7/7/10
Education is without a doubt the solution. Betting getting to that solution is the problem. I went to a highschool that was probably mid way between the two schools seen in the video, but for me personally it was also not even a question whether I would go to college or not.
So the problem is getting those kids a better education. The reason their school does not have the resources of the other highschool is because of taxes. The funds for public schools come directly from the taxes paid from the school area. If the people in the poor area only pay a small amount of taxes, their schools will not have much money, then they can’t provide a quality education to the students. Then many of the students don’t graduate or do not go to college, they don’t get good jobs and then can’t pay for better schools through their taxes. It is a vicious cycle that can only be over come if we change the way schools are funded because they way it is currently is extremely unfair.
You shouldn’t feel bad about your advantage but by recognizing the problem you should support changes to make things fairer.

7/7/10
I agree with Richards that nepotism and affirmative action are pretty much the same thing. With both of them you inherently being unfair and giving an advantage to certain people. I see how Richards was making the point that people who say affirmative action is bad but are likely to not say anything about nepotism can be hypocritical. This happens because people think better of themselves then they do of other people, as we saw from the many statistics like the 10 commandment poll. While they both are inherently unfair because they give specific people an advantage it is important to realize how affirmative action is important to have for the world we live in and why nepotism is natural. Some people can argue that affirmative action is reverse racism, but really it is just helping those who are at a disadvantage to come closer to even. Also people tend to overstate the effect these laws have and believe they are having a bigger impact then they really are, so in many cases they are still not actually even. I really have no problem with affirmative action. As a white man if I lost a job opportunity because of affirmative action supposedly I would probably be mad or upset at first but I think I would get over it and I definitely would not hold it against the minority in question.
After this lecture it would probably be easy to rail against nepotism but I do not think that would be the right way to look at it. Like affirmative action, nepotism is inherently unfair to people as a whole. While affirmative action is a calculated attempt at changing things I see nepotism as natural human behavior. Humans are social creatures and we are driven to make social connections to many people. Like Richards pointed out, people are more likely to say yes to you if they are speaking face to face. So it is natural that a person would want to hire someone that they know personally or has been vouched for by someone they know. As I said before I agree it is hypocritical to see a problem with affirmative action and not nepotism, I don’t think there is much that can be done about nepotism. People are naturally inclined to take part in nepotism and I don’t see how we could possibly make a law to curtail nepotism. I do not see how it would be possible to make a law stopping someone from hiring a relative just because they are related. Nepotism may make things even more unfair then they already are since it benefits the rich the most but there is nothing we can do about it so we just have to deal with it.

07/04/10
I agree completely that the ranting guy is an idiot, but there is no solace in recognizing that another person is an idiot. The best you can do is to understand why they think the way they do. As we have seen in class anti-immigration sentiment pops up whenever there is a bad turn in the economy and which ever group of people are immigrating at the time are the ones that are blamed. It is a part of the human condition where we need to assign blame to someone whenever something bad happens. People are uncomfortable with accepting the fact that life is random and chaotic so they force themselves to create patterns and reasoning to explain their problems. So when they lose their job and at the same time notice there are more immigrants in their neighborhood it is very easy for someone to draw the conclusion that they are related. Once you are able to understand where a person is coming from to make such stupid statements then you can move beyond the inanity of their comments.

