Illegal immigration has always been a clear topic when showed in the news or any TV show, in general, however, in class last week, I saw the other side of the story which is really complicated where the government actually has something to do with it. Where the government relaxes the boarder when they need more workers and they tighten it when the market is good. This really interested me because I never knew about it and also, we sometimes see Americans talk about workers situation in other countries and they have the same if not worst condition here in the United States. I am from an Arab Gulf country and the workers there aren’t treated that well but when making the comparison between how illegal immigrants here in the United States and in gulf countries I sort of see that the workers in the gulf have a better condition than the undocumented workers here in the states. I have been asked several times about the conditions about the workers we get from south east Asia to the gulf and how they are treated and I always feel bad for them even though they made the choice to come and they know what to expect the thing that I hate the most is the gulf governments not doing much about it. And now I am seeing the same situation in America with the government knowing about it and actually helping in it, for example by relaxing the border is a little bit worst because the condition and fear illegal immigrants live in is unimaginable.
My personal view in illegal immigration never changed though. I still think that if you want to move to a country you should do it by the book. I am aware that hunger and poverty is the main reason for immigration but the conditions here aren’t much better if you are poor and without and education and this is what we saw in the video when Sam showed the video of the workers in Queens, new York who don’t even have a place to sleep and the only meal they get in a day is a meal that is cooked by other people out of generosity and humanity, not the government helping them which is not the case in the gulf. What I learnt is that the United States is a really smart country and it doesn’t slip the small things to let people think that it is a perfect country which any country is far from. It makes the ordinary human being thinks that they are doing the best they can by keeping illegal undocumented workers out and then they relax the border if they want more in?

This defiantly says a lot about the American society but I believe that it can be interpreted in different ways. First, it is different when you there are legal ground on the segregation problem and when there is not any. However, it still says that the American society still has the problem of segregation but the reason that people don’t talk about it and why it is not considered to be a big of a deal is because in America it is seen that the people can choose to do whatever they want to do and that the people may have chosen to go to the path of segregation which is different than the path of segregation that was taken in the 1970s.
In addition, even if it is true that the schools are more segregated now than in the 70’ s it doesn’t mean that the situation had become worst, because it clearly hasn’t. People at this era are generally more open and more accepting than in the 70 ‘s. So, it clearly isn’t an issue of people being more racist but there are other factors. Also, the statement that the speaker stated was really vague with no statistical background and I just read a lot of misleading information in the past and I now tend to try not to judge until I actually see the whole situation. What I understand is that in the past even the bathroom were segregated where one is for the black people and others for the whites and this segregation is way far more dangerous than saying that schools today have only a small percentage of minorities in middle America.
I do see that the occurring segregation actually widens the gap between the races causing seeing people to make an “Us” and ‘Them’ kind of feel which only adds gas to the fire. However, I do see people of being more open, accepting, and tolerant with people of different races. So, basically what I am trying to say is that the statement of “schools now are more segregated than in the 70s” can be understood in more than one way and the same statement can be re- written in a less dramatic way with out putting the word “segregated” in the statement because it only negatively portraits the picture. Segregation as in openly forcing people to go somewhere for example in the back of a bus is different than “we observe that there are less minorities in American schools” The only scary thing about everything is that you don’t always know what is right and what isn’t because in the past a lot of people didn’t see anything wrong with enslaving black people.

