My views are a little conflicted about this video. I agree that maybe people should take more time to think about the reality of 300,000 people dying, and yea try to find ways to help, but then we have to look at this realistically; even though 300,000 people is a huge number of people to die at one time, but people die every day. We cannot really stop to mourn every time someone dies, it is a part of life. I do not mean to sound cynical or make people think that I do not care, but I just think that there are other things that we can do besides mourn, like try to find ways to help, and I feel like even just recognizing that fact that 300,000 is huge number. Like Sam has said before, we do not need to feel guilty about this kind of stuff, we just need to start thinking about it and we cannot ignore it.
I agree with what someone else said on the blog, about how when September 11th happened people mourned because it was mainly 3,000 white people or middle- to upper class minorities who died. When the earthquake in Haiti occurred, sure for a few weeks we could call or text to donate money and celebrities were having fundraisers, but then life went on. On one hand, I feel like the world can not just stand still every time a tragedy happens but on the other hand, when people are mourning a tragic event, when is it too soon to start moving on?
I feel like there were a lot of people with really good intentions about helping the people of Haiti right after the earthquake struck and at first I thought that was a really good idea, like of course, donating food and water and supplies would be a good idea; that was until I listened to Ian talk on Tuesday and realized how important it is for people to start helping the people of Haiti form businesses and trying slowly to rebuild their economy. I am not saying that the world should just completely stop donating and supplying things to Haiti, I am just realizing that a lot of people probably do not even realize how they should be going about properly helping the people of Haiti so that they will be able to help themselves and help rebuild their lives in the future.
So I guess to sum up my thoughts, I believe it is okay for people to mourn, but we need to realize that life moves on. Instead of spending too much time mourning, people should realize the right ways to help and help people get their lives started again.

I was a little skeptical at first about what Sam’s Christian Invaders lecture was going to be like because I feel like he hypes up every lecture so much that I kind of dismiss him when he says, “today is THE best lecture of the year.” However, I am glad that he has proven me wrong; it was an absolutely amazing lecture. I felt privileged to be able to listen and have my mind and eyes opened up to whole new perspective on the war and Muslims.
I really had no idea what to expect for this lecture or what it really was going to be about; I knew that it was going to be about the war but that was about all. I liked Sam’s use of videos and pictures to really get the point across to people.
I thought it was an awesome idea to try and make a class of 700 plus students try to see life from another person’s perspective and pretend to be Muslims living in the Middle East. Although I see so many images about the war and most of the time it can be bombarding, but without that lecture, I’ll admit, I never would have thought to stop and think about all of the images that people my age in the Middle East are getting about the United States. As I was sitting in class, I was really trying hard to picture myself as a person living in Afghanistan and seeing all these videos and pictures about soldiers and preachers and politicians from the United States. It was pretty amazing that by the end of the lecture so many people would raise their hands and say that they would fight against the United States if they were living in the Middle East right now.
Although I am Christian, I am not really offended by what Sam said during his lecture. Maybe it is because I don’t really agree with trying to convert other people to my religion. I have never had any kind of biased toward people of any other religion and even since we have been at war, I would never treat a Muslim or Arab person any differently than anyone else. I really think it would be awesome if Sam could give his Christian Invaders lecture to more people other than just college students. I feel like it is something a lot of people in the United States could really benefit from hearing.
One of the many things that I really liked about the lecture was what Sam was saying about extremists and radicals and how those are the only images that Americans get about Muslims and that Muslims get about Americans. I never really thought about it that way, and I think more people in the United States need to realize that a lot of the video or photographs they see, do not represent a whole population of people.