7/4/10
Topics like these cause a lot of confusion for me. It’s not that I do not understand the topic, like immigration in America, it’s that I cannot understand at all how some people reach the conclusions that they have reached. Richards mentioned some of the common arguments people make against immigration, like how immigrants are not looking to assimilate and they refuse to learn English. As Richards pointed out pretty much every group of immigrants from the Irish to Mexicans acts the same way and are treated the same way. No group has stepped onto American soil and instantly dropped their culture and identity and instantly become “American”. Where do people get the idea that their Irish Catholic ancestors came to America and assimilated right into America and were accepted by the people who were already living here? Where does this assumption come from or can it be fully attributed to people re-writing history to make themselves look and feel better? I can understand why people would want to tweak their memory slightly so as to comfort themselves about something that happened in the past, but some people take it so far it is hard to comprehend how they pull it off. For example the lady with the sign that said “Hispanics keep out” I wonder how someone could be so ignorant. I wonder if she is willfully ignorant of the hypocrisy of that sign or whether she is just plain ignorant. It does not take a college class like Soc 119 to realize that all of the land she claims is “her land” once belonged to Native Americans. Maybe she really is stuck in stage one and is unable to make the connection, I personally just find it dumbfounding. But it is not like she is alone in this; we all participate in the re-writing of history. Every year we celebrate thanksgiving and act like everything was nice and peaceful between the Europeans and the Native Americans. Every year children in elementary school are taught about thanksgiving but the horrible things America has done to the Native Americans are left out. Most people learn at least parts of our true history but we still participate in things like thanksgiving. In this way we are participating in the re-writing of history. Obviously we cannot change what has happened in the past but there are still things we can do short of every non Native American packing up and leaving. By spreading knowledge to other people and not acting willfully ignorant you can spread our real history and not continue pretending that a lie is true. It may be much but it is at least something and can give the people that you know a greater perspective that can be applied to many more aspects of their lives.

06/30/10
What you said about not feeling uncomfortable around different cultures and the rap video go together. Sure the people in the rap video were emulating American rap music but reason they do this is because the thoughts and feelings they have about life in Germany or Lithuania are largely the same as in America and this is readily expressed through rap music. We really are not that different compared to other people around the world as we believe.
Also about the College graduate vs. High school graduate really is not that surprising. Going to college, even if it is largely white like PSU, gives you a wider view of the world because of classes like Soc119. So I do not find it surprising that the vote broke down that way.

06/30/10
In the lecture Richards made five points for multiculturalism and why MC will continue. I have some thoughts about the second point, globalization. I am not against globalization but I think it is worth arguing that globalization has a negative effect on MC. With globalization we are exposed to more and more cultures from around the world, but along with this comes a mash up of cultures. With the United States of America being a rich nation we see our culture bleeding into other societies and cultures. Capitalism is the important factor that drives globalization and a perfect example of this is McDonalds. McDonalds can be found in 125 countries around the world and there are over 31,000 restaurants around the world. This is just one example but with globalization our own western culture has spread around the world and overtaken parts of other cultures. Whether you see this is a good, bad, or neutral event is unimportant, what is important is to see how globalization does not necessarily promote MC. It can of course spread MC because we are given the opportunity to experience other cultures more and business does well to not be xenophobic but globalization can also cause a loss of culture by mashing multiple cultures together. I guess this goes with the fifth point about amalgamation and how the dominant group ultimately demands assimilation. While the example used for the fifth point was the “melting pot” of the USA I am talking about cultures found in countries other than our own.
The data on people who would like to live in a diverse area should be surprising to no one. There is a reason there was only two or three black republicans in the hundreds of students in the class. I do not like much about democrats but if you think republican policy is trying to help the lower or middle class then you are delusional. Of course people will make the argument that the “liberal” percentage is skewed because they want to appear to be not racist but I think this is overblown. People who voted they would to live in all white area probably would like to believe that the people who voted differently did it for bad or hypocritical reasons, but they are just lying to themselves. I like living in a diverse area, like the one I grew up in. I live in a suburb just outside of Philly that is very diverse. Despite being white when I am walking around Penn State it feels weird to me because of the large percentage of white people. I don’t mean it in a bad why like I hate white people or anything, it is just weird to be able to walk down the street and not see a black or brown person.

You have to remember that the footage is edited. So what may seem as a quick decision or lack of explanation for their choice may not be how it actually happened. But either way it is very disturbing and sad. It shows how black people are at an immediate disadvantage in life. The kids in the video looked like they were in about 1st or 2nd grade. You have to wonder what it does to a child when from such an early age they believe that their skin color makes them inherently “bad”. If you believe people of color exaggerate racial problems in today’s world, just watch that video to sum them up.

