I thoroughly enjoyed the classes little questionnaire session with Basum and thought it was really cool to be able to have that sort of experience. Not every day you get to talk with someone on the other side of the world who you’re on the middle of a war with right? I wasn’t all that surprised with any of his responses because Sam called it and set us straight beforehand with how things actually are over there – as it relates to how the Iraqi public views America(ns).

During the entire question session there was only one thing that threw me off and it wasn’t even his response, but it was one of the questions that one of our classmates asked. It was the question about the whole ratio factoid. Someone asked him about his opinion on that and I felt like that given we don’t know him that well, that’s some rough information to lay on the poor guy. He answered it as though he didn’t it was something that had no real evidence – I don’t think he even believed that it was a fact the way he responded. He wouldn’t be aware that 29 innocent lives are apparently worth wasting away if 1 terrorist gets killed or captured or whatever in the process. That makes me wonder if the public opinion of the American people and government would change knowing that we would put 29 innocent lives down if we get one terrorist in the process. When we learned that, I was even a bit disturbed by that. Sure casualties of innocents are a part of war (especially in a state of confusion by either side) but to put a number on it was just really strange for me. No offense to the kid who asked the question or anything, but I think it was not an appropriate question to ask. I applaud Basum’s reaction to the question too – he remained level headed about it.

I was personally surprised by his appearance – not what I was expecting at all – he looked like the average American and yet he’s an average, level-headed Iraqi. Of course the guy lived here for like 8 years, but his ties are to the Middle East so I was just thinking something a bit different. His photo was way classier than I had anticipated!

I feel like I got a lot out of the question session. I know that Sam had stated a lot of what Basum said, and not that I didn’t believe Sam because I did, but hearing it straight from the source more or less reaffirmed any slight misconceptions or beliefs that I held. All in all, I feel like it’s not really fair to say we’re at war with Iraq. This really is a war against religious extremists who just happen to be using Iraq for resources and training grounds. It’s an unfortunate situation, but ultimately both our countries will reap the benefits of fighting back against this type of extremism that has brought harm to so many.

I considered this activity to be a classic game of whisper down the alley. It’s pretty crazy how distorted the original story can become (especially considering how long the story was) after 6 people have told it. I’m just going to take a second and question the logistics of this question before I shoot any further opinions about the actual results of the game, however. I’m not so sure that it can be stated that the white students were “sugar-coating” the “bad” part of the story if you will. I didn't really observe it that way at all. I don’t know if it’s because I’m white or because I just thought that the rewording of the story was more appropriate – not that I wouldn’t have used the word nigger during the retelling of the story because I feel like I probably would have in a more private setting amongst friends, but not in front of the class. When looking at the whole scenario we have to look at the fact that right off the bat – from the very first retelling of the story – the word nigger was just dropped altogether and the dispute itself more of less encompassed the usage of that word. Was this done on purpose? We’d probably have to ask the person who first retold the story because there are a few variables which could have easily been the reason for the removal of the word. First of all, there wasn’t much time left to even do the activity so there was a lot of summarizing going on – this is in general. Each person kept summarizing the previous person’s story. With each summarization, more and more details were left out. Each person wanted to get the key points across to the next. So did the first person sugar coat the story by removing the derogatory word nigger or did they just not consider that to be an important piece of information – not that it’s not important, I’m just stating this for hypothetical purposes. What each person considers a key point in the story may not be a key point for another person in the story. If the first person who retold the story happened to be black, would he/she have restated the fact that the word nigger was utilized amidst the “altercation” in the story? I feel like this would be an interesting experiment for another class that hasn’t already been exposed to the experiment to see how the results would vary under different circumstances – such as maybe an entire group of white students retelling the story, or maybe an entire group of black students, or use the same idea and just start with a black person being the first to retell the story. I really feel like it can’t be justified that simply because in this single scenario where the first person who retold the story was white is a reason that the story became sugar coated. I feel as though other scenarios would have to be tested first.

