I was quite disappointed to see that South Park had to edit their recent episode in order to avoid more threats. The show has spent many years pushing a lot of buttons, and it's sad to think this may be the one issue that has successfully managed to stifle the voices of the creators. Keep in mind that over the years these guys have skewered Christianity, Judaism, Atheism, abortion, priest molestation, mental and physical handicaps, race, ethnicity, immigration, torture, war, and many other potentially controversial topics. The creators have offended many people, but have always seemed to pride themselves on the fact that they are equal opportunity offenders. They make a point of the fact that they consider nothing sacred or untouchable--even when it hits close to home. Just a few years ago they actually lost one of their most prominent voice actors after making an episode that offended him.

I believe in being respectful of the beliefs of others in my own life, but I hardly expect everyone else to do the same. I also don't believe in censoring yourself; I don't think that anything or anyone should be held as being so holy or so untouchable that even someone saying a certain word would trigger a violent threat. And don't forget the fact that this is just a tv show. No one is making anyone watch. If someone thinks they will be offended by what they see, why don't they just change the channel or not watch? I remember one day in class, Sam asked if people thought that being offended was uncontrollable or if it was a decision we made. I personally believe that being offended is always a choice. There are things that offend me; there are things that I don't like to hear people say. But I know that I am making a choice to get angry, and that I have the power to control my feelings and walk away.

If you actually watch the South Park episode in question, you will see that no one was suggesting anything about Mohammed other than that mocking him is taboo--which I think we can agree is true. Mohammed was not even shown in the episode. Now, on the other hand, consider the portrayal of women in the media. Everyday I have to deal with being exposed to hundreds of images of women being objectified. Women are shown a single standard of beauty and encouraged to do their best to conform to it, even if their own body types are completely different. And unlike some silly episode of South Park, studies have shown that these images do have an actual effect on the way women view themselves. Just take for example the fact that 80% of American women report having gone on a diet to lose weight by the time they are 18.

Now, I could walk around all day with a chip on my shoulder about this. I could allow myself to become offended every time I'm faced with another ad or movie or television show featuring a hyper-sexualized woman. I could. But I choose not to. Because when I'm offended, I may feel like I'm being energized by some righteous anger, but really I'm just wasting my own energy whining about something I can't really change. I'd be much better off spending my energy reinforcing my own self-esteem in order to protect against these images, and encouraging other women to do the same. That's my choice.

You may claim to have been at the lecture, but you're clearly not getting it. First of all: Sam clearly stated several times in the lecture that he does not think poorly of any of the American men and women currently stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. I believe he even took several minutes out of his lecture to discuss this (maybe you just came in late?)--if you want a specific example: remember the photo of the American soldier clutching a bloodied child? He used that picture to discuss how painful it must be for our men and women who are over there. He said that he knows they are good people.

But even that was not the point of the lecture (which I still maintain you did not get). The point was not to denigrate the war. It was not to say we should not be there, or to make us all feel bad. Sam made it clear that that was not for him to decide. Ha was merely urging us to practice assuming a different point of view. Think of it as a mere exercise in exploring the power of ethnocentrism if you like--not just our own ethnocentrism, as Americans, but the ethnocentrism that colors the perspectives of all peoples from all nations.

How often do we hear about Iraqi or Afghan civilians risking and losing their own lives to attack our troops? I hear at least one such item on the news nearly every day. But usually it's just one sentence describing the event. And when we do discuss it, more often than not these people are dismissed as mentally unstable radicals--they are crazy. They hate our freedom. They hate us. For many of these people, as you have said, this may not be untrue. You said yourself that many of these civilians are taught as children to hate us. But why is that?

I'm certain your close friends who have been to the area have told you about what it looks like over there. The place has had the shit bombed out of it. It doesn't look very appealing. It's as hard for our men and women to be there as it is for the locals. But at least our guys get to come home to us here. For the locals, that is home. That is where they were born, that is where they live; that is all they have ever known. The war has been going on for close to a decade, now--there are children who are old enough to understand what is going on who have never known what it means to be able to go to school working under the assumption that they will not be bombed or shot. But I think it's likely even worse for the people who are old enough to remember something different--these are the people who have seen their lives crumble around them.

