These videos were refreshing. One thing I really like about the first video is that it proves a level of biological sameness between two people who look completely different on the surface. I know the story is rare in and of itself, but it's still a pretty cool example. I also like this video because it's an example of someone just doing the right thing, with no regard to racial differences, social distance, or family relation. Two people who have no connection other than a common, friendly exchange over a grocery store checkout counter can end up being crucially important to one another due to a selfless good deed. We need more people like Mr. Coyne in the world.

The second video was also uplifting, but love hardly ever stays so innocent. I hate to sound pessimistic but I have a feeling that romantic love is deeper than a child can comprehend. However, it is neat to see how kids feel about each other without exposure to the prejudices and influences we experience as we get older. If these kids' parents are already influencing their thoughts, it looks like they're doing a good job so far. It's nothing like that video we watched of the sisters who sing white supremacy songs – that's an example of innocence ruined by parents' negative influence. Is there some kind of anti-Malaysian sentiment among Chinese people? Is that part of what makes the video special? I wonder if it matters where a video like this was shot. Are children in the United States more exposed to (and therefore more aware of) racial differences at a younger age than in other countries? I also wonder if, as time goes on, there are more interracial couples in the United States due to an increasing tolerant and accepting social climate. As new generations grow up free from influence on what races they choose to date, I bet we would see more diversity in couples.

Purest love can exist between two people of two different races; it's not something limited to innocent children. It all has to do with outside influences on your perception of other races. I'm sure if someone grew up oblivious to society's perception of interracial couples, or oblivious to what their parents preferred, that person would be more likely to date someone of another race. I'm certain my grandparents were shocked when my younger brother started dating a girl who was half white and half black, but to him it wasn't a big deal at all. It's no secret that love is color blind, so if there's ever any hesitation to be with someone of a different race, you know that hesitation is probably coming from an outside influence. The kids in the video haven't experienced that outside influence yet, and they're behaving accordingly.

Thanks for posting this. When Sam and Laurie talked about their visit to see the lifers in prison, I had a lot of trouble relating to them. The complexity behind this man's situation is unlike anything else I have contemplated while taking this course. On one hand, this man is a murderer. I don't know who he murdered or any of the details of the event, but when I think about murder, I think about how awful it would be if someone I loved was murdered. I don't think I could ever forgive someone who murdered a person who was close to me, so when I think of this man, a murderer, I initially have trouble sympathizing with him. On the other hand, this man is a human being. His words demonstrate his humanness pretty well. Maybe he was going through a difficult time in his life when he chose to murder someone. Maybe with better support from family, friends or anyone at all, the murder which landed him in prison for life could have been avoided. If I were him, I would never expect sympathy from the people he directly affected...but I don't know, but after reading that letter, it's hard to say that he isn't a changed man.

I've never been inside a prison before and I've never actually met someone in prison or someone who has been released from prison so I can't offer much personal experience here. I dated a girl in high school whose father actually went to prison right after we had stopped seeing each other for killing someone while driving drunk. I never met him, but from what she told me, he was relatively absent in her life and not what you could call a positive influence, but he was her father and she loved him in some weird, unexplainable way that no one but her and her sister could comprehend. I spoke to her after she went to visit her father in prison and she described the experience as surreal. She said she had never had a more reasonable conversation with her father – it was as if his mistakes had suddenly brought him clarity, and he expressed sincere desire to get his act together for the first time in his life. I know the experience greatly affected her since she wants to work with inmates when she finishes grad school, and I always think of her and the incident when topics like this come up in my life.

People can change. Sometimes they need a little help, sometimes it takes extreme measures, but people can change. Hopefully more and more people can read about stories like this and open their minds to that capability for change, even in what our society deems its "worst" members.

I was thinking about this the entire time I was sitting in class. Like most people have already written, I feel like societal pressure on males gets pushed to the side because a) men are the majority and are less likely to be sympathized with and b) having a problem with societal pressure on males is considered un-masculine. As a male and as a result of the latter reason I just mentioned, I feel inclined to suck it up and not complain about the pressure I regularly feel due to societal norms and gender roles, but this is also the perfect place to discuss this issue without being too harshly judged, so here goes.

