There are a multitude of reasons that I feel it would be a lot harder for people to come out to their straight parents than if their parents were homosexual. To start, the obvious reason would be that if you have homosexual parents then you know they will be accepting of you no matter what your sexual orientation is. Although this is true of many heterosexual parents as well, there is more likely a chance that heterosexual parents would be judgmental and possibly reject their child if they came out to them. I highly doubt that a very religious father who preaches that homosexuality is a sin will be accepting of a homosexual child where as it is very unlikely to run into this issue when dealing with homosexual parents. When coming out to heterosexual parents, it can difficult to gauge what their reaction will be, even if you have a feeling that everything will be alright. To an extent, all of our parents (homosexual or heterosexual) have a plan for us as their children. They have visions for our future. When thinking about this, every heterosexual parent wants to have their daughter to grow up, marry a kind man and have a perfect, loving family. However, I feel as though when homosexual parents have a plan for their children, it is less focused on what sex they end up with and more focused on their overall happiness because these parents have a much greater understanding of how happiness is achieved. So although they may have nothing against homosexuality, coming out to heterosexual parents may throw a wrench in their plan for us. They have this preconceived notion that their children will be heterosexual because that is typically the case. I personally know that although my parents have some negative views on homosexual relationships they would accept me for me and move on. The main issue I think they would have is that their vision of their ‘baby girl’ grown up and getting married to a nice man and having the perfect little family would be skewed now. As I said before, it is much more likely that the heterosexual parents will be less accepting and what not for a majority of reasons. To start, religion could be a serious problem. Having religious homosexual parents is much different than having religious heterosexual parents in the sense that the heterosexual parents religion will like emphasize the sin of homosexuality where as the homosexual parents would most likely not follow that preaches negatively about their life. All in all, coming out to homosexual parents would be easier in terms of acceptance. Coming out to heterosexual parents will most likely alter their plan for their child and possibly result in inadvertent (and unwarranted) ‘disappointment’. Last blog, yay! =)

Before getting into this response, it should be noted that I was one of the white people in the class who did believe that the shooting of Trayvon Martin was in fact racially motivated. I was completely shocked when I saw the results from the clicker question in class showing that a large amount of the white students found this incident to have no ties to race. This seems completely illogical to me. There were direct racial slurs used by Zimmerman in the 9-1-1 phone call as well as past comments made, how can these facts simply be overlooked? I think the answer to that question lies in the fact the Zimmerman was not a white male. It was not a white on black hate crime that everyone is stereotypically accustomed to. I have a feeling that this lead people to question whether or not the incident was racially connected. I have heard many people say, “Zimmerman is not even white, how could this be racially connected?” Once again, another illogical statement. In this country, hate crimes have traditional been recognized with the white man in the wrong. The white man is the big man on top inflicting pain on those beneath him. This was not the case with the Trayvon Martin situation though, there was no white man involved so how could race be involved? This is absurd. Hate crimes and racial tension do not always stem from white people, there are tensions between many other races that exist as well. Zimmerman is the prime example of this; he does not fit the tradition stereotype of ‘the bad guy’ but he was. He shot and killed a young man who was unarmed and helpless. He made racial comments to the 9-1-1 operator and deliberately disobeyed him/her when he was told not to pursue Trayvon. Zimmerman took it upon himself to ‘protect’ himself and his community from the very dangerous young man with skittles and iced tea. The motive behind this was clear to me from day one and now that there is much more information coming out regarding the topic my mind has not changed; Zimmerman is a racist individual who owns a gun and used it to take the life of an undeserving child. The other point that has remained clear from the first time I heard and read about this incident is the Florida has some serious revising to do when it comes to a few of their laws. All in all, the fact that a large number of white students in class found this incident to be independent of race is disturbing. They all need to take a step back and think about it, would Zimmerman have pursued, shot, and killed a 17 year old white/Hispanic kid carrying iced tea and skittles on his way home from a convenience store?