Now, whether or not it is right to blame the invading American troops for these changes is up for debate. I know Sam himself would say it is not okay to use violence--even in the video clip posted here he clearly states that he does not condone violence against our troops. But can you honestly look at the situation and claim you don't at least understand WHY they might have come to feel as they do? For the people living in this situation, there seems to be one clear line of cause and effect: The Americans came, they bombed us, now my life has been destroyed. Whether or not they are blaming the right people--or indeed if there is any right person to blame--is irrelevant. We are merely trying to understand why someone who started out as a rational, empathetic human being would find themselves strapping a bomb to their chests. And I think Sam did a great job of offering us some insight on that point.

Although I love the flip-cams and the questions we get from them, the one thing that drives me crazy is that, in their rush to get their questions out, people often don't have enough time to explain all their points. I would be really curious to hear just what it was that Sam said about the LL Bean catalog that offended this student.

The first idea that pops into my mind is that perhaps she didn't understand that Sam was not expressing his own thoughts when he said that the black people in the magazine might be seen as "less black" or "not really black." Sam was using the LL Bean catalog as (a rather humorous) example of what sort of thinking a black or brown person might engage in if they were in the immersion stage. This stage of thinking is characterized by embracing one's own culture to the point of rejecting other cultures, thus, it's logical to conclude that a black or brown person in this stage might be offended if they see LL Bean (a stereotypical staple of white culture) getting black people to wear their product, thus "stripping them of their cultural heritage." People of color who "buy into" white cultural norms might be seen as being less legitimate or less informed by people in the immersion stage.

I think it's pretty clear Sam was not saying that he thought there was anything wrong with the catalog, I think he was saying that people of color in the immersion stage might. He was trying to use the catalog as a fun example for us, just as he previously used the "black people love us" and "things white people like" websites to show us how white people in the revisioning stage might make fun of other white people who they saw as being less informed.

As for the question of "winning"--I think it's great that you raised this because I think a lot of people in class have been asking this in different ways. What you have to keep in mind is that this is, at the end of the day, just another class. I know there are a lot of "therapy" components to the class (discussion groups, etc.), but the truth is there's no 'right' path for Sam to point us down. If you take a physics class, you learn the principles of physics. You learn about gravity and friction and acceleration. But no one turns to the professor on the last day of class and says, "Okay, but what do I do with this? How do I 'win' physics?" This class is the same way; we're just learning the principles of race relations. I know it's easy, particularly in a class as riveting and as relevant as this one, to start thinking that there's got to be some key to solving all these issues, and that we can succeed if we all just have someone to tell us what to do.

That's not to say, of course, that we shouldn't take anything from this class, or that we shouldn't try to take what we learn here back into our everyday lives. Because while there's no way to "win" at physics, if you know the principles and how to apply them, and have some idea of what you want to do with them, you can engineer a great many things.

Like a lot of the students in class, both male and female, I spent a good chunk of my life thinking periods were gross and weird and not something to be discussed. It wasn't really until I took a women's studies class in college that I took a closer look at some of the crazy things women go through and put themselves through just to avoid having anyone (sometimes even just other women) find out that they're bleeding (as Sam likes to put it).

For any men (or even women) who may not be in the know, think about some of this stuff. Women find all sorts of ingenious ways to hide their pads and tampons. We buy tampons that are smaller, tampons that are advertised as having silent wrappers (to keep the woman in the next stall over from hearing you unwrap it), and tampons that are scented (despite the fact that blood only smells once it's outside the body). We don't tell people when we're on our periods, and often we'll even deny it if asked (just take the example in class when Sam asked girls to raise their hands if they were bleeding). If we have to miss an event because of cramps, we'll lie and say we just felt sick, or, at best, we'll give the excuse of 'women's issues,' which is sure to ensure that no professor or boss enquires any further.

I think part of it is certainly related to the 'gross out' factor--we're socialized to believe that periods are gross and shouldn't be talked about. But part of it is also related to some very non-gross issues surrounding periods.

Almost every woman can relate a story of at some point in her life being accused of PMSing. This happens occasionally when women act irritable, grumpy, or even just try to assert themselves. I've even heard PMS-related comments made to men when they're perceived as being irritable or whiny (for example, one man asking another if he needs any Motrin or Midol). Women often have to deal with accusations and comments like these, which paint us as being irrational and unreasonable in the face of our periods. So if we know that telling people we're bleeding is more likely to garner their disdain than their sympathy, why would we do this to ourselves?

PMS is particularly frustrating because it is doubly hurtful. Not only do women get a lot of crap for it, but PMS itself is real (though some women don't really get it, and the ways in which it exhibits itself are manifold), and it's incredibly frustrating. I think a lot of men can't really relate what it's like to be having an emotion that you don't want and can't really control. I guess the closest thing most men are probably familiar with is their sex drive, particularly around puberty when their hormones are going crazy. Just imagine what the world would be like if men's sexual urges were scoffed at as being irrational and even perhaps 'hysterical.' I wouldn't be surprised if, after a while, men ceased being vocal about their sexual urges.