Not a day goes by where I don't look at myself in the mirror and think, "man, you should really start working out again." I'm not unhealthy by any stretch of the word – I eat well, I'm not overweight – in fact I'm really thin, and while I'm thankful to have a lightning-fast metabolism, I do wish that I could bulk up. Sure I could put in more dedication at the gym, but isn't that true of anyone who is unhappy with their weight? No one would dare suggest to a woman struggling with weight that she should suck it up and work out. How insensitive, right? I'm affected by the media (GQ or Men's Health, for example) and compare myself to others just as much as anyone does, and although I'm sure a lot of guys wouldn't admit it, I bet many other guys are as self-conscious as I am. If you honestly think there isn't an idealized male image, think again.

What makes it worse for men, in my opinion, is that society tells us that we are not allowed to express how we feel. Whenever I get upset about something, I'm almost conditioned to think about it for a while, keep it to myself, tell myself it's not that big of a deal, and then push the issue out of my mind. Sure I'll confide in friends and family from time to time, but a lot of bottling does occur. If a guy has a problem with pressure put on them to look or act a certain way, they're just supposed to deal with it or write it off. It's just as hard for guys to become secure with themselves as it is for girls, honestly. Ever since I was a teenager I struggled with not being extremely masculine. The biggest disconnect between me and most other guys I know and hang out with has to do with a passion (or lack thereof) for sports. I like to play tennis and soccer and I like to watch tennis too, but I don't enjoy baseball and I'm barely into football. I don't know statistics, I don't watch ESPN, I don't care about March Madness, and I don't "have a team" for any sport, really. A lot of my male friends talk about sports like its their way of life, but I just don't get it. I sometimes wonder how many of them watch sports obsessively just because it's the male thing to do.

Hopefully this issue gets more exposure because I feel like no one truly takes it seriously. It must have something to do with how there are more stories out there about how girls go to more drastic measures to change their physical appearance.

I have always considered myself to be a very open-minded, friendly, and accepting person, so when I signed up for this class, I didn't take it to have my mind changed or have my opinions affected significantly. I just wanted to learn about various societal issues and have the opportunity to discuss them with people, and that's what I get out of the class every week. I've also learned that I still have a long way to go in terms of being truly comfortable with my race and the races of others. It also made me realize how complex race issues are. I used to think that because I was accepting and comfortable in my skin that it was easy for everyone else to be accepting and comfortable, but now I know how difficult it can be.

Soc 119 might actually be the only class of this entire academic year that I actually look forward to attending. I enjoy the course content, I enjoy watching the videos, I enjoy texting the screen before class starts, and I enjoy hearing what others have to say about what we learn. I especially like the small discussion groups because I feel like that's when we all really get a chance to say what we think. Dialogue is very important.

I also believe that a class like this is important to the average Penn Stater, i.e. upper middle class, white, Philly/Pittsburgh suburbanite, not much exposure to diversity, went to a predominantly (or entirely, like my girlfriend who is from near West Chester) white high school...you get the idea. I might be generalizing, but I know a lot of people who fit that mold. And I'm not trying to say that this class isn't important for me – my hometown is more diverse than this school, but I'm white, male, and fall into that middle income bracket just below upper middle class...so what we learn is beneficial to me as well. I just think there are some people here who need the exposure more. I think there are people who could afford to question what they believe and know, and this class helps with that too.

Sam and his examples might be a little dramatic at times, but we do need to be humbled from time to time. We do need to think about people other than ourselves. And we do need to think about how the decisions we make affect others around us. Being able to empathize with people is a crucial skill that I think this class helps to teach. If you can honestly say that you come to class every day and don't feel the slightest bit affected by what we watch, hear, and learn, then I feel deeply sorry for you.

I have also seen this video before, but the sinking feeling I get after watching the part where she identifies her color doll as "bad" still remains. I don't really know how to explain why the girl identifies with being the "bad" race; it's far too complex and something a white male like myself could never understand. There's something deep seeded in our media and our society that needs to be fundamentally corrected and this video is probably some of the best evidence of that.

