I thought Maziar’s Skype call to express his sympathy for the people affected by the Boston Marathon bombings was very touching. I’m not sure if he arranged for the Skype call just for the sake of offering his condolences, but it was incredibly thoughtful of him to go out of his way and to stay up so late to talk to us.

I was extremely upset to get on twitter immediately after the bombing and see so many people lashing out at Middle Easterners, North Koreans, or Muslims. I sincerely hope that most of those people had an inappropriate, strong emotional response that ended up being vented via twitter. It would be a shame if all of those people were so outwardly racist in their everyday lives. I wish I could respond to some people and ask if they are truly that naïve regarding race and religion, if they are trying to be funny, or if they needed someone to blame in their moment of weakness. It makes me sad to see people lash out like that, especially after hearing from Maziar and seeing how horrifying these bombs are to people all over the world. I’m also touched by Maziar’s call because he lives in a part of the world where bombings and killing happens somewhat frequently. I saw a picture of a group of people from Syria offering their condolences to the people of Boston, but also asking for prayers for their country because people are killed from bomb strikes every day. We are lucky in the United States because we are always safe. We do not have to be afraid to walk to the bus stop or be afraid that our families will not come home from work. Because we are safe, terroristic events like this are especially horrifying to us. When the Taliban kills people in the Middle East, though, international press coverage is brief or nonexistent.

I hope that more people in the United States can experience similar conversations that we did with Maziar. I wish that those people that posted angry tweets this week had the opportunity to speak with a Middle Easterner and learn that they aren’t bad. Just as the Westboro Baptist Church is not an ideal representation of Christianity, terroristic bombers are not an ideal representation of Muslims. I will freely admit that I feel more sympathetic about events that happen in the United States, but I also do not forget about events happening on the other side of the world. If the media and the public paid more attention to tragic events like the NATO bomb that killed 11 children, perhaps extreme thinkers would realize that death is tragic everywhere, regardless of race, nationality, or religion. Hatred does not resolve conflict.

I think there are definitely parallels between the white standard and the male standard. Most of the things that women do to present themselves is for the benefit of men. We dress in a certain way, do our hair, wear perfume and makeup, and carry ourselves for the sake of the males around us. Some women will say that they have the free will to dress however they would like, or that they dress to look professional for work, and I will not say they are completely wrong. I will ask, though, why do you want to look nice? Who chooses whether women look professional, both today and throughout history? Though we consider many of our decisions to be based on free will, at some point in history a man probably told a woman how she needed to look. Woman obsess over the images they see in magazines and on TV because society tells them that they should look in a certain way. Every form of media tells them that men will only find them attractive if they look a certain way, so women try to emulate that.

While race does not play the same role in our sexual culture that it did several years ago, it is still a factor. Generally, white men find white women attractive, black men find black women attractive, and so on. Our culture is starting to change because most young people in our generation are open to inter-racial dating and marriage. While this is a good thing for race relations, I think it does add additional complications. Rather than fitting into one arbitrary racial mold, women are trying to fit into a white mold. Several black girls have said that they try their best to make their hair look like white hair. Not only is there a parallel between the male standard and the white standard, but the two are beginning to blend.

There are so many invisible strings that I did not know existed before I took this class. While I understood that our society still struggles with race, I did not realize the extent to which it is all around me. The same is true for the male standard. We've spoken extensively in our discussion about women in the workplace, and the influence that men still have over women. I did not think that I had ever been treated differently because I am a female, but I never realized how many of the little things that I do in every day life are done for the sake of fitting into popular culture, which can be extended to fitting into the male standard. Like minorities sometimes feel trapped and unable to voice their displeasure in their situation, women also feel trapped in their need to impress men. As culture becomes more modern, I think that both will feel more free to talk about their positions.

I’ve been planning on working abroad for several years now. I have a passion for traveling and a passion for service. When I was in high school I went on service and mission trips for several weeks every summer, and even before that I was involved in community service. I’ve also been to more than 30 of the US States, and several international destinations. Combining my love for travel and service with my desire to practice medicine leads me to a path in international service medicine. I was first introduced to international medicine by a close family friend that moved to Kenya to serve in a children’s hospital. After that, I met another doctor who moved to the Middle East to open a women’s hospital. Last summer I travelled to Peru for two weeks where I studied and volunteered in a hospital in Iquitos, a city in the Amazon that is only accessible by airplane and riverboat. Before I made the trip I was interested in international medicine but I wasn’t particularly compassionate about it. This piece that I wrote in my trip journal several days after I got back to the US explains the changes that I felt when I got home:

