Attempting to list everything that I have learned from taking Soc 119 this semester would be an extended list because I believe that I have learned something different every lecture this semester. Out of all of the courses that I have taken this semester Soc 119 is perhaps the only class that I've learned something unique every week and often every class. Even during my discussion group it was usual for me to learn information that I've never heard before and this was one of the primary reasons why I enjoyed attending my discussion group every Monday. I can recall one of the first things that I've learned from taken Soc 119 was during the first few weeks of the course when we discussed why people had the texture of hair and skin color that they have. That was probably one of my favorite lessons because I have always been interested in learning about these things because it was questions that I've had since high school. Along with the lectures that explained this, the videos that we were asked to watch for the exams were informal and interesting as well. Though the readings were fairly long, once I passed the first two pages or so, it was difficult for me to stop reading and I was instantly intrigued. Majority of the lessons that I have learned throughout the many lectures in Soc 119 were primary morals. Even though I have always been open to people of all cultures and backgrounds, taking Soc 119 has opened my eyes even more to actually understand the cultures which has allowed me to accept people for who they are even more than before. The knowledge that was taught about different cultures from Sam and the participating students are another thing that I enjoyed learning about this semester. When ever students were called down and asked to explain their background and culture I always thought it was interesting to hear the difference between some cultures and the similarities as well. Not only was listening to the students participate in class informal, but the Skype sessions held with the individuals from Iraq and Haiti were probably the most informal because we were able to hear about experiences from other countries with people first hand while they were actually in those countries. Of all of the classes here at Penn State, Soc 119 is one of the only classes that offers students insight on different cultures throughout personal Skype session putting students in the comfort of the homes of the individuals being "Skyped" in. Over all, Soc 119 is hands down one of m favorite classes I've taken at Penn State. I've wanted to take this course since my introduction to it during Achievers Weekend 2011 and now I am finally able to say that I've done so.

After Tuesday's lecture, I think that it was one of my favorite lectures of the semester. I think it was very interesting because of all the lecture I think that this one I was able to relate to more because I have friends who I believe are apart of these various stages of racial identification, including myself. Initially I didn't know what to expect when the class opened up with a performance, my first assumption was that it was be based on race and music. But to my surprise it focused on how individuals have different stages of racism that effects their on outlook on racial groups around them. The speaker introduced to the class a variety of stages, which I believe were between 1-5 that classified how someone felt towards a racial group. Stage 1 meaning that the individual is the most close minded and Stage 5 meaning that the individual was open to all races and any number between that was sort of straddling the fence of both sides. After each stage was thoroughly explained and described to the class, I came to the conclusion that I am between a stage 4 and 5. This generally means that I am open to various racial groups. I think that i am a stage 5 on the racial identifier scale because of the culture I grew up apart of with my family. I'm apart of a fairly diverse family whereas I have family members apart of a variety of racial backgrounds like African American, Italian, Native American, and Jewish. I believe that being apart of such a diverse environment since I was younger has allowed me to become open to the different racial groups because of my constant exposure to them. Seeing how my family is accepting and welcoming to nearly any racial category has allowed me to become just as welcoming. Not only is my family diverse when it comes to racial groups, but they are just as diverse with religion. I have close family members whom are Christian, Jehovah Witness, Muslim, and Jewish. Even though their is a wide spend of different religions in my family, I have never once seem or heard them judging one another because of their religion because it is accepted regardless of which religion it is. I think that this has helped me throughout high school and college become a lot more well rounded and open to conversation with anyone because in my family it is a "common moral" to accept everyone regardless of race or religion. When the speaker in class was giving examples of the various stages and how he had witnessed an individual or situation that was apart of each stage, I was most able to relate to but stages 4 and 5.

