When Sam brought up in class that he and Laurie visit lifers in class, I was really intrigued as to what kind of experience this is. After reading this letter, I can honestly cannot get over the value of life that it seems as if a lot of these prisoners have. It seems to me that this man who is in prison for his whole entire life with no hope of ever getting out, has gained an understanding of life that most other people will never understand. It seems to be the type of thing you can only understand when you are put in a situation like this. Prisoners have come to accept their life for what it is. The story, in the letter, about the man consoling the other man was also very interesting to me, because they not only have an understanding of their own life but they know that everybody else in there has the same future and even if they have not come to accept it yet, they are understanding of one another.
I’ve always been confused on my standing on the death penalty. I do not believe that “two wrongs make a right” and I also know that people are wrongly convicted of crimes all the time and that statistic is too high to kill the convicted as a punishment. I have also always thought that it is worse to have to “rot in prison” and not be able to die for a very long time, thinking about your crime than to get off easy and just have your life ended. This whole letter and the discussions that have followed confuse me even more, because it seems that these prisoners may feel bad for their crime and know that they are a different person now than they were going into prison. They also seem to be, from this letter, content with how their life is and where it is going. I do not know if this is necessarily fair, is a lifetime in prison a harsh enough punishment for murder when the prisoners at some point come to accept their life? At what point is the crime brutal and harsh enough that the death penalty becomes necessary? I do not think that this letter was meant for people to feel bad for him or have remorse in the least bit, which is what it seems like some previous posts may feel. He is not trying to gain our sympathy, I think that this letter was just putting it in perspective and offer some understanding. It also it astonishing to me how put together and smart this man seems to be as somebody who never graduated high school.

I found this lecture to be one of the best of the semester. I consider myself a pretty aware person of the world around me, but still I have a lot of questions about the war in Iraq. This lecture definitely answered a lot of them for me. I found it very interesting the way Sam changed the perspective on us. The videos he showed really did help me to understand the ethnocentrism and it really tied in the previous lecture. I really did not know the extent to which religion took a place in this war, especially on the American side. Just like we, as Americans are shown terrifying videos of the jihad, people in Iraq and other parts of the middle east are shown what can be terrifying videos of American leaders. And in the same way, we know that some of the things our leaders have said are not intelligent and do not represent us, many of the people in Iraq probably feel the same way. I think Sam did a really good job on explaining some things that have been confusing to me in the past and I thank him for that. The fact that George Bush called the war a crusade and the clip of Sarah Palin saying that this is a war lead by God, shows that leaders or potential leaders in our country have the Christian Crusade on their mind. This is not about Sam bashing on Christianity, this is Sam showing us facts and clips of what people have said and trying to show us things in another perspective.
It seems that many people may have completely missed the point on this lecture. When Sam asked us to become Iraqi college students and put ourselves in a different perspective, many students may have continued to look at the situation from their own perspective. I can see this from the blog responses. I don’t think the point of the lecture was to necessarily change people’s minds on the war in Iraq, but to maybe look at it in somebody else’s perspective, which is what ethnocentrism is all about. Nothing that Sam said in the lecture was meant to be offensive towards Christians or Christianity and I think that some of the previous blog posters may have taken this the wrong way.
In my mind, the war is a completely pointless war and it truly saddens me that it ever began. On the perspective of oil or religion, either way it is not enough to start a war, which costs so many lives and such a gross sum of money. I would find it very interesting to see this lecture given to Jewish American soldiers or any other non-Christian soldier. I am interested to see their perspective on risking their lives and fighting in what seems to be nothing more than a Christian Crusade.

Most people agree that this video game may take it a step to far. It seems as if it is extremely graphic and no point to the game besides rape. Besides the subject itself, there are other things I find wrong with this game. Video games are meant to entertain people, and it is a very large industry. Therefore, video game producers try and make their game as addicting as possible so people won’t want to put it down and become fans of it. I know plenty of people that will sit in their room all day in front of the TV playing video games, it seems to be socially acceptable. Games such as this one or Grand Theft Auto, with graphic subject matter are played time and time again and drilled into people’s heads. I am not saying that a video game can cause people to act in any way whatsoever, I am just saying that when you stare at a video game for hours at a time you become apart of it and it becomes your norm. It truly disgusts me that the norm for many people out there may be raping women. What kind of fantasy is this to have?
With all of that being said, there is no way to stop the making of video games such as these. There is no way to put out a global law on censorship, nor would that ever happen. With the internet these days, somebody can make something anywhere in the world and someone on the other side of the world can be looking at it within seconds. There is no way to stop people from looking at what they want to see on the internet and therefore it would be unfair and unlikely to do this in other forms of media such as video games. There are all kinds of weird things that people fantasize about in the world and as long as we have the internet, these people will be able to satisfy themselves by just searching throughout the internet. There are plenty of videos in the porn industry that represent rape as well, but there is no stopping this (no matter how unethical one may think it is) because of people’s basic rights in our country.
I understand people’s points of wanting to keep their children away from graphics in video games, but there is no way to regulate the video game producers, especially in other countries. So as parents you have to make sure you keep your kids away from anything they may find on the internet. At the same time, playing a video game such as this (even if it is extremely morally wrong) will not cause people to model this in real life.