I remember being part of a study like this when I was a kid actually. I think I was about 5 years old. A friend of my mom's was a professor at a local college (Wilkes University). She gave me a book with illustrations inside of a large number of kids playing various games in a park. She basically gave me the book and asked me to read through it and talk about what I was reading while she videotaped. I described the scenes in pretty neutral terms at first – "There's two kids jumping rope, one kid in the sandbox..." etc., but after I went through it once, she started asking me specific questions. "Do you see any differences between the kids on the bench and the kids on the swings?" Even at my age, I knew the obvious differences in skin color I was supposed to be observing, but I chose not to say those on camera. Instead I highlighted differences in the colors of their clothing, or the styles of their hair. I think I eventually admitted to noticing that some kids were white, some were black, etc., but looking back on the experience, I find it interesting that I already knew that there were tensions in mentioning racial differences. I don't know what my mom's friend was trying to prove in class...I should ask someday.

I also remember when I was about 6 or 7 years old, we had new neighbors move in who were black. Their kids quickly became part of our neighborhood crew and once, while we were playing basketball in my driveway, I remember specifically asking one of the new kids (his name was Harlan) to be on my team. I also made the naive, foolish and unknowingly rude comment that was something along the lines of, "Of course I want Harlan on my team, he's black." The older kids in the group quickly covered up my remark and no one really got mad because I think we were too young to fully understand the situation. Even I didn't realize what I had said. Like someone mentioned before, I grew up watching and admiring black men and women playing basketball on TV, so I made an assumption. Point is, we're affected by the world around us for better or for worse. I hope in the future we see less examples like in the video above.

This post is awesome. We talked about this in our discussion group on Wednesday and I think this story is so cool. Of course this is unusual; football is such a male-dominated sport, and mainstream football is overwhelmingly masculine, so having a female high school coach is definitely groundbreaking. But when you think about it, it doesn't matter at all – this woman has played the sport, she's clearly knowledgeable, modest, and could be as good of a coach as any man. Anyone who feels otherwise isn't really seeing the big picture here.

At our high school, we had a female boys' volleyball coach and a female boys' tennis coach. I played on the tennis team for four years, two of which were under said female coach, and she was even better and more successful than our old male coach. I know tennis is a pretty even split when it comes to male and female participation, but it was cool to show up to away matches during her first year as coach and not only shock a few people, but make them feel like idiots after we beat them. Not that it should have been shocking, but when you see a female at the head of a male team, it isn't typical in sports. Another team in our district had a female coach as well, and from what I know both women are still employed as the head coaches of their respective teams.

Having a female coach has also never been strange to me because my mother is also a coach. She coaches high school girls' basketball and coached college field hockey and basketball for over 20 years in the past, so I have always had a female sports role model to look up to throughout my entire life. My dad is an athlete as well, but my mom is a true coach, and through my years and years of soccer, basketball and tennis, she was always there and always a great person to have on the sideline. Honestly, I could see my mom coaching a football team if she wanted. She's more intense than a lot of the male coaches I've had and she's pretty well known and respected in our district for basketball, but after coaching at the collegiate level for so long, who can really question her knowledge of the games she coaches? Her being a woman has nothing to do with her expertise, although I'm certain that some referees and other coaches are less likely to take verbal abuse from the sidelines or consider her as respectable as their male colleagues, which is unfortunate and unfair. I think that we see less and less of this discrimination in sports now, and this story is a great example of that.

This one made me a laugh a little bit – I never noticed the overwhelming whiteness of 'The Bachelor' and 'The Bachelorette' before. I think this pattern might not be evident across networks though; think of shows like "A Shot at Love," "Flavor of Love," and "For the Love of Ray J" which not only include non-white main characters (Tila, Flav, Ray J) but also include several contestants of color (New York from FoL comes to mind immediately). This of course brings up a couple of obvious differences. These shows are on VH1 and MTV, which cater to a younger and probably more diverse group of people. I also wonder if the increased number of multicultural contestants have anything to do with the fact that the star of the show is not white. In fact the more I think about it, the uglier the Bachelor(ette) seems. Could the contestants be chosen on basis of things like income and education level, i.e. things that on average are higher for whites? Since we're talking about marriage on these shows, does this say something about the lack of acceptance of interracial marriages? Is the Bachelorette more interested in white men because on average, they make more money and have obtained more education? Yikes. These shows can be so shallow.