There's one thing to try to have a neutral understanding of the conflict involving immigration and Native Americans, and there is another thing to put your self in there shoes, having to respond from their point of view. I believe that there is nothing morally right about the immigration involving Native Americans and it is difficult to even put yourself in that predicament considering how wrong it is. In my opinion, native Americans should receive some sort of reparations due to the events involving Christopher Columbus. The fact that someone essentially came and declared a piece of land, attempted to force Native Americans to change their culture/language, and brutally massacre along with rape the Native Americans is one of the hardest concepts to comprehend. I think that it is even harder to accept this because Christopher Columbus is praised by elementary schools as discovering the United States, however at the expense of hundreds of innocent lives. Not only is Christopher Columbus honored in various text books, but he has a holiday for this. If I had to put myself in the shoes of Native Americans I would be livid to that a land that used to be my ancestors was viciously stolen and declared someone else's. My mother is part Native American and most of her Native American relatives are residents of South Carolina and have been for generations. I know that when Columbus Day comes around they aren't fond of the day and it honestly reminds them of the terror that their ancestors were put through. Looking at this issue from the inside out, I don't understand how it is fair for citizens of the United State to have an issue with immigrants coming over here illegal or not, when it is basically what Christopher Columbus did. This land was practically stolen from a group of people which forced them out of their comfort zone to migrate away from their locations. Learning about the Native American tribes in the midwest made it difficult to accept because these people were force from their land and are now forced to live in those deadly conditions because of the events that their ancestors were apart of. I believe that Native Americans do have ever right to feel angry because their land was essentially swiped from them at the expense of lives and even now centuries later some people still don't wan't to accept them in America. Now looking ahead there is nothing that can be done in order to change what has happened in the past, but to make up for these terrible events, Native Americans should simply receive reparations for everything that they have lost, in my opinion this is one of the many reasonable solutions.

Prior to Sam's lecture that focused on contact amongst different races, I thought that I have a fair understanding of different culture groups and races. I come for a pretty diverse background and culture because my family consist of people apart of different racial groups. Even though my family is made up of people apart of different races, I don't have an understanding (or exposure) of those cultures as much as I would like to. For example my father is part Italian and African American, however I have only been able to identify with his African American side of the family. As curious as I am about my Italian culture, I haven't been able to meet anyone apart of my family that can teach me about the culture. Same for my mother's side of the family whom are Native American and African American. Most of my family that are Native American live down in the Southern states like North/South Carolina and Florida, meanwhile my family who is African American primary live in New Jersey and Philadelphia where I am able to communicate with them more. I believe that exposure is very important in society because there are many people who simply make assumptions of someone's culture based simply on what they see in media even though it is sometimes far from what is actually depicted. I attended a high school that was fairly diverse because there were students who attended that came from various types of backgrounds. This experience with different cultures in high school had in fact helped me become more exposed to their race and culture. Another way my high school was able to demonstrate to students the various cultures was having foreign exchange students visit every year for about two weeks and having students from the school visits other countries as well for about two weeks to experience the different cultures. It was events like these that opened a lot of the students eyes at my school to broaden their horizons and become more knowledgeable about the different customs. I think that as an American it is important to know about different customs because I believe that other cultures know significantly more about the American culture than what the average American knows about theirs, which is slightly ignorant in my opinion. It shows that here in America some people have no concern about other racial groups besides what they are exposed to. Another way I have been able to be exposed to different culture groups are though my stepdad's side of the family. My stepdad is part Jewish, African American and Native American so during family events I am always excited to see the various cultures together at one event. Even though I am able to have this exposure to different groups of people though my family I think that there is always room to learn more about someones customs just to show that you are concerned about the society that you're living in.

After Tuesday's class, similar to what many of the other students had also said regarding this post, I was not very surprised about the statistics that were posted. History classes that I'd taken back in high school that focus on "Today's Culture" typically outline similar statistics that Sam had posted for the class. I believe that the statistics weren't surprising, however the depth of some of the information that was presented showed how racism is continuing to be a problem even though some people tend to ignore it. I believe that the most interesting aspect of lecture last week was when Sam had discussed how employers often discriminate based off of the name a job candidate has. For example there was one slide in particular that showed how candidates with names like, "Latisha" or "Shaniqua" are less likely to receive a job or even interview as opposed to a candidate with a name like, "Jane" or "Sarah". This issue seems racial in my opinion because people in general (in this case employers) often associate names like "Latisha" or "Shaniqua" with urban communities. Since the employer would assume that the candidate is from a particular community, he or she would deny the candidate because of the perception of the individual given based solely on the name. I thought it was even more surprising that this act of discrimination in the work force is implanted by both Black and White employers. It is sad in my opinion that discrimination in this case is based off a person's name even if their credentials are just as equal to or above a candidate with a typical American name. In an article titles, "Do 'Black' Names Matter in Hiring?" Dan Woog had stated, "We should not blame parents for giving kids ethnic names. Instead, we should examine what it is in American society that leads people to discriminate simply because of someone's parent's choice of names" I agree with this statement 100% because it simply isn't fair for discrimination like this to occur anywhere. This goes back to the concept Sam was discussing to the class last week about the power of misleading information. This case is an example of misleading information because employers associate the names "Latisha" or "Shaniqua" with urban communities and the way urban communities are portrayed in some media is not appealing. So most employers take this perception that they have about urban communities and associate with the names that people are typically given that are apart of these communities. Since I've learned about this issue in class, I think that it is unfair that even with having the appropriate credentials and knowledge it is possible for someone else to receive a position in stead that may have lower credentials because someone's name is negatively associated with a community.

