselves from committing the crime. So I can see if this game was initially mass produced for therapeutic use then I wouldn’t have a problem with it, reduce the chances of women getting raped and helping them live their lives with one less thing to fear about. Now let’s open our minds here, video games are a production of the society in which it came. Now I’m not saying that males in Japan go around raping women, no. I’m saying that if you’re familiar with japans history you would see why such a game doesn’t seem out of the ordinary. Not to give you a whole history lesson but here’s a short synopsis; Japan is very open with sexuality. Cartoons (television in general), comics, clothing etc can have material known as hentai (Japanese porn) attached to them. So to the society itself it seems like another sexual themed game in their eyes. So this is where my hypocrisy comes in. Say for America, our society behind the smoke and mirrors of good old’ America, is the violence, drugs, sex, etc that surrounds it. So our video games do tend to highlight these areas. The biggest example is grand theft auto. Here’s a game that definitely highlights these attributes of America. Me personally I like the games, but I’m not saying I like to go around killing people for fun, stealing cars, and having sex with prostitutes/strippers. So I’m just trying to say that before bashing video games, we must find out where it’s coming from in the first place then make judgment.

So first off I guess is the LLBean catalog. I guess I’m speaking to those people in the immersion stage or people who find such a sight wrong. By wrong I mean, people starting saying they “sold out” or they went to the white side, or they’re traitors and what not. First of all grow up, they are wearing clothes, like how ignorant can you be for people trying to dress how they see fit. Then at the same time what are we suppose to dress like. Is there some sort of standard for each “race” to follow that they must wear? Last time I checked we could wear whatever we want. So in essence these people or you people must define clothing to define a person or race. If that’s the case would you feel comfortable walking around naked outside so that there is no discrepancy on what is “white” clothing attire? Next is to analyze how such thoughts actually prevent or retard the process of race equality. So people of color want white people to accept them or give them fair advantage. First of all there is no such thing as fair advantage, as we discussed in class, the idea of nepotism. Any who that is besides the fact, so people of color want equality and I’m pretty sure white people do too. Here comes the uproar, how you know white people want equality too, where’s the proof? Hello, why do you think they added people of color into the magazine into the first place? It may not seem like a lot for colored people due to the years of stress people of color have gone through, but keeping that grudge up front causes problems. The fact is that most white people are moving forward equality for the most part. It just can’t be interpreted as helpful for that they are baby steps. So the inclusion of people of color in magazines for predominantly white clothing lines is a small step but it’s a step forward nonetheless. Sometimes pride for who you are gets in the way of seeing the little progress that is being made. I’m definitely not saying pride for who you are is wrong but letting it blind you is what’s wrong. So complaining about magazines such as LLBean only prevents the foot from moving forward for some sort of equality. The thing is to see the progress for what it is. Once you do that then you can make the progress into something more fitting but at the same time you must keep the step that has been made in mind. To criticize that step only halts progress and make white people confused and sacred for even trying to make a step in the first place. Also if you think I’m saying to just accept the step and leave it as is, I’m not saying that. I’m saying to accept the step, analyze it a positive manner, make a comprise, and move forward. If you look closely the word criticize (in a negative way) is not in those steps.

This is a hard topic to fully understand. Yes with society showcasing the idea that white is better but I honestly believe that with a child hidden from these views will still pick the white doll. But why is the question. Is it because white is actually innately better, who really knows. When we say white is better are w talking about in terms of power/superiority or in terms of comfort level. Honestly I think the choice possibly can be genetically linked. What I mean by this is the idea of the decision itself is somehow passed down through the genes. I make this argument because colored dolls haven’t always been around and if anything colored dolls can be considered fairly new in comparison to the history of white dolls. So our grandparents and their grandparents and so on have been exposed to white dolls and basically that’s all they had to choose from. So the decision to play with white dolls to me seems to be a simple innate feeling due to the fact of the exposure to white dolls. In simple terms I think that since the exposure to colored dolls has been too little for the kids of now. It hasn’t sunk in to society yet that the general idea of white is better has lost most of its power. The sad thing is that in the world of beauty this idea is has lost some of its power but in the world of business it’s still swirling strong but that’s for a later argument. The only thing that my explanation doesn’t explain and also this exception seems to contradict my arguments but the simple fact when the girl was asked to identify with one of the dolls she had a hard time accepting the fact that she was similar to that doll. Now as those children grew up or even as we grew and for the majority of us have come to terms with our own skin and own it and flaunt it in every way possible. Let us look at the children who chose the black doll. Now as they grew up do they really have some sort of feeling deep down inside that they wanted or possibly could’ve chose the white doll. What evidence is there that can be brought up and help prove this little phenomena. If you ask me that if they chose the black doll from right of the back there must have been a clear consensus within themselves that lead them to choose the black doll. So as Sam said in class that even though they had chosen the black doll, deep down inside they are harboring the idea that the whit one is possibly better or they would rather be seen as the white doll.