I think that hearing from the Muslim women in class was very interesting. I have always wondered why they dressed a certain way and the principles behind it. It was very cool to hear their perspectives and gain an understanding for their culture. Also, I thought it was really cool to hear that there are restrictions on the men’s clothing options as well. I was always under the impression that only the women of this culture had specific clothing restrictions but evidently that is not the case. To answer this question prompt though, I think that Western women do tend to dress in a manner that shows little self-respect. Let’s face it, Western women are defined by a male dominated culture, with their sex drive leading the way. What is attractive is defined by what males think. Females dress inappropriately in order to impress males, not themselves. When walking around in a super short skirt and a see through shirt looking like a slut, females are begging for the attention from males in our culture. They are disrespecting themselves in a way by making it seem as though they have to dress this way in order to get male attention. At times it seems that Western women lessen their own value by giving into the male defined definition of ‘sexy’. Muslim women do not dress to impress males but showing off their body, instead the sexual aspect of the relationship between males and females in their culture is more of a private thing. For Western culture, with women dressing as they do, they sexual aspect of the relationship is publicly disclosed, leaving not much mystery. I do not think that all Western women show off their bodies for the attention from males but I do feel that that is something present in our culture. I mean, just look at the general populations wandering the streets on a Friday night here in State College. You will more than likely come across a decent amount of girls dressed like hookers, showing off their bodies for men to stare at and hopefully be attracted to. This is the complete opposite of Muslim culture where females hide their bodies from males and do not seek attention from them by luring them in sexually. I think the main reason that Western women dress this way is because they are socially conditioning to do all that it takes to ‘get the man’, apparently that goes as far as putting your morals and values aside on any giving Friday or Saturday night. As with most topics regarding Western females, this issue always comes back to the concept of male dominated culture. Women in our society typically live for the purpose of impressing men, with is sad in and of itself. I highly doubt this will ever happen but maybe one day, women will feel comfortable going out in a turtle neck and sweatpants and meeting men through conversation and not sexualization of their bodies.

I personally did not find the video to be offensive at first; I thought that it was simply funny. As time went on and I noticed that the men were only picking the ‘nerdy’ Asians I felt that they took it too far. They were only asking the questions about football to the Asians who looked as though they had no idea what ‘sports’ were. It seems to me that the purpose of this video was to highlight and reinforce the stereotype surrounding Asians in America and that is where the video lost its humor and became offensive in my eyes. Whether this video was made by a black man, a white man, an Asian man or a brown man, if the intent was to highlight the stereotype then I feel that it would have still been offensive. As for the second part of this question, if this video was made of white people asking white immigrants the same questions, I feel it would still be offensive if it was highlighting a stereotype. I do not think that the race of the video makers is very significant in this instance because no matter what, they are promoting stereotyping and all of the other negative things that go along with it. Now, realize that I am not an overly sensitive person when it comes to race but I do feel that stereotyping is wrong. It can be comical at times and it seems to be that this is a staple of American comedian throughout the race spectrum but there is a limit and I feel that this video just took it a little too far. Also, if this video was found to be funny because of their accents and issues with the language then I feel that this video is alright. I know from personal experience that being in another country where they do not speak your native language is very difficult. When I was in Panama over spring break, I would get very frustrated when I was trying to ask a patient something in Spanish and they didn’t know what I was saying. Often, they would laugh at me and this seemed to lighten the mood. Instead of being frustrated, I would rephrase my question and try again. The fact that people laugh when foreigners are trying to speak their language does not imply racism. It is just comical to hear someone try and they sound funny sometimes. When I asked the Panamanians why they laughed at us their response was that we sound funny and make words sound like others that sometimes mean funny things in context. The same can be said for people trying to speak English. I just think everyone needs to lighten up a bit and realize that languages and accents can be entertaining at times. That does not imply racism, it implies a good sense of humor.

I have asked many people this question numerous times, never really receiving much feedback so it is nice to see that this has been posted as food for thought. I grew up in a predominately white neighborhood in a small town in central Jersey. I distinctly remember attending preschool with one black kid, Alan-Michael, and none of us saw him as any different. The only time there was ever any mention of his race was during the annual winter holiday celebration ceremony. Every year, the preschool made a tradition of celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanza all equally. The week before the ceremony was spent learning about the different cultures and their means of celebration. I remember the there were a few kids in the class that asked Alan-Michael if he celebrated Kwanza because he looked like the people in the pictures. At this point the teacher reprimanded that kids and they were not allowed to gout for recess that day. But why did she freak out? No one really understood what the big deal was. I mean, the question was justified. He did look like the people in the pictures. None of us really understood what the big deal was. Now looking back on that situation I realize that the issue that teacher had with the inquisitive kids was that they saw Alan-Michael’s race. They saw that he was different from everyone else in the classroom and resembled the people in the Kwanza photos so they drew a parallel between the two. At this age, that is called stereotyping, then it just seemed so logical to the kids because it was surrounded by innocence. As time progressed and we all grew up, more and more blacks and latinos began moving into my neighborhood. Nowadays, the school is relatively mixed, especially in the lower grades. I don’t exactly know how the mindset has changed at all but I know that myself and the kids around me were taught in school to not see color. What we were exposed to at home is not something I am sure of either but it seems to me that the majority of us picked up on the lesson engrained in us during school, all colors are equivalent therefore color is not something that should be seen. Now in college, we are criticized for not seeing color and discussing race openly. People say, “How can you not see color?” They blame us, “See that’s the problem, white people don’t want to talk about race.” The reason whites don’t want to talk about it is because we were taught to overlook it. Now granted that is not the case for everyone, some people have other reasons, but I do believe that most white people are not avoiding the race discussion because they are scared of the topic but more simply because they are just not used to viewing everything in black and white.

