I personally feel that healthcare should be an equal right to everyone just because it’s just not right to me knowing that there are people out there who can be seriously hurt or in dangerous working situations with absolutely no assurance that they can do anything about it if they get hurt. However, I see lots of problems and objections to this sort of idea. People who pay taxes would object to allowing illegal immigrants to receive these sorts of benefits. A lot of people who believe they shouldn’t even be here would also object, because as it is they don’t believe they are here, what if they are getting rights. I hope that healthcare for illegal immigrants is a possibility but I’m currently skeptical of its feasibility.

I think that immigrants who do put in the hard work, especially those who do the work that most Americans are unwilling to do (evidenced by the crop growers in California who let all these fruits rot because there was no one to pick them) should be commended for what they are doing. If you think about it from the perspective of many of these immigrants, I’m sure they don’t want to be illegal. I’m sure they’d want to work jobs that pay more and allow them to do more with their lives, but they simply can’t because they can’t afford to become citizens. So then they are penalized for coming here illegally just so they can make some money to typically make a better life for themselves. If you were in that situation, isn’t that what you’d want?

I think that sociology is somewhat of sad field, since most sociologists it seems don’t seem to focus on all the good things in society but rather all the bad things with the conscious awareness that many of these things can’t be affected or directly changed. We see all the negative stereotypes people build up with one another, all the prejudices and hatred and it becomes slightly depressing knowing there’s all this animosity in the world. This whole class was really showed the student’s in the class some of the biggest problems with society and they’ve made it so that I think most people in the class have learned and appreciated a lot of new information. It’s slightly depressing, but seeing video’s like this are uplifting and really make at least me feel better about the way things are.

First off, watching the video in class almost made me cry because of everything we’ve learned in class, and yet how there is still so much good stuff happening. This video made it hard to think about race, and I think that’s something most everyone who watched it would agree. There are something’s, like this little boys interest in the little girl, that just precede all the perceptions, stereotypes, and prejudices we all build towards others. If people began to focus on these similarities more than our differences, race relations would be at a whole different place right now. If people were just more willing to see the good in people instead of their color, the world would definitely be a lot better.

These tent cities quite amaze me. The ventures, businesses, and the growing “economy” are actually very good for Haiti and it’s just great to me that these people are getting up from this big mess, wiping off the dirt, and trying to create something for themselves. That’s something that takes so much strength and character. From what the visitor in class told us, this is exactly what they need and the funny thing is they are doing this for themselves and by themselves and no one is providing them with the clean water, and bags of rice and it’s just amazing how everything is working out.

.The only thing that saddens me, is that at the end of the video they said that most of the people in the tent city won’t be leaving for years. It amazes me how these people will never really be able to pick up their lives and make them what they were before. It’s just not possible for them to do that unless outside help provides them with the means to stimulate the economy more and really work to create a new thriving country. The only thing we can hope I guess is that they can be happy with the way things are going, because in the end that’s what matters the most.

Quite frankly, I was really surprised by this letter just because it really gave me the opportunity to challenge all these preconceived notions, stereotypes, and prejudices most of us, including myself, towards prisons, prison life, and the people in there. We all automatically think prisoners: barbaric, probably not educated, usually not very kind, we typically see them as “dirty” and as people we would never see being able to function in society correctly. Obviously that’s not true for a lot of those people, and this letter really exemplifies that. The first thing it does is completely throw away this notion of everyone being uneducated. I was just amazed by his prose and his writing style, especially for someone who had never even been through college. In my head I was thinking, I don’t know if some of my peers or even I can write that well and convey that much sincerity in our writing. Furthermore, the content of the note itself was incredibly surprising. It’s hard to imagine the scene he described in the letter. Two men, two men who hate each other giving helping one another out. The funny thing is, I don’t even think that kind of compassion happens that often outside of prison walls. And maybe that is true, maybe these prison walls facilitate this sort of growth in a person. I mean this man does not sound like a killer, and at this point he sounds remorseful, and a good person. We all make mistakes, some are more severe than others, and cannot be excused, and that can be sad, especially when people make as many amends for them as possible. And maybe it’s the prison itself make people who have caused suffering, to really see the suffering they have caused, and that is what causes this extreme sincerity this man writes about in his letter. People in the real world have walls that they build up, and even when they see someone they hate going through something terrible, something usually keeps them back from helping them I believe. Sometimes its fear, other times anger, bitterness, or spite. The thing is, all the men in this prison are somewhat vulnerable. They’ve all been thrown in the same situation, with the same regrets, and remorses, and same terrible event they’ve caused, and so what they share in common still connects them no matter how much they hate each other. So when things come down to it, they are there for each other, because it’s a sad understanding and mutualism because these walls are broken down in a sense.