What interests me the most is how the students of soc 119 change their minds to the complete other direction after each class. I think that they should just be aware that both sides exist and try to stand on middle ground. When I was reading some of the comments I read that some people don’t blame terrorists. Well, I am an Arab-Muslim and I still do blame terrorists. The class had so many points. The first video of “Jihad” which showed that Muslims are trying to take over the world by war which is not true at all, but I am sure that most of the class just bought it, I also read comments of people who don’t feel safe anymore because of the message of the Jihad video. I don’t think Sam cleared that point for some of the students who didn’t get the idea of the lecture. MUSLIMS DON’T WANT TO KILL YOU. Muslims have been affected by terrorists more than any other race or religion and about those bombings that he showed in the video, I can launch my MovieMaker and make another video of how many terrorist acts have been performed by Jews or Christians with strong music and scary images; can tell you that Jews represented by the Israeli IDF have killed more civilians and showed no sympathy in bombing hospitals, and schools so WAKE UP. No Muslims are trying to kill you. It’s the same proportion of Muslim terrorist as there are Jewish terrorist and Christian terrorist, if not less. but what you only see in the media are the "Muslim" terrorists. I believe that not everybody got the idea of the first video and I am reading comments of people freaking out! Actually some of the bombing that were listed in the video were in Middle Eastern countries and have affected Arabs more than westerners. And then he showed videos of American soldiers being jerks in Iraq and then all the students went to the other way. I find it funny that three video can change your perspective on everything. The word “Jihad” in Arabic just means “struggle” and the problem is that the right wing republicans that bash Islam, interpret the Quran the same way the terrorists do and don’t get to actually read the quran.
Most of the things that Sam talked about were common sense and I seriously didn’t think that people saw this lecture as “eye opening”. Maybe it’s because I am from the Middle East. However, we really don’t exchange emails about bad Americans in war. I noticed that what Sam did is showed the extreme interpretation of both sides and a lot of the students missed the point and started believing either that the American war for Iraq is %100 illegitimate or that Muslims are trying to take over the world.

first video of “Jihad” which showed that Muslims are trying to take over the world by war which is not true at all, but I am sure that most of the class just bought it,You not feeling safe anymore because of the message of the Jihad video only shows that you missed the point of the whole lecture. I don’t think Sam cleared that point for some of the students who didn’t get the idea of the lecture. MUSLIMS DON’T WANT TO KILL YOU. Muslims have been affected by terrorists more than any other race or religion and about those bombings that he showed in the video, I can launch my MovieMaker and make another video of how many terrorist acts have been performed by Jews or Christians with strong music and scary images; I can tell you that Jews represented by the Israeli IDF have killed more civilians and showed no sympathy in bombing hospitals, and schools so WAKE UP. No Muslims are trying to kill you. Its the same proportion of Muslim terrorist as there are Jewish terrorist and Christian terrorist if not less for Muslims but that's not what you see in the media.

The needy penis lecture last class was really out of the ordinary and I have to say that I was more enlightened about the information about the opposite female sex even though that I think that I was subconsciously knew most of the things that were talked about in lecture but I needed one to re- say to take it to the surface. I defiantly knew that women are a lot slower than men into getting in the right mode for intercourse. However, in the real life situation before listening to this lecture, I would have forgotten about it and rushed the opposite sex into sexual activity. In addition, the fact of sex being in a male centered world has always been in my mind but I did not know about the statistic that only one third of women reach orgasm while males are performing their main understanding of sex which is what everybody thought. I am sure that this fact sort of relived some of the pressure on each gender because the males may think that they are not good enough for the partner if she doesn’t orgasm, and for the female to start faking it and not obtaining her maximum sexual pleasure which will result in a bad sex- life for both partners especially in the long run.
Also, I think Sam said something that hit me really hard when he said that women who ‘chose’ to wear high heels and not wear appropriately on certain weather conditions to impress the male and when they say they choose to do so is not any different than the black little girls in the video who stated that they think that the white doll is the good, nice doll and the black doll is the bad doll who looks like them. They also made the choice but in fact that is pressure from society and what TV tells us about what our lives should be.Another interesting fact was that most undergraduates in college only have sexual activities with zero to one partners their whole college life. And that women have sex in order to find a relationship whereas men just have sex for the satisfaction of their sexual pleasures. Which is different than how people view college. Another statistic was that only I think it was 29% of people had sex in the past 3 0 days as undergraduates.
I believe that Laurie and Sam did a great job of just making the students aware of the actual situation that is never been taught or viewed anywhere. I think it will equally help women and men in creating healthier relationships with partners understanding those statistics and how our bodies work.

