When it comes to the thought of killing another human being, I can say one thing for certain - I would never intentionally take the life of another person. The question that Sam is asking is what would it take to kill someone in the situation that your family or friends are not being threatened. I think that the only instance I would see myself taking someones life is in one of those situations, and only then it would be accidental or out of self defense or in the attempt to save the ones I love. Furthermore, in those situations it would not be an issue of beliefs and morals, but rather one of instinctual reactions.

I was raised in the church and was taught to value not only my life, but the lives of other people - friends and enemies alike. We were taught to abstain from violence and to peacefully protest war as a whole. In addition to the church, my family always instilled the same values in me and my siblings. I believe that the way I was raised is the defining factor of my current belief system and would therefor hinder me from ever intentionally taking the life of another individual - be they innocent or guilty of injustice against me.

When looking and thinking about the issue of immigration in the United States, one usually does not consider the Native Americans. First off, I feel like the Native Americans don't have the knowledge of illegal immigration to form an opinion like most other citizens can. I feel like they originally had to deal with the issue of immigration more when Europeans were coming to America during the colonial period. Being as isolated as they are in the modern day, I don't see the Native Americans having a large opinion on the subject, mainly due to lack of knowledge.

But say that Native Americans were not primarily on reservations. Say they were citizens with the same luxuries as a "typical" person living in America. I would imagine that they would feel the same way towards the immigration problem now as they did when the foreigners came to their land centuries ago. It is essentially the same concept - people coming into land and working it for themselves. Instead of settling and farming the land that belonged to the natives, the Mexican and hispanic immigrants that come illegally are taking jobs by being willing to work for cheaper. Also, they are creating sections of the country that are over populated and contributing to problems of poverty, as we saw in the the New York Times video that was shown in class.

I like to think that the Native Americans would have the same opinion as normal Americans do now, if they were not isolated on reservations. That is the real problem. Since they are on reservations, there is possibly even more anger for those informed of the immigration issue. Think about it this way, if you were a Native American, you would be essentially denied every job you applied for, forced to live away from the rest of the population and have no privileges - even though you were the first people to settle this country. And there you sit, looking out at these people entering your home land illegally. They are getting jobs (cheap pay, but jobs nonetheless), raising families and giving their children educations. At least some of these immigrants can build a future for them and their families. Native Americans are in an endless cycle of poverty and despair on these reservations, away from the world.

In conclusion, if I was a Native American educated on the issue of illegal immigration in the United States, I would be angry because I would feel that as a citizen of the U.S., I was being mistreated and that the things rightfully mine were being taken by people who had even less of a right to be here than the white people who took my land during the colonial period.

I agree with what Sam was saying about having contact with a group and having it change the way you perceive them in future situations. This has happened to me a number of times throughout my life and as I grow up, different experiences with different groups continue to happen to me. The three best examples I can think of are my current interactions (after having contact) with Indian people, Muslim people and homosexual people.

Last year in my dorm hallway, there was an Indian guy who lived down the hall from me and my roommate. We met the first week of school. As far as Indians go, he was quite the opposite of how I expected them to be (I went to a mostly white high school and never really interacted with Indians). He was very outgoing and funny. Turns out, he became one of my best friends and even ended up coming to my house over Christmas break. I have spent time with his family as well. He has opened my eyes to the culture in India and the traditions and customs that Indian people have.

On my cross country team in high school were two of my friends who were both Egyptian and Muslim. Being friends with them showed me a lot of things, including their yearly celebration of Ramadan. Now, when I hear of people going through Ramadan, I can relate to them a little bit since I had to hear about my two friends going through the fasting every day. It was even worse for them since they could not eat or drink, yet had to exercise during the daytime.

In high school, one of my best friends came out and told me he was gay. This was the first time that something like this had ever happened to me and I was unsure what to do or say. After talking with him and realizing that nothing was going to change about our friendship was the first step for me to understand how to deal with the news. He taught me so much about what being homosexual means and allowed me to be comfortable around gay people and understand them more. I think that this was really good for me, because once I came to Penn State, the gay community is more pronounced and public. Having contact with my friend in high school allowed me to interact with other gay people I met much better and not have any bias against them.

In conclusion, I believe that contact has been the number one reason for a POSITIVE shift in my understanding of different groups. I believe that knowledge of a group is one thing, but familiarity in a real-life situation/situations is the key to gaining a better understanding of that particular group.

I think that when Sam said that we are misinformed on may topical fronts because of our beliefs not rooted in fact, that it was accurate for the most part. I believe that it is impossible to be one hundred percent sure and correct on any one issue. I also believe (pun intended), from taking classes and from personal worldly experience, that it is important to challenge our beliefs in a constructive way.