First of all I would like to say that it is awesome for a woman to love football as much as a man can. Then for a woman to become head coach of a football team and be accepted shows how much this world can accept and bring in change. Of all things that seemed most important is that the team, the people who has to work with her, accepted her hands down. Keep in mind that the people who accepted her as a head coach (besides the school board itself) are high school students. That says a great deal, that it seems like the new generation of children are able to look past factors of discrimination, such as gender. Well being that there all males, leads to another idea why they would accept her. That last comment was a little joke. On a serious level, that young males are able to look past their new coach’s gender and accept her for what she is, their coach. With hope, the assumption that the new generation of kids will help aid in demolishing discrimination based on gender. My only wonder is that would she have had gained this position if Barak Obama hadn’t been elected president. Could this hiring be an act by the school board to show that they don’t discriminate by gender or even “race”? Me, personally I don’t believe that it is that way but just a little something to throw out there for it is possible for how that decision was made. With the hiring of Natalie Rudolph, hopefully it can give women’s football more recognition. Not only women’s football but maybe opening the possibilities for more middle schools and or high schools to broadening their horizons and allowing girls to play on the males team or even possibly creating a league for young ladies who love the sport. I mean there’s women’s/girls basketball, tennis, volleyball, etc. why can’t there be women’s/girls football teams. With Ms. Robinson becoming a head coach, opened many possible doors for girls who have possibly been afraid to get involved in football because they didn’t want to be looked at differently. With more and more young ladies and females getting together, we can possibly see an evolution in the game of football as we know it. Shoot I’m game for it I like a challenge, especially knowing that the female in front of me could possibly knock me the hell out, with a stiff arm or what not. To escape from the game of football, in a general view it can be said that this little but significant event may help females in the work face with the inequality of pay, for doing the same job as men while having the same marginal productivity as men.

All I can do is shake my head in disappointment because this is just highly ridiculous. Canceling a whole prom just to prevent a lesbian couple from attending, where’s the sense in that? Was this decision clearly thought through, I mean there’s no clean cut solution to the problem except to stop being hard headed and let them attend. So now since you don’t let them attend by canceling the entire problem, you now outcast these two even more. These two girls already have to struggle with societies’ phobia to homosexuals, now they also have to carry the title of ruining prom on their backs. At what point do you say to yourself, what you’re doing just doesn’t make sense. What I want to know is that what it that actually makes people so scared of homosexuals is. Is it that, they’re going against what’s “normal”? If that’s the case who are we to go around saying what is or isn’t normal. Just because we are used to seeing a certain action, thing, or whatever, doesn’t mean it’s normal. Back to the main topic at hand, so prom is cancelled, you have whatever number of kids with no sort of prom. If that was me, I’m pretty sure I would be 100 percent pissed. Here comes the interesting part, who am I pissed at, the girls or the board? Me personally I would be pissed at the board, but to bring this to the topic at hand there’s the possibility of those kids hating the girls for having their prom cancelled. So now you have a lot kids angry at this girl for ruining their problem, she’s feeling the pressure and now what? See, people don’t think this far ahead when making decisions it must be hard being lesbian in society depending on where you live and how much support you have but it still takes a lot of emotional strength to hold all of that together. On top of facing all of society, this girl is going to have to face angry kids she goes to school with in a daily basis. If you ask me, that’s a lot crap to deal with. With that being said, how you do you know she isn’t going to take her life to relieve herself of the stress or how do you know she’s not going to take her anger out on the school. There are so many scenarios that have bad outcomes from this situation that could be easily avoided if people were to just open their eyes and accept the changing world we live in. Well what can we do, people just are not that into changing their views of a growing evolution of the times of today.

