I believe that the main reason behind why a person wouldn't stand up against such cruel treatment other than he or she being shy is by the theory that everyone must stand up for themselves. It's kind of along the lines of survival of the fittest and that we should all learn from their experience. There is also the possibility that the person simply doesn't want to interfere and would rather worry about his or her own life. It's really difficult to decipher the reason behind someone's action, or non-action, without knowing what kind of person he or she is. After watching people doing absolutely nothing, it made me very angry. It translated to me that they were cowards and if they cannot help others in a simple action of stating an opinion, they cannot help themselves at all. I experienced a guy who was in my apartment that my roommate's friend brought over who was extremely disrespectful on all levels. He was sitting in my kitchen and he told me that I should make him a sandwich and go clean something since I'm a white woman. I just met the kid and I told him that he can get the fuck out of my apartment. By telling him to leave, he kept saying calling me a bitch and should have some fun once in my life. My roommate's friend told he was joking, but his "joking" didn't end there. I had one roommate who was African American and one roommate who was Asian. They weren't present in the apartment when he verbally abused me but when they came back, he started going off saying that my Asian roommate probably knows karate, has a ninja outfit in her closet, and kept calling her Mulan. As for my African American roommate, he kept trying to guess her name but only kept saying Quiesha or any other name ending in "sha" or "qua" sound and told her all black people looked like apes. When he finally stepped out to visit another apartment, my roommates broke out into tears. We stood up for ourselves and since simply telling him to shut up and leave didn't work, we called over our RA who was on duty that night and asked him to escort him off the property. We were informed the next day that the landlord was informed as well and banned him from property entirely. The funny thing is, that four years later, at a party he approached me (clearly not recognizing me at all) and asked me out. Of course remembering him perfectly, I told him to fuck off. He probably wondered why this random person was being rude to him, but that was my reaction when I first met him. If more people took action like this, no one would feel unsafe or paranoid about the world around them. There are so many videos as well of everyday people doing the right thing and interfering with what we would all deem as wrong. We praise those people when in reality we should learn from them and follow their example.

Just like a white person saying nigger, being disrespectful to another race is not OK. I consider it racist itself that we are not allowed to make fun of other people but people of the same race can make fun of themselves. Immediately when I noticed that the reporter was only talking to Asian students, I was like what the fuck is going on? I thought it was some sort of comedy show until I noticed the FOX News icon at the bottom. I couldn't believe that a major news broadcasting station actually produced a video like this. Even though it was meant to be funny (honestly it kinda was), it was extremely racist. The reporter purposely picked out the Asian students with thick accents and weren't interested in football nor knew anything about it. You can even see on the reporters face as he ducked out of the camera's view that he was on the verge of laughter. This video was for the sake of exploiting Asians in being unintelligent members of society.
In regards of the white guy describing it as funny and was basically digging himself into a hole by standing by his statement while everyone else disagreed with him, people got angry with him because it seemed like he was supporting the reporter and FOX News for producing that video. When the Asian guy stated his comment that he found funny as well, it somehow was OK that he said that. By not being white, he ensured that the video was funny to Asian people as well; making it OK for other races to find it funny as well.
It's a ridiculous concept that people are only allowed to make fun of themselves but scorn others for making the same jokes. It's also a vicious circle. For example, I'm from New Jersey. I have heard every joke and snotty comment about being from New Jersey by other people from different states. I hesitate when people ask me where I'm from because I know how they would react. But when I go home to New Jersey, I make the same jokes with my friends and family just to poke fun at ourselves. I believe we make fun of ourselves to make the same comments that other people would make on us less offensive. It's our way to build ourselves a thicker skin. But even though we make fun of ourselves, it still hurts when people who don't know us or know what it's like to be us make insensitive comments in order to be funny. If we don't want to be joked about then we shouldn't joke about ourselves.

