Some people can be offensive and some people can't. That doesn't mean that the people who can get away with it should still blatantly be offensive. It also doesn't mean that the people who do offend others should receive as much backlash as they sometimes do. I also don't necessarily believe that Sam is getting away with saying offensive things. I've heard plenty of students saying that they respect his teaching style less because of the things he says.
I think that one of the main reasons that the Chi Omega girls got in trouble was because we go to Penn State. We are always going to criticized so much more harshly than other schools. I've seen the sorority pictures that my friends at schools like Slippery Rock, Clarion, and IUP put on FaceBook. They makes these Chi Omega signs look like child's play. But because we go to Penn State, it made INTERNATIONAL news. I'm not saying that what they did didn't deserve attention or shouldn't go without punishment. I'm just saying, some people are always going to get more backlash than others.
Also, if a group of Mexicans, or even just Latino people, were to hold up those same signs, it would not be offensive or racist. It would be satire. It's about timing, interpretation, and status.
Another thing is, there are people out there who will not be called out on (like all of the ones that were mentioned in this video) because they are comedians. They are not representatives of institutions. They are not individuals representing a sorority or a university. Instead it is seen as one individual's bigoted opinion/observation. They are different from government employees, who represent entire parties and organizations. They are different from Penn State's Chi Omega, who represent Penn State as well as the entire Chi Omega sorority nationwide.
I think it is important to distinguish the difference.
Although this is somewhat off-topic, I also think it should be said that there are certain topics that wouldn't receive public attention, even if they should. People are highly offensive when it comes to the mentally challenged. All the time. Everywhere. People talk about things being retarded. "Oh man, you're such a retard." Or, "That's retarded." No, that's not okay. Yet people are saying it all the time. I've noticed Sam say it in class on two different occasions. It's not okay. If you are someone who people are learning from, who people are really paying attention to, you shouldn't be setting a negative example. I do like Sam, but this is just one of those things I've noticed.
No one is going to be politically correct all of the time. It isn't possible. But it really is important to try not to hurt or offend people.

I genuinely believe that being gay is not a choice. There is no way that I can ever understand anyone's argument that homosexuality was a decision. I am a sexuality and gender studies minor. I admittedly am very biased. I believe in the science and logic of sexuality. There is so much evidence that homosexuality is linked genetically that it baffles me that people still throw out the choice idea. As mothers produce more and more sons, the more likely down the line of siblings it is to produce a gay son. Also, twin studies have shown that in identical twin brothers, if one is gay, it is highly likely (3 times as that of a fraternal sibling) that the other will be gay as well. There are so many facts out there, readily available through just the tiniest bit of research, and so few people care enough to learn the facts.
And logically, no one would ever choose to be gay. To be gay, especially in conservative areas, is ridiculously hard. Why would anyone in their right mind just wake up and decide to choose one of the hardest lives to lead? To belong to a group that experiences so many prejudices, negative stereotypes, and hate crimes probably is not anyone's number one choice.
You are who you are and you do what you do because you have to. You don't just choose to be straight either. When did you decide you were gay? How about when did you decide you were straight?
What really gets to me is all this conversion business. You can't just pray the gay away. What you can do though is suppress yourself into a pit of psychological dishevel. No thanks.
I know everyone is supposed to be tolerant. But with this matter, I just cannot accept tolerance. Tolerance is not enough here. People should be so beyond tolerance that people do not even notice homosexuality, the same way that the general public does not even notice heterosexuality. Heteronormitive USA is not where I want to be. I want to be in a United States where people are who they are. And that is that. No questions. No "When did you choose to be gay?" It simply is not fair. And it definitely is not free.
If I, as a straight woman, have the right to stand in the middle of the street with my hand on my boyfriend's ass while we kiss, then I definitely think that my homosexual family members should have that same freedom without any gawking.
I just don't get it. It really is comforting to know that in fifty years, when I'm a grandmother, my grandchildren will most likely be so liberal in this prospect. And to them, it would be liberal at all, it will just be human decency. And that's what keeps me a little bit calmer on the topic.

