I’m glad Sam put this letter up. When he asked in class who supports the death penalty, I was one who raised my hand. Yeah, I felt kind of embarrassed, being that there was like no more than 10 kids who raised their hand. I guess you can say I found it weird that he was telling us only of “good inmates” or innocent people being put to death. I listen to Sam, and even if I agree with him or not, I still consider and think of things in a different way. I emailed him a couple days later to talk about this because it kept bugging me. I have a different look on inmates, the prison system, “lifers” and the death penalty because my Dad is a State Corrections Officer at the Max in Frackville, PA. And I hear the stories, good and bad and about the inmates he spends time with almost every day for about 10 hours.
I know that there are bad inmates, and there are changed inmates. I hear the bad, and it blows my mind that real humans do such horrific things. But I also do hear of the decent stories, and men who aren’t so scary and mean. My Dad never really mentioned any one of his guys in the sense of how this man is, but I’m sure there are some.
I see this situation in two different ways. There are “lifers” who don’t give a shit about what they do or how they act because they know what worse thing can happen to them. For example, a “lifer” ambushed my Dad from behind, threw him to the ground and tried breaking his neck. My Dad had to get neck surgery and was off work for about a year. Now what do you think happened to that prisoner? Sent to the “hole”? Yeah, for a month or so, and besides some court trials to charge him with assault on an officer, pretty much nothing happened. How much more time can you add to a life sentence? The other way I see it, it that everyone deserves to admit their mistakes and wrong doing and be given a second chance. Even if someone else doesn’t give that chance to you, you have to give yourself it. The man who wrote the letter is quite smart, and like Sam said in the beginning, he is much evolved. I think he already knows himself.
Personally, it’s nice to see a letter from an inmate like this. Especially when majority of what you hear about inmates or jail isn’t so good. This letter, and most importantly this man, reminds us that we are all still human.

The play that was performed in class was great. I really paid attention to the meaning and concept. And I feel like it was a great ice breaker for the women in the class to talk about that issue. Good Job, Laurie, and Thank You.
I feel for sides, women with large breasts and women with small breasts. My one girlfriend had large breasts all through middle school till now. I can remember the embarrassment she felt at such a young age and the actual physical pain she felt in her teens. Another one of my girlfriends was pretty much flat chested. And I also remember the jokes that were made by the boys and the hurt she felt. It’s a no win situation.
It’s easy for us women to be confused as to what is “beautiful”. Especially when the media tells us what beautiful is everyday. They seem to control what is beautiful. And people actually listen to the media and go crazy over it. Remember when the media went CRAZY over the Jessica Simpson picture? It was like the top story on entertainment news stations. That’s horrible. No one, celebrity or not should ever go through something like that.
Women need join together and feel empowered together. We normal, regular women need to show THEM what beautiful is. We are smart, strong, wide, skinny, curvy, flat, big booty, WE are women. I’m not going to lie; the media does get to me sometimes. Like I’ll see these stars with long flowing hair and I actually got clip in extensions because I felt more beautiful if I had longer hair. It kind of brainwashed me.
The play was a little confusing to me at first. I didn’t understand what was going on (maybe because the main girls mic was kind of low), but then I got it. And it was so cool and interesting. I mean, what if life was really like that? I honestly can’t think of how it would be because it’s not like that at all. Laurie’s a very smart women, I felt more connected to her and my fellow women classmates after that. And I think other people did as well. It’s a subject that’s pretty much touchy; body image is a hard thing for women to talk about.
We are all beautiful. Black, brown, white, yellow, tall, short… and the list can go on and on. We just need to start listening to ourselves instead of the media. Because on other issues, we don’t even pay attention to the media, and this should be one more thing that we shouldn’t listen to. We need to be ourselves and look at ourselves in the mirror and feel BEAUTIFUL!

