Ok so as a sophomore here at Penn State, I have been to a lot of theme parties in my short college career. To be completely honest, I have never even thought twice about the potential consequences of attending one. They are always organized in good fun with every intention of just having a good time. No one specifically goes out of their way to make a theme especially offensive to a particular group of people. So when the Chi-O story broke, I honestly was shocked that it even made news. Not because it was not offensive, but because I know there have been numerous parties with the same exact theme for years. There have also been numerous other theme parties with even more offensive themes than the one Chi-O participated in. So when the incident made international news, I was extremely surprised. I definitely think it was over-exposed and over-analyzed by the media and the public. There is always one group that is made an example out of, and Chi-O just happened to be that group this time. On the other hand, though, I think it is very important that this topic was brought to the attention of the students here at Penn State and at other universities across the country. The fact that this event even happened in the first place speaks volumes. The fact that these girls did not even think twice about the possibilities that maybe, just maybe, the theme of the party or their outfits they wore were offensive to a group of people…the fact that they even went so far as to post a picture on Facebook, as if to advertise it…to me it says something about the ignorance and lack of empathy towards other human beings. Why are these girls so insensitive to what they did? Why are they not better educated? This picture says a lot more than, “Look at our ‘creative’ costumes we wore to our theme party.”
As far as what makes the party offensive - or any theme party offensive, for that matter - is just the insensitivity, I think. In this specific case, it was offensive given the current attitude towards Mexicans in America at this point in time. For me personally, the signs were especially offensive. There is a major drug war going on right now that causes the death of thousands and thousands of people, and the two signs were extremely insensitive to that fact. The signs were also extremely stereotypical, which also contributed to how offensive they seemed. It is a common belief that only Mexicans do yard work across the country, and the signs clearly poked fun at that. All this being said, though, I can’t help but wonder: if Mexicans weren’t currently portrayed negatively in America, would we still think this picture/theme party is offensive?

Alright, so I have actually had this conversation numerous times with almost all of my friends who are guys. I am always curious what they think about certain girls and how they present themselves. So naturally, since my guy friends and I have no boundaries – which is sometimes a very bad thing – I often ask them these seemingly silly questions to see how they will respond. After all the conversations we have had about girls, this is what I have gathered from the wise words of the guys thus far: they love when girls are showing skin. Really, I’m not exaggerating when I say the fewer clothes that are being worn, the better. Of course, I have the occasional guy friend who will claim that he likes it better when a girl goes “au natural”. But I would bet if you put a half-naked girl in front of his face, he would much rather prefer that to a girl that was completely covered in baggy sweatpants and a comfy sweatshirt. Obviously knowing now what guys like from what my friends have told me, I know what kind of attention I am most likely to get from guys depending on what I am wearing. Not going to lie, ninety percent of the time, I am dressed in sweats. For me, comfort trumps looking good every single time. And until lecture, I thought I was dressing like this to please myself; to satisfy my laziness and wanting to feel cozy instead of uncomfortable in jeans and a revealing top. However, Laurie ever so kindly pointed out that no matter what a woman wears, she is always, always, always, dressing for the man – either to attract or repel him. Keeping that in mind, I know that if I am going out to a party, wearing tight jeans or a short skirt or dress is going to attract the guys more than if I were to wear, let’s say, pajamas. I can’t be sure since, after all, I am a girl and all, but I guess the guys just like it when more skin is showing. God knows why, because all I know is that it’s uncomfortable more than anything else. Show me a girl who thinks wearing a short, tight dress is comfortable and I’m going to ask her what her secret is. But just as I know tight, revealing clothes will attract a guy, I also know that sweatpants and sweatshirts are not exactly their idea of looking hot. So for those mornings I’m rolling out of bed ten minutes before my 8 AM class and the last thing I want to do is talk to people, you can be sure as hell I’ll be wearing sweatpants to repel those guys as far away as possible.

