I completely agree with everything that you said. People only care about things generally if it directly affects him or her. Its not just selfish people, it is pretty much everybody. People do care obviously its just not on the same level as they would for something else. Money being raised for Haiti is a perfect example. We all as a class donated money and I am sure other people did additional things individually, but none of us completely stopped our lives to grieve or stopped going to class or stopped going to work. We just keep moving on with our lives and though the people are in our thoughts and prayers we aren't going to stop what were doing. As long as the world is still turning people aren't going to stop their lives unless it directly effects them.

This does seem like an idea that is a little bit racist. Its true you are kind of making yourself out to be a more valuable asset and person then people in these under developed countries. Yet I personally don’t think that just makes you out to be a racist person. What it actually is, is you recognizing the advantages you have been given by your upbringing, education, and financial stability. There are probably many people in those countries who are far more intelligent or capable than you or I its just they weren’t given the same opportunities in life that we were.

This is something that touches a chord in me that I am not used to feeling. It is very rare that any one could feel a deep sense of compassion or such heart felt sympathy for somebody who committed such a terrible crime or whatever it is that somebody did to obtain a life sentence in a maximum security prison without the possibility of parole. Its just strange, because you feel such a sense of anger towards these people. If I was a person who was affected by one of the murders they committed I don’t think I could ever look them in the eye or even feel some sort of compassion for them, but since I am not I look at these people the way that they should be looked at by everybody else in the world. Regardless of their pasts and their previous actions, they are still human beings.
You never think of prison inmates as compassionate caring human beings, especially those who have committed such terrible heinous crimes. But not all of these men are psychopaths who don’t feel feelings like the rest of us. Granted I am sure that there are many men who are not normal and don’t care about human beings the way that most of us do but we shouldn’t just assume that all criminal of this magnitude are terrible people. Being isolated in prison like that allows a person a lot of time to reflect on themselves and to grow as a human being and realize new and different things that will change you forever. It is completely obvious through this letter that this man is one of those people. Also something that really stuck out is the hand he and his friend put on the grieving mans shoulder. So much meaning can be translated through the smallest of gestures even by men who one would assume don’t really care about others the way normal people would. Obviously that isn’t the case, especially with this man.
Something else that means a lot also is this man even taking his time to write this letter for us. Yes he is in prison and probably isn’t too busy with all that many things but still, I cant imagine how difficult it is fro someone in his position to just open up like this to a class of over 700 strangers. I don’t know if I would be able to do something like that. Being able to see into the mind of somebody like this is a gift to us and almost even something extremely eye opening because it shows us that these men are still human, regardless of their wrongs. They are human beings with feelings and families and real life problems even inside of their jail.

I think that is really the overall problem with religion. It was something created in part out of fear and in part looking for answers. It is good that people can find something to believe in that comforts them and at least kind of gives them a set of rules I guess you could call them to live by. The problem is when people have major differences in these religious beliefs the disagreements can be very dangerous. People don't want to hear that something they basically live by is wrong or in a way not real. Especially when this is something so important to them. I wouldn't want to hear that one of the most important aspects of my life is a joke. I would take serious offense to that and would probably fight whoever said that.

I understand what you are saying and it is truly terrible for people to just automatically associate Osama Bin Laden and his actions with the muslim faith, especially since there are so many different types of muslim faiths and so many different people who follow the muslim religion. Yet it is the same with this as it is with just about everything else. People always associate stereotypes of groups with everybody in that group whether it applies to them or not and it is quite a shame that that happens but there isn't really much we can do. People just have to be open minded and accepting of others and not just immediately judge them when they first see them.

This is a very tough subject to weigh in on. There are so many different factors that contribute to what people think and how they act especially in situations as radical as these. For a person to be in the mind state that blowing themselves up is a worthy sacrifice for what they want or for what cause they believe in, they have to be either very mentally unstable or they have to be very passionate about it. In the case of this woman avenging her husband’s death I understand where she is coming from. Though I obviously do not agree with her methods at all because I don’t think that suicide bombing really achieves anything. She is no longer living and for all I know she may not have even killed the guards or soldiers responsible for the death of her husband. The men that she killed may have been completely innocent and might not have had anything to do with what happened. They could have families now left behind without a father and husband. So now what happens, does their family avenge the death of their now deceased father and whom could they even get revenge on. The lady responsible for their deaths killed herself in the process.
With all of that being said I think what you have to do is put yourself in her shoes, or at least in a situation very similar to what happened to her. Say somebody extremely close to you was unjustly murdered by a group of people or soldiers or whatever. What would your reaction be if the justice system in place there weren’t going to do anything to make that person or group of people pay for their actions? Generally in America the justice system handles that for us. Yet obviously in her country, especially when the actions are committed by militants or soldiers the government didn’t do its job in punishing them and helping her, at least not up to her standards. I think if something like this were to happen to me and the justice system wasn’t any help I would take matters into my own hands. I would not be a suicide bomber because like I said earlier I really don’t think that would solve anything. But I would probably figure out a way to get my hands on some type of firearm and come after whoever was responsible for my loss and my pain. Granted this is a very serious situation and there isn’t much that would really get a person other than killing those responsible. I am not a murderer and I would have to be in a very extreme situation to actually kill someone, I think that this situation is one where murderous revenge may be acceptable.