So, I’m not that into video games (but I do love Mario Kart). I can tolerate them and watch them, mainly because my boyfriend is constantly playing COD: Modern Warfare. And I’m okay with the whole concept of a “shooting” game. After seeing this video, I was so disgusted by these Japanese video games. Rape a concept a video game? Are you kidding me?
What company in their right mind would think for one second that something like that would be acceptable to give to a public. Note to the creators: women are human beings, NOT OBJECTS that you can touch whenever and however you want to. Could you imagine if that ever came out in America? There would be a riot.
Like some of you have said in your blog, I also believe that video games can affect a child or even a young person. I thought video games were to entertain people, not degrade people. As a young woman I am beyond offended by this video game. Rape is taken very, very seriously in our Country- and hopefully every where else in the world. We do not tolerate this. How could another Country see entertainment in such a horrible action? I honestly can cry because of this game. What are women to these people? Objects? Just a body? This game can be played by younger children, and they see that “it’s okay” to treat a woman like this. To be able to touch her wherever they want to without hesitation. 10 years down the road, this kid may actually touch a girl like this when she doesn’t want to. And he won’t know how to act, and this can lead into physical aggression. Kids playing this game really don’t think about it being, I guess you can say “real life”. They kid of just see it as real life to an extent.
I wonder how rape is punished in Japan. Like, are the people who are charged sent to prison? Is rape a big deal in that Country? Rape is a serious matter. No one can truly understand the hurt and problems it causes the victims. It’s a lifetime. Why would any company think they could honestly make money off a game like this. How is this considered fun when there are so many victims of rape in this world.
The country should abolish this game. It is morally wrong and unacceptable in any Country. This is people’s lives that they are playing around with. I’m hurt for every woman and for every rape victim because of this video game. It needs to end and the creators of this game need a crash course on what “entertainment” is.

In Sam’s class we are very use to the humor videos that he shows us. Which are great. I’ve heard many times before that comics are the ones who say the things we are too afraid to. And I really believe that. So when he said this was going to be one of the two videos that he would show that was “disturbing”, I honestly can say I had no idea what to expect. During the video, I was thinking, “okay, he talked about this” or I’ve seen something like this in one of my media classes. But at the end, I was so blank. I had no idea what to think or know what to say. It was so appropriate that after the video Sam had a moment of silence for us to digest that. Honestly, I’m still digesting it. I felt so many emotions after seeing the video. Sadness, confusion, shock, all of the above. But I really appreciate Sam showing us this.

That seemed to be the main topic in our discussion group with our TA’s, the video. We talked about the media and Disney contributing to this as to why these little children choose the white doll. The media, of course, tells us what beautiful is even though they are wrong. Children at young ages don’t understand advertisements and things such as that as we adults do. But children do understand fictional characters. That’s where Disney takes a place in this. Who hasn’t watched a Disney movie such as Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, and Snow White? We all have. And little girls especially wanted to be a Disney Princess. So white and black children look up to these characters and see what they look like. They want to be like them, a Princess. Even if you look at the “bad” characters in the Disney movies, they are all represented by a darker color. Ursula from The Little Mermaid was a dark blackish/grey color; the witch in Snow White was also of a darker color. So how can’t these little children look at a darker color and not think “bad”? Especially when it is from such an innocent story to make them happy. And why did it take Disney SO LONG to have a black Princess? I don’t know. But I do know that these characters mean a lot to these children. They did for me.

We need to empower these children at an early age. Teach them that every color is beautiful and that no color is bad. Then maybe if we can do that we can help change the bigger problems. I really hope this can change. We need it to change.

I’m very proud to be a woman. I have the gift to give life. Maybe it’s just me, but I also thought it was interesting to see people walk out of class because of what Sam said. I really don’t think it’s that much of a big deal, is it? Talking about periods should be a normal thing, in a way. Women should be afraid and insulted when the topic comes up. We should be proud.
I never really thought about it until now that most women cannot talk about having their special friend. Is it because their embarrassed? Is it inappropriate? Or is it disgusting? I mean, come on, there are WAY more disgusting things that the human body does in females and men. Like men ejaculate (Ooohh ha-ha). Could you imagine if Sam said that in class? I wonder what would happen. I think most guys would have laughed and I truly think the girls in the class would have said nothing. Honestly.
The way that some women acted in the class reminded me of junior high school. The age where us girls first get their period. And I could distinctly remember never telling anyone because I was embarrassed and god forbid if a BOY found out, oh man that would be a disaster! I felt like that was the case in class the other day.
There’s nothing wrong with Sam saying that. I bet if it was a woman professor, there wouldn’t have been such a reaction to it. I think it was really cool how the girl on the bottom left (if your sitting) was like hand up straight in the air like “yeah, I’m bleeding, so what!”. You go girl. And what Sam said Laurie does in the bathroom is totally true. What girl doesn’t go into the bathroom and say “fuck”. They don’t have to yell it, but that little whisper, “fuck”. Yes, you know we all do it.
I could care less if someone talks about “bleeding” in that sense. It’s really not a big deal. Its actually pretty awesome, well some of the things about it. Like how we can give birth because of it, and in high school you could go home for the day, and you can totally be a bitch without anyone having to say something to you.
So we shouldn’t be embarrassed or upset over something that is uncontrollable and a part of live. We should really just say “hey, whatever”. It’s a period. Don’t get me wrong, I hate having my period, but I’m not going to be scared to let it be known I have it. So I’m okay and cool with Sam throwing that out there.