6/23/10
First off this lecture cleared up some confusion with the stages. I had the idea that the six stages were a progression and you move from stage one and up. I thought it was you kept on moving up and maybe you never made it past stage one, sometimes someone would reach the end at stage six and most people end up somewhere in between. But know I see that the stages are not progressive but instead six different ideas that a person can be. At anytime a person could be multiple stages, except for stage one I suppose and it can change at any time. As a white person and knowing this know I feel that I am in the third stage revisioning and somewhat of stage five but not so much. I probably am also in stage six but I’ll wait till we cover that fully to say for sure. Stage three includes anger towards white people. I do get angry at white people, but it is not just them, it is anyone white or black who perpetuates racism. It is not just white people who continue the problems we have as a society; it is anyone who does not work towards better relations between our races.
I was surprised by the study of popularity compared to a student’s popularity. I think if you ask pretty much any high school student of any race they will tell you the smarter you are the less likely you are popular. But according to the study for white kids the higher your grade point average the more likely you are to be popular but the opposite is true for black and Hispanic students. I think many people would think the reason black and Hispanics see this negative correlation is because many of their friends will look down upon them and say they are trying to “act white”. This may be a simplistic answer but it seems the most plausible. It is also obviously not true for all black and Hispanic students but for many lower class kids it seems to be. For white people I guess there is a positive correlation because success equals popularity and other people look positively upon it.
In the lecture when Richards talked about the rally in the HUB for the Jena 6 I thought it was the second women that was in the immersion stage. I thought this because it seems that she could not understand why white people would be interested in black kids suffering from racism from white people. That is something anyone should be able to get behind. If Richards said which answer was correct I didn’t hear him, so maybe someone can let me know.

06/20/10
So last comment I was unsure what step I believed I was at, but know we know about a few more steps. Before this class I would say that I do not feel “white guilt” by the definition I thought it meant. To me guilt means feeling bad for something that was at least partly your fault. In that sense I do not feel guilty for past racism or things like slavery well because I was not even alive. The whole idea seemed silly to me that someone would feel bad, or blame themselves, for something that was completely out of their control. But according to Richards the real definition is a little bit different then that. According to Richards white guilt is “The remorseful awareness of having been racist or having benefited from racism”. I do not believe I am racist so that leaves feeling remorse for having benefitted from racism, which I am sure I have many times whether I liked it or not. One of the definitions of remorse is compassion which I guess makes more sense for white guilt then its other definition which is “regret of wrongdoing”. If you have not actively done anything wrong then I do not think you should feel regret. But all of us white people should at the least feel compassion for other people because of how racism has hurt them and greatly benefitted us. The reason I think compassion is the one good thing about the definitions of these words is that compassion leads to action and like it says in Richards definition awareness is a part of it. Being aware leads to compassion and compassion will lead you to do things like stand up for a stranger who is being harassed because of their skin color, like the girl in that one 20/20 video. There is no sense in beating yourself up for something that is completely out of your control, but if you have awareness of the world around you and compassion for other human beings then you can have a positive effect.
So I feel that I am in line with many of the aspects of revisioning. Seeing racism and inequality and discomfort with inequality are feelings I have regularly and strongly. I have a small problem with the “anger towards white people” part of revisioning. The only white people I feel anger towards are the ones who perpetuate racism and inequality, the ones who refuse to put themselves in the shoes of other people. Blanket anger towards a whole people seems ridiculous. Maybe that is what the slide from the lecture meant but it was paraphrasing. I do not like what the points for the reversal step. They seem like they are backwards ideas and anyone with some intelligence would be able to skip over that step unless they were hurt somehow by people of another race. I could see someone who had an experience like Richards when he was accused of being racist falling into step 4.

06/20/10
Yeah the video with the two girls was really messed up. In Soc001 we watched a more in depth video about the girls and their family. In the video it showed that the girls are not completely comfortable with the ideas of their mother and the way she exploits them. They still seemed racist, but it also seemed that more and more they were being exposed to more “normal” and not racist ideas. Also their grandmother really hates what their mother is doing and has tried to help the girls see the world in a more reasonable light. If you are interested Richards could probably send you the video.
About the washcloth thing, I found it pretty funny. I went to a pretty diverse high school (especially compared to penn state) and I have heard the whole wash cloth and wet dog thing before. People didn’t make a huge deal out of, it was just something to have an innocent laugh at.