In response to the title of this post, I'm not sure if white people are the only ones willing to humiliate themselves but it makes me think. As a white person, I don't really feel a responsibility to positively represent my race. I don't do well in school or act morally on behalf of white guys everywhere. I do what I do because I have moral obligations to fulfill for myself, or I do what I do for the people I love, no matter what color they are. I rarely think about what my actions will say about me as a white person; in fact, the only time I think about it is when I am dealing with issues of race. I know there are some lame white guys out there, but for the most part, I trust others (of color and not of color) to abstain from generalizations the same way I do.

To be honest, the only time in recent memory that I was self-conscious of my identity was while I studied abroad in Ireland and traveled throughout Europe. I constantly felt pressured to behave and not be "that American." Not that I would have made a fool of myself anyway, but I always made sure not to draw too much attention to myself, always made sure I was polite to others, and always made sure to keep my voice down in restaurants (I noticed after a week in Ireland that you could easily pick Americans out by their volume level). I wanted to show Europeans that Americans were not obnoxious and brash like the stereotype would indicate. Do those of you who represent minorities ever feel similarly? Maybe some of you out there who are on the black and brown team can respond to this – do people of color feel a moral (or other) obligation to positively represent their race?

I tend to be a quiet person in public but I feel as if the situation we watched unfold in the ABC News video is something that no upstanding human being should silently ignore. Someone made the point in class that inaction in that situation is effectively supporting racism and hate, and while I don't completely agree that keeping quiet makes you just as good as the racist guy who gave the clerk a thumbs up, I do feel it is the wrong thing to do. The whole argument about it "not being your place" to speak doesn't even make sense to me. They were in a donut shop. Since when do we hold donut shops more sacred than basic human rights?

Most of the others who have commented on this post make note of the role that fear plays in keeping quiet during a situation like the one we watched in class. When you combine fear with the bystander effect, you get unfortunate results. I'm sure many of the people who kept quiet in the store were the ones in the background while other customers gave the shop clerk a piece of mind. It doesn't necessarily take a donut shop full of angry customers to make a point, but that also doesn't make it acceptable to watch someone else take care of the situation and then purchase food from a business whose employees abuse basic human freedoms and rights. That being said, I feel that as a citizen of this country and as a human being, it is always your place to stand up for what is right.

I watched a (drunk) kid run face first into the corner of a building and bust his head open last night. He was alone, but there were several groups of people walking around, including me and my girlfriend. At first I didn't see any serious injuries or think anything of it because, let's be honest, people do crazy stuff in State College all the time, and public drunkenness is nothing new. We've all been there. But as I passed him on the street he didn't get up and I could see as we got closer that he was bleeding pretty badly from above his eye. There were at least four or five groups of three or more people who saw exactly what I saw but just laughed and kept walking. My girlfriend and I went over to him though and asked if he was alright (though the answer was obvious) and ended up calling an ambulance for him. While we waited for a policeman to arrive and help out, no one stopped to ask if everyone was alright. The whole situation made me think – what would have happened if I hadn't walked by? Did everyone around me not think it was "their place" to help out?

I agree with the opinion that love is love and sexual attraction is sexual attraction. Love and sexual attraction are different feelings, but they can be combined, or they can be completely separate. For example, one night stands – they exist only on the basis of sexual attraction, which is a good example of how the two can be separate. Another example of this separation is the love one can have for a friend without being sexually attracted to them, like the friendship mentioned in this video post. It gets complicated when you combine the two feelings. Being "in love" with someone is different than loving someone. I think that bisexuals can simply combine love and sexual attraction (i.e. being "in love") whether they are dealing with females or males.

