I thought this class was probably one of the best we have had yet. Yes, I do think that it was very intense and that Sam did push many buttons that people could have taken in ways that he didn’t mean for them to. However, I do think that it sparked a lot of thinking and that is exactly what this class is about. Sam does not mean to change our thoughts. He does not mean to make us think what he thinks. He just wants us to have thoughts period. I think that is the way teachers should be. They should provoke us to get us to think beyond the classroom. He wants us to think about the way the world works and the way things are different around the world. He definitely did a great job at getting us to think after we left that room. When we left that class, everyone walked out of the room and was talking about it.
One thing that was very shocking to me was the classes or schools for young Christians and the way these kids were preaching and crying. We watched this video in class about these young Christian kids believing that they needed to be “saved” it seemed. Honestly I did not understand much of what was going on in the video. I did not understand what was going on at this school, but I was completely blown out of the water by this video. Especially this one young little blonde boy who was crying like something ridiculous had happened in his life. Why was he crying? Why did he look like he was so upset? What made this happen to him? Who told him that this was OK? WHO FILMED THIS? I honestly would love to understand what it is that makes the kids act like this, and what the teachers and professors are saying to them that makes them act like this? What do they say to them? I want to understand, and I can honestly say that I do not understand at all.
I do not know what happens in these schools and I do not mean to be judgmental, but I almost feel like these kids are being taken into a place and being brainwashed into believing some bizarre things. What are they told? How do you take such a young child and make them act this way? I would love to go in and sit in on whatever is going on in their discussions that is making these kids act this way. Even when you see the teachers preaching and the kids responding, I would like to look and see and understand what is going on? Because really, what is going on? Where does this stem from?

I think this clip is absolutely ridiculous. I think it is beyond upsetting that people ein this world find enjoyment from something to terrible. It is humiliating for anyone who finds pleasure in playing this game. How is it possible that it can be legal to have video games like this anywhere in the world. How is it legal? How is it sane even? The Japanese government cannot let something like this happen. It is terrible to have young children witnessing something so terrible in such a playful manner. Not only is this game pornographic, which you would think should be censored from young children and youth, but the fact is that inevitably by watching something so terrible as rape in such a playful manner and such an open way can only make it more acceptable for it to occur. It will make it so rape is not seen as such a bad thing, when really there is absolutely nothing acceptable about it. It is dangerous that they could take something so wrong and make it so acceptable. It makes me angry. I know that it was taken off the shelved from some stores, but I would love to know what even possessed someone to create such a terrible game. A game where a player wins the game by raping someone is not a game at all. It infuriates me that someone would create a game that would be played by children and would allow them to partake in such a despicable action.
When reading other peoples responses, I see that some people were not surprised that the video game exists. That surprises me, because I was surprised. Why would a game like this need to exist? Why would anyone even THINK to create a game like this? Who was the crazy person to make such a decision? I understand that people feel rebellious by playing it, or feel “cool” by participating in a game that could be seen as being so wrong, but in the end that does not make it any better. In the end, people are still playing a game, which makes it legal to rape someone, to touch someone, and to inappropriately yet legally touch someone. Rape is illegal in every language, but for some reason this game makes it legal.
This reminds me of grand theft auto which also makes something extremely illegal legal. There is so much controversy about this game, but what makes it legal to play such a game where your actions are not legal in real life? Is that fair? Is it right? Not to me…
I am very happy that they took the action necessary to take the games off the shelves, but when will they be taken off the internet? People play on the computer still and regardless of where they are playing it, it is wrong. It should not exist and that is the end of the story. There should not be anyone playing a “game” when it is not fun for anyone to even hear about the actions the player is participating in.

