I think one reason why these people have not been stopped is that there are still many people who agree with their beliefs. They may not be as open as the members of the Ku Klux Klan, but there has to be a lot of support for a hate group as old as the Ku Klux Klan to still be around and have a decent amount of people still involved. Yes freedom of speech and assembly do play apart in the reasons why they are still around, but if a group of people were not only going around spreading hate through their words, but actually committing hate crimes against people, I would think that they would have been stopped decades ago. It doesn’t make any sense to me how America can go into Iraq and execute their president for what is going on in their country, for things that doesn’t affect Americans at all, but they cannot control a group of people in their own country from openly committing hate crimes.

I cannot count the number of times I have heard people complain about Middle Eastern immigrants getting all the “good jobs” like engineers and doctors, or people complain about every company outsourcing to India, or Spanish people taking all the minimum wage jobs. White people have a problem with non white people, especially those who are not from America excelling and that is the real problem. In my opinion it’s not the fact that these people are illegal immigrants, it’s the fact that they are immigrants period that creates an issue, and because you cannot just outwardly express your hate for foreign people the way that people do about illegal immigrants unless you will be seen as a racist, people use the illegal part to make it okay to hate people who are not “American” especially those who are black and brown, who are not “American”. This is very sad but very true, take a moment to think of the last “white” illegal immigrant you heard someone rant about, I can’t think of any can any of you?

People often get so hung up on what they believe are the negative aspects of immigration, that they forget all the positive contributions that immigrant people and “non Americans” have made to America as a nation and American culture. The first immigrants in America were Europeans, therefore all white people in America are essentially descendants of immigrants. It is mind boggling to me why the people who are against illegal immigration go so hard trying to fight against illegal immigration when they are not “real Americans” in the way that they interpret being a “real American”. In my opinion the fight against illegal immigration is just another way to be racist and discriminate against people who are not white. There are illegal immigrants from all over the world not just Latin America, yet you never hear people fighting about illegal French immigrants or illegal Scottish immigrants or any other European nation, you only hear about groups that are not white.

I get extremely upset when I hear people speak about immigrants because more than half the time people are just talking out of their behinds. People hear things on TV from other people who really don’t know what they are talking about and base their own opinions on a particular issue, from someone else’s view point, which is very stupid. Before speaking on any issue everyone should actually take the time to investigate an issue thoroughly before addressing it. For example the man ranting about how illegal immigrants are the scum of the earth, and all that crazy BS, he is an complete and total idiot and that is all I can say about him. First and for most I can honestly say that about seventy-five percent of the people that I know personally are immigrants or are descendants of immigrants. In my opinion immigrant people are the hardest working group of people that you will ever meet, and I can almost say that is a fact but there are no absolutes in sociology as the professor stated so I will just say one of the most. Immigrants come to America in search of a better life, and like Americans are in pursuit of the “American dream”. How can you penalize people for wanting better lives for themselves and their families?

I agree 100%! This lecture really helped me become more open to LGBT people and how they feel. I thought that I was totally open about homosexuality, but I realize that I wasn’t as open as I thought I was. I was still seeing some of the actions of gay people as being weird, and now I realize that its perfectly normal, its just my interpretation of their actions that makes me feel like it is weird. One thing that has also helped me become more open to the LGBT community is that I have gay friends, actually living and experiencing life with gay people makes you look at them as people and not as people who are gay.

lesson 12
People do not understand LGBT people so it is hard for them to be able to relate. What has helped me is that some of my closest friends have become gay and when you actually know someone you are able to put your differences aside because you are able to se them for who they really are, and not for their sexuality. The more I have began to learn about gay people the more I am able to realize that being gay is not really a choice. You are who you are and even if you decide to suppress your sexuality you will still be gay. The question about what was the earliest you have ever noticed someone that you thought was gay made me think of this little six yearold boy who lives in my apartement building back home who is clearly gay. He plays with my little sisters, dances around everywhere, and is just obviously gay. I never thought deep enough about the issue to actually think that wow he has to have been born gay. I must admit I was one of those people who really thought that being gay is a life style that you choose, but the more I learn about it and actually have friends who had “gay” tendancies actually come out, I realize that like being straight it is just the way you are. You cannot blame someone for being who they are. I also must admit that until this lecture I was a person who thought that when gay people openly showed affection they were “flaunting” their sexuality. I feel very ignorant to have never thought that just like we show our affection to the people that we love so do they. Has everyone ever noticed how people generally treat gay men worst than gay women? Why might that be? How much does being gay actually take away from peoples views of a gay mans masculinity? There are so many questions that people have about LGBT people that they are too scared or embarrased to really ask. Gay sex vs. being gay is very different from one another. For some reason when I was in tenth grade in high school every girl in my school was turning “lesbian” and many girls who have always seen themselves as lesbians were upset about all these girls saying this about themselves because they fellt as if they were making a mockery of their actual sexual orientation. I have friends who make sure that they make people understand the difference between being gay and being attracted to people of the same sex. Just because you find people attractive who are of the same sex does not mean that you are gay. People are so confused because we just don’t know, we should all take the time to understand people before we even think about forming opinions that are basically uneducated.