I honestly could not, and still cannot, believe that this is an actual video game. I do not really understand the kind of people that would create this game or why someone would ever want to play it. It is not only extremely degrading to women but I feel like it is also creating the mindset that rape is okay.
I have always thought the women depicted in most kinds of video games were overly sexualized and presenting as objects and not people. Most games have topless women in them or hookers that just come into your car. By always depicting women as objects and dehumanizing them, I feel like the gaming industry plays a huge role in contributing to the growing number of violent crimes against women. And now this game, where the entire purpose of the game is to rape women? Some people may laugh and say that it is just a game, but what some people do not realize is that when someone is playing a game like that over and over again, they will start to see women differently. I am not saying that every person who plays that game is rapist or will become a rapist, but they will certainly not look to women as their equals and they will certainly not treat women with respect.
I was completely disgusted at the stuff that you could do on the video game, like grope the teenage girl and eventually rape her repeatedly. I am also in amazement that this is not the first video of it’s kind. I could not believe when CNN was showing all of the violent video games against women in Japan. I just do not understand how there are no laws there that would have prohibited this game from ever being made in the first place. I agree with one comment that I read where someone said that this game should be illegal. How do political leaders in Japan not see that this could lead to violent crimes against women? And I also think that someone needs to find a way to stop it from being spread around and downloaded on the Internet. I am sure game has already fallen into the hands of young, impressionable boys whose views of women are now being molded and distorted.
I do not see how this game could even be funny to play with your buddies when you have had a couple of beers. There is nothing funny or amusing about it. I don’t even know how someone could consider this a game. It is just so dehumanizing to the entire female race and I just really hope that people in Japan and around the world for that matter, will take a stand against video games like this, and try to stop the violence.

I applied for a job with the Census for this coming summer; I am going to be one of people who go around from door to door to the people houses who did not respond my mail. I never really thought much about what this would mean, just that I needed a summer job. But after watching this video I have been thinking a lot more about it. What if I am at a person’s house who is African American and they are offended by the term negro, will they get mad at me and ask me why such a term is on the census? I guess I’m going to have to prepare myself with a good answer to respond to them with.

Because I am white, I almost feel like I should not have a say in whether or not people should be offended by the term negro; however, I believe that there are still some older African Americans in the United States who would refer to themselves as a negro. But I can see where the younger generation of African Americans is coming from when they get offended by the term, because since they were raised after the Civil Rights movement, they may have grown up believing that Negro had a negative connotation. As a white person, upon hearing the word, I feel indifferent. Like the one guy said on the video, it is like hearing the term eight-track, it feels outdated but not really good or bad.

I believe that the people who make the census are most likely really well educated and if they put the term Negro on the census, then they have to have a good reason for it. I think a lot of African American people’s initial reaction to hearing the term is to be offended, like the United States is trying to be racist on purpose. Sure maybe not a lot of their friends would refer to themselves as Negro, but I am sure that if they took the time to stop and think about it, they would realize that there are still people in this country who feel comfortable indentifying themselves with that term because that is what they grew up with.

Another thing that I did not understand was when some of the people who were interviewed on the video said they were confused on what to mark if they were of more than one race, when it clearly stated in the directions that you could mark more than one. I feel like the people who make the census are trying to make it as simple and all encompassing as possible that I just do not understand why so many people are confused about most of it.

When Sam first brought up about his wife’s period (which I am not really even sure how that topic came up?) I could not believe that he was talking about that in front of a class of 700 plus students. I also thought it was weird that we was using the term bleeding instead of just saying period, and at first, the more he kept saying it, the more awkward I felt. Some people were even getting up and leaving, I stayed and I was happy that I did because after I got over the word bleeding, I realized that he was kind of saying all of the things that I have wanted to say.

To start, why is it so weird that when a girl says she has her period in front of a guy, the guy usually gets all grossed out? I completely agree with what Sam and the girl on the video said, we should be able to talk about it because if it didn’t happen, none of us would be here. Like the girl said, it is a beautiful thing to be fertile and able to have children. It should not be something that we shy away from talking about; women should not be ashamed to talk about it.

I also think it could benefit guys in a way if girls talked about when they had their periods. Wouldn’t it be better to know that when your girlfriend or friend is acting all crazy and emotional it is because she has her period and not some other reason? I think if girls stopped being afraid to talk about their periods around guys, guys would eventually get used to hearing about it and it would just become another casual topic, instead of something that would make people get up and leave the classroom if it is brought up.