Many have already asserted in their comments that they are not easily offended, and I would count myself among them. That said, there were many text messages on the board that bothered me. Some of the comments made (assumedly) by white students about black and brown people were embarrassing, and disappointing. I felt embarrassed to be white, and disappointed because I had hoped, particularly in a class on race relations, that people would be able to hold themselves to a slightly higher standard.

What actually has bothered me more than any stupid, obviously inappropriate comments, however, are some of the comments that got no reaction, as well as some of the comments made already on this very blog post. I cannot count the number of responses I read that include a statement that says, "black people x, y, and z" or "white people x, y, and z." The amount of generalizing people have been doing really disappoints me. I know it's not always easy to stick "some" or "many" into your sentences when you're trying to type something up quickly, but please tell me you guys aren't all thinking this way in addition to writing like it.

There are many different ways people choose to define racism. My personal definition for several years now has been that racism is stripping someone of his right to be an individual because of perceptions or beliefs about people of his skin color. I think it can come from anyone, of any color, and can be perpetrated against people of any color. I don't think it's any less racist to say "white people are ignorant" than it is to say "black people are angry." When we engage in this type of thinking, we cut people off at the knees. And if, at the end of the day, we actually care about and want "peace between our colors," we're going to have to cut it out.

One recurring comment on the texting board that bothered me quite a bit was that being white means being "ignorant." There's a part of me that fully understands why this would be a recurring comment. Who could look at the board when there were idiots making racially charged comments towards people of color and not think, "that's so ignorant"? But when we start to generalize, we cut people out. Like 98% of the students in class, I did not text any of the racially insensitive comments that appeared on the board, nor do I condone or agree with any of them. But again, as most of the other students in class, my response to claims that all white people are ignorant was not an intense or visceral one.

When someone assumes that because I am white I am ignorant, is this denying me my individuality any less than when someone denies the individuality of a black woman when they assume she's going to be loud in a computer lab? I'm not saying I'm not ignorant--who am I to pretend I know whether or not I understand anything? But if you call me so, let it be because I have given you evidence to believe it, and not because I look a certain way.

What a sad, complicated mess. It's unfortunate that so many racially charged incidents have occurred, and sad that the response to them has been so weak. I don't think a required teach in would do much good--as the young man in the interview pointed out. In general though, I'm much more saddened by the fact that these things occurred in the first place.

When reading about the "Compton Cookout" fiasco, I saw that apparently the campus is 97% white or something, and it reminded me of one of the sections from Laurie's book that we read (I just found it again, pg. 74 in the second edition) in which she describes knowing two women, one of color, one white, who both feel that white people gathering to have a discussion on race with no people of color present would not be a good idea (the white woman Laurie mentions even deems the idea, "just dangerous").

When I initially read this passage, I felt confused, and a little bit frustrated. I wanted to think that I would not speak about race any differently if there were no people of color in the room; I wanted to think that our generation had moved past this. And then I read about the incidents occurring at the UCSD.

My first reaction, I'm not afraid to admit (despite how it may reveal my naïveté), was surprise. When the TAs in our discussion group read the facebook invite from the cookout aloud, and then told us that apparently some students had shown up in what was essentially blackface, I almost wanted to think it was a joke.

After a mere moment or two, the feeling turned to shame, and frustration. I felt angry that these students would ever think this was an acceptable idea; I felt embarrassed to be white. I wondered if maybe the women Laurie mentioned had had a point, and that made me disappointed. Don't get me wrong--I think having racial and ethnic diversity is optimal--as Sam mentioned, people who grow up in diverse areas are often more likely to be open and accepting. And I certainly want people of color to be involved in our discussions on race. I just think it's sad that it may be necessary for people of color to be involved in order to strictly keep white people from doing something wholly inappropriate.

And if class on Thursday (3/4/10) was any indicator, we are not safe from such events at PSU. While I was excited to see Sam use live-polling, I was really disappointed in the way many students chose to use the feature. A few more creative posts were genuinely funny, but my laughter quickly turned to disappointment when several students chose to take advantage of the offered anonymity by posting racial slurs.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is: Guys, don't be dicks.

I totally see your point, and I feel where you're coming from, but I think a lot of people in class are taking Sam's points the wrong way. While I think Sam certainly meant that we need to acknowledge what happened, and acknowledge the role played by our forefathers*, a lot of people seem to be making this synonymous with guilt--and I truly believe this was not Sam's intention.