What extremely sucks about this situation is that we rely on the media to inform us on what is going on but the media doesn't always give the accurate facts. We can easily look back to the media and the stories that were published during outbreak of the Sandusky Sex Scandal. We all know what was going on in State College but everyone across the country and even around the world were told differently. I am a journalism major and covered every thing. Just reading what other people have said about Sandusky, Joe Paterno and Penn State just aggravated me and I would yell "I hate the media" every day when I left my apartment. There are also reporters who can be really bias and in this case with the war in the Middle East, American reporters will include patriotic influence in their stories. If the articles aren't reliable for the facts, we turn to photographs but photographs can be even more bias. I remember a photograph from the beginning of the war of a parade of Muslims carrying burned corpses of US troops and hanging them on a bridge. I was disgusted and angry to think people acted this way. But that also enforced a sense of patriotism in me since it made me angry at Muslim people and that they were killing US troops rather than the other way around.

I would want to say that I am against war but it has been in existence since the dawn of time that a world without war is unimaginable. There will always be conflicts, there will always be differences that we can only solve through large scale attacks to prove one's dominance over the other. Just like racism, war is fueled by constant lust for power. I definitely learned a lot from last class and has definitely made me thought about this issue a lot. It's all basically our viewpoint on trust. Can we trust the media? Can we trust that not all Muslims are evil and that not all American soldiers are there for the great of good? I know war can be very traumatic for a soldier and would cause them to do unthinkable acts. They are told that they have a mission and that they must protect their country at any cost. It can be very psychologically damaging as they are told who the enemy is even though they are a person like them. I can also imagine that for troops who are in the Middle East deal with the most issue on trust since the civilians are kind to them but they don't know if one will shoot them in the back or not. This debate can go on forever. No one can be trusted. We can only experience things for ourselves first hand.

When I first saw this photo, I honestly laughed. Just the concept that this grown man has his legs wrapped around his boyfriend is funny cuz you expect someone jumping into the arms of his or her lover to be smaller or petite enough to be held. Just any photograph in general of a soldier reuniting his or her loved ones after a long period of time is very emotional. I'm very pro-gay and love seeing photos like this. I'm not disturbed by the fact that a guy has his legs wrapped around another man. I'm not disturbed by the fact that they are kissing. I just imagine what I would do in a situation like that and I hope everyone would think of that when seeing this photo. I can't understand why people would be so bothered by this other than from what they've grown up learning and basically what their religion has taught them. But honestly what harm is there from two people of the same sex being in love? Just imagine yourself being separated from your boyfriend or girlfriend for a long period of time; how would you react? I would jump into my boyfriend's arms and never let him go. Why should we restrict this emotion to anyone? I simply don't understand why separating politics from the church is so hard. I'm the type of person who is open to new things and gay couples showing PDA is not something new but some people are still shocked or uncomfortable by it. With teen shows such as Glee and Pretty Little Liars where they have gay and lesbian characters, it seems that society is really trying to adapt with homosexual relationships. The only people that I've seen who have an issue with this are Christian followers. Personally, I'm not religious because of this fact. I like the cultural aspect of religion but the fact that people don't like certain people because of what the Bible says is ridiculous. If the Bible didn't say that being gay is a sin, we wouldn't be so shocked/disturbed/concerned with photos like this.

I think physical attractiveness does play a role in the job market as much as I don't want to admit it. My family would tell me to attach a head shot to my resume to help ensure I get a job. First off, I don't believe that it should be necessary for someone's physical appearance to determine their job placement if their resume fits the profile. A resume is not something we're born with like our face. We have to work hard to build that resume so to lose a job because we were not found attractive by the employer is ridiculous. Second, from a girl's perspective, I don't want to be categorized as a sex object. I don't want to be hired for other reasons besides my work ethics.
Just as a sociological experiment that I tend to use whenever filling out job applications, I told place a Ms. in front of my male name. Instead I just fill out "Shawn" as my first name followed by my last. If I really want to insinuate that I am female, I put my middle name, Megan, with the rest of my name. But when I just give Shawn, depending on the job I'm applying to, I would either hand in the application to an employee or have someone else drop it off for me. If I apply to a retail store and the employer thinks I'm a guy, I would not get a call back. If I apply for labor work, I get a call back. But when I get the job and come in for the first day, my employer would be shocked to realize my gender. But for when I really need a job, I make sure I hand in my application to the manager so that he or she would put my face to my name. If I am unable to hand in my application to the manager, chances are I won't get the job, for say a retail fashion store, because I would get automatically assumed to being a man. So basically, I hate the idea that physical appearance can determine being hired or not. Absolutely hate it.