This is so true that people tend to put the “it’s not my place” phrase in front of a controversial sentence. The thing is that we live in a united world where every little thing affects us so in an overall view it is your place to speak on a subject matter. It’s the fact that people don’t speak out enough which allows the little things slip by. Once these little things slip by, they have the chance to evolve into a bigger topic at hand. This outcome is due to the fact that everybody contributes to a cause when they are able to see a beneficial outcome in their favor. In general, people don’t make decisions that will either make them worse of or leave them with no beneficial gain. So when something is happening that is unrelated to them, yea they will form an opinion but that opinion won’t be heard. Then when the situation at hand swings around hits them in the face is it when action is taken. Though we can’t fully blame the fact that people don’t have beneficial gain from doing so is that because we live in a world where voicing ones opinion is free but not heard. It is hard to speak to the people now; especially on race for political correctness always rears its head. Once someone disobeys the “law” of political correctness things tends to get out of hand. So it’s hard to speak out without seeming like you’re going to offend someone. So this phrase has come into play as a safety net to avoid conflict amongst anyone that may be involved in the situation. So to resolve this problem I’m guessing as a society, nation, world, whatever, we need to be more open to what’s going on, instead of giving the cold shoulder or being shy against the topic at hand. With more people speaking out and “making it their place”, optimistically speaking will be a better place. I mean we can’t completely eradicate conflict for its human nature but at least we will have less of it. Not only conflict but resolve social barriers present in our world. With those barriers gone, a step forward can be taken for those less opportunistic can be taken. For everyone will be able to start at the starting line with both feet behind the line, no advantages besides our individual will power. So keep in mind that as long as you approach the situation with respect, there’s no need to say it’s not my place. Respectful opinions are honored and taken into consideration. The only time one should say “it not my place” is when what they have to say is disrespectful and at that time, they shouldn’t talk at all.

This is quite nerving. This is a situation where you have to flip the script and put yourself in their shoes to truly understand. Whether you are pro gay marriage/lifestyle or against, the situation at hand must at least bother you somehow. I mean these people trying to live a normal life while fighting the fact that majority of the nation don’t approve of their lifestyle and now because of it they also have to fight being separated from their families (those who are alien to the U.S.). From the start, what’s the big problem of allowing these people to get married? I mean it’s not like once they get married these people are going to start rampaging the heterosexual couples. They don’t mess with us, so why mess with them. In a huge retrospective view, what if the world was reversed and homosexuality was the norm and heterosexuality was outcast. Wouldn’t those of you who give these people a hard time feel the same way these people are feeling now? That’s just the general view but now specifically the topic of gay marriage. Last time I remembered marriage was decided by the church. Another key thing is that I thought the state and the church were separate. So why is it that when getting married we must get a license issued and signed by the state? I think that’s a major contradiction on the governments’ part. But hey, since when isn’t the government a big contradiction? So because of this contradiction and our nation’s strict rules on citizenship its forcing families in these current situations to suffer and be afraid of what might happen next. Our nation is one of free expression. Upon further analysis of this our government has the right to censor or restrict our expression when it feels that it is threatening the security or stability of itself, meaning the individual state governments or nation as a whole. So in a larger sense the state government must view the expression of homosexuality by means of marriage as a threat to the nation or the individual states. What threat can be seen? The fear of resolving fights with hugging? This is where stereotyping probably comes into play. Hey look at that, yet another contradiction; this nation isn’t as “free” as it seems. With the issue of citizenship, as more and more states slowly accept gay marriage it still seems as a façade. For within the state their marriage is accepted but as a nation there still lies a problem for that rules, when applying citizenship and marriage do not apply to them. This is a load of crap if you ask me. As a person, you shouldn’t have to see things selectively but as they are. If that would be the case you would be able to feel some compassion for these families who have to struggle in our society. For if the same was happening to you, you too would want a change in your favor. So why not help these people out? Oh yea I forgot it’s because they’re homosexual.