Before the lecture on Tuesday I never looked at the war we are in, in the eyes of a middle easterner. In the U.S. all you ever hear about is the War on Terror. Is it really a war on terror? I mean sure that’s the label that we’ve given it because it is the “reason” we’ve gone to war in the first place but there’s definitely something beyond that. Tuesday’s lecture really opened my eyes to a contributing factor of the war we are fighting right now and that factor is black gold – oil. We need it to fuel our cars, which in turn help to fuel our economy and the growth of our nation. It is a dependency that is surely causing a slightly extended stay in the Middle East where our presence may not even be needed in some areas.

Okay, so the middle easterners gave us reason to fight back, to fight for what is right – a world without terror. But as the years pass we’ve really got to ask what we’re continuing to fight for. Terror is an unprecedented predicament that our country (on a grander scale, the world) faces that falls under just about every disagreement two demographic areas might have about each other’s culture or beliefs. So are we there today to fight terror, or gain control of an area that is rich in oil? I feel that it might be a little bit of both, but one of those reasons has a good cause and the other is just looking for trouble. Sam’s lecture opened my eyes to the fact that while we may occupy areas of the Middle East to fight our war on terror, we are definitely also there to get ourselves a huge chunk of the oil that remains on our planet. Whose oil is it? It’s certainly not ours! Stealing the oil from other nations isn’t going to help us wrap up the war (on terror?) but ironically do nothing but fuel it and draw it out even longer.

I didn’t really have much along the lines of opinions about the war before Tuesday’s lecture. As far as I was concerned we are just there for counter-insurgency measures. Now I’m not sure if I’m happy with our government. Right now we’re looking at some serious budget cuts in the appropriations going towards our military. We’ve got soldiers stationed across the world who may not get paid while corporate giants (such as Exxon) make billions of dollars in revenue from oil being drilled in countries that the soldiers are “protecting.” If the government is having such bad budget problems, how about we just reduce our presence in the Middle East (particularly those areas where we’ve got the oil on lock-down) instead of not giving our soldiers their well-deserved pay. The bottom line being that our government needs to get their act together.

This prompt poses an interesting question. I’m not sure if I really approve of the wording though. Being in the progressive era of equality that our generation and later generations will be moving towards, I don’t think whites will actually be treated as a minority. Actually I think that it will be viewed as exactly the opposite despite the fact that we will statistically be the minority – at least for a few decades following the statistical evidence. White privilege will remain white privilege despite minority status – I’m not saying this out of spite, I’m just saying this for the sheer sake of consistency. Whites becoming a minority won’t reckon some instant change where notable racist terms like white privilege suddenly disappear. White “preferences” for lack of better words (and sleep) will remain intact for years after whites are pushed out of the majority. The whites won’t be treated differently but slowly all other races will begin to experience an equilibrium as individuals of other races attain higher positions of power within our great nation – maybe we will see new “privileges” emerge amongst other races if a dominant race should attain positions of power for an extended period of time. I feel like that’s what is mainly responsible for white privilege. However, seeing as whites are being pushed out of the majority and the other races are beginning to slowly balance the ratio of whites to blacks to Asians, I don’t for-see there being an overwhelming imbalance of power from one race to the next.

I could be wrong, however; it could go in an entirely different direction. Looking at our government – does the diversity of positions in government reflect the diversity of our country? The leader of our nation right now is a multiracial guy! Surely he reflects the diversity of our growing (and ever diversifying) country. Obama represents a new standard as far as power is concerned and only those who disagree with his political views (and with valid reasons) may reject him. Race should have nothing to do with it. If you’re a white person who hasn’t accepted the fact that other races are on the same level as whites and have equal privileges, you’re going to have to be the one to emigrate within the next few generations because American white society will eventually be the minority.