After watching the video clip in class on Thursday, I thought the concept of the video was very interesting. Initially I didn't know how the bypassing pedestrians would react to the Caucasian male that was attempting to steal the bicycle. My first assumption was that someone would realize that he was trying the steal the bike and question him, but to my surprise the first 5 or so bypassing pedestrians totally ignored the male. When I saw this my first reaction was that it was primarily a racial matter as to why no one approached the Caucasian male. But after further thinking about this issue, I think that no one approached him because they simply didn't want to get involved. There are many circumstances where bystanders witnessing a crime would ignore the crime to avoid being associated with it at all. It's often better to ignore the situation rather than being apart of it. When the first few pedestrians questioned the guy on why he was meddling with the bike chain, even after he said the bike wasn't his they continued to ignore him. After the next set of people ignored the gentleman, I thought that it was based more so off of his race because they automatically assumed that he was fixing it. The next male that was used in the experiment was African American and I wasn't surprised at all that he was constantly hassled and questioned by the bystanders. It is often a first assumption that African Americans going anything "out of the ordinary " is seen as suspicious. I think that it was wrong for the second male to be stereotyped and not the first because both males were doing the same thing however only one of them were questioned because of the color of his skin. When the bystanders went as far as to record the African American male on their phones for police evidence I thought that this was crazy. Multiple people began surround the guy as an attempt to assure that he didn't escape. I believe that going this far for to make sure that an African American is sent to jail but not the Caucasian male is simply wrong. For the final experiment I believe that this situation was based more so on on sexuality than the race of the female. If I were to see a female (or anyone else in the matter) messing with a bike chain I wouldn't bother questioning her because I would assume that she was going anything but attempting to steal the bike. I think this is mainly because you normally wouldn't expect a female to steal a bike because it isn't often where you here about instances like this happening.

Similar to what many students in previous posts had said, I haven't put much thought into affirmative action prior to the lecture held on Thursday. Throughout my history classes I have taken in high school, I always thought about affirmative action on a surface level. I knew that it was a method used to assist a group of people ( primarily minorities ) and generally worked as an advantage for minorities. I never thought about why affirmative action was so important in society today but after the lecture held on Thursday I know why it has become so important over the years. When I think about affirmative action in society today, my initial thought was how it is used in college education. When applying for colleges (assuming that) we have all completed the section of the application that asks about our ethnicity and often religion. Now that I'm a student at Penn State I ask myself if I hadn't filled in "African American" as my ethnicity would I have received an acceptance letter. I was once told by my guidance counselor in high school that some schools choose their students based primarily on their ethnicity for the demographics and "diversity" of the school. I graduated high school with a fairly high GPA and average SAT scores, if I were a caucasian student I believe that my chances of being accepted here at Penn State University Park would be less because I would just be one of the 71% of caucasian students that frequently apply with generally the same academic GPA and SAT. Whereas an African American applying here with a high GPA and SAT score would have a better chance of being accepted because of the diversity that Penn State University would want to exemplify. Back in high school I had an Asian friend with a much higher GPA and SAT score than I had, but was accepted to a branch campus instead University Park. I believe that this happened because of affirmative action and her GPA and SAT would have been generally similar to a majority of Asian students who had applied ( and recently accepted) to Penn State. Affirmative action has benefited a numerous amount of minorities whether they know it or not and I'm pretty sure that it has given me more opportunities than I could think of which is why I'm not against it. With Minorities not having the same educational and job opportunities as Caucasians during the civil rights era (and before then), affirmative action was one method which people believed that would have the ability to close the poverty/income gap in the United State however after looking at the 2010 income rates, it hasn't helped as much as it was intended to.

Similar to what majority of the students had said about this topic, I wasn’t surprised by the results of household income. I believe that the household income rate amongst the various racial groups is that way because of the opportunities people have of different racial groups. There are many factors that can be included as to why particular racial groups have certain household income averages, for example: access to higher education, career fields, and “accumulated” income. In my opinion, Asians are at the top of the list because of the higher education that they receive. For example here at Penn State there are an enormous amount of Asians that immigrated here to receive a better education. Even though this is a stereotype, many Asians major in fields such as STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). This is also common study field for Caucasians; most students who are a part of the STEM majors are able to find well paying jobs. Once the positions for jobs related to the STEM fields are occupied, most likely the individual that has the job will only advance from there. Even though there have been rates of unemployment, there will always be jobs available within the STEM field. African Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans are making below the average household income because of their lack of access to high education. There are many factors that lead to someone not pursuing a degree which range from not having the funds to attend to simply not wanting to attend. In today’s society, it is often imperative for someone to have a college degree in order to receive a “good” income. However, it is expensive to attend college which means that many people have no choice but to work minimum wage paying jobs. Though the expenses of attending college are high, some people believe that it is possible to receive a high income without receiving a universities education, “Successful employers don’t want these workers to be complacent for the long term. They’ll hire beginners to work at beginner’s wages. If a person doesn't like the wages, then try self-improvement instead of sitting around and complaining.” Not only are college expenses barriers that block many minorities from receiving a higher income, the communities that they live also have an effect on their desire to attend college.

