Something that I definitely learned from this class is that a lot of people are highly misinformed and frequently think that things are one way when it’s usually the opposite. Like majority of people in America feel that it is the people in the Middle East who are the trouble makers and are very violent and dangerous when it is actually the American army who is causing most of the trouble and could ultimately be called bullies if we used a generic term for it. I know that I was definitely a person who thought it was the people of the Middle East who were causing all the issues between us.
Something that I thought was very funny is the “Needy Penis” lecture. This was funny because back home I hear girls talk all the time about them not being pleased sexually and it’s funny that guys think that everything is good. I’m not saying that I am an exception because, well I just don’t fucking know lol but I do know guys who have a bad reputation back home and they are usually the cockiest ones.(no pun intended) I thought that was very interesting to talk and hear about.
Something else that I thought was very interesting was the discussion of determinism versus free will. It’s like something that I think about all the time but didn’t know that there were specific terms that go with that idea. I think that was something that was good to bring into the heads of students because it kind of teaches people that yeah there are something’s that you can do to make your life better but at the end of the day, there are certain things that you just can’t control. I think was the most thought provoking thing that I heard in class all year.
I also really enjoyed when Sam lined up all of the different types of Asians in front of class. I tried to guess the different backgrounds for myself and I did terrible but I think it was fun to just not focus on black people every day. When people heard I was taking Soc 119, that is what everyone was telling me that the class was going to be mainly about which would have been cool but learning about everyone was much more entertaining and informative. Also, the fact that it was taught by a white man by a white man was cool because I rarely get to hear white people talk about other races.
I guess overall, I learned in this class that everything is not always what it seems. I think it’s a good class for people who are close-minded and originally not open to learn about other people. I was slightly guilty of this but people who come from areas of mainly one type of background I think got more out of the class than I did. I was a good class to show that what you think you know is usually only half of the story.

I feel that it is difficult for couples to date interracially because they can’t find much in common with the person of the opposite race. I think that it is easier for a black girl to relate to a black man and a white man to relate to white girl. I think people are afraid to cross the boundary or when they do they regret it and stay with their own race. I also think that where you were raised at and who you hung out with when you were younger plays a big part in who you choose to date or have sex with.
I know that for myself, I come from Erie, Pa which is a rather mixed city but I grew up hanging around mostly black kids and black girls. So whenever I was home and I found a white girl who I thought was attractive, she usually hung out around the other black girls that I knew so they shared the same qualities that I was used to. I think that’s what usually goes on with most of the black men who dabble into other races. But, I think that’s only in areas that are similar to Erie.
Out in Penn State, I think that things are a little different. Most of the black men that come here don’t come from very mixed areas; at least that is what it seems like. So, I think that they are used to being around white people and are ok with talking to white girls. But, as for the white men and women who come to Penn State, they are mostly from a suburban area and are raised around mostly white people. So, I feel that for a white man at Penn State, if they do talk to black female, she is probably from suburban area and has been around white people for a good majority of her life. The same goes for a white girl who is talking to a black man.
I also feel that a big part of why people are afraid to date interracially is because of what their parents may think. It seems that lots of black parents that I know don’t like when their black son brings home a white girl. I think that they feel that some of their heritage will be lost when their son has children. I think that my mother sometimes feels this way because my older brother has two kids by a white woman. I sometimes hear my mother say that pretty soon there will be no resemblance of her when we keep having kids by white women. I know that she loves my niece and nephew but I think that she definitely wants me to end up with a black woman. As in for a white boy or girl, I think that most of their parents would resent that some black blood would be entering their white blood line. They may seem a bit more open than a black parent would be, but I think behind the scenes, they would have hidden opinions.

I do agree that he is following as close to Jesus as any that I know as well. I’m not an extreme Christian, I just believe that there is someone who is above me and I respect and thank that being that has put me on Earth. Now, respect everything that the man in the video is doing because he doing what everyone should be doing. That task seems to be extremely difficult and very stressful and I wish nothing but good things to that man as he is working hard than maybe 99% of all people that I have ever come across.
If that was me, I don’t think that I would ever do something like that. Not that I don’t care about people that much, it’s just that I would try to focus on helping my family as much as I can and I still am selfish to the point that I would want to make sure that I am as happy as I can be. If I was in a position that I would be able to live comfortable and my mother wouldn’t have to work, that’s what I would be doing but his mom is helping him work hard as well. Not to say that they aren’t doing it for a great cause, I just wouldn’t want my mom working if didn’t need to after a certain age.
I do think that when he says that the satisfaction of the immigrants is all that he needs, he is telling the truth but I don’t know if that would be able to apply to even 10% of the world. I feel that most people in the world do look for material things for happiness and I am somewhat guilty of this as well. Because if you just think about what he is doing every day and night, how many people would want to do that. In your head, it may sound like a great idea but that is definitely something that is easier said than done; and I can say that even without doing that before.
I don’t feel that everyone needs to strive to be like Jesus because I know that God knows that I am not perfect so I don’t try to be perfect. I try to do the best that I can without abusing that ability to sin. I feel that a lot of people take advantage of the fact that God will forgive them and they think that they can just go around and treat people anyway that they feel like. I don’t drink or smoke. Not because I’m trying to look good in the eyes of God, I just don’t think that it’s for me. But some people get drunk as much as possible and then apologize and ask for forgiveness. I feel that you can’t apologize for something and then just keep doing it. That doesn’t make any sense to me. But, my point is that God knows that we are not perfect, and there is nothing wrong with striving to be perfect but if you’re not, don’t take advantage of God’s forgiveness.