At first when Sam started talking about periods in class, I think everybody was a little taken aback and surprised. The way he was describing his wife’s period was a little too descriptive for a lot of the people in the class and everybody was just grossed out. I don’t think people really took the time to think about Sam’s point or why he was bringing it up. Yesterday in class, Sam brought up the point of men having periods. This was very interesting to me, because I never really thought of how the world would be different (especially when it comes to talking about periods) if men were the ones who “bled”. I agree with Sam that this would change EVERYTHING. Men would brag about when they were going through it and it would be something to be proud of and something that made them manly. Why then, should women feel like they need to hide it or feel embarrassed by periods? Why is getting your period one of the single most embarrassing things that could happen to you? In middle school, girls would go to school terrified that you would bleed through your pants and god forbid, letting other people know that you were on your period. It is a completely natural process and it really doesn’t make sense that girls are private about it. But that’s the way it is. Our world sees it as a “gross” thing that should be hidden. So it is NOT the same as your hair growing or having to cut your toenails, because our society has made it that way.
I feel comfortable discussing my menstrual cycle with my friends and my family, I just wouldn’t necessarily feel comfortable announcing it to a classroom full of strangers, and that is probably because of the way periods are perceived by others. I think that a lot of people think of it as something you don’t discuss with strangers because it is “bathroom” talk. People don’t stand in front of a classroom and tell hundreds of strangers that they just used the bathroom, I feel like the period shyness is relatable to that. Using the bathroom is a natural process too, but it is not socially acceptable to announce that to strangers.
The original post asked the question, if men had periods would tampons be free? I agree with previous posters, when they say that tampons are a product and companies make a lot of money on them since they are a necessity, so I do not think they would be free. Some people brought up the point of condoms being practically free, but condoms are a necessity for both the man and woman. We are also in a time, where everybody is promoting safe sex, because there are social issues such as abortion rights and STDs. I think this is why condoms are promoted to regularly and are so easy to get. Tampons are not the same and they would not be free, no matter who was menstruating.

What surprises me the most about this case, is not that the school board in Mississippi did not want a lesbian couple to attend the prom, but the fact that they actually acted upon this. They had to have known the bad publicity they would get and if not, then they are truly stuck in a bubble. On the other hand, I am also surprised this story was not a bigger news story. Especially today, when our country is facing all of the LGBT issues such as marriage, this seems like a story that the public would react hugely to.
It really is amazing the difference in even the reaction to this story taking place in the south, versus if it had taken place in the north. It shows that there split in society isn’t always between black and white but the differences between geological location as well can cause huge differences in the ways we’ve been raised or think. I come from a very diverse and liberal community in New Jersey and if something like this were to have happened there would be a huge uproar and it would definitely not be allowed.
There was a girl in my graduating class who was always very masculine ever since we were little. I never really even saw her as a “girl” per say. She is the type of lesbian that never really had to “come out” she was just always out. She would make vulgar comments about other girls along with the rest of the immature guys in my class. I never, and I doubt anybody else did, questioned once whether she’d even wear a dress to prom. The whole thing was a none issue and I am only really thinking about it now because in this story the girl had such issues trying to live her life normally. I am not in the least bit saying my friend had it easy growing up as a lesbian, but growing up in a community that is un-accepting of your livelihood must make it really hard.
This article really points out how much for granted a lot of us take our lives. It makes me really feel like I have it easy, even a small act like prom isn’t given to all high school teenagers. It really just doesn’t seem right. It is ridiculous that a public school can cancel a prohibit people to bring certain dates and even more ridiculous that they think they can mandate what you can and can’t wear. I wonder where they draw the line for the clothing; do all girls have to wear a dress? Or do they only enforce this or make it known to lesbians?