After watching the videos of the soldiers in Iraq, I would say that my main emotion was disappointment; they really let me down. As Americans, we hold the members of our armed services to a very high standard and these men in the videos did not reach this standard. Americans idolize their soldiers as heroes who deserve a lot of respect for what they do for us, however this is not always the case. Now, do not get me wrong, I am not discrediting any man or woman in the service, but these videos do make you think twice. I do not think that there is a level-minded person out there that would not question the actions of the troops in these videos. From what we see on TV, the troops in Iraq are presented in a light of heroism and good. We do not always get the full picture. The American armed services, with not ill intention, have harmed the lives of many Iraqis, those in the video acting as the prime example. We are over in their country trying to help them establish a working and functional government system so they can be independent but we have veered from that path slightly. There are tons of videos that have been shown on YouTube (and occasionally on the news) depicting similar acts to those seen in these videos. Questioning the troops intentions is only natural and being disappointed in them is obvious. There was absolutely no need or justification behind any of their actions. In fact, the way they treat these people is very dehumanizing. I cannot believe that they would just crush that man’s car as they did. It was his livelihood. Now he has no way of support his family, which was likely poor already. This man’s whole family is being punished for a very small crime, it is absurd. On top of the stupidity of crushing the man’s car, this American soldier gloated about it as if he was teaching the Iraqi man a lesson. The only thing he taught this man was to over generalize. Because of this one incident, this poor Iraqi man now has a skewed perception of the American presence in his country. It now seems like the Americans are doing more harm than good and he can very easily spread his story to other in his community. The actions of the American soldiers in this video could completely alter the perception of the troops in Iraq. All in all, it boils down to the fact that the actions of the soldiers in Iraq represent America as a nation. When they misbehave it reflects negatively on the American armed services as a whole and the nation in general.

Seeing this picture made my heart melt; I have such a soft spot for families and couples reuniting after spending time away on deployment. This gay couple is no exception. When I look at this picture I see two people who are in love and finally reuniting after a long, trying, emotional experience. The fact that this is a picture of two men has no effect on me what so ever. Honestly, when I saw this picture, I instantly thought, “Wow, thank God he made it home to his man!” Not every one is fortunate enough to make it home from three deployments and if this Marine wants to celebrate by jumping on his boyfriend to express his excitement, then he should be able to do that without having to worry what others will think. Two of my closest friends are gay males and I would not trade them for the world. I still do not understand why everyone is so concerned with the whole gay rights thing. It seems so unconstitutional to me. America is the said to be “the land of the free and the home of the brave” so I do not see how it is alright to say that two people can not be in love. Just seems to go against everything this country stands for. I also do not really see where allowing for the acceptance of gay marriage has any effect of heterosexual people. The straight people are the ones with all the issues surrounding the issue but in the end, gay marriage has absolutely no effect on their lives directly. I believe that everyone has a right to be happy and if that means marrying someone of the same sex then go for it! Looking a little deeper into this picture, I thought this said a lot because of the recent abolishment of the ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy formerly enforced by the American armed services. The American flag is so perfectly placed as the backdrop for this scene that is just seems slightly ironic. I laughed for a second when I realized this and I thought to myself, “you show them!” I know that the couple in this picture had no intentions of this picture going viral and creating all sorts of commotion but I am glad that it has. This seems to me to be the first step of many in opening the armed service up to the fact that there are many gay members throughout the ranks. These two men, intended on showing their affection to one another but on top of that, they showed the world that being gay and being an American soldier can easily go hand in hand.