I think that bringing the example of how we would feel if it was our mother or sister or daughter being raped is a great way to think of it. Most people want the best for their relatives and that would really force someone to really think about the severity of being raped and then the result of being pregnant happening. I’m not really partial to either side of pro-life or abortion because I don’t really think about it because I don’t want kids so it’s somewhat difficult for me to think about it for my own situation. I think if I had a wife and that happened to her, I would let her decide to do whatever she wanted to do and I would support it 100% I think that if it was some other female in my family that it happened to and they wanted to kill the child because that person raped her, I would support it because I don’t think that man should deserve having the information that they have a piece of themselves walking around the Earth.
But, if my relative wanted to keep the child, I wouldn’t have a problem with that either because maybe she felt that it is still her child and she wants to support her baby. I would be able to understand that 100%, I just wouldn’t want to child to ever know it’s father and I would force myself to serve as a father figure for that child. I would never let that the man who raped my relative to be involved in my family’s life again. I think that people really need to see the situation like that because it would really make someone consider or even choose a different side other than the side they were already on.
When you start to challenge your beliefs, that is when you really learn and I think that a lot of people would learn something about themselves in they looked at the situation like that. I kind of think that if someone got upset with a family member because they got an abortion after being raped, that that is very unreasonable. That should be a circumstance that I think the victim should have the final say in and shouldn’t have to receive any negative feedback from. How was the victim supposed to know that she was going to be raped and then pregnant.
I think this is a subject that everyone should be open-minded about and don’t judge people on their decisions. I could never see myself telling a female what to do with their body at the end of the day so I think it’s wrong for someone else to try to do that as well. I just pray that this situation never happens to someone that I am related to or know very well because I would hate for them to make a very difficult decision. Not to say that I have been pregnant before but I can only imagine.

On the first black guy, I belief based on how he his dressed that he is from an urban area; most likely from Philly because the majority of people at Penn State tend to be from the Philly area. He probably smokes a little weed because he seems to always have a tired appearance and very laid back. He is always probably a big fan of music, preferably hip-hop. He is dressed in a very hip-hop based attire and he has headphones around his neck. He may also be from a very urban area because it seems that dreads would most likely be a trait of someone from an urban area rather a suburban area.
A lot of my opinions about the first black guy can also be attributed to the second one that comes up in the video. A lot of the same things are repeated. He has headphones around his neck, he has dreads growing, they are both dressed in hip-hop based clothes. The only thing that I may think is different is that this one may be a little more athletic. He seems to have a more determined and aware face than the first black man that appeared.
The white girl that comes up next seems like she is very nice and comes from middle-class home. Her appearance doesn’t seem to scream out “rich girl” or “ghetto girl” so I would say that she is somewhere in between. She may be mixed with some sort of minority ethinic background but it is not very dominant and she looks to be overwhelmingly white.
The white guy seems to draw a lot of the same characteristics of the white girl as well. He has on a very “middle class” hoodie and normal hair; not fancy but not a “train wreck “ either. He gives off a very dull and relaxed look so he may smoke weed as well as the first black guy. He also looks like he has a somewhat rebellious look so he may be a skateboarder or involved in some other comparable activities; he may be a fan of rock or something like that.
The next black guy, seems like he might be from New York. Not just based on what his shirt says, but the way he where’s his hat seems like he might be from New York; not sure why.
The next black man, seems like he could be from a suburban area. His hair is kind of messy which seems like he doesn’t care about his appearance that much and he is more focused on doing well in school. He always gave off an awkward expression so I don’t assume that he smokes or does any drugs, but the possibility is there.
The white lady at the end seems a little overly happy so she is probably well off and has a nice amount of money and a nice house. She may have grown up middle class because her attire doesn’t really say rich but she is not poor at all.