Looking way into the future, white society probably won’t even exist – our predecessors will look at current heated subjects (things such as race and homosexuality) and consider us to be completely foolish for our “ignorance.” I feel like race is only a word we presently use to describe individuals of notable skin tones (black, white, Asian). The skin tones of the human race are beginning to mesh as the time for “race” is beginning to dwindle.

I’ve always thought that interracial relationships were strange… not that I disapprove of them because I’m all for the idea, but the two people just look funny together. I don’t mean this in an offensive way, I mean it in the sort of way that, if you see a black guy and white girl holding hands, you can’t tell me you aren’t curious or you wouldn’t think about that relationship more than a white guy and a white girl holding hands. One just appears “stranger,” more different than the other. I know that I’m more likely to think about what connections the interracial couple might have made that brought them closer together than to individuals of their own race. What made them do that? How did they get there? Why not someone of their own race? These questions all fall back on the background of the individuals. Let us say that the white girl grew up in an area with equal dispersion of the black and white populations. Over many years she has adjusted and grown into that society and culture. She likely makes slightly more white friends than black friends because she identifies more with white culture; however, she is able to pick up a good deal of black culture at the same time and can identify with both races pretty well. She becomes really close with a black guy and the two connect very well because their background has instilled in them the ability to be “colorblind” or look beyond the color of ones’ skin, and so they end up dating.

I feel like once we hit a certain level of closeness with an individual of another race, we begin to look beyond it simply because there is so much more to look at in that person now that we have gotten to know them. From the get-go what more are we than black, brown, and white men and women? Naturally we identify with our own race so we wouldn’t go about describing the color of our own skin when speaking to others, but when prompted about another race, isn’t it easiest to label by color? I’m just trying to pick apart any natural human tendencies we have. These are a few of my own obviously. My main point being that once we are able to identify with many individuals of another race, we totally start to look beyond the skin color and once more see the same qualities that we find in ourselves – happiness, joy, sadness, anger, love, etc. The bottom line is that we’re all human, we all use labels one way or another and the color of our skin is nothing more than a label. It’s not a physical barrier that prevents people from dating outside their race. It’s only a barrier if you make it one.

I feel like I’m probably in the awakening stage simply because of my lack of exposure to other races and cultures. Despite the fact that I consider myself to be a relatively open minded individual, I feel like experience plays a key role with what stage each person is in. When Sam took a poll asking what stages we all thought we were in at the beginning of class, he definitely knew that we were going to overshoot what we actually are. There were like 60 or so people who answered that they were in the final humanitarian stage. I’m sorry but for the most part I’m going to say unless you are a world traveler and have complete comfort and experience within a variety of racial groups, you probably aren’t in that final stage.

There’s the sense that we could be in the final stage. Like for example, I’m a fairly open-minded individual and I’d certainly be comfortable learning about circumstances, struggles, whatever – of other races. That final stage certainly requires a sense of open-mindedness, but regardless I still need that experience of racial immersion and 100% comfort within those immersive environments. I can’t even say that I’ve begun to immerse myself which is why I only consider myself to be in the awakening stage
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Before this class I was definitely in the pre-awakening stage. I had a general idea of the struggles that black, brown, and Asians have experienced in the past, but heck I wasn’t even aware that racism was still such a prominent issue until this class. Being that I’m a white person and I grew up in a generally white neighborhood and my school was like 95% percent white, I’ve been oblivious to the existence of modern racism up until this class. This class has really opened my eyes to the modern world of racism. I had no idea that slavery was as big of an issue as it really is until we saw a video in class. I’m still stunned that that happens and that not much has been done to resolve the issue. I’m not the most ignorant person in the world, I consider myself to be fairly knowledgeable, so if I didn’t know about it, who else doesn’t know about it?! I feel like the fact that it’s kept so well under-wraps and out of the eye of the general public that a lot of people just don’t know. Then the question becomes how do we inform them? How do we get them motivated? How do we get them to help towards a world without slavery?

I can say that up to this point I have taken my white skin for granted, but never again will I fail to acknowledge that not only do I work hard to get where I’m going, but the color of my skin may be helping me along my way.

