Because I have taken soc 119 I do feel like I have changed my beliefs about race in some ways. I went to a high school that had only white kids and coming to Penn State was a big difference in culture for me and I really didn’t understand all races completely before I tool this class but I now feel like I have a better structure of what the different races are and how people act. I feel since I came from an all white high school people would think I would be more racist than those who come from schools that have a mix of white black and Hispanic. I really never thought about some of the things that we learned in class like especially about the bike movie we watched about how the race really impacts everyone even though they don’t think it does and also gender plays a role in that too. Unfortunately I don’t think this will ever go away but in the instance of the bike movie we watched in class, I think that no matter what race you are or what gender you are that if you are committing a crime and someone sees you, you should be turned in no matter who you are and no matter who sees you. That should all be judged the same in my opinion. I think that this class has changed my views because I really don’t judge people now based on race, I really didn’t before but now that I am conscious of the racism that still occurs in this world I am now conscious of what I do or say to people who are a different race than me. I guess taking this class makes me think twice about someone before I judge them and I think this is a really good thing. I feel that if everyone who went to school at Penn State had to take soc 119 then everyone would be well educated about race and it would probably not be such a big deal in the Penn State society. I personally think that I am more educated about race now and I feel like I have a better control of racism around me and I can control what I say and what I do to make it so I am not seeming raciest to others around me because I would never intentionally say something raciest so someone. Overall I think my beliefs and such have changed because I have taken this course and I feel like it is a good thing that I am more educated in this field and I can limit myself to make sure I do my best to not be raciest.

I feel that if Jerry Sandusky would have been either black or Latino then yes their most likely would have been very different. I feel as though he would be in a lot more trouble than he is in now and there would be a lot more media and news and things on this case than there would be if he was white. I think this would be the case because it is just like the bicycle movie study that we watched in class. When the white kid was stealing the bike then he got some attention and not everyone turned him in but they stood and watched. When the black kid did the same thing the people all stood around and asked what he was doing and were freaking out and almost everyone turned him in and questioned him. I think this would be the case also if Jerry Sandusky would have been black. I feel like he was just like the white kid in the bike movie study. Everyone may have been questioning him and one or two turned him in to higher authorities but not everyone did. Everyone pretty much just watched and waited for someone else to fix it and call the authorities and no one did. If he were black they would have all called the authorities and they would have all not just watched but stepped in and took action I feel. I think this was a pretty easy question to answer considering it is almost like the topic we covered in class about the race issue and I feel as though this situation would be handled like the situations in the bike movie were handled. I feel as though everyone should be judged as the colored people do. If you are caught doing something bad, just because you are white does not mean that it is okay for you to be doing and that you should wait around as an outsider and just let the scandal go around you. I feel as if everyone were treated like they treat the colored people then this scandal would not have gone on near as far as it did because they don’t just sit around as an outsider and wait for someone else to report and fix the problem if they see a colored person committing a crime they take it upon themselves to turn in the crime and make sure it is well known to the authorities. I think that everyone should be judged in this manor because if this case had been handled as though he was a colored man then it would most likely not have went on as far as it did nor would it have lasted as long or taken as long to come out and receive the justice it deserves.

I think this question about if immigrants should have to learn English or not is a pretty simple question for myself to answer. Thinking from history when people moved to the United States they all had to learn the new language because there were no manuals to how to do “this” in Spanish or French or any other language it was all English and if you didn’t know what English was you had better have learned it quick in order to survive here. I think that it is retarded to have to go through manuals when you buy something such as a piece of furniture and you have to go through the manual to find English. When the generations before were moving here they had to learn the English speaking language and they didn’t need to have everything spoon fed to them like they do now like putting a variety of different languages on everything. I also think its laziness and ignorance of the immigrants to not learn English. If they want to move to the United States and be a citizen then our society should not have to adapt to them they should have to adapt to our society. I do not think that other countries are putting a variety of different languages in their manuals and I do not think we should to adapt to the immigrants. I think it’s more trouble than it’s worth because if the immigrants are coming illegally then why should we have to adapt to making changes in all of our manuals and such when there not even allowed to be here in the first place. I do not have a problem per say with illegal immigrants because they are really just trying to make their lives better and they are mostly only taking the jobs that the people here do not want to do like harvesting food from the fields and doing jobs at restaurants and such that Americans do not want to do like washing the dishes and such. In this perspective I do not have a problem with immigrants because one they are not directly affecting me and my life in any way and two they are not taking any jobs that I really honestly would do or want to do so I do not have a problem with them coming to the United States. Were my problem falls is the situation with the languages and I do not know why we ever started putting multiple varieties of languages in manuals but it is a pain to have to go through the thing and find English and also it is a very big waste of paper and I do not think we should have to adapt to this because we are not the ones moving to other countries and expecting them to adopt our language into everything.