At firstAt first, I did not really know how I felt about today’s lecture. Actually, I still do not really know how I feel about it. The first problem is that I kept zoning in and out of the lecture. I guess there is just something about watching videos within videos and watching Sam on a projector instead of listening to and seeing him in person; as interesting as the topic was, it just could not keep my attention locked for a long period of time. So I would zone out, and then when I tried to pay attention again, a lot of it did not make sense to me because I had already missed things that had been said or explained earlier. Obviously you cannot form an opinion on a topic you are only semi-informed on. The parts I did pay attention to, though, were completely baffling. All of those video clips that Sam showed, the video clips of the side of the war the media does not publicize here in America, blew my mind. For example, one of the video clips that really stands out in my mind is the one of these military guys driving in one of those big tanks and they just ran a civilian’s car off the road for no reason. You do not see things like that in the news here. Why would you? It would not make sense to make our own soldiers look bad; look like they enjoy being away at war and turning people’s lives upside down and killing innocent people. Before this lecture it would have never even crossed my mind that American soldiers do the things that Sam showed us they do. Now all I can think is that I do not even know what to believe anymore. It is terrifying that our soldiers are capable and willing to inflict so much pain and suffering on people. What is even scarier to me, though, is the lack of knowledge of these occurrences. I know I could not possibly have been the only person who did not know these things were happening over in the Middle East during this war. It is scary to think about how much control the media has over our lives and how it can help shape our perspective on things. The amount of misinformation that a lot of the people in this country base their thoughts on is just not okay. I feel like it should be the media’s job to tell us all we need to know, and it should always remain unbiased. Otherwise, we are clearly not getting the full picture of what is going on on the other side and we will remain poorly educated and misinformed on matters, which is a real shame.

I think the saying is true, that people tend to fear that which they do not understand. I feel like because being gay has been “taboo” for so long, accepting and understanding people who are gay is an abstract concept that a lot of people have never had to deal with before. Now, they just do not know how to go about supporting this alternative love and lifestyle. A lot more times than not, when things like this happen, people make excuses to try to answer the questions that do not have an actual intellectual answer supported by evidence. Another thing that happens more often than it should is that when a person strays from the norm of society, they are ridiculed for being different – more specifically CHOOSING to be different. In my opinion, every person should be their own individual and should be able to choose what kind of person they are. However, people are extremely judgmental, and there are a lot of qualities/hobbies/etc. that a lot of people have in common; therefore, when others stray from those common “norms”, they are automatically ostracized. It has been believed for the longest time so far that being straight is what is normal in today’s society. That belief is still widely accepted today, although more and more people are becoming more accepting and tolerant of gay people everyday. (Tiny side note/rant – I actually hate when people say they are “tolerant” of other people. Seriously? You should be accepting with open arms, not just “tolerant”, of anything that is different from you. I feel like that word has such a negative connotation to it. It is almost like saying, “I actually still hate you, but whatever; I guess I’ll just deal with it...” It’s just so rude in my opinion. Hypocritical but in this case I couldn’t think of a better word. Anyway, back to my blog entry...) Still, there are an overwhelming number of people who do not support the gay culture. And a lot of these people claim that gay people “choose” to be gay. I’m sure there are some people in the gay community that consciously chose to include themselves in it. However, I am not sure that I agree that all gay people chose to be gay. Why would people choose to unnecessarily lead a difficult life? Why would they choose to join a group of people who are ridiculed and treated unjustly every single day? It just doesn’t make logical sense to me. People try their whole lives to fit in; I don’t know anyone who would choose to face the penalties of being gay. I keep getting sidetracked. To answer the question, all in all, I think people claim that others choose to be gay because they don’t know how else to react. Because it goes against everything that has been believed and accepted for so long, it’s hard for some people to think that maybe, just maybe, people were born this way. Once again, they fear what they do not understand, so they fill in the blanks themselves with uneducated theories.