I would have to agree with most comment responses on this by saying I felt very embarrassed and pissed off by all of the rude comments. It was very inappropriate especially coming from a very well educated group of people. I didn’t feel like this was a college classroom, I felt like it was a high school classroom where those comments would not surprise me. We are given an opportunity to let our voices be heard by this man, which is a privilege in every sense. These people need to cut it out. I paid a lot of money to go to school here, I didn’t pay money to listen to rude comments and feel like I didn’t learn.
Anyway, I think both sides felt offended by comments that were posted on the projector. After reading some comments people were saying how the white people in the class didn’t give much of a response to the comments as much as the black students. Which, yeah, I saw that. But from my experience from yesterday’s class, I was offended by some of the comments about white people, as well as the comments about Black people. Like the comments that said we’re “rich, stuck up, etc”. By no means is my family “rich” and by no means am I “stuck up” or act like that in any way. I come from a working class family that did not spoil me. My family came to American from Poland with nothing. The people at Ellis Island even changed their last name because they couldn’t pronounce it. They had to start a new life with nothing. My Mother and Father provided me with what they can. And this is probably the same case for Black people, Hispanic people, and Asian people. The only thing different is our physical appearance, that’s it. And that shouldn’t even be an issue as well.
It seems to be a thing that both sides will always deal with. The stereotypes of White and Black people. Watching people like Dave Chappell yesterday brought humor to the issue. And I think that bringing in humor can bring light to the situation, but does not fully solve the problem. I don’t know, maybe these issues and comments will always be around us. Maybe we can stop it and maybe we can’t. But I know that we can try to be a part of the solution as a new generation.

In response to this question I have not attended any parties that involve a racial theme to it. Nor have I seen or heard of any parties like that. And I agree with some of the other posts that majority of the themed parties are very degrading towards girls and women in general. Sometimes I feel like it is just an excuse for girls to dress up “skanky” for a day, but hey, that’s my opinion.
When I have gone to parties or theme parties, they seem to be all the same (meaning the same theme and clothing). Some are Toga parties, bathing suit parties, different types of drinking game parties, “LBD” parties (Little black dress), and a lot more. These types of parties bring fun and excitement to a regular drinking party. You get to get all dressed up in a costume or something creative and actually be excited to go to a party, not to get all smashed, but to see what other people are wearing and enjoy the theme. Theme parties are a good thing in my opinion, like I said before; it gives us something to get excited about other than drinking. Maybe people should have them more often if it can do that. I don’t think any of the parties that I have attended before were themed “racist”, if it was, they wouldn’t be playing, and singing and dancing to rap music all night long.
But on the other hand, theme parties can be wrong, or should I say, not fun. I mentioned in the beginning of my post that majority of these parties degrade women by what they wear, but it can also open up another door. Think of it this way, you are at a themed party with your usual friends who you party with all the time. You dress very provocatively. Usually, both guys and girls do not see you like that every day. The guys are noticing you, flirting with you, trying to hook up with you. And this type of behavior can lead to sexual assault or even rape. I know, that seems to be an extreme, but it is reality girls face. It seems like girls are kind of asking for attention and guys, who think with something else, take that attention seeking to the next level. I’ve seen it happen before; it’s not a good thing.
So I wouldn’t say that theme parties are racist in any way. I mean some might be, but I know I have not experienced something like that in my life. And I hope I never do. Besides parties being degrading or racist, they can be positive, in a way, to give us something to be excited about other than getting drunk.

I think children in Elementary school should be and it should be required to learn about the Native Americans. Not saying they should know about the horrible killings of them in like Kindergarten, but they should at least know about them. Not just in Elementary school, but throughout Middle school, High school, and college.
I think what teachers should do is introduce the Native American people and their culture slowly at an early age. I think they should learn about the culture, the people, what they ate, where they lived, etc. They should know these things. I mean, we are living on their land. That is how it happened for me. In 5th grade we learned about the Native Americans. And at the end of learning about them we had to get into groups and present a project about them. What my group and I did was a interpretation of a Rain Dance. For our dance we all dressed up like Native Americans and made a cardboard cactus. We had Rain Water to drink (not the real rain water, but that drink made my SoBe years ago), and a rain stick. It was a great way of learning about the people and their culture, it made it really fun.
Now in high school, especially where I went, we never talked about the Native Americans. We talked about slavery and the Holocaust. This is the 2nd time since 5th grade that I am learning about the Native Americans. High school academics need to include the history of these people. Teenagers are old enough to learn about the horrible things that happened to them. Because I know in my case, when I heard about these things, I was shocked. I knew about the bad things, but not to a certain extent. We need to know about these things in order to “accept the blame” as Sam says and most importantly, educate not only ourselves, but others.
Since 5th grade, I learned about the Native Americans when I was a Sophomore in college. We read “Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions”. Not only did my Professor discuss the book, but we discussed the” real-ness” to it. He taught us about the taking of their land and the abolishment of them. It was fascinating, but very tragic. It was good to learn about this after so long. Because to tell you the truth, for me, the Native Americans are not what I think of when I think of something like slavery and the Holocaust. That’s why we need to educate.
It was good learning more about the people. I mean the information wasn’t too happy, but it was good to understand it more. We need to educate throughout an academic career, plain and simple.

