I think what most people see as offensive is the signs that are being held in the photo. I think that if there were no signs, then it wouldn’t have gotten as much of a reaction from the community and news agencies. The signs play on commonly known stereotypes of Mexicans mowing lawns and having access to weed. These are stereotypes that everyone knows about, even white people. The generalization of Mexicans wearing ponchos, sombreros and having big mustaches is offensive to Mexicans because it generalized their entire culture into something meaningless.

I think that if the signs were not there, then the white people who are in the stage of being in the politically correct police might not have thought a Mexican themed party with everyone wearing sombreros was offensive. Having the signs makes it clear to white people who are used to not having racial conflict that this is a big “no-no”. Many people couldn’t tell you exactly why the photo is offensive, but like Sam has said in lecture before, white people are “trained” to avoid racial conflict and use situation-neutral wording to avoid a racial faux-pas.
Something that I didn’t even think of when I first saw the picture was how it related to the War on Drugs that is happening in Mexico. I read a collegian article about people meeting to discuss the implications of the photo and a Mexican student commented about how joking about “smoking grass and not mowing it” shows the ignorance of the members of Chi Omega not knowing about how thousands have died in gang related violence due to a the War on Drugs.
It is also offensive that the sorority would blatantly stereotype Mexicans. Many Mexican Americans have to fight to move upward in their company. There is a stigma in America of all Mexicans doing landscaping and mowing lawns. To dress up in ponchos, sombreros, and fake moustaches and hold those signs is the equivalent of dressing in blackface and playing the part of a vaudeville “stage negro” (as it was called in the late 1800s).
I think that many Penn Staters took it to offense because of the recent Sandusky scandal. Penn State is already on thin ice with the Sandusky cover up, and anyone who adds any sort of negative image to Penn State at a time where the media spotlight is shining bright on us will definitely piss off many people in the Penn State community. Students, Alumni, and Faculty all have to deal with the awkward conversations that come with talking to people outside of Penn State about the Sandusky Scandal. Now that that story has died down, it was good to not need to talk about the scandal, but Chi Omega just fed the media with some new material to hurt Penn State’s image.
Overall, I think that the signs are what set the wildfire for the picture, but the outfits and overall idea of the themed party is what offended the Mexican community the most

When Asian people are seen to be stereotypically smart, it creates the issue of people not giving credit to hard work. If an Asian student gets straight A’s, everyone will assume that they only get those grades because they are Asian. What people don’t see is how hard that the student works while at home to maintain those grades. In many Asian cultures, education is very important, and parents often push their children to do their best. This results in students receiving high grades because they have a lot of motivation at home. When people don’t understand how much effort the student puts forth at home and that the student is getting support at home, they only see that “all” Asian students get good grades, but they don’t. This causes people to discredit that person’s hard work despite all of the time that was spent. People may also form resentments towards Asians because they think, “Asians always get good grades and do well, but I can’t.” These resentments may lead to issues later in life when Asian graduates are applying for jobs and don’t get it because of an interviewers that make preferential decisions.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, if a student is having a difficult time in school and that student is Asian, she might receive insults from her fellow classmates asking why she doesn’t just get A’s because she is Asian. This would make the student feel like they are not performing up to their potential and that everyone think that they aren’t as smart as they should. More is expected of a student who may be performing to their best. This would lead the student to be stressed out because he/she isn’t performing up to the standard that they are expected to be at. This stress could lead to increased suicide rates among Asian youths
White students may also be impacted by this stereotype because they may feel like they can never be as smart as their fellow students because they aren’t a “smart race”. This would lead to students not working up to their full potential because they don’t have motivation to do anything because they feel like they won’t ever be able to be as smart as their peers.
I think that people can find many ways to view Asians as stereotypically smart. The spelling bees that are on television often have Asian kids as finalists. All of the people watching the show would slowly form a stereotype that only Asian students can win because only Asian students are smart enough.
Any stereotype that is perpetrated in America is a bad thing for everyone. America is a unique place where there are many different races all interacting with each other. Even stereotypes that perpetrate a race in a positive light can wreak havoc on the sociology of the nation. Any type of stereotype will have negative effects on the race who the stereotype is about and the people who are around the race of people who the stereotype affects.

I think that given the society that we live in, it is no surprise that our belief system is based off of misinformation. We are constantly bombarded with information that is skewed in one direction or the other. Depending on what else is going on in the world, major news outlets will pick and choose stories to report. A child being abducted may get local coverage or national coverage if it is a slow news week. News outlets also tend to choose a side of a story and focus on that side only, often disregarding facts or not presenting all of the information available.

I think a perfect example of this is something that I brought up in recitation which is the Casey Anthony case. I’m not going to advocate her innocence, but a jury was not able to find her guilty. Many people “know” that she is guilty based on the only information that they ever received: news outlets running story after story saying, “Casey supposedly did this, then did that”, before she was even convicted. The Casey Anthony case also shows how much the news will blow up one story despite the fact that it had little to no importance to anyone outside of the local community. I can only imagine how many people were killed due to drunk driving, cancer from smoking, or other hazards that are an actual threat to society.