Ok so over the past few years I have heard numerous people say that there are many corrupt donation organizations and things of the like in our country. Like, for example, I have heard that even organizations as large and popular as the Red Cross only end up donating a small percentage to the actual cause they are claiming to support. However, I either did not believe it or did not really understand it until Sam talked about it during lecture. But actually, when I think about it, I still don’t fully understand why this is even happening…
Honestly, I am dumbfounded by this problem. And yes, it is a problem; a huge problem. There is no good reason that I can think of that could possibly justify why only a small percentage of donations are actually making their way to the source of the problem while the rest of the money is being circulated amongst people and companies in the United States. First of all, that is complete false advertisement to the people who are reaching into their own pockets to make these generous donations in the first place. Obviously, they are completely unaware of exactly how their money is being used. I’m sure if most people knew directly where their money was going, they would not even donate in the first place. And obviously these donation organizations are aware of that, which is why they do not clearly state out in the open like, “Ok, just so you know, we are using your donation money to pay for x, y, and z”. They want to guilt you into donating, to think you are doing a good thing, just so they can take your money. And that is just completely wrong on so many levels.
Second of all, this is such a selfish way of stealing from those who are less fortunate. These companies and organizations – our country – have been claiming they have been a huge source of help for the underprivileged for years. And now I’m learning that most of the money is just coming back to the United States? Um hello, there is something seriously wrong here. These people need our help for one reason or another. Do not say you are going to help them when all you are doing is giving them an extremely limited amount of resources and saving all of the good stuff for yourself. That is so incredibly selfish and greedy and unsympathetic and heartless and cruel. If I am willing to donate money, I want to know that my donation is making a difference. If you’re going to say that you’re going to help people in need, then you better help them with everything you have. Otherwise, what the heck are you even doing?

Ok, so I partially was not surprised by the concept that our belief system is based on misinformation. When you think about it, a lot of what you know is based on information from other people, assumptions, and so on. This somewhat relates back to the lecture Dr. Jones gave to us a few weeks ago. Dr. Jones gave a demonstration of how stories can get twisted and changed as they go from one person to the next. In the same way, when we get our information from other people, it can be safe to assume that it has been altered in one way or another, which leads to our belief system being based on misinformation.
That being said, though, the entire concept that our belief system is based on incorrect information is so trippy to me when I really think about what that means. It’s like all of the images in my mind of everything I’ve ever thought I’ve known was just shattered by Sam. Now, I don’t know how much of what I believe is based off of actual facts and what is based on misinformation and untruths. How do you go about reshaping your belief system? Is there a way to forget all the misconceptions you already think to be true? How do you go about figuring out what is and isn’t true? Isn’t there a never-ending amount of information in your mind that would take forever to correct? The entire concept just blows my mind…
I feel like a lot of the stats Sam shows us in class reflect these feelings. Just like he says, the answers to the clicker questions are always what you least expect them to be. But why is that? Why do we always assume the wrong answer? Is it because of all the preconceptions we have that have shaped our belief system over time? Like, for example, I would’ve never guess that less than one hundred kids are kidnapped annually in the United States by people they do not know. I would have thought that number was much higher. Why? I guess because of what I’ve seen on the news over the years. My mom is a big news junkie, so I always see all of those headlines and stories about girls being abducted by strange men. Now I can see how only a handful of those stories over the years have shaped my belief that there are thousands of kidnappings by strangers every year when in fact that is not the case at all. I just want to know now: does this make everything I believe in completely wrong? And if so, how can you even go about correcting it?