My father owns and operates a small metal tubing manufacturing business. He currently has 19 employees, and at the business's height, he employed 40. Small businesses, especially in the manufacturing spectrum, have faced great problems because of outsourcing. A part that costs my dad's company 17 cents to produce will cost a company in China around 2 to 4 cents to make. Obviously, my dad's company is not going to be able to win against a deal like that. And what more, American companies will never ever be able to compete with those prices, because of the cost of labor and material. On that same part 17 cent part, his company will sell that individual part for 17.2 cents. However, a those international companies can afford to inflate the price of their equivalent 2 cent part to 6 cents. That's a 300 percent inflation. Which they can still afford to do and greatly beat out the American made alternative. It really is becoming impossible for these US companies to win. They can never beat out something that is almost free in comparison.

Because of this, my family does not buy things made in China unless we absolutely have to. The only thing in my entire dorm room that I bought for myself that is made in China is my cell phone and my computer. And believe me, my Dad was SUPER mad when he found out.
We do not ever shop at Walmart, because nearly everything sold there is made in China.
When I was ten years old, I was really upset with him because I couldn't have the same toys as all my friends, because those toys were made in China. He took me to Walmart that day and he took me to an area that had flags. He showed me an American flag. He put it in my hands. He asked me: "Honey, where do you think our flag should be made?" And of course, I said here. And he asked me, "Do you think that Americans should want to buy their own flag from their own land?" And I said yes. And then he told me to look at the tag. And that flag was made in China.

I know that this seems really crazy to a lot of people, and it probably is. But it really is logical. I'm sure that my family on its own has turned over thousands to the US economy. Everything in our house, since we built it from the ground up, is made in the US. And further, we bought was much as we could from Erie businesses, just so we were being as local as possible. All of our cars, appliances, and even our clothing is all made here.

It's a small gesture but it means a lot. And for the things that you can only find made in China, we just do without.

Personally, I find him very approachable. He dresses casually, he is ALMOST ALWAYS smiling in class whenever I see him, he has very inviting body language, and he reminds me of someone I know.
When people dress casually, it is less intimidating. It puts them on the same level as you. I think this is one of the reasons most professors dress up a little nicer (and why Sam dresses normally). I think that how someone dresses give an impression of authority, equal authority, higher importance, or equal importance. Some professors want to show they are of author or that they are the most important mind in the room. However, Sam dresses down and puts himself eye to eye with his students, which in its own way actually reinforces my respect for him as an educator and a reputable mind. This kid, he dresses similarly to how I dress, and in that, he is approachable.
I’ve seen him most days in class sitting up with the famous Morales. He smiles a lot. He seems to genuinely be happy. An outwardly good mood makes someone infinity more approachable.
His body language is friendly and open. He was sitting across from Sam and he wasn’t facing the class, yet he wasn’t facing Sam. He was positioned so that he was angled between his two audiences. He subconsciously knew that he was a spectacle for the entire class and also Sam, so he angled himself equally. Body language like that makes it a lot easier for someone to approach you.
He’s also approachable to me because he looks just like someone I grew up with. He looks like my friend Doron. And personally I find him more approachable because I can relate to him even though I do not actually know him personally.
However, I do understand what Sam was saying. Sometimes, it is hard for others to approach people of another skin color. But I think it isn’t just skin color that is hard. I think people have difficulty approach people of ANY difference. Men and women, people without intellectual handicaps and people with intellectual handicaps, people without disabilities and people with disabilities, people from very different socioeconomic classes, even people from different countries. I think it is probably a lot harder for a majority to encounter a minority, mostly because people from minorities have dealt with the fact that life is just a little bit harder for them. People from majorities usually haven’t had to adjust their behaviors, and when they encounter that foreign concept, it is a bit overwhelming.
I also think that we’ve neglected to talk about how there are minorities beyond sight. Just because someone appears to be a part of the majority does not necessarily mean that they are. I just wonder how the approachability concept applies to those individuals.

I used to work at a record store back when I was in high school. I was 16 when I applied for the job, and I was actually already pretty qualified. I am well versed in all types of music, I know many people involved in the Erie music scene, and I also am a very good apt people person.
It was a really small store, the most employees we ever had working there on pay roll at one time was 9. The store had been around for fifteen years, so lots of employees have come and gone in that time.

A lot of people were applying for the same spot that I had gotten, even some people that had known the owner for a long time, and some customers who were much more regular than I was. But I got the job.

It turns out that I was the first woman that they had ever hired. Ever. And I didn't know that when I applied. But after working there for a few weeks, one of my coworkers told me that. I was super surprised. And it really made sense as to why some of my coworkers resented me. They all believed that the only reason I had gotten the job was because I was a woman. Some of them were cold to me because they thought I didn't deserve the job. I was young and I wasn't the most regular customer.