I honestly don’t think there is an answer to the resource issue. There is no systematic solution that could be made plausible by the general population that could be both agreed upon and enacted. In my opinion it’s going to come down to a situation of survival of the fittest. In a world where individuals (for the most part) care about themselves first and others second who gets what resources isn’t even going to be a question. People will take what they WANT not what they NEED based on what individuals feel is sufficient for themselves.
On this planet, which is stricken with poverty and disease, it is clear who is in control of what resources and who has the potential and capabilities to obtain more if needed. When completely industrialized countries like the United States have exhausted all their resources, the third world countries with resources will be overrun by world powerhouses because of excessive global demand. I had an assignment in another class which required me to discover what my overall “consumption” was based on my style of living. Judging by the fact that I’m not too different from most individuals of my class and position I’d say there are millions of us in the United States who demand an excessive amount of our planets resources, which it just simply cannot provide forever. I discovered that if everyone on the planet lived like I did, it would require 4 or more planet earths to sustain the population.
We may ask Third World countries for their resources and they will rescind any opposition because of our strength and give us what we desire until there is nothing left. I know this opinion might appear harsh and it probably won’t even happen, but it’s a scenario that’s fairly plausible. We won’t force these countries to provide us with resources but they will yield to global powerhouses because they wouldn’t want to oppose us. In the worst case scenario, war would break out to take control of the invaluable and unused resources that our planet has left.
Overpopulation of our planet is inevitable. When people think over overpopulation the first thing they think of is “over-reproduction.” While this may be a serious issue on the list of concerns, I think the main contributor to overpopulation of our planet is advanced medicine and technology. We are keeping people alive longer with treatments that cure people of ailments that would otherwise claim their lives – sometimes even multiple times. Take my dad for example, he has had cancer twice. He should’ve died had it not been for modern treatments to cure him from the terminal illness. So combined with the fact that advanced medicinal practices are keeping people alive longer, it’s only those who can afford these services that are receiving them, and more than likely, those individuals are the over-consumers who are going to bear children into a society that already over-consumes and takes for granted the fact that our planet has limited resources.

The lecture honestly didn’t really make me more or less conscious of where I sit in class. As far as I was concerned Sam was just attempting to point out that we are more likely to sit next to individuals of our own race (however it didn’t actually work out that way and three out of the four example students actually sat next to the Asian girl – not really expected).

This question doesn’t really work out all that well because the majority of us have our groups of friends who we’d normally sit next to in class (regardless of race we are going to sit next to our friends). Sam made sure to remove this variable when trying to prove this point in class because of course we’d obviously pick the sit next to our friend as opposed the random person we don’t know. So race isn’t really a factor when friends are involved.

I’m curious about how the results would have turned out if the experiment wasn’t done in a class about race. I feel like, given the circumstances, people are going to choose to sit next to the individual who is not of their race simply to prove that they are not racist. So this experiment has a whole slew of variables that must be taken into consideration before any realistic results can be obtained.

Given that I’m a white guy, would I sit next to an individual/individuals of my own color if I didn’t have friends in the class? I think I’d probably sit closer to individuals of my own race simply because that’s more or less the environment I was raised in. I went to a private middle school that was mostly all white with the exception of maybe 2 or 3 black kids in each class of 30. My high-school was very similar. In a school of 600 people maybe 10-15 students were black and maybe 30 were Asian. I wouldn’t say that I’m racist though simply because I’d rather sit next to white people. I just more closely associate myself with white people. I have plenty of colored friends but in a public setting where I don’t know anyone I’d say I’m more likely to sit next to white people.