There is nothing that can be done to overcome this because it is not based on race. Race has nothing to do with it. In all honesty, I think relating the race of an individual to their intelligence level is inaccurate. They are not two things that have a direct relationship. However, indirectly there is more of a relationship here than any of us would expect. Lets start with income. White people seem to be on the top of this scale, along with Asians, and typically white people and Asian people score higher on the SATs than other races. Now this does not mean that Asian and Whites are predisposed at birth and genetically wired to be more intelligent to than other races, this simple shows a correlation between income and SAT scores. Higher SAT scores are not an indicator that Asian and White are more intelligent than other races. In all seriousness, the only thing these statistics are showing me is something I already knew. Whites and Asians, on average, have higher incomes. This, in turn, leads to them living in better neighborhoods with better education systems. Their children are provided with a higher quality education on average so it is expected that they will do better on the SATs because they are being taught more. As a side not, it is inaccurate to say that the SATs are an IQ or intelligence because that most certainly is not the case. IQ and intelligence and IQ are innate features, you cannot learn intelligence but you can learn the skills necessary for succeeding on the SATs. Proof for this can be seen in the fact that people’s SAT scores usually go up the more practice they have with the exam. If this were an IQ test, the scores would not change because one’s IQ/intelligence does not change. Anyway, back to the topic. The fact that Asians and Whites have a higher average income also increases the likelihood that they will have the extra money to pay for SAT prep class for their children, thus increasing the scores of these kids. I see no parallel between race and educational success. I do see a parallel between the upbringing of kids and the morals/values parents instill on them at a young age. Traditionally speaking, Asian parents are very strict with education, putting a large emphasis on studying before fun. I know that as a white female, my parents also preached this motto. Now I know this sounds stereotypical but I am speaking off life experience with my 2 African American friends and 1 Latino, none of their parents influenced them to do their schoolwork before ‘play’. Their parents were always too busy working so they were home alone after school and could do as they pleased. I had one other very close African American friend and his parents were just like mine, strict with schoolwork before anything else. Of the five of us, myself and my African American friend who had a stay at home mom are currently the only ones enrolled in college. I think it has nothing to do with our races but the issue is rooted in our upbringings. If we want to fix the issue in America with education, we need not look at race but instead look at parenting.

To be honest, I am not exactly sure if I would be considered an atheists or not but I most certainly do not follow or practice any type of religion what so ever. With that being said, I do not know if I really fit in the category of ‘atheist’ but I know that I am definitely not a creationist, in fact, I am the person that creationists hate. I do not see how there is any logic or scientific data behind 90% of religious arguments but that is a conversation for another day. As for the driving force behind this whole universe? I personally do not believe that there is such a thing. Now do not get me wrong, I am no astrophysicist or cosmologist so I do not exactly know what goes on out there in the universe or anything like that but I just do not see that there is a greater force in this. In order to answer this question, I have to rely on the more tangible knowledge I have, which brings me to the concept of life on Earth. How did we (humans) get here? How did it all begin? Why? How does it keep going… and growing? Now I do not have answers to all of these questions but I do have theories. I am a very, very strong believer in the idea of evolution. This may be due to the fact that I am a science minded individual, a biology major and a realist. I just see so much support for the theory of evolution in everyday life that I cannot refute it. There is not once part of this theory that does not make sense before. So I guess if I have to name a force that governs our lives here on Earth I would go with natural selection and the on going process of evolution. There is evidence for these within the every day lives of all of us. For one, let us take a minute to think about that fact that the old and the weak are the ones who are more prone to sickness and death. They are being removed from the gene pool because they are no longer fit. When they die they take their genes with them, including anything that predisposed them to the disease, eliminating their ability to pass it on to future generations. As this continues to happen, alleles that are seen to reduce one’s fitness are eliminated from the population allowing for the survival of only the fittest. This is only one example of this phenomenon. There are may, many more seen throughout all walks of life on this planet. I guess what I am trying to say is that I do not believe that the big guy in the sky has much, or anything, to do with our survival and driving force here on Earth. Down here, it is all up to natural selection and evolution.

Let me say this now, I am a white female from a small suburban town in central New Jersey. I grew up with many different races around me and I have a lot of friends from different backgrounds. With that being said, I would like to state that I most certainly do feel that white people shy away from the issue of race. This is evident in every day life. There are two reasons that I feel that white people do this; for one, we are taught to and for two, we are conditioned to. For a start, from a very young age, white people are taught to not see people for the color of their skin. Yes, all races of people are told this but it seems to be emphasized to people with white skin, which historically makes sense. Throughout history, white people have been the ones that have caused the most drama. From taking the country from the Native Americans to slavery to the Holocaust, white people have always been the bad guys. By telling young white children to not see color, we are in a way, teaching them to avoid the issue of race. If we avoid race, we do not have to confront these issues and can continue about our daily lives with no confrontation. The second reason that we as white people shy away from race is because when we do not, issues arise. When white people make comments about race, regardless of their intentions, they are always regarded as being a ‘racist’ and having a negative goal. If a white person sits down and tries to have a racial discussion with individuals of another race it almost always ends with a misunderstanding and a confrontation. Instead of having to constantly defend our words and thoughts, white people shy away from race. In a way, it makes us slight cowards but it also makes things easier. A lot of people say that if you ignore race, eventually it will go away however I do not agree with that. Ignoring race only makes the issue deeper because it is constantly internalized and never addressed. Everyone takes their thoughts and suppresses them while tiptoeing around the issue, making it a bigger deal than it really is. People have different color skin and different backgrounds and that is never going to change. Instead of worrying about who shies away from race and who addresses it we should stop scaring our children away from the issue. We should encourage them to be open with racial discussion and maybe then they will be able to successfully and peacefully approach the issues regarding race that our generations and past generations have failed at solving.