en-us https://www.intensedebate.com/users/2448439 Comments by gss5044 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/19/how-has-your-opinion-changed-on-illegal-immigration-119-blog/#IDComment145233667 I think that a lot of illegal immigrants are just doing what they can to try to survive. This is the United States and some of them may be running from their country because of issues other than their economic and financial status and I think that that’s a really important thing to remember. I just feel like everyone has this image in their head that all illegal immigrants, because they don’t have papers, that that automatically makes them bad people. Which is not even the case, in fact, some of the nicest and most genuine and caring people that I know of are illegal immigrants. People just don’t give them credit and I think that if everyone has such a problem with the idea of immigrants coming into this country illegally, if you can’t beat the issue then just legalize them. They’ll bring more money into this country if that was to happen anyway. Fri, 22 Apr 2011 22:41:27 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/19/how-has-your-opinion-changed-on-illegal-immigration-119-blog/#IDComment145233667 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/19/how-has-your-opinion-changed-on-illegal-immigration-119-blog/#IDComment145233622 I think the one thing that people seem to forget is that every single one of us in this country, black, white, Hispanic, asian, what have you, we were all immigrants at some point in time and I can promise you that one of our family members were also illegal at one point or another. Also I think that people also don’t think about the fact that these illegal immigrants came here in search for a better life. They see all this stuff about how “these immigrants are doing this and that and taking their jobs and not paying taxes” but they don’t realize that if they WERE given the chance to actually just become legalized that they’re willing to do the same things that were all doing. Fri, 22 Apr 2011 22:41:10 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/19/how-has-your-opinion-changed-on-illegal-immigration-119-blog/#IDComment145233622 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/19/how-has-your-opinion-changed-on-illegal-immigration-119-blog/#IDComment145233360 My opinion on illegal immigrants did not really change even after Sam’s lecture. Growing up in a very mixed neighborhood where almost every single country and culture were represented as well as moving from place to place every few years due to my Mom’s work I was always exposed to everything and anything, including illegal immigrants. In fact, even now, I still know people who are illegally living in this country, some are even close friends, and I have absolutely no problem with it. It’s kind of interesting though because for the amount of illegal individuals that I know of, I still live in a county right outside of Washington D.C. that has one of the strictest laws regarding illegal immigrants. Fri, 22 Apr 2011 22:39:51 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/19/how-has-your-opinion-changed-on-illegal-immigration-119-blog/#IDComment145233360 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/12/do-you-think-you-would-actively-try-to-not-benefit-from-nepotism-if-the-situation-presented-itself-119-blog/#IDComment142995810 But now that I’m having trouble finding a job, I finally reached out and told him I needed him to make it happen for me. After thinking about it, I realized that it’s okay to ask for help sometimes, and that if I didn’t ask for his help, someone else would anyway, so why not take advantage, right? …Things change… I guess? Fri, 15 Apr 2011 03:17:32 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/12/do-you-think-you-would-actively-try-to-not-benefit-from-nepotism-if-the-situation-presented-itself-119-blog/#IDComment142995810 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/12/do-you-think-you-would-actively-try-to-not-benefit-from-nepotism-if-the-situation-presented-itself-119-blog/#IDComment142995729 I wanted to go to law school in my own terms, because I wanted to and because I can do it by myself. Not because someone was able to make a call and get me accepted. I just felt like if I let that happen, at the end of it all, I would have that hanging over my head, that “the only reason why you’re here is because someone helped you out, not because you were as smart as everyone else sitting around you.” I feel like I would feel even more insecure against the nerds that were able to get 170s on their lsats. In the end, I told him that I couldn’t take his offer and that I am just going to stick to my previous plan of working for a year and re-studying for my lsats. He thought I was nuts. But I just couldn’t do it. Fri, 15 Apr 2011 03:17:20 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/12/do-you-think-you-would-actively-try-to-not-benefit-from-nepotism-if-the-situation-presented-itself-119-blog/#IDComment142995729 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/12/do-you-think-you-would-actively-try-to-not-benefit-from-nepotism-if-the-situation-presented-itself-119-blog/#IDComment142995653 When I told my old boss, who’s now my mentor, of what had happened or what my plans were, the response I got was very encouraging but was also very discouraging at the same time. He told me that I was too obsessed with being perfect and that life isn’t perfect and that there has to come a time when I have to stop trying to make my life so perfect all the god damn time. He told me to give him the list of schools that I