I think the reason a lot of people in the class are scrabbling to find an excuse as to why they are somehow excused from responsibility for this is because thinking of the actions our forefathers took makes them feel guilty, and they want to assuage that guilt. But I don't think we have to feel guilty.

In short, guilt does nothing to inspire us to action, or to further the conversation. It doesn't help anyone. In fact, I think guilt, while perhaps a natural reaction, probably does more harm than good.

Earlier in the semester, Sam mentioned that a lot of white people don't want to sit down to the 'race table' because they worry about offending someone; I think feelings of guilt also do a lot to preclude white people from being more open about having discussions on race. Just as many people in the class, of various racial and ethnic backgrounds, didn't understand why they should have to feel responsible for crimes against Native Americans, I think many white people, born long after slavery to families who never held slaves, don't understand why they should feel guilty over racism in this country. But this does not change the fact that we live in a country where racism and discrimination are still common. The only difference is that while guilt over slavery and subsequent inequalities has long been confined to white people, living on land stolen from Native Americans is something people of all colors have to acknowledge.

So the question becomes, where do we go from here? If we aren't supposed to feel guilty, how should we feel?

I think a good place to start is awareness. In that respect, I think Sam has helped us all a lot, by drawing this issue to our attention and educating us about it. What we choose to do with that knowledge is up to us, but gaining it has been the first step.

I think another thing to remember (and there is a possibility that I could be wrong here, of course) is that it's very likely that most, if not all Native Americans don't have any desire for us to feel guilty--as I mentioned, our guilt doesn't do them any good. If you look at it from this angle, guilt actually starts to seem like a pretty selfish reaction. We're attending to our own insecurities and anxieties--and sometimes we even get worked up over the fact that we don't believe we should have to feel guilty, and even allow ourselves to believe we are the victims, either of the actions of our ancestors, or of the people who cannot seem to just forget about the pain we have caused them. Instead, we should be looking to actually help the people who have been wronged.

*I say forefathers because even if our own ancestors weren't involved, you can't deny that we are all linked to the people who perpetrated these crimes by merit of the fact that we would likely not be living here today had they not seized the land and killed the inhabitants as they did.

I agree with you, the system of marriage is broken. But I don't think it is for the same reason. See, you mention how religion was established in this country as a religious institution, and while the people writing marriage laws in this country were doing so from a Judeo-Christian perspective, marriage is not inherently religious in this country.*

What's important to note here, and very pertinent to your question, is this: legal marriage and religious marriage are not the same thing. You can be legally married without ever setting foot in a religious institution or interacting with a religious authority. You can also have a great big wedding in a church with all of your friends and family and a big poofy dress for your wife and a pastor who will claim you to be joined in the eyes of God without ever being legally married. If you don't have a marriage license, obtained from some governmental office, it's not a legal marriage (don't worry, though, God recognizes these marriages anyway--just don't expect hospital visitation rights).

So back to the broken thing--yes, I still think marriage is broken. I believe that using the same word colloquially (marriage and marriage) to refer to two distinct concepts (legal marriage and religious marriage) is bound to be confusing. So here's what I suggest we do: abolish legal marriage altogether--the religions had it first (or at least they had it before this country was even born), let them keep it. Instead, everyone gets a civil union. Opposite-sex couples, same-sex couples, everyone gets a civil union.

While I know this idea may seem drastic at first, think about it for a moment--this would actually fix the problems you see with modern marriages as well. You said that you think that non-religious marriages are already 'breaking marriage'--well, here you go, if people have the option of obtaining legal rights without ever having to use the word marriage (which you have already claimed in the name of religion), non-religious people wouldn't have to get married. Problem solved.

Personally, while I'm up for this idea, I'd rather just have everyone get to use the word marriage--we're going to anyway. When gay marriage becomes legal (and I optimistically use the word 'when,' not 'if'), I'm going to refer to my GLBT friends' husbands and wives using just those terms. Heck, I'm agnostic, but there's no law you can pass that would prevent me from introducing my future spouse as my 'husband,' just because he may not legally be called that. So why lose sleep over a game of semantics?

*I would argue that pointing to the religion of our forefathers to justify a definition of marriage that shows bias for Judeo-Christian values is moot, as our forefathers never conveyed this explicitly--what they did make explicit was that they believed that the government should make no law that either endorses or constricts any citizen's religious beliefs--i.e., separation of church and state.