I have very mixed feelings about the exercise of who’s land is it. In certain circumstances I feel that someone deserves the land that their elder once owned, then other circumstances I feel the opposite and now I just don’t really know how to feel about the subject. I think that if I lived on a piece of land that my mother or father owned, I deserve to live on that land because the previous owner of that land most likely directly knew me and would have no problem giving me that property. I would most likely have a direct and personal relationship with that person and I would be considered the closest kin to that person so it would only make sense to me. Also, at the end of the day I wouldn’t want someone to try to forcibly take the land that I have placed my family and myself upon and I would 100% have a right to defend myself.
Now if this was land that one of my grandparents owned, the right for me to keep this land would go down slightly but I still feel that I would be very entitled to this land. Unless my grandparents died shortly after I was born or some other circumstances occurred, I would think that I would have some type of relationship with them as well and they wouldn’t mind and would most likely encourage someone to let me have this land. I think that the big deciding factor for me is, was the difference in age between the owner and myself so great that I wouldn’t have any knowledge of this person at all? Also, even if I didn’t know my grandparents, did they leave some information about keeping this property in the family? I think that nine times out of ten, the verdict will be that the property shall remain in my family by indication from my elders but I can only speak on what I think my family will do.
This is the part where I think things get a little bit more “iffy” for me. If the land that I am currently living on was owned by my great-grandparents, I think that unless that land is some sort of very important landmark in the history of my family, the importance of me owning this land has dropped a very low amount. Regardless, I would try to defend this land because I wouldn’t appreciate someone trying to take me off of my land that my family is currently living on but the my entitlement to this land has dropped significantly.
I think that is a very confusing that topic and my opinion will forever change as different factors and circumstances come into play. My overall response will remain that if the property is a part of my family, I think that it should remain that way and I should be entitled to it; especially if someone is trying to take me of the land by using force. THIS IS MY HOUSE!

I feel that many of the decisions that I many of the decisions that I made that lead me to being at Penn State are results of free will rather that determinism. Not to say that determinism didn’t play a factor in the decisions, just saying that I think it the meter leans more towards free will than determinism.
On the free will end, I chose to work hard during high school. I chose to try to better my life and make my mother and father proud and I chose to leave my hometown to attain a better education. Out of my immediate family I would only be 3rd person with a college degree. So, this kind of leads into determinism, if this statistic didn’t exist in my family, how would it affect how hard I worked? If my mom had a college degree, would she have pushed me so hard to try to get into college? And if this is the case, would I be in college right now? I think that her not having a degree is 60% of the reason why I chose to work so hard and I may not be in school if the situation was different.
This also goes for my friends, a high percentage of my friends that are my age, aren’t in school, have kids and still at home with their parents. If all of my friends were like me and worked hard in school and didn’t have kids, would I have worked so hard to not be like them and better my life? I think that I personally chose to do better than everyone and be the best that I can be. But, you can also look at it as my friends influenced me to do better and leave that environment. I do think that if my friends were just like me and worked hard in school, I would be in an even better school and even smarter and determined than I am now.
I think that determinism is really the background of what we consider free will. We do have free will to do whatever we want; whether that be good or bad. But, at the end of the day, what influenced us to make these free will decisions? So, I definitely feel that I am leaning on the free will side, but it seems that determinism and free will almost go hand and hand with each other .
Another example can be that I love listening to rap and I am a rapper. I chose at the age of 12 to start writing, rapping and recording. But, I always grew up with my older brother who spent a lot of time in the house listening to rap and me hanging around him, influenced me to listen to rap. So, if I never lived with my older brother and spent a lot of time with him, would I listen to rap or music in general? And if I didn’t listen to rap growing up, would I want to rap now? I think that is something that I will never know.

I think that being rich is pretty much being a minority. Nobody wants to be seen as being different than everyone and then be pre-judged by everyone and have to do deal with many unwanted opinions. I think that being around many people that feel that are working very hard to get a nice amount of money and being the person who already has it all can be very conflicting. Especially, if we are all around the same age, I know some people may have some resentment towards people who come into their situation already taken care of.
If I was rich and somebody asked me about how I’m living, I wouldn’t have a problem in saying that I have some money. At the end of the day, isn’t that what were all working for? If we get this money and somebody asks me about my money situation, why would I pretend to have less money than I do? I wouldn’t see anything embarrassing or hurtful about having money. Maybe, I don’t understand because I’m not on the rich side of the argument. I don’t see the reason in really hiding your wealth though. Is it to protect the feelings of people who are less fortunate?
If so, I don’t think that richer people need to protect the feelings of others, of course have a filter on what is said to not intentionally hurt people, but don’t sugar your true feelings or facts. Don’t act as if you have ever been a financial struggle or had to go hungry for a long period of time if you haven’t. If this is done, I don’t see why a rich person would feel that they need to downplay how much money they have. I wouldn’t like or trust someone who lied to me so I don’t like the fact that kids in class wouldn’t acknowledge is they were well off.
Knowing things like this are very important. It is good to know how some people acquired the money that they now have in order to help the next man get to where they want to be. I think someone trying to prevent us from understanding what we can or need do to acquire money or help our children acquire money is very selfish and a form of trying to keep the less fortunate where they are now. Everyone should be trying to help the next man and helping themselves at the same time.
At the end of the day, there is nothing to be ashamed about in you have money. I think that it would make more sense if a poor hid how much money they had. That seems to be more frequent in the world that I live in. I don’t think I could ever hide how money that I have. The way that I dress and act is going to be affected by how much money I have. No matter if I try to prevent this or not. Everybody is going to know what I have and don’t have.