wanted to apply to and to send in all the necessary paperwork, lsat scores, applications, letter of recommendations, etc. to every single one of them and to let him worry about the rest. I politely joked around and responded with, “oh? And what are you going to do? Call someone and tell them to accept me? You really think you got it like that???” he looked at me blankly and said, “quite frankly, yes.” He then continued on to tell me about the people he was able to get accepted into all these great schools with a simple phone call. Knowing him and his connections, deep down, I definitely didn’t doubt him but I questioned whether his offer was the right thing to do. Fri, 15 Apr 2011 03:17:07 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/12/do-you-think-you-would-actively-try-to-not-benefit-from-nepotism-if-the-situation-presented-itself-119-blog/#IDComment142995653 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/12/do-you-think-you-would-actively-try-to-not-benefit-from-nepotism-if-the-situation-presented-itself-119-blog/#IDComment142995587 It’s funny that you brought this question up because I was definitely just put in this position a few weeks ago. I had an internship with a Congressman just last year and my old boss being in politics obviously had a lot of connections, and still does, as far as networking goes. My life plan was always to go to a decent University, graduate with honors and then move on to Law School. While I was able to accomplish the first two, Law School seemed to have taken a toll in my list of things to achieve. Not because I don’t want to go anymore, but because I took my LSATS---and while I got a little over an above average score, I feel that it still isn’t good enough to get me into the school that I want to go to. Needless to say, I decided to take a year off and postpone my dreams of going into the ivy league and better prepare for my LSATS in an attempt to get at least five more points than my original score. Fri, 15 Apr 2011 03:16:53 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/12/do-you-think-you-would-actively-try-to-not-benefit-from-nepotism-if-the-situation-presented-itself-119-blog/#IDComment142995587 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/05/did-putting-yourself-in-the-shoes-of-the-middle-easterners-change-your-views-on-the-war-in-iraq-119-blog/#IDComment140907508 I looked around the room and saw some people sleeping during this lecture. I guess some people just really don’t care, but everyone clapping their hands at the end of Sam’s lecture, gave me hope. This whole entire semester not once have we had the whole class clapping their hands at the end of ANY lecture. I guess it just showed me that people do care. That people do still hope and that people do still look for the good in the world. Fri, 8 Apr 2011 03:55:16 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/05/did-putting-yourself-in-the-shoes-of-the-middle-easterners-change-your-views-on-the-war-in-iraq-119-blog/#IDComment140907508 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/05/did-putting-yourself-in-the-shoes-of-the-middle-easterners-change-your-views-on-the-war-in-iraq-119-blog/#IDComment140907487 Seeing the videos clearly opened my eyes to a new idea and a new perspective. Seeing American soldiers destroy a car because a few Iraquis wanted to steal wood in order to build a house or provide heat, or what have you brought tears to my eyes. Seeing innocent civilians treated with such malice and such ignorance brought feelings of disgust. But even more than all of that, realizing how ignorant I have been in my opinions about what is going on in that part of the world and why Muslim extremists are doing the things that they do brought an even bigger feeling of shame. Fri, 8 Apr 2011 03:55:06 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/05/did-putting-yourself-in-the-shoes-of-the-middle-easterners-change-your-views-on-the-war-in-iraq-119-blog/#IDComment140907487 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/05/did-putting-yourself-in-the-shoes-of-the-middle-easterners-change-your-views-on-the-war-in-iraq-119-blog/#IDComment140907456 It’s always been a given to me that all this war going on in the middle east is totally and completely about oil, if not, it had something to do with oil. Either way, there was a connection between oil and war, but I never saw any of these wars as a type of religious war. I never opened my eyes to the possibility that muslims can have an opinion of us Americans as trying to convert the rest of the world into Christianity. I guess deep down, as much as I don’t want to admit it, a part of me also had discriminating questions of why people in the middle east can never have any sort of peace and why extremists were always so angry at the world, not at Americans, but the WORLD. Fri, 8 Apr 2011 03:54:53 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/05/did-putting-yourself-in-the-shoes-of-the-middle-easterners-change-your-views-on-the-war-in-iraq-119-blog/#IDComment140907456 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/05/did-putting-yourself-in-the-shoes-of-the-middle-easterners-change-your-views-on-the-war-in-iraq-119-blog/#IDComment140907427 I have always been the type of individual who’s very aware of what is going on in the world. I am often told that I am wise beyond my years and at times I kind of agree with that opinion of other people about me. As I sat there and listened to Sam passionately discuss his lecture and as I sat there watching those videos, I guess I came to a realization that maybe, I’m not as well aware as I thought I was and as I would like to be