While I understand why you're frustrated with p.c. culture (I am, too), I think some of your statements are a bit hyperbolic. Though some groups and people in America may be growing more sensitive, I think you're getting too black-and-white when you claim that Americans would be offended by any description of Americans on welfare that didn't paint them in a positive light. Being an American on welfare has been a position of stigma for decades; people receiving welfare have been accused of laziness and sometimes outright dishonesty by opponents of welfare for some time. Ronald Reagan himself is generally credited with adding the term "Welfare Queen" to the political lexicon. Dozens of politicians have criticized the welfare system as being one that discourages people from fending for themselves, but few of those comments have ever spurred such a strong response as those of Andre Bauer.

People may justify why this is in different ways. Some may point out that, even if you're just trying to raise a point, comparing people of any class to 'stray animals' (you know, those dirty, nappy animals that the pound rounds up every once in a while so they can sterilize them or euthanize them or do whatever they need to do to keep them off the streets) isn't really classy. Or maybe that snide little comment at the end about people breeding because, "they don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don't know any better" (this part of the statement was omitted from the article Sam posted on the blog, but this is what directly followed). So now he's saying they're lazy AND dumb. Double classy.

Okay, okay, so maybe you still think people got too worked up over it: fair point. I'm not going to tell you what to be offended at, and I don't see why I should waste any more of either of our time if you're not to be convinced. And I don't think I'm ever going to change your mind on the merits (or lack thereof) of welfare in general, so let's just agree to disagree.

So how about all this straight-shooter business? I agree that it is at least some sort of refreshing to have someone speaking openly and honestly, even if I find what they're saying to be highly unpalatable. And I also agree with you that he's probably only sorry because of how he bungled his own career. Yes, it's true, he may be Lt. Governor of a state where half the children qualify for free lunches at school, making this an incredibly stupid political move, but I do think he was being honest. I believe Andre Bauer truly thinks people on public assistance are like stray animals that shouldn't be encouraged.

Wait for it.

Andre Bauer received free lunches as a child.

The only thing Bauer's straight-shooting in this situation is his own foot.

I think Brooks raises a good point in his article (though I was a bit disappointed that the spent 4/5 of the article spitting off examples and only seems to reach the point of his argument in the last two paragraphs--did we really need that much buildup?). After reading his article, I found myself trying to see if I could think of any counter-examples, or at least, examples of similar films that took this archetype in a different direction.

The first film that came to mind was Mel Gibson's Apocalypto, which is another tale of a group of indigenous people being invaded by outsiders, only to have one person achieve the status of mythic hero and (sort of) save the day. In Apocalypto, a peaceful Mayan village is attacked by a neighboring group, with many of the men are taken as slaves. One young man, Jaguar Paw, must escape his captors and overcome all odds in order to return to his wife and small child who have gone into hiding. During the process, he comes to fulfill a prophecy laid out by a young sick girl.

In some ways, Apocalypto is reminiscent of the Messiah Complex films Brooks discusses: the plot surrounds the invasion of a peaceful indigenous group by a fiercer, stronger group; the main character goes from being a joe-schmoe type to the only one who can save the day by performing superhuman feats; and the hero uses his superior knowledge of the area surrounding his home in order to fight off outside invaders.

Of course, the film is also drastically different from the films Brooks discusses in a few ways. At first they seem like changes for the better: the hero who saves the day is himself an indigenous person, many of the actors are indigenous and the dialogue is entirely in Mayan, the natives are not depicted as being hyper-sensitive to nature (no 'noble savage' stereotype), nor is their innocence or ignorance portrayed as endearing or empowering. The film also escapes the stereotype of white, European outsiders being the only known aggressors to indigenous peoples--here, the group threatening the tribe is another indigenous group.

But then I thought about it some more, and I realized that the film also differed in ways that showed that maybe Mel hadn't overcome the odds as much as it seemed. The ending to the film is a bit of a downer--though Jaguar Paw saves his family, he cannot save his tribe or his land, and the film even includes a hint of more bad things to come (European ships landing on the beaches). So, even though the hero was indigenous and overcame many odds, at the end of the day he still couldn't do what the white messiahs of other films accomplish. Plus, perhaps even more damning is the fact that Mel seems to have traded in the noble savages for, well, savage savages. The film is beyond bloody, depicting human sacrifices and sick tortuous games that end in painful death.

Well, at least he tried something different (I guess?). But in the end I guess Brooks's point, that we lack films that show unbiased, unstereotypical views of indigenous cultures, was upheld.