I think this is really interesting and I find the issue of affirmative action very interesting. I do not think that we really understand it well enough to determine the fairness of it. When Sam asked in class who had been affected by it, very few people raised their hand. I did not raise my hand, but I am a minority. So did it help me? Who knows! When I applied to college I put that I am Hispanic/Latino. Does that mean I was affected by it? Did it help me get into college? Ho would I know? Is it even possible to know if you are helped by it? It is amazing how people are so bitter about it, when it was clearly created on the mission to better the opportunities for minorities. Sam also said that white women are the most helped. How is that so? How does that work? I do not understand how it works, and I also do not think that most people understand how it works, because if they did, it would not be such an issue. Something that was created with such positive intentions should not be seen as such a negative thing, even if sometimes people do slip through the cracks.
In my discussion group we spoke about affirmative action a lot, and it has made me think about WHO needs the help the most. I do not think affirmative action should help people based on their race. I do however think that it should help people who do not make as much money. They are the people who should benefit from it. Think of a poor white girl who can not get a great education because her public school is not a good one, and then a black girl who comes from a very rich household and goes to a great college preparatory school. Which of them needs more help? I think the poor white girl needs affirmative action to benefit her way more than the rich black girl. I do not think race should be the issue, but financial income should be. Those who come from a lower financial household have fewer opportunities and thus deserve to be helped somehow.
I do think that the best people should get picked to attend schools, and that it should be based on talent. However, I do not think that it is fair to judge people on the same scale when they have not had the same opportunities to grow and develop intellectually. How can you judge someone who went to a poor public school to someone who went to an advanced college preparatory school? You can not. It is not fair to compare them, because they are so different. They both give you different educations, expose you to different resources, and thus create different intellectual levels. But this has nothing to do with race. Your race does not affect your intelligence. A brain is a brain. So we need to find a way to make affirmative action more fair because it is lacking.

I do not think that it is necessary for men to talk about menstrual periods. It is not necessary for the subject to be brought up. I do get a little frustrated when girls bring it up, and guys get uncomfortable and seem to shy away from the conversation. This does not affect men directly, and thus it does not need to be an issue. In class the other day, when Sam brought it up, I was not weirded out by him bringing up a female menstruating. However, there were some things I did not agree with directly. I did not like that Sam called it “bleeding”. When he said that, I thought, we all have the ability to bleed if we get a cut, so what distinguishes the world bleeding from menstruating? Obviously they are two different things, but I just didn’t like the term bleeding as a synonym. I also did not like that it was dwelled on for so long, and I felt that some of the things that were said did push it a little too far.
I also thought it was funny that the girl who did the post asked if tampons would be free if men needed them too. I thought that was silly, because if anything, they would probably get more expensive. Why would they just give them away? It is a huge business because they are needed by half of the population (aka all women) but if men needed them, the market for them would only increase. If the entire world needed tampons, they would be a huge item to sell. Anything that both men and women need has a huge market for sales and if the entire world needed tampons, they would probably be extremely expensive compared to what they are now… because they can be.
I started reading other peoples responses and was reminded about the way in which we learned about puberty and sex when we were young. We were split into different groups, boys and girls, and were told different things. I never once wondered what the boys were taught, and never once thought that it was that different when I was little. Obviously it is extremely different because our bodies are different and thus we needed to learn that our bodies would continue to grow differently as we grew up. However, it does come to a point in which men do learn about women and women do learn about men. Especially as they reach our age now, and I do not understand why some men feel so uncomfortable discussing menstrual cycles. I am not talking in the context that Sam did, because I did think that that was a little bit over the top. But in general, many times men would rather ignore the fact that periods exist and pretend they have no idea what they are or what they entail, when really it is a fact of life and no one could avoid it even if they wanted to.