I do not think that someone should be considered a “poser” if they hang out with someone of a different race. I think if you have friends that are a different color than you than you should be praised for not being racist. If someone wants to be friends with someone of another color then they really must like the person and care about them as a friend and shouldn’t have to worry about someone calling them a “poser”. I personally have relatives and friends who are a different color and race than I am and I do not consider myself to be a “poser” because I hang out with them and are friends with them and are friends with people they are friends with. I think people just can’t get over themselves not being able to not get over racism and they just pick on people who have friends who are another race because they do not have friends of another race and they see them as being different and apparently in this world being different is a crime because everyone judges you and talks about you if you are not just like them. Even in class people act like this saying that there are white people who are sitting in the “black” section. I personally am not one of the whites who have sat in the “black” section but I am not the ones texting things to the screens saying that theirs a white sitting with all the blacks. I find absolutely no problem with people who like sitting with someone of another race a problem because if their friends they are not “posing” they are just sitting with their friends like a white and white person and a black and black person sitting together no one says anything then so why should someone be considered a “poser” because they have a friend who is another race. The only way I believe you should be considered a “poser” is if you pretend to be another race not hangs out with them but act like you are another race. If you are a white person and you are pretending you are black then sure you could be considered a “poser” but if you are acting like yourself just hanging with another race then no you should definitely not be considered a “poser” because you’re hanging with your friend of another race that’s just not right. Over all I personally just think if you’re hanging with a bunch of friends of another race and you are acting like yourself then no you should definitely NOT be considered a “poser”. If you are hanging with a bunch of people from another race and you are acting like you are not your race but their race then yes you could be considered a “poser”.

I think this is one of the most interesting videos I have seen about freedom and determinism. It would be really hard to go through life having to be conjoined to someone else and not be able to do what you want without having to consult the other girl and they would have no privacy or anything of this sort. I found it interesting when the guy was talking about them getting a job. It would be really hard to imagine how they would deal with this because they would really in reality have no free will about getting a job because they would have to decide together what they will do for work together and they would have to sacrifice what they wanted to do to do what the both can agree on. It is also interesting to hear the man speak about how they would have complications on how to do work payment, if they would be paid as one or if they would be paid as two or if they would be paid together as two separate people. When the mother of the conjoined twins was talking at the end of the video about how the public and the news and magazine reporters are telling her that her and her daughters owe the people an explanation about the conjoined twins I thought was very ignorant of the public to be telling her. This shows they have no freedom, the public is demanding an explanation of how they live and how they feel about it and how they ended up conjoined and they are not free to go places without this happening to them. They have no freedom to do what they want because they are not what the ideal society thinks someone should look like so they question what they do not know and make fun of ones who are not like them. I do believe though, that these two conjoined twins are very determined for their circumstance. You can see while watching this video that they are not going to let something like people questioning them stop their lives and things they enjoy doing. I think they were very determined girls when they took their driver’s license test because they knew it was going to be hard and they had not only one chance but two chances of failing it but they didn’t let that stop them they did it anyways, not something most people would do. I think the twins are doing the best they can to be free and live their own lives, besides the fact they cannot do anything without the other and being stared at in public and they are very determined for the situation they were born into.

I personally do not care if someone is gay or lesbian that is their choice and their prerogative. In the case of having to share my dorm room with someone who was lesbian I would personally ask for a room change I think. I was raised Christian and we were taught that being lesbian or gay is going against Gods word and I would not want to be seen as approving their lifestyles. I also think it would be really weird because of the whole they might be attracted to you kind of thing especially because of the fact you sleep in there and change and do everything and they might become attracted to you and I would be super grossed out. I also feel I would be very uncomfortable if they were asking to have their “girlfriends” to stay over because they would be doing things I would not find right in my bringing up and it would just make me mad. I do not have a problem per say with people who like the same sex as long as I do not have to have any part of it and they do not act upon myself. Also this would be a really big problem to me if I was put with a lesbian roommate and I did not know they were or they never said they were until part way through the semester. I feel as though this situation would be a bigger problem than if at first the person told me they were lesbian. I feel this way because if I was uneducated of this then I would not really probably notice if they were attracted to me and began hitting on me or watching me and I wasn’t aware. If I didn’t know they were lesbian would probably just think of someone hitting on me as them being just funny or joking and not serious and I would not want them to think I liked them because I am not gay. I know if I was paired with a lesbian I would ask for a room change but I do not, not like people as friends because of their orientation but I would not want to put myself into a situation where I would have to live with one because my parents would be very judge mental of that also my friends would be too but most of all I myself would not be comfortable at all with the pairing of a lesbian as a roommate. I feel as though if you have no problem yourself living with someone gay or lesbian then more power to you and I would not be judge mental but I would not do it myself.