Honestly, the data Sam showed to us in class did not challenge my beliefs on equality at all. I feel like I have always been acutely aware of the levels of inequality that exist amongst the people in the United States. I think part of my awareness comes from the places I grew up. For half of my life, I grew up in a Section 8 classified town that was very diverse as far as the different races of people who lived there. For the other half of my life, I lived in a very suburban, rich area predominantly made up of white people. So right there I have a strong baseline measurement of the inequality that exists just in different parts of New Jersey. It is sometimes hard to go from the rich town I live in now, to visiting my old neighborhood. You wouldn’t think that two towns that are only forty-five minutes away from each other could be so completely different. You go from mansions and acres of rolling grass with horses to completely littered streets and project buildings with bars on windows. Growing up in those environments and seeing the differences between how people live has definitely made me aware of the different inequalities that people face.
It’s not just where I have lived, though, that have contributed to my education of inequality. Even when I came to Penn State as a freshman last year, I witnessed a different kind of inequality than I had ever seen firsthand before. You see, as a freshman last year, I lived in Pennypacker Hall in East. Yes, I was part of the “Pennypacker Experience” that everyone on campus seems to have heard of but is not really sure what exactly it entails. Well, Pennypacker Hall is mostly reserved for incoming freshman that have received some sort of scholarship or aid to attend the University. That’s not to say that every single person in the building received money, but most people have. It is also well known as being the “diverse” building on campus. The building was definitely predominately black and Spanish; white people were the minority in this building. But every single black and Spanish person in the building was on a hefty scholarship. Why? Because of their race. Everyone in Pennypacker was pretty much equally smart; we all had around the same GPA and testing scores coming into college. The only reason certain people had received scholarship money was because of their ethnic background. Once again I experienced an insanely unjust practice of inequality.
That’s why when Sam asked us those clicker questions and showed us the real data, my clicker response matched up to the real results. Because of personal experiences and because I try to pay attention to the world around me, I’m not really that naïve when it comes to noticing inequality in our country. The data didn’t challenge my beliefs at all; I know inequality exists at an unhealthy level. It actually makes me really angry that a country that prides itself on “equal opportunity” is the farthest thing from being equal. And sadly, I think we are far, far away from fully resolving the problem.

Personally I really, really enjoyed the discussion our group had on this topic. It was especially interesting for me to hear other people’s thoughts on free will versus determinism because I have actually lived through the different situations they were talking about. They would talk about certain circumstances in more of a hypothetical sense: “Well if I were in this situation, this is what I would do,” or “I’ve never been in a situation like this, but still I believe people who are in similar positions should do this…” For me, though, I’m on the other side of the fence with it all because I’ve lived it. I know what it’s like to come home and not have hot water or electric running. Or even other unnecessary things other people take for granted like their favorite movie channels on TV; I know what it’s like to try to flip to a channel and find out the cable was cancelled. I have a different perspective on everything because I’ve experienced it first hand. So I know that when someone says it’s not that hard to change your living situation, that as long as you have the motivation to work hard you can get out of it, that’s not always the case. Of course there will always be success stories. But I feel like people will never truly understand unless they go through it themselves. I know that from the time I was a little kid, I was raised to always be extremely appreciative of what I have. But now because of what my family and I are going through, I realize that even then I didn’t really understand anything like I do now. I have a completely different outlook on life that cannot be obtained or understood by others unless they have gone through it themselves.
And so, because of personal experiences, my stance on the free will versus determinism debate did not change from the time class started to the time it was over. I honestly believe that free will and determinism act hand in hand, each having a fifty/fifty affect on our lives.
In discussion, we talked about what free will and determinism mean to us as far as definitions go. To me, free will is the ability a person has to make a choice. Determinism are the things that are out of a person’s control, like, for example, the weather or the family they were born into. Personally I think you cannot have one without the other. You make choices everyday that lead you to certain situations. That’s free will. Then, in that certain situation, determinism may play a role at some point or another; things will happen that you have no control over. But maybe those things would not have happened if you never made the decision to put yourself in that situation in the first place. Or maybe the same deterministic events still would have happened, but they wouldn’t have had the same affect because you may have been in a different situation. It’s an ongoing conundrum. So I feel like in the end, the two things really do work together and one does not outweigh the other.