This post was funny to me because I am a huge fan of the Bachelor. I watch the show religiously, and ironically enough have never noticed that the cast was predominantly white. You would think you would notice this factor because it is clear to the eye, but I did not think about it until this post was brought up. This makes me think of how many other things I am sure I do not think about. Are most reality shows like this? What about Survivor? American Idol? How do these networks decide who to cast? Does race impact casting on reality shows? Should they abide by what America is like in terms of percentages of ethnicities? Would that make sense? I don’t even know the right answer to these questions because they could all be answered in many different ways.
Anyways, I was trying to find a reason as to why this may be the case. When they are casting for a show like the Bachelor, I am sure that the “Bachelor” or the “Bachelorette” who is the person searching for love, gives the producers a list of the kinds of people they are attracted to, or the kinds of people they would want to eventually share a life with. This is not an excuse to have a majority of the girls be white, but it may be that these girls are type casted and placed on the show.
I started thinking about other shows that are similar to the Bachelor in format. A show I thought of was For the Love of Ray J. This show has a similar format to the Bachelor and a more diverse cast. Is that because Ray J is black himself? So maybe just how Jake from the Bachlor this past season may have been more attracted to white women, Ray J would be more attracted to a more diverse group of women. Who knows? Here is a picture of the cast of this show to compare…. This cast is clearly more diverse, so is that Ray J’s preference, or Jakes prerefence, or is that the producers who are basing it off of their viewership. http://gossiponthis.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/0...
I also was thinking and wondering to myself: is ABC trying to portray equality? Obviously not. But does that matter? Is that an issue? They do not need 18 girls to be white of the 25 total because that does not make a difference to them. It does not affect their show much. This is unfortunate in a world made of so many colors and ethnicities, but as an avid watcher, I never realized that the show was so “white” so I can imagine that many others did not realize either. Should this change? Maybe… but it may also change the show. I think before answering this question we need to dive deeper and find out how the show’s casting department chooses the contestants and see if the particular interests of the “bachelor” or “bachelorette” take a pat of the decision making.

I thought that this class was extremely interesting and really made me think a lot about what I would do in situations like the one we witnessed in the video. It is amazing the amount of people in this world who are clearly blatantly racist and the very few that are so willing to help someone in need. I tried putting myself in the shoes of the Muslim woman in the bakery, and I couldn’t stop thinking about how terrible it must feel to be in her shoes. It must feel so bad to have someone tell you that you can’t be served or helped because of the way you look. The fact that some people are like this sincerely disgusts me. I can not fathom how terrible it must feel and I could not disagree more with the blatant racism that overtakes America. When I sit and think about it, I like to think that I would quickly jump and tell the store owner not to talk to her like that. I would automatically want to be the one who knows it is wrong and acts on it. I want to be the one who stands up for what is right. I hope that I would, but I also wonder if I would. I think that the two girls who really stood up for the girl were helped by the fact that there was two of them. I think that power comes in numbers and that they got confidence in the fact that they were together. I wonder if they were not together, if there was just one of them in that situation, if they would have said what they did. I wonder if they would have spoken up. I was trying to put myself in the situation, and I think that if I was with someone I would definitely stand up for what is right. I sincerely hope that I would do it even if I was alone, but I wonder if that is true or not. I honestly hope that I am never in the place to find out, but I have a feeling that I will eventually encounter this racism. It makes me angry that we even have to discuss situations like this. It makes me mad that people have to live their lives wondering “what if” and what people will do and say about their decision to be “different”. It really sickens me that the man who owned the store would treat someone so miserably for no apparent reason. It is unfair and it is not the way Americans should act. We live in the country of freedom and the country of opportunity, and seeing people like that reminds me that we are not even close to where we should be. We need to keep working towards making America more open, because we are clearly behind. But when will that happen? When will racism disappear? Will it ever??

This post was extremely interesting to me, because it is something that has already caught my eye. I have recently begun noticing how in my discussion group for Soc 119 we always end up talking about black and white and the differences and the racism that lies beneath. There are so many topics that deal with race. There are so many groups of people that deal with racism, but in the end it always come down to black and white. It always come back to “how do you feel about this as a white person or a black person.” This is definitely interesting and this is a great open forum and place to discuss this topic, but why is it that it usually comes back to the same question about a different topic.
In a lot of the posts above, people say it is inevitable and this may be true. For now at least it is. But do we think this will be the case in the future? Do we think this will ever change? It seem like we all agree that this HAS to change, but when will it happen. The fact that it is inevitable makes me upset because it shouldn’t be that way. We shouldn’t be stuck on the ideal that blacks and whites are different. Our skin color may be different, but we live in the same country, go to the same schools, drive the same cars, and should have the same opportunities. It shouldn’t always go back to black and white, because that is not what life is about. When will that change? I think it has to be our generation that steps into the change, and that eventually, with time, it will come. Our grandparents mostly lived through a deeper racism than we live in now, so hopefully we will continue to grow with less and less racism impacting our lives. Eventually it can and should disappear for good. We just need to work together to make this happen.
In the video clip posted above, she discusses that this topic’s prevalence may stem from events in the past like the civil rights movement. As much as I agree that these events in history have paved our actions and beliefs, I believe the media has an even bigger influence on us. The media has such huge power over all of us, especially our generation. Although racism has definitely become less of an issue over time, it still exists. I think we can blame the media in part for that. We talked in our discussion group about how the media portrays black people and white people in different lights, how unfair this is, and also how much it influences how we act. It amazed me how much the media can affect us, and how much it still portrays such “old school” characters in it.