because I never saw things in that perspective. Fri, 8 Apr 2011 03:54:42 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/05/did-putting-yourself-in-the-shoes-of-the-middle-easterners-change-your-views-on-the-war-in-iraq-119-blog/#IDComment140907427 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/05/did-putting-yourself-in-the-shoes-of-the-middle-easterners-change-your-views-on-the-war-in-iraq-119-blog/#IDComment140907395 When I first walked into the lecture hall and saw the tweet question and the tweets being posted in response, I immediately knew that this was going to be a good class. Seeing Sam’s serious demeanor for once confirmed that everything that we were supposed to talk about that day was going to be a talk for a serious discussion. When I first heard Sam asking us to put ourselves in the shoes of middle easterners the only thing that came to mind was the video that we first saw in the beginning of the semester when a woman dressed up in middle eastern clothing at a gas station as an experiment to see how people would react to her. I thought about the discrimination and the cruelty that middle easterners had to go through after 9/11. The idea that I would look at myself, as a non-middle easterner, as a type of Christian invader never came to mind. Fri, 8 Apr 2011 03:54:30 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/05/did-putting-yourself-in-the-shoes-of-the-middle-easterners-change-your-views-on-the-war-in-iraq-119-blog/#IDComment140907395 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/05/did-putting-yourself-in-the-shoes-of-the-middle-easterners-change-your-views-on-the-war-in-iraq-119-blog/#IDComment140907212 When I first walked into the lecture hall and saw the tweet question and the tweets being posted in response, I immediately knew that this was going to be a good class. Seeing Sam’s serious demeanor for once confirmed that everything that we were supposed to talk about that day was going to be a talk for a serious discussion. When I first heard Sam asking us to put ourselves in the shoes of middle easterners the only thing that came to mind was the video that we first saw in the beginning of the semester when a woman dressed up in middle eastern clothing at a gas station as an experiment to see how people would react to her. I thought about the discrimination and the cruelty that middle easterners had to go through after 9/11. The idea that I would look at myself, as a non-middle easterner, as a type of Christian invader never came to mind. Fri, 8 Apr 2011 03:53:21 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/05/did-putting-yourself-in-the-shoes-of-the-middle-easterners-change-your-views-on-the-war-in-iraq-119-blog/#IDComment140907212 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/29/do-you-ever-feel-uncomfortable-around-two-or-more-people-speaking-another-language-119-blog/#IDComment139267906 here we are, there’s three of us that can speak and understand Spanish but the other five people obviously can’t…why are you two speaking in a different language knowing that the other people can’t understand anything that you’re saying?” I guess it didn’t much help that I was sitting in between these two either so I was put in an even more awkward position as I tried to converse with the other people and speak on top of the two people having a full on conversation next to me. I just thought that it was so rude to everyone else that didn’t speak Spanish. Looking at it from the perspective of everyone else in our group that didn’t speak Spanish, I would just feel like they were trying to talk about something that they didn’t want the rest of the group to know, like they were trying to hide something or make fun of someone without that person knowing it. Of course in reality they were just talking about their families, but still. I was so embarrassed by their actions that I had to interrupt and ask them to speak in a language that everyone understood. Sat, 2 Apr 2011 02:25:26 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/29/do-you-ever-feel-uncomfortable-around-two-or-more-people-speaking-another-language-119-blog/#IDComment139267906 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/29/do-you-ever-feel-uncomfortable-around-two-or-more-people-speaking-another-language-119-blog/#IDComment139267866 I speak three languages, English, Spanish and Tagalog but while my group of friends are usually divided and segregated by race, the one group of friends that does speak a different language are the Hispanics. One example of a situation where I felt uncomfortable with two people speaking another language was when a bunch of us all coming from different parts of the world decided to go out to dinner at Red Lobster. Two of my friends that came along were both from El Salvador and immediately hit it off pretty well. While we were sitting there ordering our food and waiting for our food to be served to us, one of them decided to have an entire conversation in Spanish with the other girl that was also Hispanic. While I myself understood everything they were saying and could have joined in on the conversation I felt a little uncomfortable and embarrassed for them at the same time. I just kept thinking to myself, “Ok, Sat, 2 Apr 2011 02:25:11 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/29/do-you-ever-feel-uncomfortable-around-two-or-more-people-speaking-another-language-119-blog/#IDComment139267866 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/29/do-you-ever-feel-uncomfortable-around-two-or-more-people-speaking-another-language-119-blog/#IDComment139267703 Growing up in New York and then later on moving to Washington