For example, last fall I took a class called BISCI 003 with Dr. Chris Uhl. Chris was one of the best and most interesting professors I have had thus far at Penn State. In his class about environmental concerns, he taught me to challenge my beliefs and values towards the environment and other aspects of life. One thing I will never forget about that class is the day he talked about "home-birthing". The issue was that the option of giving birth to your child at home, in a hot water tub, can be more relaxing for the mother and ease the pain of her labor. This is something that I had never considered as a birthing option before, but it certainly becomes something to think about. Like, my belief going into that class was a subconscious one that hospital labor and birth is the only way to do it. After that class, I had a "conscious" second option to consider, showing myself that my belief was not rooted in fact. Chris's class was full of such scenarios that really made you think. It taught me to ask questions, and I believe that is the greatest advice any teacher has ever given me, simple as it may sound.

I also think that analyzing and researching is essential in forming opinions, beliefs and values. Like I said above, it is essentially impossible to be one hundred percent correct on one particular belief or issue, but the more analysis, research and challenging you do, the more valid your arguments and beliefs consequently become. Sam gave the example in class about politics, and while it is frustrating to have shallow arguments about who they think has the best policies, it served as an example to me personally. It challenged me to do at least a little research before I form an opinion or belief about anything.

In conclusion, my thoughts on the misinformation issue are that, it is an issue, and people need to at least do a little analysis before forming opinions and beliefs. They don't necessarily have to be "correct".

The lecture about "whose land is it?" was one of the most powerful lectures of the semester so far for me. At first, I was kind of half-paying attention. I knew that the lecture would be about Native Americans at first, and how they have drinking problems and whatnot on their reservations. I could remember watching a video in high school about a tribe on a reservation with people who huffed aerosol cans and drank mouthwash. It was gross and I remember it really bothered me then. So that is what I expected during the lecture.

When this was not the initial thing that Sam talked about, I'm not going to lie, I kind of stopped paying attention. I wasn't really thinking hard when I answered the clicker questions about who had the rights to property in the made-up situation. And then Sam introduced our speaker from the Leech Lake Reservation.

It was then that my attention shifted one hundred percent to the speaker and what he was saying in response to Sam's questions about how Native Americans view us as Americans. It was so interesting to me to hear about how there is still bitterness from the tribes towards the white people. I could feel the emotion in the speaker's voice when he talked about the suicide rate, driving through "red land" on the way to State College and when he talked about the casinos on the reservations.

When Sam played the video set to the song "Don't Drink the Water" by the Dave Matthews Band is really when the class hit home for me. I am a huge Dave Matthews fan, but never really understood what the lyrics of that song could mean. To physically see the words up on the screen just portray the sheer hatred the white people had towards the natives was mind-blowing to me. The graphic images that went along with the song were just as heart wrenching.

So whose land is it? The natives inhabited America at first, but now the white man has overtaken the continent. To me, it is clear that the Indians deserve respect and to be treated better. We talked about this in recitation, and I feel like giving the natives resources and skills rather than money would be the best way to help them. Yes, the Native Americans were here first, but we must share the land with them. I felt such a sense of helplessness after the class. It really makes you think about our priorities of giving aide to people. It seems to me that we focus a lot on helping out other countries in need but don’t respond to an issue in our own country that arguably could be worse than in other countries. This blog post might be all over the place, but in summary, I believe that there is a way to share this land with the Native Americans. I also believe that we need to give them more attention to help the issues they are facing.

The lecture about "whose land is it?" was one of the most powerful lectures of the semester so far for me. At first, I was kind of half-paying attention. I knew that the lecture would be about Native Americans at first, and how they have drinking problems and whatnot on their reservations. I could remember watching a video in high school about a tribe on a reservation with people who huffed aerosol cans and drank mouthwash. It was gross and I remember it really bothered me then. So that is what I expected during the lecture.

When this was not the initial thing that Sam talked about, I'm not going to lie, I kind of stopped paying attention. I wasn't really thinking hard when I answered the clicker questions about who had the rights to property in the made-up situation. And then Sam introduced our speaker from the Leech Lake Reservation.

It was then that my attention shifted one hundred percent to the speaker and what he was saying in response to Sam's questions about how Native Americans view us as Americans. It was so interesting to me to hear about how there is still bitterness from the tribes towards the white people. I could feel the emotion in the speaker's voice when he talked about the suicide rate, driving through "red land" on the way to State College and when he talked about the casinos on the reservations.

When Sam played the video set to the song "Don't Drink the Water" by the Dave Matthews Band is really when the class hit home for me. I am a huge Dave Matthews fan, but never really understood what the lyrics of that song could mean. To physically see the words up on the screen just portray the sheer hatred the white people had towards the natives was mind-blowing to me. The graphic images that went along with the song were just as heart wrenching.