The needy penis lecture last class was really out of the ordinary and I have to say that I was more enlightened about the information about the opposite female sex even though that I think that I was subconsciously knew most of the things that were talked about in lecture but I needed one to re- say to take it to the surface. I defiantly knew that women are a lot slower than men into getting in the right mode for intercourse. However, in the real life situation before listening to this lecture, I would have forgotten about it and rushed the opposite sex into sexual activity. In addition, the fact of sex being in a male centered world has always been in my mind but I didn’t know about the statistic that only one third of women reach orgasm while males are performing their main understanding of sex which is what everybody thought. I am sure that this fact sort of relived some of the pressure on each gender because the males may think that they are not good enough for the partner if she doesn’t orgasm, and for the female to start faking it and not obtaining her maximum sexual pleasure which will result in a bad sex- life for both partners especially in the long run.
Also, I think Sam said something that hit me really hard when he said that women who ‘chose’ to wear high heels and not wear appropriately on certain weather conditions to impress the male and when they say they choose to do so is not any different than the black little girls in the video who stated that they think that the white doll is the good, nice doll and the black doll is the bad doll who looks like them. They also made the choice but in fact that is pressure from society and what TV tells us about what our lives should be.Another interesting fact was that most undergraduates in college only have sexual activities with zero to one partners their whole college life. And that women have sex in order to find a relationship whereas men just have sex for the satisfaction of their sexual pleasures. Which is different than how people view college. Another statistic was that only I think it was 29% of people had sex in the past 30 days as undergraduates.
I believe that Laurie and Sam did a great job of just making the students aware of the actual situation that is never been taught or viewed anywhere. I think it will equally help women and men in creating healthier relationships with partners understanding those statistics and how our bodies work.

I would defiantly call out someone in my own race if they slur out bad stereotypical comments about anyone. First of all, I know a lot of people of my own race that are really racist about Asians or other races. And the only thing that I can do is try to educate them. For my part I find it funny to think about it because most people for now think that they are immune from racism. And what has to be understood is that racism is not only towards black people but it also includes every race. A lot of the people making the comments right now did somehow once be racist a certain group of people. I know for a fact that a huge percentage of people don’t really do anything to stop those racist comments when they are with their own people and would do nothing to stop them. Racism is actually common anywhere in the world. There is simply no where in the world that is racism- free. I know that everywhere I lived racism existed and it is because of many factors. Also, when reading the book I remember that it talked about Mexicans and Puerto Ricans prejudging among their own people. So this shows that even in a well mixed pot of the same race, separations will be made. Humans just cannot live without seeing some as inferior and others as superior and that can be chosen by race, color, religion, sexual orientation and we will just get more creative on putting boundaries and making an “us” and “them”. As long as this stays with us people will be prejudice and my own people are no exception.
What is also funny is when I see people of certain oppressed minorities being racist about others. I have friends who are from really oppressed minorities at the time being and when they go back to their homeland they will adopt the some racist actions against people in their own home country. Another example is Israeli Jews who talk so much about being oppressed by people for centuries and then again do the same things that has happened to them when back in their homeland. I just find funny and hypocritical to for people to use their race or other things to stop racism against them but they have no problem prejudging others in the same sense that they were treated.
So, people should first end the hypocrisy and also end the racism within every one of us because I know that everybody prejudges and there is no solution to that. But one should do the best they can to get people to understand the humanitarian stage where no one is different than anyone with more than 0.01%.

As of my decision to come to Penn state, the diversity part didn’t really matter to me. And that is due to several reasons. First, I would like to clarify that I am an international student and I really didn’t have much experience about the United States’ diversity issue. I originally thought that America generally has the same percentages of races at all schools. Generally speaking, When I thought of America I usually think of only black Americans or white Americans which is what is represented in Hollywood and this is what I thought and saw of America before coming. So, basically I didn’t think that it matters or differs from school to another the percentages of races in a school. However, when coming here It was an eye opening experience to see Americans from different background. I honestly never thought of Asians being Americans. I still don’t know how it is in other schools in the United States; however, me personally, I do see it as a diverse campus and this is what a lot of people don’t agree with me with. Maybe when I see the percentages of races in the penn state main campus, it shows that this school is mostly white, but when I walk around campus I don’t really give it much thought. I think I see a good percentage of Asians and blacks all over campus but does it really matter? I think it does in a sense of people educating their selves and trying to accept or understand other cultures than your own which allows more tolerance and might eliminate any pre existing ideas about one’s culture.
People coming from cities in the United States that are more culturally diverse are going to most certainly see Penn state campus as a predominately white campus. And other people who come from areas or high schools that are predominately white are going to see Penn State University Park campus as being really diverse. Everytime we have this kind of discussion, I start looking around the class and try to see the colors of people. The soc 119 class has a nice mix of races and backgrounds but other classes might not have the same degree of diversity.
Also, around campus we see a lot of organizations and clubs for students of different backgrounds. For example, there are the Mexican Student association, the Arab student union, the south asian student association and a lot more and they all have events that help to learn more about that ethnicity which is definitely a good thing. We also did an experiment in class where we calculated the percentages of white vs. colored folks in the penn state manual and it was found to be accurate.