It has gotten to the point in our society that even if the word tampon is brought up, guys get uncomfortable. I think it’s partially because guys don’t really understand what is going on when a girl gets her period, they basically know she bleeds and that’s about it. Now I’m not saying that all the guys in the world need to sit down and watch a video about women’s menstrual cycle, I just feel like they should be able to ask questions about it if they are curious and women should be more open to brining up the topic. It is a natural thing; something that every woman has and it should not be such a gross topic to people. If a guy gets married, he is going to have to deal with his wife’s period every month, so why should it not be something that women and men can talk about openly?

Before spring break, when Sam put up the first open-ended question, I’ll admit, I was a little appalled by what some of the people were writing. I like the idea of it being anonymous I thought people would be able to really open up about their thoughts on race relations and were perhaps too shy to bring up in their section group or in front of the whole class. However, I feel like a lot of what people were writing were racists comments that they wouldn’t ever say out loud, now I’m sure, most people were just trying to be funny but it just still caught me off guard as to how rude some people could be.

That being said, I felt like at the lecture on Tuesday, people were being more mature with their comments and actually taking the questions seriously. After listening to this kids video, I felt like I realized the same thing in class. When Sam asked only the white people to respond, if someone said something even a little bit offensive, you could hear murmuring from the class, both white and black. But when he opened it up to black people, if something was said like calling white people “benchwarmers” or saying that they can’t dance, you didn’t really hear anyone saying how rude that was, you more likely just heard some laughter.

Although a little more mature than before spring break most of the comments were still not very mature and after seeing people’s responses, I don’t really know if it was such a good idea to have these open-ended questions in class. For one thing, I feel like most people don’t take them seriously and then when someone writes something offensive I feel like it is just creating an awkwardness in the class, like there is a tension after all the responses are up. I feel like in a smaller class size, these open-ended questions could be more effective, but in this class, you have people who really want to get their opinion heard and others who just write stuff to get a laugh.

Going back to the main point of this kids video, I feel like when the negative comments were made about white people, most white people are offended but they’re really not sure how they should react. In society, if someone makes a joke about a black person, everyone gets highly offended because it’s such a sensitive topic. But if someone makes a white person joke, I think it’s almost like white people feel like they don’t have the right to be offended or if they say that they are offended, they might be afraid that someone of color might get mad at them because white people haven’t been oppressed like other people, so what is there for us to be offended about? But in a class where we are learning about race relations and how to accept all people and treat everyone with same respect, I expected by now for people to start practicing what we’ve been learning and show respect to everyone, black or white.

to clarify, I do not believe that the Compton cookout was a good idea by any means, I certainly believe it was wrong, I just think that as far as the video and articles go, there should have been arguments made and different opinions shown.

I am a little confused on this matter. We discussed the “Compton cookout” in my section last week and there were a lot of people with different opinions about it. Some people saw it as nothing more than a harmless prank while others thought it was a horrible display of racism. As for what I think, I don’t really believe that the people who threw the party were racists or wanted to try and be racist. People throw Jersey Shore parties or “white trash” parties, which are basically just stereotypes of a small amount of people, and nobody has protests over them. So I imagine the students probably did not mean for this to start a huge racial debate on their campus, but then again, maybe they did, who really knows.
As for the noose in the library, I may be being a little bit naïve here, but I would like to think that it was just a prank to try and stir up the students even more and that the student who put it there probably was not racist, especially if that it said on the video was true and the student who hung it there was a student of color.
I get what Sam is saying about one person being the representative for a whole group of people. I can see that the kid on the video was really offended by these acts of supposed “racism” but does that mean that all people of color feel the same way he does? Or does that mean that UCSD has always been a racist campus and people are just starting to do something about it now?
Although these acts were directed at African Americans, I would have liked for the CNN video of the New York Times article to interview or voice the opinions of other minorities on campus, students and faculty, and even some white people, to try and get a better idea of how the majority of campus feels about this issue. I know the video showed people protesting with signs and yelling, but it didn’t really express why those people feel the way they do.
I feel like it is probably going to take a long time for this issue of racism to be resolved on this campus that may not have been that racist a few weeks ago. When I was watching the video, I felt like that student wanted the students to just do things on their own without the help of faculty run programs, but I am not sure if he realizes how hard it is to organize mass amounts of students without the guidance of faculty. I’m not saying it would be impossible, I just think he should be willing to use the resources and the great faculty that are present on the UCSD campus. Like the professor in the video (although I didn’t agree with everything she said) there are other faculties that have studied race relations and deal with these kind of things every day. Which brings me back to my other point, the video and article could have been made much more reliable if they would have interviewed more professors and students of color. The opinions of a two or three people can not represent that opinions of a whole minority.