During the TEDxPSU in 2010, someone spoke about risk and how it affects us on a day to day basis, and he said something that I’ve always tried to remember: “If something is in the news, you don’t need to worry about it”. What this basically means is that the news only reports on things that are rare or different from our day-to-day activities. No news outlet will report on the millions of children that walked to school and weren’t abducted, but every news outlet will report on a single child being abducted from school. A news program that reported mundane information that no one really cares about, but are important facts in society would get terrible ratings and no one would watch it. It is in the major news channels interests to sensationalize what they are reporting on and to get people riled up over a story so that people will tune back in and watch commercials.

This constant skew of information from single-sided reporting, non-varied reporting, and sensationalizing news sources is what causes people to be afraid of their children being abducted while walking to school, despite the fact that nearly no children are ever abducted while walking to school. People are never afraid of dying when they step into their car, despite the fact that driving is one of the most dangerous things that everyone does.

I think that affirmative action is necessary in the society that we live in. Shackles have been put on black people and other minorities in the United States for generations, and at the current state of the country, it is not possible for those people to “catch up” to the people who have money and are in power today. The steps activity that Sam did in class shows how distant (on average) the wealth of different races are in America. It is not physically possible for those people to catch up, unless they are given some preferential treatment in certain areas.
While I do think that affirmative action is necessary, I think that it needs to be applied in the correct places. I think that entrance to universities must have affirmative action, as having an education is the best way to move forward and improve your situation in life. Affirmative action in the workplace is a more difficult situation though. I think that companies should strive for diversity and attempt to broaden the culture of their employees, but what company would hire someone who is less qualified than another prospective hire just for their ethnic background. It is a difficult decision for a company to decide if they would sacrifice employee skill for diversity.
One point that I want to bring up that also relates to free will/determinism is a podcast of This American Life that I listened to. The podcast went over education in the United States and how kids who grow up in inner city areas are put at such a disadvantage in their education. The kids grow up in homes that are broken, which constantly puts them in stressful flight or fight responses that hinder brain growth and the ability to focus. These kids physically cannot focus and learn in school due to the environment in which they were raised. I think that if there is no affirmative action to help these people move up in their lives, then they will just be a hindrance to society and end up being a burden on the entire country and the economy.

I think that the Identifying Asians activity shows how much we need to get involved with international discussions. As Americans, we can enter situations where we do not come into contact with many people of Asian origins. This causes us to not be able to identify the differences between people from different asian countries. My mom did a post-doctorate with many people from Asia, and was exposed to people from a vast range of countries. She can now (with near %100 accuracy) identify the country of origin for almost anyone from Asia. Being involved in conversation and day-to-day interactions with people helps you form the connections to realize the differences between Asian features. Japanese and Korean people look completely different if you know what you are looking for, but unless you have interacted with people from those countries, you will just group all Asians into the same ethnic group, even though they are all quite different.
I think that this may be one of the reasons why many people of Asian descent want to have plastic surgery to remove the “Asian eye” to get the “European eye”. Many Americans see someone with the Asian eye and immediately think that they are Chinese. With the European eye, Asians lose some of their racial features, but gain the fact that they are no longer “Chinese” to an American.
The other interesting thing that we discussed in class was how many different racial groups could look Asian even if they were from a South American country. It just goes to show how spread out the racial groups of the world are. I think that we all need to be more active in the international community and have more discussions with those around us so that we can form connections and learn the different sources of racial features that are in the world. Being able to recognize where someone is from would really build a connection, instead of saying that someone from Vietnam was from China.

I think that the most surprising thing about the quote that was displayed on Thursday was my own reaction given the person who was presented as saying it. When I first read the quote with the mindset that the so-called spiritual adviser to Ahmadinejad was claiming a war on Christianity, I almost thought to myself, "Well, this is no surprise to me, the Iranian government is a bit crazy.” After Sam revealed that it was actually Franklin Graham, the spiritual advisor to George W Bush, who said it, I was truly shocked. I never knew that the most powerful man in the United States had an adviser that suggested the use of weapons of mass destruction against a people because of their religion. I was pretty much unfazed to hear a quote like that come out of the Iranian government, but hearing it come from the United States government really shocked me. I felt disgusted at the fact that an American could make such an aggressive attack against a religion.
I was somewhat less surprised when I saw that the quote was right in the wake of 9/11. I felt that I could understand how Graham (and many other Americans) was just looking for someone to blame for the cause of 9/11. Upon further reflection, I questioned my rationalization of the quote. Was it okay for me to ‘understand’ where the man was coming from after he advocated using WMDs against people for being Muslim? But for some reason, it feels less ‘wrong’ to me knowing that the quote came in the wake of 9/11.
Regardless of who could have said that quote, I think that it is completely dis-representative of the people who are associated with the individual. Nearly all Iranians would agree that it is inappropriate to use weapons against Christianity, just as nearly all Americans would agree that it is wrong to use weapons against Muslims. It is unfortunate that a small set of outliers in each group gives the image of intolerance and ignorance to everyone else.