Reading making peace between our colors is very interesting to me because you are able to see race through the eyes of someone who is not “colored” which you often do not get to see. I think I have to agree that minorities rarely acknowledge the fact that racial issues also affect white people, which enable them to form a well thought out opinion on racial issues. I must admit that I haven’t always been so open-minded to the idea of white people actually having a good understanding of race relations, because it always seems as if they do not have the problems that we have. The Author speaks about how her father worked extremely hard to get where he is at, and I do not doubt that at all, but if a minority had the same story there may have been some road blocks in his way, simply because of his race. I believe that the main issue between colored people and white people is that even as much as a white person may try to understand what we go through as a colored people, you can never really understand because you are not colored. I am black but when it comes to certain racial issues I can feel like almost anyone of any race can relate to me but white people because they are not colored. Every colored person has or will experience some type of racism in their life, and although a white person might have an experience with racism it will never be like the experiences that colored people have. It isn’t that we will not allow white people to understand, it’s that we feel as if white people can’t understand. For example the professor spoke about how he began to become very acquainted with disabled people which enabled him to get a better insight about how life as a disable person may be, but no matter how acquainted he becomes he has never been disabled. He may be extremely familiar with the disability but because he has never had to really experience life with a disability, his knowledge stops there. This is the same for race relations, you can know as much as your mind will let you learn, but until you actually walk in the shoes of a person you will never really know. Even today I was hanging out with my best friends from back home when one of my friends whose first name is Shaniqua, said that she was considering legally change her first name to her middle name which is Renee because she thinks it will prevent her from getting a good job when she graduates from college. How many C.E.O’s of fortune 500 companies do you know with a name like that? Sadly this is life for many minority people and it’s difficult for us to really believe that a person who will most likely never experience the things that we experience can really understand our struggle.

I was also shocked by the experiment, I went home this weekend and noticed that my little sister have a couple white dolls, and I asked them why they choose white dolls instead of black dolls just to see what their response was, and luckily it wasn’t any real reasons. They were regular responses like they didn’t have the black doll, or they simply just liked the doll and there is nothing wrong with that at all, even I have had white dolls when I was younger but I never thought about any of the things that the children in the experiment thought about the white and black dolls. I want my sisters to grow up loving and being comfortable with their race the way that I am.

Reading making peace between our colors is very interesting to me because you are able to see race through the eyes of someone who is not “colored” which you often do not get to see. I think I have to agree that minorities rarely acknowledge the fact that racial issues also affect white people, which enable them to form a well thought out opinion on racial issues. I must admit that I haven’t always been so open-minded to the idea of white people actually having a good understanding of race relations, because it always seems as if they do not have the problems that we have. The Author speaks about how her father worked extremely hard to get where he is at, and I do not doubt that at all, but if a minority had the same story there may have been some road blocks in his way, simply because of his race. I believe that the main issue between colored people and white people is that even as much as a white person may try to understand what we go through as a colored people, you can never really understand because you are not colored. I am black but when it comes to certain racial issues I can feel like almost anyone of any race can relate to me but white people because they are not colored. Every colored person has or will experience some type of racism in their life, and although a white person might have an experience with racism it will never be like the experiences that colored people have. It isn’t that we will not allow white people to understand, it’s that we feel as if white people can’t understand. For example the professor spoke about how he began to become very acquainted with disabled people which enabled him to get a better insight about how life as a disable person may be, but no matter how acquainted he becomes he has never been disabled. He may be extremely familiar with the disability but because he has never had to really experience life with a disability, his knowledge stops there. This is the same for race relations, you can know as much as your mind will let you learn, but until you actually walk in the shoes of a person you will never really know. Even today I was hanging out with my best friends from back home when one of my friends whose first name is Shaniqua, said that she was considering legally change her first name to her middle name which is Renee because she thinks it will prevent her from getting a good job when she graduates from college. How many C.E.O’s of fortune 500 companies do you know with a name like that? Sadly this is life for many minority people and it’s difficult for us to really believe that a person who will most likely never experience the things that we experience can really understand our struggle.

Reading making peace between our colors is very interesting to me because you are able to see race through the eyes of someone who is not “colored” which you often do not get to see. I think I have to agree that minorities rarely acknowledge the fact that racial issues also affect white people, which enable them to form a well thought out opinion on racial issues. I must admit that I haven’t always been so open-minded to the idea of white people actually having a good understanding of race relations, because it always seems as if they do not have the problems that we have. The Author speaks about how her father worked extremely hard to get where he is at, and I do not doubt that at all, but if a minority had the same story there may have been some road blocks in his way, simply because of his race. I believe that the main issue between colored people and white people is that even as much as a white person may try to understand what we go through as a colored people, you can never really understand because you are not colored. I am black but when it comes to certain racial issues I can feel like almost anyone of any race can relate to me but white people because they are not colored. Every colored person has or will experience some type of racism in their life, and although a white person might have an experience with racism it will never be like the experiences that colored people have. It isn’t that we will not allow white people to understand, it’s that we feel as if white people can’t understand. For example the professor spoke about how he began to become very acquainted with disabled people which enabled him to get a better insight about how life as a disable person may be, but no matter how acquainted he becomes he has never been disabled. He may be extremely familiar with the disability but because he has never had to really experience life with a disability, his knowledge stops there. This is the same for race relations, you can know as much as your mind will let you learn, but until you actually walk in the shoes of a person you will never really know. Even today I was hanging out with my best friends from back home when one of my friends whose first name is Shaniqua, said that she was considering legally change her first name to her middle name which is Renee because she thinks it will prevent her from getting a good job when she graduates from college. How many C.E.O’s of fortune 500 companies do you know with a name like that? Sadly this is life for many minority people and it’s difficult for us to really believe that a person who will most likely never experience the things that we experience can really understand our struggle.