It was really frustrating at first, because they actually hated me before the got to know me. Music, especially when it comes to records and vinyl, is still a very male dominant area. They didn't think that a little white girl could possibly know anything about vintage vinyl.

But they were wrong. I'm really knowledgable. I grew up surrounded in it. I lived and breathed it as a child. Plus I am a super hard worker. I honestly believe that if you don't work your hardest while you are on the clock, it is stealing a paycheck.

They eventually came around to me, but only after many months of proving myself as an equal.

I also encountered a similar scenario when I was applying to colleges and trying to get scholarships. I won and earned literally dozens of scholarships. I competed in Polish beauty pageants, wrote dozens of essays, competed in contests, raised money for local foundations, and just worked my ass off to get as much money together as I could to go to school. I was paying for it on my own, so I needed to get as much help as I could. When the kids in my high school found out how many scholarships I won at our Honors Convocation Night, a lot of them said I had only gotten so many because I was a woman. It is really frustrating because I worked so hard and I genuinely earned all of them.

The same thing happened with my schools. I got into a lot of really good schools, like University of Minnesota, Tulane, NYU, just to name a few. I got scholarships to every school I applied to (other than Penn State - believe me, the irony gets me too). And a lot of the guys kept saying that the only reason I got that money and got into those schools was because of my sex.

It is really frustrating when people make assumptions.

When I was in my junior year of high school, I found out that I have a rare blood disease. Because of this disease, I'm tired a lot of the time, I am really underweight, I have a bad heart, and it's very unlikely that I will ever have children. Those are just some of the things I've been dealing with in association to my disease.

If I ever wanted even the slightest chance of having children, I'd have to go through some pretty extensive, and somewhat painful, treatments. It was really hard to decide whether I wanted to go through with it or not. It wasn't necessary for my own life, but it was big decision that I couldn't just take lightly. Every Friday for twelve weeks, I'd have to leave school to go down to the cancer center (which is also a center for blood diseases), sit in a cold chair hooked up to a bunch of tubes, and have the treatment. This meant essentially giving up my weekends for three months of high school. It meant giving up a lot of my clubs. And it meant giving up some of my friends, because in high school when things get tough, people leave. It meant that I'd miss a lot of school and that my grades would suffer. And in your junior year, your grades really matter. That is what colleges really look at. There was also some risk associated with the treatment. Some other people with my disease had been known to reject the treatments, causing heart failure and brain damage in some people (it was rare, but it had happened).

I decided to go through with it anyway. The treatment made me puke. It made me lose even more weight. It made my skin turn slightly green. It made me pale and clammy. The worst part was definitely how all the medications felt flowing through me. I could feel it all. And i just had to sit there and take it. It is the most uncomfortable feeling. It really was not fun.

I don't want kids right now. I don't image babies when I think about my future. I still think about grad school and jobs. Some girls have names and numbers and even genders in mind. I definitely don't. It's hard for me to even think about boyfriends.

But I couldn't deny my future self from the possibility to having a child. I don't know what I'm going to want in ten or fifteen years.

I think this is a good example of how you can't just separate determinism from free will. The determinism of genetics making me sick, it essentially took away my free will to have a normal life. The free will to decide if I want children in my future. But I used my free will to enhance my possibilities - to take back from that determinism.