“I used to think that I wanted to be a doctor because medicine was fun. I love my job working on an ambulance as an emergency medical technician, and the spontaneity and thrill of each new case is exhilarating. While these things still hold true, my trip to Iquitos has taught me that medicine is more than that. This hospital in Peru treats the poorest of people for free, helping them to overcome their afflictions. Every day some of the sickest people in the population are allowed to live another day, week, and year. Healthcare should be a human right, and medicine should be about love and compassion…”

My trip to Peru was unique because I was very involved in hands on patient care. I gave people stitches in the emergency room and scrubbed in to assist with surgeries. An overnight trip into the jungle revealed the desperate state that some people live in; they do not have any regular access to medical care other than the village shaman. Now I’m a senior at Penn State, and after I graduate in May I am going to medical school at Campbell University. I’m particularly excited about Campbell because they have an extensive service medicine program, both locally and internationally. I will get to participate in service medicine projects in rural Appalachia, and, most importantly, I will get to travel to Tanzania to study in a hospital that has an affiliation with Campbell. Hopefully I’ll get to do a clinical rotation in Tanzania during my fourth year of medical school, spending several weeks learning and preparing to work internationally when I graduate.

I was not pleased with what Jasiri X had to say to the class, and I felt that he may have caused some people to take a major step back in regards to their open-mindedness. Sam has been great this semester at making me think. I don't necessarily agree with all of the things that he says, but I understand that he often makes strong points in order to make us think about our previous ideas and opinions. On the other hand, I was very turned off by Jasiri X. I felt closed minded for the entire class. Instead of choosing race or religious topics, I felt that he chose very political things to discuss. I do not understand how the Occupy movement is related to race, or why I am supposed to support it. Those people did stand up for what they believe in, just as black people and Martin Luther King Jr. did when they were fighting for Civil Rights. It's a lot harder, however, to change the way our country's economy works. You can't write a law to redistribute wealth.

Jasiri X also spent time talking about the Trayvon Martin case. I felt like he blamed white people the entire time, and even went as far as to say it was irrelevant that the guy who shot him was hispanic, because most people equated him to a white guy anyway. This case could have been used to start a legitimate discussion about race, but instead he blamed white people for the Trayvon's death. The twitter feed seemed to be full of people expressing similar ideas, that Jasiri X was "white bashing." I don't know if I would go that far, but the other guy that was with him did point at a white person and make a comment about "you people". I felt like he was blaming all white people for the misfortunes that black people had experienced in the past. When someone tried to refute his argument, Jasiri X argued back that the past was still important. At one point I thought he said white people should still be blamed for the plight of Native Americans because white people had taken their land a couple hundred years ago. The past is important, but can we really be expected to dwell on that? Native Americas clearly need help in today's world, but different lands and countries have been conquered for thousands of years. Basically, I think Jasiri X and the other guy that he came in with could have been really interesting. Their music provided them with a unique platform to present their ideas, but they did not do a great job convincing me to think about current issues.

I do not know what think about affirmative action. Before the last few days of lecture I would have said that I was against it, but now I think that I support affirmative action in certain circumstances. Heavy handed application of affirmative action will leave someone out. How do you determine if Hispanics or black people or Native Americans are more discriminated against? I also wonder about one student’s comment: Martin Luther King Jr. died less than 50 years ago...Have minorities just not had enough time to catch up? Sam’s explanation of how far ahead white people are makes sense. It’s not that other racial groups aren’t working hard to get ahead, it’s that the white people are working just as hard. Sometimes people just need a foothold to propel themselves to the next level, and affirmative action can give it to them.

I don’t think that black or brown people should be given jobs or promotions simply based on the color of their skin. If a more qualified white person applies for the position, than that more qualified person deserves the job. Skin color is not an excuse for mediocrity. However, it does make sense to go back through the applicant pool and make sure that a qualified person was not excluded based on skin color. If two identical resumes are presented the white person should not be granted a job just because of the color of their skin or the name that they were given.

I also think that affirmative action should be applied more based on economic status that on race. I have a close friend from high school who is Indonesian but was born in New Orleans. Her dad was a very successful employee with Exon Mobile and her family was very well off, but she was still able to benefit from scholarships and other rewards because she could list herself as a minority. I think that this friend took advantage of opportunities that could have been much more beneficial to minorities of lower economic status.

It’s impossible to prevent people from getting jobs based on who they know. One guy in class said that he got a job based because his father owns a painting company, and another guy said he got an internship in Washington DC because of his uncle’s position. My roommates that I’m taking the class with joked that these people don’t have an unfair advantage, they’re just using their resources. Most of the time (I think), people are given internships and summer jobs based on who they know. Race is not really a factor. “Real person” jobs are based more on resumes, leadership, and qualifications, and as I said before, this is where affirmative action should be applied to help people.

