en-us https://www.intensedebate.com/users/760429 Comments by jmb5573 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/christian-invaders-the-turnaround__trashed/#IDComment68943668 I would have to say that this lecture really held my attention most of any of the other lectures throughout this semester. I have never been into politics at all. I don’t think I am very well informed so I just stay out of different political discussions. And the same goes to say for discussions on war. I could not say if I was for or against it. I never really thought about it too much. I see the attacks on television, I know people with personal experiences with September eleventh, but I still just don’t understand it all. I never ever thought to look at it from the other side. And that is why I thought this lecture was so interesting. I completely understand where Sam was coming from. He made us feel how they feel. They see us in completely different lights than we imagine ourselves. They hear different stories and see different things from us. And yet, they still don’t hate us. It is so clear when we saw pictures of the families that the student took over there. They asked the student to take their picture. We don’t think about the innocent civilians that are getting hurt. Just like all the innocent people that get hurt or killed in attacks on us. Based on the videos that were shown they still somehow have a positive perception of us. But when we see any Muslims we assume they are all bad. Just like when as a country we shunned every Japanese person in our country because of Pearl Harbor. They arrested Japanese Americans who had nothing to do with the Pearl Harbor bombings simply because they were Japanese. As soon as some war breaks out, we have a stereotype of that specific country and it changes our perceptions and we think that they are all bad. It really struck me when we saw the news report that was shown there. We see distorted news stories about what is going on over there just like they see distorted news stories. It all truly made me realize how it all depends on the side you look at to see which understanding you will have. And that brings me to think that the news truly does distort our views. We trust the news to give us the truth, but in all reality they are giving us what they want us to think. We need to realize that we can only take what they say with a grain a salt. Some stations portray different views and we need to really think about the station that we are looking at before we try to understand what they are saying. It happens in our everyday life and clearly, based on the lecture, happens in other countries as well. Tue, 20 Apr 2010 03:28:25 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/christian-invaders-the-turnaround__trashed/#IDComment68943668 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/women__trashed/#IDComment68263901 I feel as if they play was very effective. It was so great how it was switched around to a society that is obsessed with women that are flat chested. It really made me think about women issues. As far as the breast issue goes, I can completely see both sides. The girl in class who spoke up really touched me. It is true, shopping for dresses or swim suits really does bring a negative effect to us women with larger chests. It is insane to me that women get surgery to make their breasts larger. Why would you want to go through the pain that many of us women have to deal with. It is horrible to have to wonder if a guy only likes you for your chest or if he really only cares about your bra size. Another negative aspect is the pain that it can cause in the future, such severe back pains and other issues. Some women are busy trying to increase their bra size while others are doing their best to hide it; or better yet get rid of it completely. I believe all of this truly shows how messed up our society outlook on women is. We should not be getting breast reductions or implants. We should be happy with what we have. Although it always seems to be that you want what you don’t have. Obviously I lean towards sympathizing with those women who have larger chests, but I can see the insecurity issues for those flat chested women as well. It seems we just can’t win. We are constantly being judged by our chest. Is there really a perfect size? Will we ever truly be happy with what we have? I think that one way we can control this is definitely through Hollywood. Hollywood puts such a distorted view of body image in our minds. We aren’t skinny enough, or we don’t have big enough chests. It is always in the newspapers how women in Hollywood are getting face lifts, implants and even lipo. We need to learn to be happy with out bodies. The only way to do this is have confidence in our body. How can a surgery give you confidence? The only way I find surgery to be okay is if it is a serious medical condition. Body image is such a horrible problem in our society, but it seems to never come to an end. We see stars that are too thin. Or we see magazines where women are airbrushed and looked much skinnier than they are. And we wonder why eating disorders are everywhere in our society. The only way to get through this is to come together as women and not let men judge us; to show that we are happy with who we are no matter what shape or size. Thu, 15 Apr 2010 19:50:04 