I'm wondering if the reason why people would be irritated towards relationships with prominent differences would be because we want to remain close to what we have grown up with. Even though we want to be open in the dating scene by dating a difference race or someone of a different faith, it is difficult to imagine a life where we would have to compromise in order for the relationship to work rather than finding someone who relates more to us.
For a couple with different religious backgrounds, it's either they pick which holiday they would want to celebrate that year, celebrate every holiday, or one partner to convert religion. Especially growing up in a environment where it is one religion or one demographic, mixing those traits can be intimidating. For a couple of different ethnicity, there is the cultural background and different viewpoint on society through environment and racial treatment.
There is also the concept that the parents would want to keep the legacy and culture of their ancestors alive. I'm constantly envisioning Jews having an issue with this. With the holocaust almost exterminating an entire religion, the Jewish faith is like rebuilding a community. Having the faith being compromised by a relationship can be stressful on the parents and the couple. I believe people just want to be surrounded by what is familiar to them. A white Jew growing up in a white Jewish family would be more comfortable with a partner of the same background rather than say a black Christian who grew up in a black Christian family.
We would want people to be able to date without racism or prejudice, but it's not as simple as just putting two people together and seeing if it would work.

It's really how society would categorize him that he would call himself African American. I wonder if the first time he took one of the national tests that ask for your nationality that he would have gotten in trouble if he put white. At this point, if we really want to end racism, we need to get rid of those exams that have the "what nationality are you" question. Of course I'm in the habit of just putting down white, but when talking about my nationality over with my parents, instead of just saying Italian, Irish, German, Austrian, Hungarian, my mom carried on adding "well maybe there's some Czech blood in us. Some bohemian maybe." My dad is 50/50 Irish and Italian but the Italian nationality is Sicilian, so God knows what other nationalities are in my blood from all the years of invasions from other countries into Sicily.
At this point, I call myself a Mutt because I don't even know my full description on myself. I remember in elementary school we did a project on our family history, meaning which country our ancestors came from. We had to describe the entire culture from that one country but since I have many, I didn't know what to do for my assignment. All these questions and assignments only makes us over examine ourselves and constantly categorize what kind of people we are. Because in the end, especially for American citizens, we're all mutts.

When I was around 12, I figured that taking Spanish classes would benefit me better in the long run than taking French classes. I have only encountered one French man and he spoke perfect English even though he had a heavy French accent. On the other hand, I have encountered multiple Hispanics who would speak Spanglish and I would be able to carry a conversation with them. To me, more people speak Spanish, therefore, being able to understand the language is beneficial. I believe learning a new language for educational purposes is mind-opening to other cultures. Learning another language for educational purposes should be done by everyone but for people who are moving to another country, it is their responsibility to know the native language.
So when immigrants move to America and continue to speak their native language, it annoys me. It's like the students on campus of the same ethnicity getting together and communicating in their own language. It translates to me that they don't want to unify with the rest of society. It feels like there's a nation wide invasion and that soon English would be a language that Americans will learn in elementary school rather than learning Spanish or French.
It's easier for all of the different cultures here to know one language in order to communicate with each other so that people don't have to be fluent in God knows how many languages just to interact with one another. There needs to be a dominant language. Imagine going to class and talking Spanish with one professor because he or she is from Spain and then Chinese to another professor because he or she is from China. It's fortunate for us that everyone around the world is familiar or can speak English fluently. If I decided to move to another country, I would learn the language there.