I think that in this class it is fair to be afraid to raise your hand and admit to anything at all. It is clear that Sam really doesn’t mean to put people in these holes that they can’t dig themselves out of, but a lot of times, that really does end up happening. To speak and say what you really feel and where you’re really from in a class of 700 people is not easy. People do get fried. Sometimes volunteering your opinion is also volunteering your dignity in this class. And, if you raise your hand and admit to some things, like being rich, Sam is likely to pick you to say something in front of everyone. No one wants to be known as “the rich kid.” Being the rich kid has a lot of negative connotation connected with it. The rich stereotype is greedy and spoiled, especially if you’re a rich kid.
Even worse is, these kids aren’t rich. Their parents are rich. So, to claim that wealth as your own, that is seen as dependent, feeble, and simply undesirable. This isn’t true most of the time, but these are the stereotypes connected to the children who come from wealthy families.
Also, in wealthy families, it is considered imprudent to discuss how much money you happen to have. Rich people don’t brag with numbers. It’s not the money itself that shows how rich you are. Wealth is displayed in more “subtle” ways (i.e. nice cars, designer clothes, large houses, expensive schools).
It’s safe to say that where I’m from compared to Penn State is poor or lower middle class. I’m from Best Western and the other kids here are from the Ritz Carlton. Wearing a new Carhardtt is something to be damn proud of where I’m from. Girls usually don’t have Coach purses and only a few of them have Uggs. I don’t have friends who didn’t have jobs in high school, or even before that. Almost everyone I know at home had jobs on farms. But here, I’ve barely met people who don’t have allowances. It’s so different. My freshman roommate, she was from a completely different place than I was. She was also from the country. But it was a different kind of country. She was from outside of New York City, where celebrities like Paul Rudd have their summer homes. Living with her was a culture shock. We became very good friends, and we talked about almost everything. But we never ever discussed money. People with money don’t want to talk about it. It’s not something you talk about. And they especially don’t want to talk about it with someone who doesn’t have any money.

There are lots of messages that men send to women about the way that we, as women, look and should look. Women today are expected to be perfectly manicured. Girls are told they need to have perfectly smooth legs, flawlessly shaven armpits, and a porn star waxen pubic area. Besides the fact that this all takes a lot of time and commitment every day or so, it's also really expensive. The razors that are good enough to get a close and even shave are upwards of 12 to 15 dollars. And then there's shaving cream, which, because we are women MUST be scented and thus costs more. Then after shaving, there's lotion involved so that we don't get razor burn. After this whole process, we have to perfectly pluck our eye brows, which for people of my ancestry is a chore. If you don't have the time or commitment for this, some girls resort to waxing, which is no picnic. It is unbelievably painful in certain areas, extremely costly, and it can actually cause scarring from the burns. Some women even make the commitment of getting laser hair removal, which permanently removes hair from certain parts of the body. It does so by sending sharp electrical currents into hair follicles, essentially singing the hair away. Ow. It even costs thousands of dollars. Worse ow. Beyond removing hair, some women choose to hide it. I know a lot of girls who have their "mustaches" (which aren't even mustaches, it's just slight peach fuzz that no one notices until some guy alerts the masses) bleached. They do this so that the slight amount of hair seems to vanish for a few weeks or so. This also gets super expensive. The worst of them all though, I think, are my girlfriends who get their assholes bleached or waxed. What is that about? When did people become particular about that? How is that even something that people are aware of? If someone is lucky enough to be looking at my asshole, they definitely don't have the authority to be telling me to be getting it waxed or bleached. They should be thanking me for being in bed with them in the first place. I just don't get it. An asshole is ugly no matter what, so just deal with it.

I think worse even than the expectation for hair removal is the expectation for hairstyle. I grew my hair out for two years. It was down to my waist. I had it cut annually so that it would stay healthy and beautiful. I did it so that I could donate it to Wigs For Kids at THON this past year. It was a lot of commitment and I honestly hated it. It got everywhere, it was always in my face, and using that much shampoo and conditioner cost me a lot of money. But it was worth it, because I know that some beautiful little girl was able to benefit greatly by the two and half feet I donated. When my hair was longer, guys were so nice to me, especially if I was in a drinking type environment. Men treat you better when they are attracted to you. But then THON came and I donated my hair. I cut it to just under my ears. I LOVED IT. It was freeing and I also was so happy that I had accomplished my goal of helping a child. But the weekend after THON came and people (especially guys) became nasty toward me. If they weren't saying something rude, like that I looked like a 12 year old boy or that I was the ugly friend, they just completely ignored me. It was an interesting turn around. But honestly, I had been expecting this already. A few years earlier, when I was in middle school, I had done the same thing. My aunt had gotten cancer, so I cut all my hair off with her, in an act of solidarity. All of a sudden, the kids at school were calling me a "dyke" and telling me I was disgusting. I just don't understand the emphasis on hair. It doesn't seem logical to me.

If it weren't for Wigs For Kids, I probably wouldn't be growing out my hair again. I prefer to have it short. The people who are worth having around are going to like me no matter how I look. My boyfriend is smart enough to know me, and to know that if he ever said anything about the state of my shaven or unshaven body, I'd probably retaliate and refuse to shave for a month. And he gets that.