I think that race and being accused of a crime is what almost everyone does in this country. I believe that it does have a lot to do with how people stereotype against anyone with color in their skin. I don’t believe its right to do this but it is the way our culture was culturally influenced to do. I feel that the criminal system does discriminate against colored people because white cops are more prone to pick up a black person that looks like he is doing something suspicious and let the white person is doing the same thing go because he didn’t look as “suspicious”. Even in the clips we watched in class the people discriminated against the black boy who was “stealing” the bike and many of them called the police and questioned the boy about what it was that he was doing, and only one person proceeded to call the cops and questioned the white kid. They even helped the white girl “steal” the bike but they all called the cops and questioned the black kid for the same thing? This is something that has gone very wrong in our society and it is a bad thing that it has been conditioned into our brains to discriminate against the colored people because the whites are not as bad. White people are not stereotyped as the criminals, where in fact a lot of the white people are actually committing a lot of the crimes. The colored people are stereotyped as the criminals, even if in fact they had done nothing wrong if it looks suspicious to you you’re going to question them but leave the white person go. You even see this problem on the news. For example you hear one day that a white person shoots someone it may be on the news for around three days and it lingers off like it was nothing. If a colored person was to commit the same exact crime, shooting someone it is on the news for like two weeks straight and you hear about it everywhere. Why aren’t they treated the same way? The white person should be on the news and suffer just as long as the colored person does it is so stereotyped it is unreal. I wish that this would eventually go away and everyone would be treated the same but I do not feel as though this will ever happen because our society today is so brain washed to believe that colored people are worse than whites. Blacks might have been committing more crimes than whites at one point and that is probably why they are stereotyped as the “criminals” but you will never see whites stereotyped as criminals even if they were committing more crimes than colored people. I feel this is really wrong but society won’t change its ways to see past discriminating.

I watched a few of the videos and I am yet uncertain who I would like to work on my project for and with. Many of the videos caught my interest. I Believe the one I enjoyed the most would be the video about the woman who makes the different assorts of peanuts, roasting them and making peanut butter out of them. I feel as though this is a really long process which we as citizens of the United States would never have to worry about because most all of our food is made in factories which eliminates most of that long process and makes the quantities of the production so much higher. I never would have thought that this process would have taken so long yet alone having to do this process every day and take a two hour trip every three days to get the supplies is outrageous. I never would have thought anyone would be going through a process like this but in Haiti they are. I am not yet sure of how I would want to construct or what I want to suggest to my group for our project but I would like to do something to help people like this woman making the peanuts every day. I believe this Haiti group project is a very good idea and is a good way to get people motivated and get a large sum of people to dedicate their time to helping with this challenge that Haiti is forced to deal with every day. I feel as though this will be a good opportunity for some people because, not everyone appreciates what we have here in the United States and if we had to live how the people of Haiti are living I know we would want to have someone to help us and get us moving like Sam is making us do by constructing this Haiti group project. I also feel that having the groups is a better idea than having everyone work alone because I feel as if most people do better in groups because of all of the ideas and such being tossed around and if everyone is working together I feel as though you would get something much larger accomplished opposed to working by yourself. I also believe that this project has a lot of what we are learning about in class and we can apply the lessons to this project. I believe the peanut video was my first pick because they are benefiting everyone where as some of the videos were just benefitting the people who liked the items such as the picture frames and the jewelry and the luggage and the designer shirts the ladies were making I do not feel as though they benefitted everyone whereas the peanuts benefit the health of the Haiti people and there is not a specific customer to sell them to.

If I wasn’t in class and heard for myself that Obama is not black but multiracial I would have continued to think he was black. I do not feel as though this would have an effect on my opinion of Obama. I believe everybody has their own opinions about him and his race. If people would know what Obamas true race was that might have effected voting and the opinions of people. I believe most people voted for Obama because he was concerned the first black president. If people would have known that Obama is not a black but a multiracial individual then they probably would not have all voted for him just so we would have our first black president. I was not old enough to vote while Obama was running for the presidency but even if I knew what I know now about his orientation multiracial and not black, it would not have changed my opinion. In my opinion I feel as though the best person for the job should win. It shouldn’t matter the race because if you are able to explain yourself and have good intentions and know enough about the job than it should not matter what color you are. I feel as though if the election was a blind election where the only thing you knew about the candidate running was their thoughts and campaign and background, than people would only then sonly vote on who would be the best leader. A lot of the voting had to do with the ethnicity of Obama and I truly believe that is what helped him win not that he didn’t have a great campaign but his color did help him win I believe even though he is not considered black but multicultural. If you want to know what a really true and fair election would be then a blind election would be the only way to keep ethnicity out of the reason people are voting. In my opinion I do not care what ethnicity someone is but how they act and contribute to the community. I feel that if I was going to state my opinion about Obama I would reflect upon what he does how he acts and how he contributes to the world and not sonly concentrate on his race and we should only vote for him because he is our first black president. As Sam said he is not black he is multiracial and I feel no matter your color you should not be judged upon that but everything but that. Overall I do not feel as though Obamas skin color or race effects my opinion about him just how he acts and presents himself does.

The only thing I would be worried about in an interracial relationship would be the issue of children. When people who have an interracial relationship have children, the end result could be having two different colored children. Although it may not happen very often, it could still happen. I think, because it is rare, people could think you’ve had a relationship with more than one person and some people could judge without knowing the facts. I think if people find the person they want to spend the rest of their life with, color or race shouldn’t matter. If someone finds their true love, no one’s opinion should matter. Overall, I believe that it should not matter to someone else who you date. If you want to date someone of another race you should. It isn’t their decision or their life. Make your own beliefs and don’t let anyone weaken them because of what they think. Whatever makes you happy is all that should matter.