Look personally if you’re opinion on anything Sam has said the entire semester hasn’t changed then you obviously haven’t been listening to what he has been saying too well. The entire class is based on opening up people’s eyes to the wrongs done to others and to the problems and biases that go unnoticed in our society. Not just in race relations, but in almost every aspect of society that pertains to people and the differences between them. Unless you are the most intelligent person in the world and already knew pretty much everything about everything then you probably should have learned something or changed your mind about a few things at this point.
Look personally I am a very open minded person and going into this course there wasn’t very much that Sam has said less far that I haven’t already agreed with before hearing it. The course is mainly directed toward people who are close-minded and don’t really want to change but through listening to the facts and things he is saying are kind of forced to take a different outlook on things and finally get some other perspective. Obviously there are some things that Sam has said that I don’t completely agree with and also there are some things that he has said that I find pretty weird and far-fetched such as the being with a man after his wife dies. That’s something that I could never do let alone be completely confident of this far in advance. But there are facts that he has brought to our attention that as a class we cant just ignore. For somebody to not have changed their mind on anything that has been said so far or to at least have learned something is either really stubborn or just isn’t paying attention at all. Yes Sam does have a tendency to make some points that are either completely obvious to us, or that are kind of weird and possibly wrong, but all in all he has made a lot of valuable points about society and its ills. Especially some of the percentage facts that he puts up that one, there is no way you could have known those numbers prior to this class and two there isn’t any way you can argue with them because they are facts and are based off of surveys taken for these type of categories.
Look the bottom line is this; what you learn in this class is all up to you. If you already agree with pretty much everything Sam says, then you probably aren’t going to learn too much. Yet if you take a second to listen and actually think about the things that he tells our class then you might actually learn a thing or two.

It is funny that this is how you handled the experience of many cultural groups moving into your neighborhood. I agree with the way you handled it but I have seen a very different situation. My friend grew up in Kensington, Philadelphia and as African American people started moving into his neighborhood the Irish people (including his family) moved out of the neighborhood until almost all of the neighborhood is black besides a small group. Because of this my friend is pretty racist because he chose to handle the situation differently than you did. Its a shame and he and I have gotten into many arguments over race but I just find it interesting how two people can handle a situation so completely differently.

I have been hearing about this for some time and to be honest it really isn't that great a concern of mine. One it isn't that white people are the minority, there will just be less white people than the other ethnicities combined. It isn't like every other ethnicity individually will be larger than the white population so really this is being made into the white people versus everybody else which in my opinion is completely the wrong thing to do. Everyone wants people to stop looking at race and stop letting us affect our decisions and the way we live our life yet people are pinning all white people against every other race. That is just furthering the problem for everyone and not solving anything. Really smart.

As somebody who is also of Hispanic (Puerto Rican) decent on my mothers side of the family and whose dad’s side of the family is entirely white I can completely relate to this problem and face many of the same questions that you do. I have spent a majority of my life trying to figure out which group I identify more with and what I would consider myself when asked. Usually I go into an explanation and tell people everything that I am so that they can decide for themselves cause I try not to let it bother me. What race I identify with isn’t the most pressing issue in my life.
Yet my situation was actually a little different than the one that you grew up with. When I was growing up neither side of my family was really around a lot. Not that they abandoned us or anything, but almost all of my moms family lived in either New York City or further north in upstate New York. Her parents lived out in California so I just didn’t see them very often. My dad’s side of the family doesn’t live very close either. His family all lived in either New York or Florida. So there wasn’t any influence really on me. My influence came more or less from the community that I live in back home.
When I was growing up my main influence was probably from the kids I grew up with and all of my close friends. A majority of my best friends were white kids. I grew up in a suburban town about fifteen minutes outside of Philly. There were plenty of black and brown kids, but that wasn’t really the group of people I hung around with. I do have many friends who are black or brown and actually most of them are split in half like I am. But I think because of where I grew up and because a majority of my influences were white friends of mine, I think growing up I was pushed more towards identifying with the white team.
Yet the more I learned about my ethnicity the more I began identifying with being Puerto Rican over white. People still called me white and told me that I was more white than Puerto Rican but the truth is Puerto Rican is my majority ethnicity while my dads side of the family is split up into two different backgrounds (Russian and Polish). I started educating myself on my Hispanic heritage and took two trips to Puerto Rico during the summers in high school. I found out that I really love my heritage and in a lot of cases identify more with my Hispanic side. Yet growing up in white suburbia I also heavily identify with the white team. So at this point I am still pretty undecided on what team I identify with. Like I said I have other problems to worry about and to me this isn’t that big a deal.