Even though I feel like I say this basically every single week, I really thought Sam’s lecture was really interesting and also very relatable to a lot of the students in lecture. Obviously we have all had different life experiences and therefore have different views on distribution of wealth. So it was interesting to see Sam break everything down by race and to see who was on top and who fell to the bottom. Part of me was surprised but part of me was not surprised to see that Asians, and not Whites, were at the top of the list. Whites were followed by Hispanics, who were then followed by Blacks. I also thought it was noteworthy that Native Americans were not even included in the research; Sam had to point out to us himself that they are the poorest and most poverty-stricken of all the groups. Another thing I noticed was the significant differences in wealth. It was not like one group was only slightly far behind another; Blacks are way further down the line than Asians and Whites and even Hispanics. Native Americans can’t even hold a candle to any of the other four groups.
It was good to hear the classmate volunteers’ perspectives on everything, too. Some of them mentioned things I probably would not have thought of on my own because they had a different opinion on how wealth is gained and maintained. Personally, I believe it is more so about who you know compared to how hard you work. I am probably biased due to my own life experiences. It is very hard to put your own experiences aside and try to imagine the big picture: what factor contributes to MOST peoples’ wealth in America, not just the people you have personally encountered in your own life.
When Sam asked us to turn to our neighbor and discuss how we would explain the different wealth (or poverty) levels, my neighbor and I both agreed that we thought connections and resources were the driving factors. We talked about Sam’s demonstrations with “King of the Mountain” and how the students stood on the stairs. We felt that once you’re at the top, it’s harder to fall far behind than it is to get higher on the list. I feel like once you’re at the top, you already have all these resources available to you to prevent others from surpassing you. Opportunities of better education, better living environments, better connections with other rich people are more readily available to someone who, for instance, is Asian instead of Black. I’m not saying that hard work will get you nowhere. Of course there are a few success stories. But there are more stories I personally have heard of where people work hard their entire lives just to live paycheck to paycheck. And so overall, I explain the different poverty levels just the way Sam’s demonstrations did: the people at the top will always continue to have control. While the people at the bottom are trying to move up, so are the people at the top. It’s a never-ending cycle of the rich getting richer and the poor staying poor.

I really enjoyed Dr. Jones’s lecture. My favorite part actually was the whole experiment when he called students to the front of the class to relay a story to one another. It reminded me of that game called “telephone” that my friends and I used to play when we were kids. You know, the one where everyone sits in a circle and one person starts a story, telling it to the next person, and so on and so on until it gets back to the original storyteller. It always turned out that the ending story was never even close to how it started out in the beginning.
But then when you think about it, isn’t that how it is in real life, too? I’ve heard so many countless gossip stories that sometimes are so ridiculous it makes you question what is and is not true. Whenever I ask a friend, “How do you even know that?” or “Who told you that absurd story?” I always get a response along the lines of, “Oh, well it’s kind of complicated but see if you can follow this: my sister’s best friend’s cousin’s aunt’s sister’s step-daughter’s roommate…” Really? That’s your source? Oh okay I’m definitely going to invest a lot of belief in that story now…
That’s the problem though, as Dr. Jones proved to us through his little demonstration. When so many people are involved in sharing the same story, it’s bound to get twisted and changed around in one way or another. Everyone has had different life experiences that change the way they may think about a certain story or situation. As a result, they tell stories differently than another person might have told that story. And so the details of the story begin to change, and this happens over and over again as the story is shared and told between more and more people.
The perfect example is how Dr. Jones said that one of the students refused to say the racial slur while he was retelling the story. I don’t blame that student at all. I don’t care if my job was to retell a story exactly as it was originally said; I would feel so incredibly uncomfortable that I would never repeat a racial slur like that. You’re taught your whole life to never say words like that because it’s wrong and extremely hurtful to people, and so you carry that throughout the rest of your life. Or at least, that’s how I was raised. That’s why it continues to surprise me when other people feel comfortable enough to call people names like that. How can they think that it is even remotely okay to use such language? I’ll probably never understand it.
There is one thing that Dr. Jones said that I disagree with. In the YouTube video where he asked us this blog question, he said he told a student who reacted to a racial slur, “You have to get used to people doing that because, if not, it leaves you vulnerable when someone does do it.” I understand what Dr. Jones was trying to teach this student. But at the same time, I feel like that’s almost enabling people to continue to use those slurs. To me, it’s saying to learn to just ignore people who use that kind of language. But by ignoring it, you’re not correcting the problem; you’re just allowing it to happen. Those words are so extremely strong and hurtful; I don’t agree that the right way to handle it is to just “get used to it” so you’re not vulnerable to it anymore. I feel like you can never get used to being called a name like that; you’re always going to be vulnerable to it to a certain extent. And there’s no good reason to get used to it. You shouldn’t have to get used to something like that. It always has been wrong and it always will be wrong, and the problem should be corrected by educating people about it, not by ignoring it and “getting used to it.”