Language can be grouped into many broad definitions such as communication with words, speech of a group, and system of communication. Language can be considered so much more than that. Way back in history when words as we know it didn’t exist and sounds were the main means of communication, that language held such value. Even as the years went on from those days language still had a huge value. Language was a means to pass down stories amongst a native people. These stories weren’t just stories to them; they held the history of their people, the keys to life, and these stories is what made who those people who they are. So in contrast, language can be considered as identity. Where is that definition of language though? When you think about it, if language is connected to identity then if a language dies, does the previous existence of the group people tied to the language die with it too? In my opinion, I believe so based on the simple fact that if these people weren’t able to effectively make their existence known outside themselves then they too will suffer the same fate. For instance the woman mentioned here, now that she is dead and along with her, her language; what or who is it, besides the people branched from her tribe that is going to continue the existence of the tribe of which she came from? Inevitably the existence of her tribe shall die with her too. That is how strong language is and people fail to realize. It is taken for granted that our languages such as English, Spanish, French, etc. will last forever because there is a large amount of us who still survive and speak the language, thus keeping it “alive”. Now what if one of the languages listed above took over the other, then most likely the newer generations will have adapted to the new language, losing the language spoken by their ancestors and then ultimately losing the history as well. The passing down of those old stories is key to survival especially when still kept in the native tongue. Even if the language itself isn’t spoken anymore but as long as there are people with the knowledge to speak it can those native people existence still remain. I mean when you think about it if you’re telling the story of in the native tongue but can’t decipher what is being said, what is the use? This can be related to a ghost, a ghost still exists in this world but lack the ability to communicate within it. For now that language can be considered as a ghost. Language is an entity but not a lot of people seem to realize that.

Good old’ politics (such a conundrum), we meet again. The general public and politics is like water and oil or a game of follow the leader in my eyes. There are many people who claim their political party based on what they hear and not on the concrete fact. Such as, people join the Republican Party because they believe that party supports the upper class and people join Democrats because they support the middle class. There is some truth behind this theory but it’s not 100 percent true nor isn’t enough information to make such a decision. That’s key right there, “enough information”. People don’t hold enough information when it comes to politics for all they know is what they believe and what they are told. Where is the research? Where is the physical evidence that proves the “truth” that is being spoken? Research is the key to overcoming politics and returning this system back to the people of the nation. Us as people run the government and we have forgotten this, we allow these people “who represent us” talk to us as if we are children and sweeten us up to gain our approval. Politics is a corrupt system that is based on gaining an advantage that benefits the individual at hand first, 6and then comes the people they represent. We allow this to happen because we don’t want to hear hardcore facts. We’d rather hear the fluff that appeals to our individual opinions and we flock to the individual who is able to catch our interest. In return we shy away from the person with hardcore facts and speak directly to us and not down on us. We generally see this person as the fake and dismiss him and in all actuality he/she is the one that has our interests at heart. In reality the system has become so “dirty” that with adequate research and a knowledge base it is hard to net out the fake from the real. So in a way voters are rendered helpless in a way. Besides gaining knowledge on the topics being presented, knowledge of the representative themselves need to be done. We fail to see who these people actually are but acknowledge what they want us to see them as. The senseless decision making behind voting nowadays also comes from the increase of young voters. Don’t get me wrong, getting the young voters finally involved in politics is good in all, but they don’t actually know why they are voting. This is the fault of the pop culture today. The pop culture today is trying to get young people involved in politics with various slogans that many artists endorse and so one thus hoping to gain the attention of the young. The concept is solid but where they lack is the fact, there is no reason given as to why the young should vote. All you here is “get out and vote”, “your vote matters”, “your vote can make a difference”, okay yea sure but why does it matter, how will it make a difference? Concrete facts doesn’t seem to exist anymore, it’s as if society is based on the theory of appeal instead of actuality. Which in conclusion allows people to act without sense because as long as their ideals or emotions are appealed to they are contempt with what they receive, drowning them in a sense of denial. For when things turn ugly all they’re left saying is: he said, she said, or they promised. Overall we are giving more power to the system to control us in which we are the ones who are supposed to be controlling them.