What is the point of all this? We venture into these topics attempting to explore the hatreds, fears, prejudices of people around the world and particularly this country (blacks and whites) but it seems to me from all we’ve looked at and especially Laurie’s book, we aren’t getting anywhere and what progress we are making is incredibly slow. Personally I believe this is because race relations asks everyone to shed every sort of shield people carry and asks people to put them at their most vulnerable. For as many people that are willing to put it all out there, there are just as many people that are just too scared because I feel like people don’t believe they have the courage to do it. Maybe, if people begin to see that the point of all this is to make peace, not to create more pain, that people’s intentions are really not that bad in nature then we can go somewhere with race relations.

Throughout class yesterday Sam kept saying that these Muslims react to what they see as a threat to their religion, their friends and families lives and theirs and so are moved to do things we all see as immoral and unbelievable. Sam continued to say that they didn’t know all sorts of things that we knew, like how soldiers weren’t all bad and all of them didn’t do the terrible things they particularly reacted to. And that George Bush and others phrased things and exploited words to make everything into something these other people hated so much. And Sam kept saying that although we know that these people are only a minority they don’t. The thing is, if they instilled so much hatred, was this really a minority? I don’t know anything about this subject so I won’t speculate, but how far did this unkindness and hatred filled behavior did these people have to suffer just from our soldiers alone.

Yesterday’s class was actually one of the most thought provoking classes I have ever been in. The way the questions were prompted, and the class layout really brought out the best in the topic and really appealed to me and the people around me. I mean I’ve always known of sociology as looking at the way people think and the way they act and understanding it, I’ve never thought to apply this to the insurgences and the fight overseas, it seemed to be a topic in a realm very different from the one we’re looking at and so one of the most interesting things was how intriguing the topic was once integrated. It was such a different outlook, it was just absolutely so different to see from their perspective. They are humans too, and all humans are the same, no matter how much we refuse to admit it. We all have similar fears, things we hate, love, etc. It makes perfect sense now why these things would happen. The funny thing is, this topic is slightly different but it lies in the same general area of religion and holy wars/ land: the Palestine issue. I was always against Palestine, not thinking about the actions from their point of view and really critically analyzing what was going on. Furthermore, the media doesn’t help at all with their case, the patriotic themes of our media kill neutrality and I personally believe it makes our country look terrible. The things people see and hear and believe are absolutely ridiculous. But anyways, now looking back at the whole debate, I see from the Palestinians point of view and some of the stuff I thought they were doing and that was horrible makes more sense to me. It’s really sad how separated and isolated people make themselves by forming groups, factions, divides all because of different believes when, when it really comes down to it, we’re all the same. We all feel the same about things and it’s sad that it’s not the thing that connects us all. I think that as a Jain I would absolutely never partake in war or condone it, but I understand the other side now, even though I had known about the poor treatment from soldiers and the terrible attitude and outlook the world has towards these people. I just never really gave it thought, I always just took what the media gave me and showed me and took it for granted. I understand why people would join the insurgency. We all can understand the hatred, the pain, the weakness these people must feel, except in a different way then them. A lot of times these are the things that drive us the craziest and make us do things that we don’t necessarily want to do or even morally agree with. It’s all the hatred and pain and anger that drives the way the world works.