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/women__trashed/#IDComment68263901 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/this-is-totally-off-the-hook__trashed/#IDComment66703075 I watched this video and was absolutely disgusted and apalled. I have a lot to say about video games, but this took it to a new level. As a child, I never played video games. I never got involved with Pokemon or Nintendo or any of that. Occasionally I would play Mario Cart when at a friends house. I have two older brothers and neither of them ever got into the video phase either. So to me, video games were just a waste of time. I watched children sit around and waste hours playing video games. I believe when these children grow up it is even worse. I have watched college students stay up until seven in the morning playing these games; games where the task is to kill as many people as you can. I have seen them skip classes, and eventually end up failing courses because of these games. To me, it is just a waste of time when you could be doing better things. Not even necessarily more “educational” things but more appropriate things where the idea was not to find guns and shoot and kill the “enemy.” I would rather hear of people sitting around watch television or movies or playing outside. As you can see I am not a huge fan of video games in the first place. Therefore when I watched this video I could not even begin to fathom it. It was outrageous to me especially considering of big an issue rape is. Rape is not something to joke around about. It is bad enough having killing games, but when a games objective is to rape a girl, that is just disgusting. If people think it is okay to treat girls like this in a game, what makes us think that they do not think it is okay in real life. There is absolutely no excuse to such a game. It is just a cover up saying that it helps rapist get out all their thoughts through a game. Just because they play a game where the rape a girl does not mean they will not go out and do it in real life. In fact, it will probably inspire them to do it even more. As a woman, I am even more disgusted. This is showing a complete lack of respect towards women. It is putting us all out there in a bad way and making it okay. The fact that the person they interviewed in the video was okay with this game amazed me. How can any woman even think of playing such a game? Where can we draw the line? We thought it was okay to have games killing people, but now this? I can’t imagine if such a game came to the United States. Things like this need to stop, our society needs to stop disrespecting people for the sake of a video game. Fri, 9 Apr 2010 02:09:19 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/this-is-totally-off-the-hook__trashed/#IDComment66703075 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/03/those-damn-dolls__trashed/#IDComment65433854 When I saw this video I was appalled and absolutely shocked. I cannot believe that when shown a black and white doll the children picked the white doll. It just shows what a world we grow up in. Everything around us, it is shown that a white girl is put on a pedestal. The children’s parents are not teaching them this, it is not taught in textbooks that white women are better. So where is it coming from? I believe that it is coming from society. It is coming from the society that we grow up in. There are so many stereotypes out there. And there are so many reasons that children are growing up thinking that white women will always win against a black women. You can see this in television shows such as the Bachelor or even America’s Next Top Model. In the Bachelor, it is all white women, and inevitably a white woman always comes out on top. In America’s Next Top Model, there is a more even amount of white women and black women, but many times, a white woman once again wins. In regular sitcoms, white women usually play the leads. In most movies, white women play the leads. I very much see this apparent in Disney movies. Children grow up watching Disney movies. How many Disney movies can you name where there is a black princess? Cinderella is blonde and white. Sleeping Beauty is white. Snow White is white. Children are watching these movies where there is no sign that a black women is a “princess” or that she comes out on top. They do even have movies where they try to stay away from the white stereotype, like Pocahontas with Native Americas or Mulan with Asians. But never do they have a fairytale with a black woman being the princess. You can also see this to be true by walking down an aisle in a toy store. The majority of the Barbie’s are white. Yes, there are a few black Barbie’s, but the Barbie’s that the majority of little kids play with are white. Even the majority of dolls that children play with are white. As sad as this all seems, it is very true. We are all growing up in a white world. The world is leaning towards being white. It is comparable to how the world leans towards right handers. For those of you who are left handed, the world is not set around you. There are not as many left handed seats, cars are not made for left handers. Just like the world appears to maybe not be made for black women. I believe that we need to change this. We need to realize that in order for equality, we need to start at a young age. It is not a good thing for such young