D.C., I was always around people of many different cultures. Walking around the streets of NYC while you hear plenty of other languages being spoken everywhere you turn, if there was another language that was most common after English it would be Spanish. My neighborhood in DC is also filled with many people from different cultures. My next door neighbor five years ago was from Portugal while the other was from Russia. Every time we’d have block parties families would always speak to one another in their native tongue. For the most part I never really mind it but there are some situations that I’ve been in that I could consider uncomfortable. Sat, 2 Apr 2011 02:24:48 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/29/do-you-ever-feel-uncomfortable-around-two-or-more-people-speaking-another-language-119-blog/#IDComment139267703 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/22/what-do-you-think-about-interracial-relationships-119-blog/#IDComment137615512 They automatically assume African Americans with being capable of doing violent and terrible things. After meeting them a few times though, they started warming up to them and they soon realized that not all black people are the same. That people in general, are different and that they can’t just associate one thing to one specific group of people. Eventually I started getting praise about what a great person my boyfriend was or how smart he was and how he was going to go somewhere in life. I guess looking back on it now I can say that their opinions at that time did kind of bother me. Sat, 26 Mar 2011 02:07:54 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/22/what-do-you-think-about-interracial-relationships-119-blog/#IDComment137615512 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/22/what-do-you-think-about-interracial-relationships-119-blog/#IDComment137615492 My Mom has spent a few years working for the United Nations and never really had a problem dealing with other people of different cultures. I think I was more nervous about the fact that I had to tell her that I was dating some guy, than I was telling her that the guy was black. When my Mom first met them, both were very polity and so in return, she was very friendly towards them. It was such a relief seeing her reaction because I still wasn’t sure how she would react, but in the end, everything turned out fine. Other family members and other family friends, however, had a very different reaction. The rest of my family, as well as most of our close family friends are very conservative. Conservative in the way that they viewed relationships as “a person should only date their same kind, or marry their same kind.” While they made sure to never really mention any direct negative comments towards me when I had introduced them to my “boyfriend” at that time, I still noticed the looks that were given to me left and right. To them, black guys are trouble. Sat, 26 Mar 2011 02:07:44 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/22/what-do-you-think-about-interracial-relationships-119-blog/#IDComment137615492 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/22/what-do-you-think-about-interracial-relationships-119-blog/#IDComment137615451 I think it’s really interesting that everyone’s blog topic this week has something to do with interracial relationships and how white people feel about dating black people and what not. Living in D.C. for much of my life and growing up in the upper east side of New York City, I have been exposed to practically all the different cultures that the world has to offer. Because of this exposure to such diverse cultures, I have also been exposed to the idea of interracial relationships. A lot of my friends are Black and some date Spanish girls and guys, while others date White girls and Asian girls. Because of the mixture of races in my group of friends, being involved in an interracial relationship is something that I guess I can consider normal and not out of the ordinary. I, myself have dated two African American guys since high school. Both relationships didn’t last but both did last at least a year. I remember that when I first told my mom that I was going to the homecoming dance with a black guy, at first I didn’t really know how to say it and how to go about it. Sat, 26 Mar 2011 02:07:29 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/22/what-do-you-think-about-interracial-relationships-119-blog/#IDComment137615451 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/07/freedom/#IDComment134360054 I also strongly believe that people today really take everything for granted. It’s sad seeing and hearing some of my friends complain about so much of these materialistic things that we all cant seem “to live without,” when Africa barely has any food to eat. I think that we take our freedom for granted. Just like the author said, a lot of his inmates are mainly concerned with the idea of buying cars, houses and this and that but they never seem to just value what they already have. People don’t seem to just value the fact that they are able to wake up in the morning, breathe, have a steady job and live a comfortable life where they’re able to move around and do as much as they want to whenever they want to. The world’s value has been so strongly placed on the physical things that we don’t have that we hinder our own abilities in realizing just how lucky we are to be “free,” to have the chance to better our lives and ourselves every single day. It’s sad to watch and it’s sad to realize. Sat, 12 Mar 2011 04:26:50 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/07/freedom/#IDComment134360054