I never saw the movie Avatar, I never really wanted to go see it when it was first out. Although I heard the animation was great and the effects were something everyone needed to see. It was even in 3-D which tempted me like crazy, but I never got around to it. Now that there is so much buzz about it, I do wish that I had gone to go see it and I can’t wait to actually get to see it. I hear the movie is genius and that it is nominated for many awards. However, I am very interested in the comments Sam made in the youtube video. The comments about the protagonist, or the “good guy” always been white stood out to me a lot. Is that really the case? I did not think so at first, but I cant really think of many movies where the “good guy” is white and the “bad guy” is black except for in movies specifically pointing out racial issues. Why is this the case?
He also made the comment that someone said that maybe they never noticed this because they are white. While I am Hispanic, I am also very white. I look white and act white, so maybe that is why it never shocked me. I wonder if I wasn’t white, if I would feel like it is unfair that the good guy is usually white.
I then started thinking about all types of movies, and started thinking about the main characters and their race. I began realizing how everyone used to always complain about Disney only having white princesses and not being culturally diverse at all. Disney has come really far. Yes, in the beginning they were all white. But now they are not. There are some diverse princesses, but it wasn’t until this year that a black princess joined the crew. Mulan is Asian, Pocahontas is Native American, and now there is a new princess who is black, Princess Tiana. Personally, I think it is great that they have opened the spectrum to new races and cultures and that they are starting to be more culturally aware. Disney took a step in the right direction, and I think that other movies will soon follow in their footsteps. I think that soon enough, the “good guy” will be black and soon enough the “bad guy” will be white. It is just a matter of time, and we will get there. I have no doubts that in the years to come there will be more racially diverse movies and that people will not be judged as much for their race. I don’t think race will always be such a prominent subject and I cant wait for that day to come. Honestly, it is about time.

This article was actually very interesting to me. I am Jewish, and while I am not in any way religious, nor did I go to Hebrew school or have a bat mitzvah, I do have friends who are very religious and who do use teffilin while they pray. My brother had a bar mitzvah and in his pictures from the event, he has teffilin on. Is this weird? Maybe… but I don’t think anyone should make judgments without understanding. I am used to seeing people playing with teffilin, but I am in no way surprised that some would find this act strange. It is not necessarily “the norm,” but I wouldn’t expect people to pull a plane down for it.
What I found funny about the article is that it was the flight attendant who made the claim about the boy being suspicious because of his religious practice. Yes, I understand that she didn’t realize what he was doing, but why didn’t she ask? I am sure that on a big plane, there was at least someone else who was jewish who could have explained the situation and avoided the hassle that they had to endure. I wonder why she didn’t ask someone around her if they knew what he was doing.
Every religious group has their own practices that those who are on the outside could find strange. I am sure if I didn’t know what teffilin was I would find it strange, but it is unfortunate that things so customary to some religions and cultures could seem so strange to others. It would be nice if we could be more integrative and more accepting of others, but when will that even happen?
Spell check is telling me that “teffilin” isn’t a word… doesn’t that show something? I think it shows that we are not open enough. If it is not in the English language, then how should anyone expect to know about it?
One thing I have experienced as a Jewish student at Penn State is finding people who tell me they have never before met a Jew until they came to Penn State, or even until they met me. I grew up in a pretty Jewish area, or at least an area where being Jewish isn’t weird. I find it to be funny when people have never met a Jew before because it seems so common to me. I never thought of being Jewish as a minority, although I always knew it was. I thought being Jewish was just like being anything else, and it is… but at Penn State it seems like so many people perceive it as being so weird. Why is it weird? While I believe religion to be weird in general, and while I think beliefs are weird, I think we cant judge each other’s religions if we don’t take the time to understand them. This brings me back to the flight attendant. I wish she had taken the time to think about what he could be doing.

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