children to see white as better than black, even when the child is black. It is absolutely horrible and I believe that it needs to end, and it needs to end starting when the children are young. Fri, 2 Apr 2010 04:16:19 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/03/those-damn-dolls__trashed/#IDComment65433854 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/03/is-this-just-a-few-bad-apples__trashed/#IDComment63595677 I was absolutely appalled by this story. We live in America, a country that grants us the freedom to speech. But people need to learn not to take advantage of this freedom and to respect this right that we have been given. To me, these actions are just embarrassing towards the United States. I understand that healthcare has the country divided, and I can respect people for using their right to protest. However, this type of protest is taking it to a whole new level. How can we expect other countries to respect us if we can’t even show respect to the people who are running our country? Yes, as I said earlier it is good for people to be voicing their opinions. But this is an inappropriate way to be doing it. When I look at people protesting like these tea parties are I would not even care about what they were protesting because of the way they were going about it. On the other hand, if someone was having a protest and was not doing such inappropriate actions, I would take the time to hear their side and try to understand where they were coming from. I think it all comes down to how we use our freedom of speech. We need to use it in a positive way, use it like it was intended for. Not use it for hatred. People are always going to have problems with who gets elected into office. Or they are going to have problems with whoever is President and how they are running the country. And it is certainly ok to voice your opinion about this, but once again in an appropriate way. We need to show some respect towards our president. There was a reason he was voted into the position. There was a reason a majority of the United States population voted him in. We need to have faith in those that voted for him and give the president a chance to prove that he deserves the position. If people are going around saying completely inappropriate things about our president, how should we even being to think about trying to work with other countries and telling them how great the freedom of speech is? In the end, what it comes down to is respect. We need to learn to respect each other, no matter how we feel about each other. This can all be brought back to race relations as well. Once we all realize that by supporting and respecting each other, we can do huge things, we will be better off. The only way that we can be respected by others is if we respect everyone around us. Maybe race relations would not even be such an issue if we all followed this simple rule. Tue, 23 Mar 2010 04:52:17 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/03/is-this-just-a-few-bad-apples__trashed/#IDComment63595677 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/03/prom-or-no-prom-just-dont-let-the-queer-students-dance-together__trashed/#IDComment62334072 This article is about a prom being canceled because of a lesbian couple wanting to go. To me, this is absolutely ridiculous. What has our country come to that it is canceling prom because they don’t want a lesbian couple going? People should be free to chose who they want to take to prom, whether it is another girl or a boy. I went to an all girls’ high school. We had smaller formals throughout the year, then one big formal, Snowball, for the whole school in January. For the smaller formals if you didn’t have a date you were allowed to go by yourself or with someone else in the school. So maybe this would be considered your “lesbian” date for the dance. However, when it came to Snowball you had to have a date. This date was not to be another student, it was to be a male student to join. One girl tried to go by herself and they would not allow it. I thought this was also absolutely ridiculous. There reasoning behind it was that they thought we needed to experience it for our social development. Once again, this reasoning seemed ridiculous to me. We say we want to move forward and start accepting people as a country, but when things like this are going on we will never truly be able to do that. We think that we have issues between blacks and whites, but there are so many issues with LGBT members as well. It is going to take small steps to accept such things, but we need to start somewhere. I thought it was a generation-type issue. However, reading this article made me think otherwise. I thought it was just our grandparents who had issues with the LGBT community because they were stuck in their old ways. But this article shows that those who are running the high school, a younger generation, are still concerned about this. Once again, we need to start somewhere and I believe in these high schools is exactly the place to do it. I think it is great that here at Penn State we have such a great program for the LGBT community. The former president of my sorority is a LGBT Greek Outreach intern; in fact, she is having a program about it in my dorm this coming week. She is not a member of the LGBT community but she is working hard to help their equality. There are always