I believe that the idea of women shaving their body hair ( ie. arm, leg, face, etc ) has become a "norm" in today's culture primarily because of what's seen in today's media. In magazines, advertisements, television and other various forms of media, it's not difficult to see how society reacts to the portrayal of men and women. Society observes how women are portrayed in popular media to have the "perfect" body figures, high cheek bone structure, flawless and smooth skin which is what attracts most people. Similar to what Sam Richards had written in his article, " Do Racial Groups Still Exist ?" he said, "I recently watched a video of the finalists get chosen at the 2007 Miss Universe pageant and remarkably all of the young women looked the same. By the same I don’t mean they all had the same bikinis or styles of evening dress; I mean they looked exactly like one another." This image of the "perfect woman" is what society has began to gravitate to which is why anything other than what was described above is often seen as not attract. I believe that this has had an effect on both men and women. Women see females in media and automatically persuade themselves that it is imperative for them to look this way. This leads to the process of dieting, plastic surgery, and other habits that could essentially give a women the image that she desires. Similar to what the article about various racial groups getting plastic surgery to resemble an "American", women (and men) undergo these operations in the hopes of looking like the personas they see portrayed in current media. In my opinion, this is more of a major issue in the United States than other countries because of the access to media in the US. Our practically unlimited access to technology and media constantly gives us the impression of what is "perfect" by what we see in these forms of media. Whereas in other countries, people aren't drowned by the stereotypes and misleading concepts in media. Men are similarly impacted by the images of women in media because they think it is the ideal woman that they need. Because of this, men seek these type of women and some women seek to look like these females to satisfy men. Cultures that value women in their natural state is rare in today's society. For example, the story that was introduced to our Soc 119 class, when the college student was being insulted because of her facial hair. In Ohio State, she was ridiculed by other students however this was normal back in the country she was from. This shows how culture in the United States are more focused on physical appearance rather than character, unlike the countries similar to where the female was from in the story.

After reading the quote on the screen the first time once it was rewritten to look as if the spiritual advisor of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had said it, I honestly wasn’t surprised initially. The quote was said to be written in 2001 after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, so I wasn’t surprised by the comments because the hatred that was expressed through the attacks resembled the hatred for Christianity that was detailed within the quote. Once the class was asked to share our opinions with a partner, my partner and I both agreed that the quote was disrespectful to the religion of Christianity. Neither of us were taken back from the comments that were made because of the context surrounding the quote. However, once the actual quote was revealed, it’s fair to say that the entire class was in shock. I believe that the primary reason why everyone was in awe after the true quote was shown is because no one was expecting that quote to have had come from someone who had a position as strongly connected to the President of the United States. The primary quote within the text that I found very interesting was when the Spiritual Advisor Franklin Graham said, “We're not attacking Islam but Islam has attacked us.”. I found this comment very insulting towards people whom study Islam because Franklin Graham categorized every individual who studied the religion of Islam as a terrorist, rather than the individual(s) who were associated with the attack. On this topic a student posted that the comment may have been said out of the act of fear. I agree with this statement because once the September 11th attacks had taken place, many people were fearful of anyone who resembled a “stereotypical Muslim” in fear that another attack could possibly occur. Whether it was said out of fear or not, I still believe that the comments made were rude towards the religion because Graham was basically saying that his religion was better than another which is simply ignorant. As was stated in a previous post by a student on this same quote, it is scary to know that someone who thinks this narrowly was actually the Spiritual Advisor to the President of the United States at one point. Another quote that was said in the same speech by Frank Graham that demonstrated his ignorance was, “The God of Islam is not the same God. He's not the son of God of the Christian or Judeo-Christian faith. It's a different God, and I believe it [Islam] is a very evil and wicked religion." Not only did Graham previously degrade the Islamic culture, but he also blatantly referred the God that Muslims honor as evil. The comments made by Frank Graham are shameful to say the least and dehumanizing towards a religion whom were judged as a whole due to the actions performed by a group of individuals.