I think that when men are telling women that they need to be clean-shaven everywhere besides the top of their heads, we are applying lots of pressure to these women to meet with certain expectations and stressing women everywhere. I feel that a lot of women would rather just be natural and not shave as often as they do, but they are just trying to compete with other women to gain the attention of men that are just putting false ideas of beauty into their heads. I know that I am definitely guilty of doing this and I don’t know how I can get these ideas out of my head.
I personally don’t have a big problem with women having some hair on them but I don’t like too much hair. This girl that I knew in high school who I had a crush had hairy arms but it didn’t really matter and it obviously didn’t matter that too her. I know some of my friends wouldn’t find that to be very attractive in a woman and would disgust them but I think women should do what they feel is comfortable and shouldn’t have to listen to expectations she needs to meet.
Us as men, first need to stop being so judgmental of women and maybe need to look into the person that they are on the inside before judging who they are based on their outside. I definitely know that am a guy who doesn’t try to talk to the “unattractive girl” at the party. I’m going to a party and I’m looking for Numero Uno. I think that’s how must guys are and this is why women are competing so hard with each other to follow what we have going on in our head as attractive and I believe that women are trying harder than ever.
The bad news is that I don’t know if men will ever change the way they think. I think that unless you travel the world and witness other forms of beauty or if you are just a very open-minded person, I think that men will forever force women to follow these unwritten guidelines of beauty. I think that the world is big and too many believe in the idea of women being completely shaved and this has just become a standard that will stay around.
I would like to see that men could look past the idea that hairy women are unattractive but it is hard to imagine men feeling this way. Maybe it is just because I’m used to hearing this idea and I am not too good at predicting the future. I just knew that if I met Alicia Keys and she had hairy arms or legs, she would still be super sexy to me. I think that men need to think more like that. If a women is attractive, she is attractive. So called flaws that women have shouldn’t interfere with the overall being of them. Not every man is 100% ideal to what a woman would want so we can’t expect women to be perfect either.

I think that hip-hop and many other art forms has forever been a very universal tool that has always helped to unify different countries and people who believe that they do not have much in common with other people in the world. I know with me being an avid listener of music, one of my favorite artists to listen to is M.I.A. who is from Sri Lanka. I don’t think you can put an ethnic background on music because is more of something that is supposed to make you feel some type of emotion when you listen to it and I think that that trait is in every person in the world not just in a specific region of the world.

I think the reason why everyone was able to relate and Omar Offendum when he came to our class is because even if you didn’t understand what he said when he rapped in a different language, you could hear the emotion in his voice and you could tell he was talking about something he was passionate about. Even though Omar is from Saudi Arabia but has lived in America for a decent amount of time, I believe that an artist could come fresh out of Saudi Arabia and make it in America if he or she spoke about something that people can relate to and emotionally feel. One example of an artist from America that has brought a lot of people together because of his music is Michael Jackson. You can go anywhere in the world and I guarantee more than have the people in the world know and usually love his music.

His was very passionate is his music and talked about a lot of things that people all around the world could relate to so that’s why even to this day, his music is still recognized. I think that’s why Selena was also able to be the universally big artist that she was even if she sung in Spanish, because in music I feel that a lot of the time it’s more about the emphasis that you put into your words rather than the actual words. Music is a great way to bring peace among different ethnic backgrounds, beliefs and pretty much anything else you can think of. That’s why whenever you go to a concert, for the most part you see diversity in the crowd.

Overall, I can see music doing nothing but good in regards to connecting the East and West together. Music is heavily used at concerts when trying to raise money for charity. Music is involved in celebrations all around the world where people come together as one to share something that they all have in common and to have a good time. You can see hip-hop in America, Saudi Arabia, Great Britain and in China. Music is in my book, “the Ultimate Piece-Maker,” and one of the main motivators in the lives of a lot of people who need something to help them get up and go. That’s not in America, that’s world-wide.