I think it is wrong to name theme parties as a racial issue. There are themes for everything, usually derogatory towards women. Yes, you may look around Penn State and be like, oh all these white kids are dressing up so only white people have theme parties. But isn’t that mainly because Penn State is so predominantly white? I mean everywhere you go, there are just a bunch of white kids. Yes, there are theme parties that may be aimed at cultures in which the majority is black, but I don’t think as people think of them they are thinking that they want to make fun of or put black people down. I think theme parties are just a way of dressing differently and usually going overboard.

I am from New Jersey and recently there has been an uproar in the amount of “Jersey Shore” parties around campus. Girls dress trashy and the guys dress like guidos. I know that this is no a representation of where I come from or who I am, but should I get offended by how people may perceive me? I know that the majority of that cast wasn’t even from New Jersey and that is far off of what a summer on the Jersey Shore may be like for me.

A few posts up, somebody brought up a story about a theme party that did target the black race. There will always be people out there that are racist and that will throw parties with themes such as these, but I wouldn’t put that on all themed parties and definitely not on all white people. In fact, I would argue that it is a little prejudice that the original post even said that themed parties are a white people thing. There may be racist white people at our school, in fact I am such there are plenty, and these people may throw themed parties that target black people, but I would say these people are in the minority. And these people are racist in the first place, throwing the party is just an example, but I am sure they are racist in other parts of their life. I just wouldn’t pin point all white people as the only ones throwing themed parties and for racist reasons.

I think people may be overly sensitive when it comes to subjects like this. The reason why at Penn State, we may look around and see only white kids dressing up and going to theme parties is mainly because there are so many white people. If you went to an area where there were mostly black people there may be theme parties, there may not. The culture is different everywhere we go, it would be entirely unfair to base this off of race.

In yesterday’s lecture after we watched the video of the Muslim girl in the bakery I think it got a lot of people thinking. At first thought, I immediately was disgusted by the people in the bakery standing up for the worker and calling him a good American. It also left me thinking when the people just ignored the situation completely. At the very least if I was in the situation I would have walked out of the store and not given them by business. But I don’t think this is enough. I would hope I would have the strength and be able to find the words to stand up for the Muslim girl at the counter, who was probably using all of her power to keep herself together. The fact that the thought of whether or not the girl was “American” pisses me off to no end. Some people in our country (the dumb ones) think that “American” means the white people. When in reality it is the opposite. Isn’t America supposed to be the mixing pot of the world? Isn’t the point of our country that we have all different types of people who can live freely? The fact that the Muslim girl wasn’t given service is what is un-American.
And then, the kid raised his hand and said that he was taught to respect other’s businesses. Which I can understand to an extent, but in this situation, it was not about respecting a business environment. The business owner was in fact loosing money because of his racism. Standing and watching and not doing anything to protect the Muslim girl is worse in my opinion than saying anything at all. It means that you agree with how she is being treated but don’t even have the guts to voice your opinion. People suffer everyday in our country because they may look different or have different beliefs. These are the same people that may have come to our country looking for freedom to dress and believe what they want. Americans not letting other Americans live freely in itself is un-American. Saying, “it’s not your place” is un-American. Don’t be a bystander. The girl’s dignity was being taken away from her, and all you care about is being respectful to the business owner because that’s how you were raised? That doesn’t make any sense at all. The way I was raised was to stand up for what I believed in and for the rights of others and myself. If that means disrespecting a store and getting kicked out, so be it, I won’t shop there anymore! As Americans we should be standing up for our own basic rights and if we see the basic rights of others being broken, I think we have the right to stand up for them.