events and programs to help learn about it. I went to one and really learned a lot, it was an eye opening experience. I believe that we need to have this kind of awareness available to many more people. Maybe with this kind of awareness all over the country people will be much more open and it will one day not even be an issue. Tue, 16 Mar 2010 03:50:37 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/03/prom-or-no-prom-just-dont-let-the-queer-students-dance-together__trashed/#IDComment62334072 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/02/a-long-long-way-indeed__trashed/#IDComment59481718 A fellow classmate of mine proposed a very interesting question. We focus so much on the progress we made and how we can continue to make progress. But has anyone really stopped to think about how those who lived in the past, specifically slaveholders, would feel about this progress. In their time, there seemed no possible way that things would ever appear as they are today. Many slaveholders were very set in their ways, and nothing was going to change this way of this. This life where they ruled and had slaves doing their dirty work and threatened and often times used violence to enforce this. Times certainly have changed and it would be an incredible thing to see how these slaveholders would react. Just imagine if they turned on the television how they would feel. As my classmate said, specifically turning on MTV would be a shock. All over MTV you see music videos by people of color. You see reality shows where white and black people are associating with each in a very friendly way. You see shows about relationships between black and white people. The fame that white people are able to make is just as easily made by those of people of color as well. I am sure that these slaveholders would be appalled by this. How could this race, that they once owned, be making such strides in the entertainment business, of all businesses? This is not only true if you turn on MTV. Numerous other shows include black pepole. Some shows are based on only black families, like the Cosby Show or The Bernie Mac Show. Other shows seen on television have a mixture of all different races and many times these races are getting along and interacting with each other. It is not shocking in the slightest to turn on the television and see people of other races on it. Even in movies, this is all very evident. Some of the greatest actors and actresses today are black. Denzel Washington and Halle Berry are great examples of their success in the movie business. Yes, we hear about race relations and we realize that we have a long way to go to truly create equality. However, my classmate makes a very valid point. Slaveholders from the past would be shocked to see such things. It is crazy to me to think that anyone would even be surprised to see black people on television or in movies. The color of a persons’ skin should have nothing to do with the fame that they receive. I don’t believe that white people are seen as being any more famous that black people. It is great that we have made these strides. This is a positive way to look at the progress we have made in comparison to how slaveholders would feel these days. However, by looking at this we should also realize and try to come up with others way to continue this progress in other businesses. Wed, 3 Mar 2010 04:16:46 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/02/a-long-long-way-indeed__trashed/#IDComment59481718 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/02/native-americans-question-one__trashed/#IDComment58739027 The question presented is a very interesting one. When should we start education? Young kids don’t know who Native Americans are, but they know who Indians are. They hear Indians and draw a stereotypical person, with a feather. This is a huge problem. This problem stems from our parents and then just trickles down from generation to generation. In my previous discussion group we talked about having a similar class to soc119 a requirement. This way we could break this trend. We could all learn about racisms and stereotypes and break them. However, we came up with many problems about this. There are some people that are set in their ways and taking a class like this would not change them. Especially people whose parents are also set in their ways, a class like this certainly would not change their opinions. Also, depending on what school you are attending, depends on your teachers. You may have a teacher who flips this type of class and does not do it in an effective way. The teacher is a key component to the class and not having an effective teacher could ruin the entire purpose of the class, getting rid of the stereotypes that we all hold against certain people. Now more specifically I believe things about racism and stereotypes should be taught at a younger age than a college level class. When you get to college is when you see a large amount of stereotypes and racism. Therefore you need to learn about these things before going to college. Many times I believe it needs to be learned before going to high school as well. High school is when you do a large amount of your growing, as far as deciding your different beliefs. Maybe it would be effective to have a class in seventh or eighth grade. This way you are exposed to all of these things before going