In a way it is selfish. If you can’t afford something you don’t take the risk of owning it. If you don’t have the money to buy a Ferrari don’t get one. And human lives are way more precious than Ferraris of any sort. If you cannot sustain a decent life for your child then you maybe you shouldn’t have had them in the first place. I can defiantly understand the unimaginable desire for children sometimes which is totally valid but one must also calculate all the other things that will come with the package. I also can sympathize with a poor family of two but when you go over two that is too selfish for your own and your children’s own good. I think the magic number is two but even two sometimes can be unmanageable and must be taken into consideration. However, if the poor family goes over two, my sympathy would have some kind of decline and that is for two main reasons.
Firstly, they made the choice to have that big number of kids, they could of chosen otherwise. I am talking in general, there are many tools and medication to prevent having more kids, the magic birth control pill or simply using a condom which cannot be more expensive than supporting a new life in today’s world. And now making that choice to have more kids when you can’t “afford” the expenses, you have to live with it and live with seeing your little beloved ones being classified as underclass. I have full sympathy and support for the children but the parents on the other hand defiantly had it coming with their selfish act of bringing a child to life without calculating the aftermath. That can be seen as taking a pet and not being able to support it or, adopting a child with one not having the money or skill to handle it, which I think is not possible. If you aren’t allowed to adopt something that already exists if you can’t handle it, why is it allowed to actually make babies when you can’t handle it.
I personally know a friend of mine who was raised with his 22 brothers and sisters but they had the money to provide for them, not nearly the skills, which is also as bad. People differ from one person to another. People who have money and don’t think they have what it takes to manage the kids, shouldn’t have kids. And the people who have the skills but not the finance to provide should NEVER have more than two kids, even those two kids should be seriously considered

I would definitely say that todays society is way more racist towards the Muslim population than towards the black one. It would certainly be worst if you were a Black Muslim because you will get a double hate dose from all of today’s society. Me speaking of personal experience, I would like to say that it mainly depends on the place you are in. I am a Muslim and I know where I will expect different treatment and I know where I would not. It is really sad but I just now have to cope with it. I know that Airports are great place to observe racists actions towards muslims.
In addition, the place you are in makes all the difference because I have friends in Parkersburg, west Virginia who get racist comments about once a week and they actually got a death threat once just because of speaking Arabic in a gas station but me living here in state college I only had faced one encounter that can be called more of curiosity than racism.
I know I read in the book that if you live in a nice neighborhood and at some point a flood of Mexicans start moving to your neighborhood and everything was calm and cool for 100 days and then one Mexican breaks into a car, then most likely all the other races in that community would start hating on all the Mexicans and seeing them as bad people. All it takes is one person to provoke people in the wrong manner especially if one doesn’t know much about. This is exactly what happened for muslims. At first no one knew much about muslims until the terrible attacks of 9 / 11 and all it took was a few people out of 1.6 billion people to give a bad representation of islam and muslims. I read a statistic that hate crimes jumped to more than %1000 after 9/ 11. It is sad to see that this picture is still going on.
There are crazy people everywhere, there will be crazy people everywhere, but it is sad to see the media focus on the negative and forget the good. Just two weeks ago a 63 year old veteran drove his car from California to Detroit with a truck full of explosive material wanting to do harm to the nation’s largest mosque in Dearborn, MI. It is really sad to see the media completely ignore this story, how about if the crazy guy was muslim, how would the media react. I would say in a completely different manner. If the media wasn’t so biased people in the world would better understand the fact that there are mentally sick people that don’t represent anything but their sick mind.