I watched a few video questions before this one but I chose to respond because I noticed the same thing in class that this kid is talking about. It is not that I feel like people should feel guilty about what happened to the Native American’s so long ago, but I really do get what Sam was saying when he said he just wants people to acknowledge that it happened. I feel like compared to some of his other lectures, people weren’t really paying attention as much during the past couple of lectures because they felt like it doesn’t really concern them. To me, I could tell that when Sam was talking, he felt really passionately about this topic so I really tried to understand where he was coming from, and I ended up coming to some conclusions.
It is not really that we should feel responsible or guilty about what happened way before our grandparents were even born, but we need to realize what is happening to the Native Americans now, during our lifetime. I never knew that Native Americans are some of the poorest people living in the United States or that they have the highest teen suicide rate in the country. There is nothing we can do to change what happened in the past, but I feel like there are things we can do now, to help improve the way these people are being treated. Even in small ways, like taking that class where you live with a Native American tribe and learn about them and their traditions, that someday soon may be completely gone. Vote for politicians who have plans to help out those people living on reservations, or write letters to politicians telling them of your concern for the original people of America. Even donate money to organizations that help out the poorest Native Americans.
I feel like I have grown up with this image of Native Americans as a peaceful people who love and respect nature. In grade school we learn about the origin of Thanksgiving and how the Native Americans taught our ancestors how to grow corn and live off the land. Society gave me this image of Native Americans that I never really thought to question, because like Sam said, people just don’t talk about the bad stuff. Even in high school, I learned about the trail of tears but until I was sitting in Sam’s class, I never realized that it was the largest genocide in human history. We spend so much time learning about the Holocaust, we read books on it, watch movies on it and visit museums to learn about, we know so much about the horror of what happened, yet we know so little about the terrible things that happened in our own country.
Basically, Sam’s last few lectures have really opened my eyes about this issue, and I really do now understand what he was saying about at the very least, acknowledging what happened and is happening to Native Americans.

Up until I came to college, I hadn’t really encountered many gay and lesbian people in my life. I went to Catholic high school and I am sure that there were gay people there, but they probably did not come out until after high school was over. Even though I grew up in a town where LGBT issues were simply not talked about, my parents have always told me to accept and be kind to everyone, no matter how different they are than me. I have never had a problem with couples of the same sex. I think people should be able to love whomever they choose.
This video made me really think about the problem we have in the United States about same sex marriages. I just do not understand it because America is supposed to be a land of freedom and equality, however by no means are couples of the same sex being treated equally. I saw that someone else brought this up to, about America supporting families and the role that families play in our lives. I do not believe that a child raised by parents of the same sex would grow up any differently than a child raised my parents of different sexes.
I feel bad that people of the same sex are not allowed to get married in most states. I am sure it would be extremely hard if someone told me that I could not be married to the person I truly love. This video is heartbreaking because you can tell how much these two people love each other and how much their children love them but people are forcing and tearing their family apart.
America can not say that it stands for freedom when there is so much hate and discrimination against not only LGBT peoples but also, as the video brings up, immigrants. I could not believe the video when it said that 36,000 other families are going through the same thing. I really believe that these people should be able to live in the United States as family, a supposed “equal” country.
I understand that some people are against gay marriage because of religious reasons. But I believe that God loves all people and wants us all to be happy. Most religions teach about how we are supposed to kind of others and help our fellow man, but how are taking away people’s rights and telling someone who they can and can not love showing kindness?
This video, along with Sam’s talk on Tuesday, has really opened my eyes to all of these issues being presented. I guess because most of my friends feel the same way that I do about gay marriage, I never really paid attention to how much discrimination LGBT people have to face. It is most definitely unfair and I hope that laws are passed soon to allow people to be married to whomever they choose.