into the world of high school and college where you experience all of this. This class could be very similar to the class we are all taking now. People should be free to openly talk about their thoughts and beliefs and begin to form their own beliefs, possibly ones aside from their parents. Because many times kids just take on their parent’s beliefs and run with them for the rest of their lives, they don’t even have the chance to form their own. This class could help them have a better understand the world around them and possibly encourage them to do their own part in changing these racisms. As I said before however, this all must begin from our parents. Or maybe we need to be the ones to start it. We need to teach our children non racist beliefs. If we start taking these classes and then teach our children these things and they take the classes, it will eventually change from generation to generation. We need to act on this and educate everyone about it, it is the only way it can be changed. Fri, 26 Feb 2010 03:12:08 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/02/native-americans-question-one__trashed/#IDComment58739027 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/02/lgbt-class-question-six__trashed/#IDComment57323509 The question is why lesbians are more accepted than gays. I’m not sure if this is necessarily true, but if it is there are many reasons why I believe it is. Many of the reasons are because of society today. In society it is seen as “sexy” or a turn on when guys see girls kissing girls. Girls that are not lesbians are often found kissing or doing other inappropriate things just to please guys. Whereas, when girls see guys kissing guys, it is a total turn off. No one really seems to find it attractive when two men kiss for entertainment. Another reason is because of how society portrays men versus how they portray women. Men are supposed to be masculine. They are supposed to go to the gym and take care of the family. While on the other hand women are supposed to be emotional and care givers. Therefore, when men are seen as being more emotional, it is automatically looked down upon. Whereas as for women it is much more common for them to hug their girlfriends, sit on their laps, or even kiss their girlfriends without second thought. You may see two girls walking down the street holding hands and think nothing of it. But if you see two men walking down the street holding hands, most people stop and stare or get turned off. This is because it is seen as “not normal” for men to be this emotional or “touchy.” There is no way around it, this is how society is. But if all reality I believe it is absolutely ridiculous. You hear all the stereotypes of how lesbians act and how gay men act, but they are not necessarily true. If men are not supposed to be as emotional then why is it that the “butch” women are more accepted than the gay men? The women that are more manly are going against their stereotype as well, so why are they not as looked down upon. We need to get away from these stereotypes. We need to realize that we should not be prejudice against anyone, regardless of their sexuality. As a society, we are trying to make all of these steps forwards is not judging people based on their race, so why should we not do the same thing based on sexual orientation? To me it seems that men have a harder time being friends with other gay men; whereas women sometimes love to have gay friends. There is the stereotype that gay men are really good at shopping or fashion. But this is where we need to start, we need to back away from these stereotypes because not all gay men dress with high fashion or carry purses. Everyone has their own way of showing their sexual orientation and we need to be accepting to all of them. Wed, 17 Feb 2010 19:36:54 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/02/lgbt-class-question-six__trashed/#IDComment57323509 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/02/negros-of-the-world-unite__trashed/#IDComment56051503 This is an article that we discussed in our small group yesterday. It is unbelievable to me that the word negro is stilled used in the U.S census. We live in a world where we have had a civil rights movement and we are trying to make steps forward in accepting of other races. There are some countries that are still extremely racist and we pride ourselves as being a country who accepts people of all kinds. This contradicts all of that. We want to live in a world where race does not affect anything. It should not matter for jobs, for sports, or schools. In fact, I don’t think the census should even ask your race. I don’t think college applications or job applications should ask race. And I don’t think that there should be any rules saying how many nationalities you must have on your sports team or in your organization. I don’t think that pictures on brochures should be sure to include every race to show diversity. All of this is just taking steps backwards. It is showing that race does matter. If we all want to live equally, then we should not acknowledge race for any of these things. By asking what race someone is, we are drawing attention to it, and not blending all races together. Why does it even matter what race we are for the census? The only reason they ask race is so they can say that a certain area is mostly black or mostly