I do not think that Sam asked his question in an appropriate way to get the most responses. He made the topic of menstruation very awkward by asking how many girls were "bleeding" rather than taking a professional/ mature approach and asking about menstruation. I also think that it is a bit overarching to say that women are not free just because we are not comfortable talking about our period in front of 750 other people. I wouldn't freely discuss my urination or defecation habits in front of the class either. I'm not ashamed to pull a tampon out of my backpack before I walk to the bathroom, but I'm not going to openly discuss where I'm going with the whole class. Women don't feel a lack of freedom to discuss their periods, they just consider menstruation to be a private matter that does not need to be shared with everyone. Women also do not have control over their periods, so comparing menstruation to masturbation is not really a fair comparison. A lot of guys proudly raised their hands when Sam asked about it, but that was a personal choice. I do not want to know about a guy's masturbation habits any more than he wants to hear about my period.

Another thing that Sam did not really consider is that women talk about their periods with each other, but not in front of men. If the classroom had been full of women, I would have been much more willing to raise my hand. Generally, I think that men feel more uncomfortable discussing menstruation than women. While a guy has never asked me directly if I'm "bleeding", I've had many conversations about periods that only become uncomfortable when a guy withdraws or says something awkward.

I also do not agree with the comment that one person made in class about blue liquid on TV commercials. I don't think that the producers use blue liquid to hide any sort of truth. Every person who has reached puberty knows what a pad and a tampon are. I would guess that there are rules about how "graphic" TV commercials can be, as even bandaid commercials do not actually show any blood. Additionally, there are a lot of little kids that watch TV. The commercials might have to be censored out of mainstream networks if they actually showed blood. I've never seen a condom commercial while Sesame Street is on TV; parents would be upset if they felt that their kids were being exposed to things that they shouldn't be.

I am just as free to chose NOT to discuss my period in public as I am to chose to discuss it.

The lecture about where you go after you die did not actually change my perception of faith at all. I am a semi-regularly practicing Catholic, and I’ve heard similar stories about near-death experiences before. At first I didn't know if I believed the people that told them, but after reading about the details that the people can recall after having out of body experiences, I’m convinced. Just as with faith, I shouldn't need proof to believe. As a young kid I learned that good people go to heaven, and bad people go to hell. Heaven would be a peaceful, happy place and hell would be a place of eternal suffering. The details about a white light and a comforting presence are inconsequential, because faith tells me that I do not need to be afraid of death.
When I was in high school I read a book called The Shack. It’s about a father whose daughter was kidnapped, and in his attempt to come to terms with her probable murder he spends a weekend with God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. God is a black woman, and the other two beings have equally perplexing identities. The father ends up having a fulfilling weekend, and learns that faith may not always appear as expected. The comforting white light that Sam talked about in lecture re-enforces my faith and makes me feel more strongly that Heaven is an appealing, comforting place. The white light leads to an unknown place, but faith tells us that we will have eternal peace.
The negative death experiences that involved scary, painful suffering also enforce my previous beliefs about death and faith. Suicide is not accepted by the church, and those people that try to take their own lives may have an experience in hell. Faith is not defined; it is not black and white, and nobody can explicitly say what will happen to us in our afterlife. We trust that our faith will land us in a happy place, and it is comforting to know that people of all religious backgrounds have the same near-death experiences. Religion lays the groundwork for the “rules of life”. As long as we live with good morals and behaviors, it does not matter what god we choose to worship. I think most people have experienced moments of self-judgment in this current life, so it comes as no surprise that a moment of judgment will accompany us into our next life. We have to realize today that we do not know exactly what will happen to us in to future. We must embrace the idea of comfort, and we must each worship God in the way that makes the most sense to us individually.

Race and ethnicity are hard to characterize, and are often used interchangeably. Race is defined as the major divisions of human kind, having distinct physical characteristics. Ethnicity is the state of belonging to a social group that has a common national or cultural tradition. Both of these definitions are vague, and I don't think people should be limited to choosing a single race or ethnic group on an application or official form. This class has taught me that there are no divisions of human kind. We all exist on a continuum of each other, with some of us being more genetically related than others. Additionally, it is hard to divide physical characteristics into individual race groups. As we saw in the "The Price is Right: Race Edition" exercise in class, some people from different sides of the world can look very similar to each other. A dark skinned Peruvian person is no more related to a Kenyan person than I am (assuming that they cannot trace their roots to similar places).