I guess the lecture increased my awareness that I’m more likely to sit next to white people but that doesn’t necessarily mean that I wouldn’t sit next to individuals of color. Regardless my consciousness towards where I sit in class hasn’t moved at all. I still sit next to the same people in class every time – my friends from my floor. Heck, sometimes a colored person who I don’t know sits on the other side of me… and that’s just fine! =)

To start off I’d just like to say that this video implies that there are a higher percentage of colored individuals in urban areas – which may or may not be true depending on what urban area / what city an individual may be talking about. When I think of big cities like NYC, which I feel is practically the immigrant capital of the world, I think of all the diversity that is there. More rural and less urbanized areas of our country are likely to not be as inhabited by colored individuals and have less of a police force; however this fact wouldn’t be a result of there being less colored individuals inhabiting the area. More likely than not there are less police in these areas simply because there are less people overall. Being that there are less colored people in rural areas there are naturally going to be less arrests overall in these areas.

I’m not sure what the percentage is of colored individuals is in major cities but I’m not sure if the high frequency of “colored arrests” has anything to do with racism. Could we be looking at some sort of racial profiling (essentially racism)? I’m not denying that it happens because I’m pretty sure that it does, but the question is why does it happen? I think may have something to do with the whole idea of “the king of the hill” effect if you will. Colored individuals may have fewer opportunities due to the color of their skin and so they are more likely to live in the poorer sections of cities where crime rates are seemingly higher. This is another point that demands statistical evidence. Are crime rates actually higher in areas like the ghettos? Or are these areas just so closely monitored for whatever reason that not a single act of misconduct goes unpunished?

It’s definitely a combination of circumstances that causes the colored population to have a higher rate of arrests. Racism and economic status come hand in hand to create circumstances and statistics that the colored population probably is not going to be able to overcome for a while yet. All I know for sure is that the social side of racism is on its way out. We don’t see it so much in our generation; however I feel like the economic and criminal justice sides of racism are being passed down simply because of old racial customs which have yet to be uprooted. I think the ghettos are still likely to have higher crime rates but there being a predominant number of colored people who live there shouldn’t create racism across the entire social, political, and economic spectrum. Statistics, though not always completely reliable, will hopefully reveal the equilibrium of arrests among all races.

The king of the mountain piece that Sam presented in class today really gave me some food for thought. It was one of those concepts that I’ve been subconsciously aware of but never really acknowledged or thought about. I look at this how he presented it and all I could think was if white people actually metaphorically did/do that.
Do we really look after individuals of our own color? I could understand how we have a tendency to group together out of comfort but are we really that shallow that we give others of our own race some sort of advantage if we are in a position of power? I just find the entire concept strange. As a white guy, I personally can say that if I were the king of that hill I couldn’t see that sort of action happening to me. I’d accept the fact that I’m the guy with power but I don’t think I’d accredit my skin to that and quite frankly if I was that obsessed with power I wouldn’t trust anyone who wanted to take that power. My trust would be limited regardless of race and I don’t think race would have any sort of impact on who I trust more. If I were on top of that table, everyone would be ten feet back at all times and the only time anyone would be anywhere near me is when I need some sort of advisement. Who would I pick to come close? The person who I feel is most-likely going to help me with my current dilemma. I don’t care if you’re black, white, Asian, purple… if you’ve got the solution to my problem you’re going to be up on the pedestal nest to me until that problem is resolved. Beyond that point, the individual(s) will receive my thanks but then return to their respective position(s) ten feet away. They might be on my “good” side if you will but trust will still be limited.
I found the example enlightening because I’m sure exactly what Sam displayed happens. It’s just disappointing that individuals would stoop to that level (pun not intended) but at the same time it’s something that society as a whole should look down upon and not just the race(s) being discriminated against. A person with that sort of power should be looking to benefit or call on whomever is best for the task the person in power needs help with.
In general, this topic simply frustrates me. It’s difficult to talk about although I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because I can’t really do anything about it even though I know it’s wrong. A person of power is a person of power. I can call them out for being immoral but in the long run they are the ones calling the shots so I’m not going to be able to do much. It’s going to take an extremely moral person on a hill that’s higher than the last to fix the problem.