white. Then the politicians can go out and say certain cases in certain areas. This once again, is taking steps backwards. For college applications why does it matter what race we are? That just shows that there may be some biased in selecting applicants. In class we talked about a rule in sports that a team must interview someone aside from a white man for the job. To me, this is a ridiculous rule. Many teams already know who they are going to chose to be their coach before even interviewing. So they are basically wasting another coach’s time just to show that they accept other races by interviewing him. Race should not play a part in any of these aspects. Should we start asking on applications if a person is blonde or brunette, that way we don’t discriminate against them? No, we are all equal, no matter our skin color, hair color, or eye color. I believe that all these rules are just taking us away from the improvements we have made since the civil rights movement. We need to take it upon ourselves to be sure that everyone is treated equally without rules and regulations. You constantly hear stories of people trying to boost themselves by saying how cultured they are, but we shouldn’t have to announce that. We should all be diverse and cultured in every way. I think that until this is true, until we all blend together without rules, we won’t have true equality everywhere like we strive to have. Tue, 9 Feb 2010 19:10:50 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/02/negros-of-the-world-unite__trashed/#IDComment56051503 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/02/avatar-and-the-white-mans-burden__trashed/#IDComment55133546 When I first heard about the movie Avatar I had no desire to see it. I was never into that type and movie and even with all the rave reviews; I still did not think that I would enjoy it. However, reading this article gave me a small incentive to go and see the movie. It also made me think about these stereotypes that Brooks describes. There is no way for me to tell if these stereotypes are true in Avatar, but based on other movies it is fairly obvious. This is not true only in movies. Growing up Catholic, Jesus was always portrayed the same, a white man. All the stories you read and movies you watched had Jesus as a white man with long brown hair. It seems that in movies most of the heroes are white men, as Brooks stated, in Pocahontas John Smith is the example. If you look back on your childhood examples many of these stereotypes seem to be portrayed in movies. However, just because this is how they are portrayed does not necessarily mean they are true. I do believe that is it sad that this is how things are portrayed. As Brooks says, we see that whites are stereotyped as technocratic and that nonwhites need a White Messiah. We all want to live in a world where stereotypes don’t rule us; where they don’t influence how we think or act. But how are we going to live this ideal way if we are unable to escape the stereotypes. It is such a simple thing to fix. You would never imagine that movies portraying these stereotypes would affect us in a large way, but when you think about it, they do. Everyone sees movies, no matter what age. Or if you don’t see them, you hear about them. Therefore the only way to live in a world where stereotypes don’t influence us is by beginning to change. And changing these movies is one start. Maybe everyone does not see these underlying messages in these movies. But for those of us who do it is sad; especially when our country is now run by a black president. This does not fit into the stereotype because in these movies the Messiah is a white man. Having a black president may be the beginning to changing this “White Messiah” image. For Americas, Obama is our Messiah, and he is not white. To me, ending these stereotypes could help so much. It could help end racism. It could really help bring people together. Now, as I said earlier I have never seen Avatar so I am not sure if this whole theory is true for the movie. But the theory of these stereotypes certainly is true for other movies and it needs to stop. We need to live in a world free of stereotypes. After reading and thinking about all of this I now am looking forward to going to see Avatar to really try to better understand where Brooks is coming from. Wed, 3 Feb 2010 04:12:29 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/02/avatar-and-the-white-mans-burden__trashed/#IDComment55133546 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/01/i-guess-it-pays-to-learn-a-bit-about-other-people__trashed/#IDComment53904499 I grew up in a small town, went to a small grade school, then a small high school, and then came to Penn State. “Downtown” in my hometown consists of one street, a few pizza places, Starbucks, Wawa, and CVS. I knew everyone in my grade school, which ranged from kindergarten to eight grade. My graduation class had thirty two Catholic students in it. Then I graduated high school with a hundred and twenty five Catholic girls. To put it simply, I was pretty sheltered. Needless to say Penn State was a culture shock. It was so diverse and such a great experience. But it really did prove to me how little I knew about different cultures. I was completely blind to different traditions. I saw people walking around wearing turbans and I saw devout Jews dressed up as well. It