After Tuesday’s lecture, I too do not understand how somebody can walk out of the classroom with the same beliefs they walked in with. It really is hard for me to accept people’s thinking that involve the bible so much in politics and what should be allowed in our government. What ever happened between the separation of church and state? Obviously our government has a problem separating these two things to begin with, but the topic of gay marriage is so blatantly dealing with religion, it is a shame that these discussions can take place when dealing with law. I’m Jewish, and in that way I guess some Christians would call me a sinner too right? Why am I allowed to get married if marriage is something so sacred? Why stop at just segregating same sex marriage? Where is this line drawn? What makes certain sins right and other sins wrong? People who aren’t even religious get married, it is in no way sacred or religious for these people, should this even be allowed? Why do the super religious care so much about what other people are doing with their lives? I understand completely that this is not only Christians, but many other religions, including Judaism, which restricts gay marriage, I just do not understand why it is brought into our government. Marriage today is all about law, people get married for the right to share taxes, wealth, among other things. I guess what I don’t understand is why people outside of the marriage are allowed to judge and tell citizens of the United States what they can and can’t do. In this aspect, it is similar to the issue of abortion. We are supposively living in a “free” country, however, the government is trying to restrict what we do in our private lives. How can our government tell us who it is acceptable to love? We will never become more accepting of people who are different from us in society, unless our government takes a step forward. This is a two way street, societal beliefs and the government must evolve together in becoming more accepting of different kinds of people.
It just seems ridiculous to me that people can say that our country gives equal rights and opportunities when there are laws instated which are preventing just that. Why do we even pretend that we separate church from our government if it is everywhere in these debates? We need to not only stand up against the issues on hand but also on the bigger picture. When are the non-religious or non-Christians going to be able to stop having to stand up for themselves against the church in our country?

Race relations always go to discussing black and white issues because in our country and definitely in our region of the country it is a very emotional topic for a lot of people. Some of the previous responses on this post discuss how when these black and white discussions come up, people may not listen to what others have to say and may just jump to conclusions accusing the other side of being racist. I think this is also a big issue in our country because we can’t be afraid of discussing these topics in fear that we will be called racist.
Why are black and white topics discussed more than other races? I think that in our country, black and whites have had a lot of history and for a lot of people living in our country; it is a very emotional topic. It is not that these issues are more important it is just a topic that a lot of people may feel closer to personally.
I went to a pretty diverse high school, it wasn’t just black and white, but diverse in a lot of races. Racism was never a prominent problem in high school. My high school was pretty small and the drama that occurred was never about race. I think people pretty much tip toed around issues that they may have had. Since everybody was so accepting of one another, it also may have made some people afraid to talk. I can specifically remember back to one instance during cheerleading practice. I was the only white girl on the team and also the captain. The girls on the team always teased me playfully. I just remember one time in particular, one girl, also a senior, said something about me making the cheers “too white” and everybody getting quiet as to see what I would say next or if I was offended. I was definitely taken aback by the comment but it didn’t really offend me. This just stuck out to me because it just proves that a lot of people notice color. Whether it be racism or not, it is something that people see and that people may have prejudices about. I think this happens especially in our country because of the history that our two races have been through. Black people, rightfully so, may have preconceived notions of white people just because of what they’ve been through in the past. I don’t think it is fair to say that we shouldn’t see color, but I do hope that at some point in our history we will get over our differences from the past. In race relations, other race issues are definitely worth discussing, but many Americans may feel closer personally to the black/white race issues.

This article drew me in because I myself am Jewish. I am a reformed Jew and although I have heard of tefillin and know what it’s for, I have never seen somebody praying with it. I can understand how somebody may be skeptical of this image. Like the boy’s grandmother said, “in America [we] are very, very skittish.” Many people know nothing about Jewish traditions or practices. On one side, I understand completely how somebody, especially after the recent terrorist attempt, may get frightened of what they don’t know. On the other side, however, it’s sad that a boy is unable to practice an every day ritual without somebody pointing a finger.
I find it interesting how calm the grandmother seemed to be about the whole situation. She didn’t seem to be angry at what had happened to her grandson at all. She made everything seem that was done to them to be petty. For instance, she described that both grandchildren were handcuffed but only for a few minutes. And when the she described the police boarding the airplane with guns, she said that they were pointing them at the passengers as a whole. She seemed to have understood the situation and didn’t want to be angry about what had happened to her grandson. People are usually more protective over their religion and beliefs and this seems to be a threat to those who practice these rituals.
I think that it is a shame that this happened and I can only imagine how frightened the boy must have been. We should all take this as a wake up call to become more aware of our neighbors every day practices. We shouldn’t be ignoring the traditions that are not our own. It really is scary the steps that people can take to things that they don’t know out of fear. People in our country are so skeptical of things they don’t know because they are afraid of terrorist attacks. But at the same time, a lot of people in our country don’t know much about cultures other than their own.
I don’t mean to be pointing fingers at others and saying other people don’t know about other cultures. It just so happens that in this case, I am Jewish so I am more familiar with the traditions. However, I myself could know a lot more about other cultures than I do. Even though I try to know about other’s traditions other than my own, I still don’t know as much as I should about other culture’s traditions. I think it would do us all well, if we took the time to know about our neighbor’s traditions, people may become less wary about those around them.