The important thing to focus on, I think, is the idea of cultural and traditional values that are tied to ethnicity. A person's ethnic background tells their story more than their their racial background. I think this girl from class should focus on her ethnic background, if that is how she prefers to be identified. I'm not sure of her exact background, but if she prefers to identify herself as hispanic than I think she should focus on that and leave race out of the discussion. She can check the box for "other" if it exist, and write in the name of whomever she chooses to identify with. She said that her parents are from Peru; if she practices Peruvian traditions at home and would like to be associated with them, than I think she should choose to write that in. Is it possible to check "other" and write in Native South American? The beauty, or perhaps the disadvantage, of being 24% unassigned is that she can choose where she thinks that she best fits in. Maybe talking to her parents and tracing her family tree back several generations will help her decide where she fits.

One of the students in our discussion section said several weeks ago that he believes race is more about beliefs and ideals than it is about skin color and physical differences. Those of us that are kind, caring, and empathic could be lumped together more meaningfully than anyone could be based on skin color. We can all be black if we chose to identify with each other, or we could all be white. Nobody has to fit into the cookie cutter mold than society wants us in. We are all free to decide where we belong.

I think history can tell us a lot about how the world will be in the future. In the last century and a half, the US has evolved from a nation that supported slavery to one that is supportive of workers rights (domestically, at least). As a nation, we have become more accepting and supportive of people that do not fit the "normal" mold. In the past decade alone nine states have legalized same-sex marriage and many others have chosen to recognize marriages that occur in other states.

In our discussion group last week several students shared that their parents would be very supportive if they had been gay, but that their grandparents would disown them. Over the span of three generations, we can see how people are becoming more accepting. Our grandparents were raised in a time when homosexuality was taboo, and many of them are even racist. This current generation was raised to love everyone, regardless of skin color, religion, sexual orientation, or otherwise. In a way, political correctness has helped to stamp out obvious discrimination. The United States is a melting pot of cultural beliefs, and as they blend together and people get more personal experience with other cultures they become more accepting. Technology has allowed us to talk with someone halfway across the world at any time of day. When we Skype with a young adult in Iran, we put a face and a personality to the culture that we were supposed to hate, and it makes it harder to hate them. We are able to reach out and learn from each other in ways that were not possible ten years ago. Public relations between countries will improve because of personal friendships, and hopefully fighting and war will occur less often.

The current generation of young adults has learned to challenge the beliefs of our elders and to see every person as an individual, not as a member off a larger group. We will continue to ask why; why should Americans be afraid of Iranians? why is same-sex marriage wrong? why does such a large portion of the world's population live in poverty? When our generation comes to power the world will not suddenly be perfect, but we will see the same progression that we have seen in the past 50 years. The real difference, I believe, will follow with the generation after ours. Our children will see their parents' acceptance, and they will not be influenced by anyone with discriminatory beliefs. Hopefully our kids will learn how to make the progressive attitudes in American translate to international policy and relationships so that the equality that has been sweeping through the United States over the last 50 years can sweep through the rest of the world.

If a gene was identified that altered parents as to whether or not their child is homosexual, I don't think that it would be right to tell parents about it, let alone have parents tell their young children. When gay people come out in today's society, many parents say that they had known for a long time that their child was gay. While I am not a parent, let alone the parent of a homosexual child, I think that I would recognize some hints of my child's sexual orientation. Parents that do not recognize these things are in denial or have chosen to ignore the signs of their child's sexuality.

The clicker question about aborting a gay child actually really bothers me. I still cannot believe that 17% of people would abort a gay child. This is why I don't think parents should know that their children are gay when they are very young. They may, even unknowingly, raise that child differently that they otherwise would.

While I don't think parents should be altered to their child's sexuality, if I knew that I had a gay child I would let them figure out their sexual orientation on their own. Young children do not need to be thinking about sexuality any earlier than if they figured it out themselves, especially if they will be different from most of their peers. A six year old boy does not necessarily need to know that he has a gay gene and he should like boys more than girls. However, if I knew that my child was homosexual I would make a special point to be supportive of homosexuality and heterosexuality. I would not want my child to be afraid to come to me and tell me that they were homosexual, and I would want them to know that they could lean on me if and when bullies made fun of them.

As much as the child's sexuality is engrained into their personality, I do not need to tell them who they should date or marry. As the person said in the video, parents would not tell their white child that they had to marry another white person. Sexuality is a very personal thing, and I think every individual should figure out their preferences on their own. If a homosexuality gene was identified, would the marker for bisexuality be distinct? Perhaps sexuality exists on a sliding scale from homo to heterosexual, with different shades of bisexuality in between. I have been told that many bisexual people tend to lean in a specific direction, and I think there are too many factors that play into a sexual identity for parents to tell their young children who they should like.