was all so enlightening and new to me. Therefore, based on my experiences I can completely understand this flight attendants concern on the plane. It is very unfortunate that such things occur though. In fact, I find it almost sad that the family members’ responses were so nonchalant. Based on their reactions you could tell that this has happened to them before, you can tell it’s nothing new. I feel as if this shows how closed minded many people in our country can be. It shows how sheltered many of us probably are. I think that we all need to become more familiar with other cultures and their practices. If you look closely enough, you will find it all very interesting learning about why certain cultures eat what they do or dress the way they do. I know I made it seem like I was very sheltered in the beginning but I do have other cultures around me in my hometown. A perfect example of cultural differences comes from a story during my high school years. A lot of my friends were from Philadelphia in high school because my school was located in the Northeast. One day my friend came over to my house for the first time. There are many devout Jews in my area and on Friday’s you always see them in their suits, hats, Yakamas, and dresses walking everywhere. My friend had never seen this before so she glanced at them and proclaimed, “Whoa you really do live in the suburbs, there are so many Amish people walking around!” I couldn’t help but laugh. I’m sure everyone has similar stories of their experiences with new cultures. I think it is all great proof that we need to broaden our horizons and reach out to learn about others. Penn State is a great place to do this because there are people from so many backgrounds and cultures. Taking the time to learn about them would make everyone feel more accepted everywhere they go. And it would also prevent something like this airplane story from happening again. Tue, 26 Jan 2010 07:37:35 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/01/i-guess-it-pays-to-learn-a-bit-about-other-people__trashed/#IDComment53904499 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/01/last-name-begins-with-b__trashed/#IDComment53899357 jaclyn Tue, 26 Jan 2010 06:32:15 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/01/last-name-begins-with-b__trashed/#IDComment53899357 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/01/haitis-calamity__trashed/#IDComment53230593 I also was raised Catholic, I have gone to Catholic school starting in kindergarten all the way through high school. It has been pounded into my mind how Jesus died for us, he died for our sins, and he sacrificed himself for us. Like Laurie, I have always had a difficult time grasping this concept. Although I always believed it anyway, no doubts about it in my mind, it just was. It wasn’t until just now, reading this, that I began to again think about this concept again. This disaster is Haiti is a horrible thing. I cannot even begin to image how people there are handling themselves. It is disasters like this that make you realize that things are random; they don’t happen for a reason. There is no way that any of those people deserved this. But Laurie’s right maybe disasters like Haiti are similar to Jesus dying on a cross for each of us. Maybe the reason people have a harder time believing Jesus dying on a cross for us is because it happened so long ago; no one was there to experience it themselves. On the other hand the Haiti disaster is very real, it is hitting close to home. I sat in class the other day and watched as my teacher passed around bags to collect money for the victims of Haiti. I watched people put in as much as they could for people they didn’t even know. I watched ten dollar bills, even twenty dollar bills, get put in the bag. I listened as we were told that as a class we raised over a thousand dollars for the victims of Haiti. This example clearly shows Laurie’s point. It shows that disasters like this can pull people away from sin. Almost every student in that classroom gave up there greediness for those victims. They gave up that money that they were going to spend on a new shirt, or a night out at the bar. They were pulling themselves away from their sins of selfishness for those in need. There is another similar example from my high school experience. In the city of Philadelphia a police officer was shot and killed. One student in my high school took it upon herself to sell soft pretzels to raise money for the victim’s family. I watched hundreds of students once again give up there selfishness and greediness for people in need. They were able to see that people were suffering and they were able to realize that they couldn’t single-handedly take away the pain, but that they could pull together and help a little bit. All this truly allows me to better understand the crucifixion. Just like we were taught in kindergarten and again in high school, we should think about what Jesus did, and not sin. I think in times of peoples suffering we all automatically think about how we can change something within ourselves to better those victims. It seems crazy that something like the Haiti disaster could so closely relate to our Catholic faith, but it really does make sense. Thu, 21 Jan 2010 23:31:02 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/01/haitis-calamity__trashed/#IDComment53230593