I think that Gay, Lesbian or straight, a homeless and parentless child needs a family. Their sexual orientation should not matter as to whether or not they can adopt a child, but in this world, unfortunately, it does. So in my personal opinion there should not be a difference in a man or a woman couple adopting a child. It’s sad enough that children need to be adopted in this world.
A lesbian couple may have it easier as to adopting a child or children. Naturally we look at women as “Mothers” and “caretakers”, and there’s no problem with that. There is that Mother fulfillment they need to feel, Lesbian or straight. So by saying it may be easier for a Lesbian couple to adopt a child, I mean that people can trust a woman more with a child it seems. That the woman is more caring, loving, the Mother pretty much. And I’m not saying that men are bad parents, not at all, or don’t do any of those things, all I’m saying is that it seems much easier to give a child to a woman couple than a man couple. That doesn’t make it right, a Gay couple and a Lesbian couple should have an equal chance.
A gay couple may have it harder to adopt a child. It seems like people are hesitant to give two men a child. Why? Men are just as caring and loving parents as a straight couple would be. A Gay couple may even be better at raising a child than some straight couples. In my life, I have two older Gay friends who are a couple. Years ago they adopted two African American brothers. From what I have heard, they did have trouble getting the boys, it was a process. Primarily because they are a Gay couple. Today, the boys are grown up and one just had a baby girl. They grew up wonderful. Educated, loving, spoiled, and gentlemen. What more can you ask for? So there, a Gay couple is a good couple.
A parent is a parent. Men or woman shouldn’t be a difference. It’s sad that children who are in need of a home can’t have that because of who wants to adopt them. And it’s even more sad that it may just be easier for a Lesbian couple to do that. We are all equal, and I support the Gay community. I have friend’s who are Bisexual, Gay, and Lesbian, and I’ll tell you what, they are the most beautiful people inside and out. No one should underestimate them or judge them, because you will be surprised. Like I said, we are all equal; we should be given equal opportunity.

It doesn't surprise me that a wealthy-Southern official would make such an offending and hurtful remark. That seems to be those peoples game, talking without thinking. That does not make it right or accepted, but it seems that more recently politicians and officials are slipping up. For example, President Obama's White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel saying the "R" word publically.

Humans are humans. Animals are animals. Is that understandable? Humans, people, are NOT animals. How could a fellow human being call another human being an animal? That's a really low-blow to make people unaccepted and tell them they are not even of human kind. Andre Bauer has no idea what these people who need assistance go through in their everyday lives. Poverty, hunger, no money, shelter, etc. When this animal, Bauer probably has "it all". If he's concerned about certain welfare issues, he should take the time and learn about it and help solve the problems instead of adding wood to the fire.

So am I an "animal", according to this guy? I don't think so. I come from a family of upper-middle class. Not rich; not poor. My Mom is a stay-at- home mom and my Dad is a State Corrections Officer at Frackville. Last summer, my Dad didn't get paid for a while. No check, no money. And without the only income not coming, it became scary for my parents. The worst part about it is that he still had to go to work everyday. So how were we to buy weekly groceries, or pay the bills? We applied for welfare food stamps. We had to. Doing this didn't make us poor, we weren't afraid to admit we needed help, and we sure as hell weren't animals. And maybe some of you think "you didn't have it half as bad like some people". Yes, I know that, I do. I know there are people in worse situations than my family and I were.

We are not animals; we are human beings just like everyone else. Bauer should have used a better metaphor. He could have definitely used something different. How are we suppose to trust these elected officials and agree with them on serious matters when they section people out, in other words outcast them.

So what if people need help. Everyone needs some type of help every single day. I'm sure Andre Bauer needed help at some point in his life, especially with his career. And with money primarily. Why doesn't he put himself in someone else's shoes. Someone less fortunate than him and see how it is to be considered an outcast and called an animal. I'm SURE he wouldn't like it, at all.