Let's put it this way. I am a guy and I've been dating my girlfriend for just under three years. I'm sexually attracted to her and I am in love with her. Part of the sexual attraction at this point comes from how much I love her, how much she means to me, and knowing how much I mean to her. This explains why I'm sexually attracted to her much more than any other female. Sure I see girls from time to time and think "wow she's hot," but the absence of love automatically makes that girl less attractive than my girlfriend. And of course I do find my girlfriend to be very physically attractive. I confide in my girlfriend differently than with my guy friends. I admire my girlfriend for different reasons. My girlfriend completes me in a way that my guy friends (and other girl friends for that matter) cannot. The thought of losing my girlfriend pains me unlike thinking about losing anybody else. When I think about being in a relationship with a male that is comparable to the relationship I have with my girlfriend, I can't really imagine it. Cuddling up to watch a TV show in bed seems different. Cooking dinner together seems different. Something is just off. However, I have gay friends that are male, and when we discussed how they feel toward their boyfriends, the scenarios I described above only seem natural when they experience them with other males.

But at the same time, I can understand how people can be sexually attracted to the same sex, but not ever experience feelings of love toward the same sex. You could line up ten guys in front of me and I could pick out the one that I thought was most physically attractive. I've seen guys I don't know and thought "that guy is attractive." I can even understand people having detached sex with someone of the same sex strictly to experience how it feels. Think of heterosexual one night stands – what is the true purpose of these? I suppose that bisexuals can experience these feelings with both sexes, and when you can feel comfortable sharing sexual and emotional aspects of a relationship with someone, that's where you draw the line. The reason why the line is so hard to draw has to do with how much of sexuality is tied to gender roles, and so much of anything outside of straight heterosexuality is seen in our society as questionable or taboo.

The message behind this blog post and the story of Boa Sr is very profound, if you ask me. Language has always been a personal interest of mine; I wish I could devote more time to learning more languages because of the communication and culture it opens you up to. I stopped taking Spanish classes as a sophomore here at Penn State, and I regret not sticking with it as a minor. I think the important thing to realize about language is that it isn't strictly for communication, although that could be considered the main purpose. Languages are gateways to new cultures, new meanings, and new forms of art as well. Traditional Irish folk, French rap, Spanish literature...there are countless examples of art and music that I've experienced that make a strong argument for the protection of language. Of course it's unlikely French and Spanish are going to be extinct anytime soon if ever, but that's not the point. Other languages give you a unique perspective on the people who speak them. Furthermore, there are ways to express things in certain languages that don't exist in others. I know Spanish has many of these words and phrases from studying it; for example, "estadounidense," like Sam mentioned in class a few weeks ago.

Studying abroad in Galway, Ireland last year gave me some insight into "dead" languages, particularly Irish Gaelic. There are regions of Ireland (Connemara, the Aran Islands) where Irish is spoken called "gaeltacht," but for the most part, no one speaks it. I lived with four Irish guys who knew some words and phrases they learned from school and colloquial sources, but no one of our generation spoke it fluently or frequently. The Irish language can be found in writing throughout the country though; in Dublin for example, all the tram stops are spoken over the loudspeaker in English and Irish. And in Galway, almost all of the street signs, shop fronts, and school buildings have Irish and English on them. On the Aran Islands, most people speak Irish fluently and consider it their native tongue, but for tourism purposes, everyone also speaks English. It's difficult to read and speak, has Nordic origins from what I recall, and the letters do not make the same sounds that they do in English (for example, "bh" makes a "v" sound). I'm not entirely sure of this, but I believe that the Irish government has historically and currently supported the use of Irish Gaelic and intends to keep it alive. For example, I heard from my Irish roommates that students who opt to take classes in Irish and write papers in Irish can receive certain academic distinctions. However it seems that despite these efforts the Irish language will fade away in the future long before English and the other romance languages. And that's a shame; I heard a folk band sing a song in Irish in a pub in Galway once and it was easily one of the most beautiful things I had ever heard. It seems wrong that culture should die out like this, but with the existence of globalization and the rise of a more inter-connected world, it looks like some languages will become casualties of the system. Think of how many people from other countries can speak English, but how many Americans only speak English.

I suppose as English speakers we'll all get over it.