I think that a lot of girls really need to wise up and consider why they are spending so much money to please men who really don't care about the person who they really are.

And I think that men need to have more respect. I don't think a guy with a little penis is ugly, so why does my short hair make me unattractive? Women are beautiful. You have hair for a reason, and so do we. Why the double standard?

I think that Sam usually does a pretty good job of explaining topics to the class. He covers all his bases, explaining both the obvious and the not so obvious, making it absolutely certain that everyone in the class is on the same page. However, with topics such as these, it really is impossible to leave the class without some questions.

My main question isn't so much about what we have covered, but more about what we haven't. Why haven't we discussed the ugly truth of historical inaccuracy and/or exclusion?

For instance, my family is very Polish. My grandfather came to the states right before the Holocaust. He was the first of his family. The rest of his siblings were going to meet him here in the states a few months later, after they had saved up so more money. However, their timing couldn't have been worse. Just a month after my Grandpa Leo left Poland, his brother, Lenis, and his two sisters, Margita and Anelie, were put into a concentration camp. They were all killed.

But they weren't Jewish.

There were Poles, first and foremost, another group that the Nazis targeted. Margita and Anelie were devout Catholics, another group the the Nazis targeted. Lenis was a homosexual, another group that the Nazis targeted.

They were "undesirables."

History books tell you that the Holocaust killed six million Jews. They say that the Holocaust was the genocide of the Jewish people. Yes, it was. But really, it was so much more than that.

And people don't know it.

It kills me to think that not only my people, Poles, Catholics, homosexuals, but also gypsies, the mentally disabled, the physically disabled, Jehovah's witnesses, Slavs... they all died. But they aren't commemorated.

And, the most forgotten of all, the "Rhineland-Bastards." These were the children of German mothers and African soldiers who were conceived during the French occupation. If these children weren't killed on the spot, they were sterilized.

Why haven't we talked about this? I don't necessarily mean this in particular, I more mean why haven't we discussed the falsification that is our history? I think it is necessary for people to learn and know that there are other things.

This is the area that I know. At every family dinner, we would pray, remember, and forgive. Every single Christmas, we would go around the table, the entire family would bask in the memory and in the seriousness.

There has to be countless other historical atrocities that we just aren't taught in schools. I want this to be addressed. Because if we at least acknowledge in class that everyone has a serious lack of knowledge, we are going to learn so much more. But I think that most people just don't know that there is a truth beyond what we are learning.

Sam is definitely right on the money with this one. This will probably be the most memorable lecture for me when I look back on soc 119 after this is all over. When he said this in class, I basically felt like doing a victory lap. It is so rare for this topic to ever be discussed in a classroom because it is really hard for people to grasp and understand. Most people don't really get it because it's not the obvious or easy way to "handle" the situation. It is natural to fear or steer away from what you don't know. But it's important, when it comes to people, to overcome this and learn about that other person.

I was lucky enough to grow up with my mother, a counselor for combat veterans. Before she helped veterans, she was an aid at the Barber Center, a center for the mentally challenged. Through her, I was able to get two different volunteer positions, one at a vet hospital and another at the Barber Center. Being exposed to so many different varieties of mental and physical disabilities has not only opened my eyes, but it's leveled the playing field. I can see when someone needs an extra hand, but I'm desensitized to the things that make most people uneasy. I've known the people I work with at the Barber Center since I was a small child. They're my best friends. We go golfing and paint together. We go to the movies and go to the mall. Honestly, the only difference between my relationship with them and my "regular" friends is that my "regular" friends don't get stared down when we are out in public. This always catches me by surprise because it always takes me a while to figure out why people stare and act awkward when I'm with these friends. It's not that I forget that Angel has Downs or that Eddie has fetal alcohol, it's that I see their personalities first, their inner beauty, before I think about her chromosomes or his below deviation PFL.

Almost the same logic applies with my veterans. They fought for us. They gave it all because freedom isn't free. If we go out, people stare at them in their wheelchairs or see their missing arms. That's really not the thanks they deserve for the service they've put forth. I had one veteran who passed away a few years back who had severe acid burns all over his entire body from Agent Orange. He loved being at the hospital and in the discussion groups because his scarring wasn't strange there, whereas in the outside world, his scarring was the only thing people noted when he met them. Seeing how someone looks is not knowing that person. I think it is important to at least try to familiarize oneself with the cards that other people have been dealt.