So whose land is it? The natives inhabited America at first, but now the white man has overtaken the continent. To me, it is clear that the Indians deserve respect and to be treated better. We talked about this in recitation, and I feel like giving the natives resources and skills rather than money would be the best way to help them. Yes, the Native Americans were here first, but we must share the land with them. I felt such a sense of helplessness after the class. It really makes you think about our priorities of giving aide to people. It seems to me that we focus a lot on helping out other countries in need but don’t respond to an issue in our own country that arguably could be worse than in other countries. This blog post might be all over the place, but in summary, I believe that there is a way to share this land with the Native Americans. I also believe that we need to give them more attention to help the issues they are facing.

Growing up in central PA, there was always the geographic location to Penn State that would have contributed in my attendance. Not to mention that my family followed Penn State athletics when i grew up. These things aside, I can make a case for both free will and determinism for the reason I am at Penn State today.

First let's start with free will. All through school, I was a good student. For the most part I got A's and B's with a few C's during the later years of high school when caring was over rated. I went to a very wealthy school in what most people consider a "wealthy" area, although I would not consider my family wealthy (I'll get to this in a minute). I put myself in a position with good high school grades (along with taking some early college credits) to get into a decent college. I was in the median SAT score range as well. All of these academic factors came from opportunities that I was given and capitalized on. Another thing that I believe contributed to my work ethic was the fact that I am a runner. I would have to balance my time running and being at practice with homework time. These constraints helped me focus on my work and do a good job. Hard work (free-will) most certainly played a large role in my acceptance to Penn State.

As I said above, I come from an area where most people are well off. My dad supports our family of six by himself and is going to help put us all through college (although not all of it). Because of the area and school district where I lived, I believe that I was given opportunities that really set me up for success. I had guidance counselors who knew me by name, coaches who saw me way too often and had AP and gifted classes than I could schedule. I went to a nice church and had great friends. I didn't have any connections at Penn State that would have given me an advantage for admission, but the college credits I had the opportunity to take my senior year of high school certainly helped. It is opportunities like those that set me up for success, and ultimately admission to Penn State.

In conclusion, I believe that the root of the issue lies with determinism. You must be set up to succeed before the free will part kicks in. There are certainly cases were free will reigns and vice-versa, but I believe they are rare. In other words, being born into a good situation doesn't guarantee success, but working hard when growing up in a bad situation doesn't have a high success rate.

I think that this question really stems back to the question that Sam asked about whether or not we believe that success comes from hard work or having connections. Sam discussed both options thoroughly and we talked about how some people believe that it is a combination of connections and hard work. Ultimately, I mostly got the vibe that the majority of people believe that connections and social status are the main contributors to financial success in America.

For the most part, I do agree with this statement. The entire time that Sam was having this discussion with the class, I kept thinking of the movie "The Pursuit of Happiness" starring Will Smith. The movie profiles a black man living well below the poverty level and struggles to provide a home for himself and his young son. His social background is weak, but he catches some breaks along the way and ends up becoming a stockbroker. That movie is based off a true story. I think that it serves as a good example for times when social background and being born into a class or race doesn't pre-destine you for success of failure. People can work hard and make a living for themselves. It is just a rare case.

In terms of the differences in salary between Asians, whites, blacks and Hispanics, I feel that they are going to remain the same for a while. It is because white people have been in America for so long (and make up the country's majority) that they are inclined to make decent money. Asians will also continue to make lots of money. They are often schooled in their home country and then come to America to make lots of money working high paying jobs. A lot of Hispanic people are immigrants as well, and are forced to work low paying jobs to stay afloat. An argument can be made that hard workers will pay off, but here is how I look at it: people of certain races and ethnic groups are essentially all starting on the same platform as the other people in their groups. Then at that point will the hard workers and networkers move up the ladder towards the American Dream. Overall, I believe that the differences in salary between different racial groups is not going to change anytime soon.

I thought that having Dr. Jones in class on Tuesday was great. He was a very engaging speaker, not to mention very funny. I think that his use of humor in his talk really pulled the class in and made us almost subconsciously get more out of the talk than we thought we were getting.
I think that his comments in the video are spot on. When you stop to think about it, there are social forces at work in our lives that develop our perception of things. For example, when we see the word “nigger” we instantly put filters in that make us know that it’s a bad word. We also transfer our beliefs on certain racial issues onto other people. The way we “explain” these beliefs to people seems normal enough, but really we are filtering our speech through these “social filters” and we skew the other person’s view of the topic.
A great example of this is the activity that Dr. Jones did in class. He had 7 people go into a sound proof room and then he read us a story about a student who was racially harassed. Then, the students played “telephone” and told the story to each other one by one, down the line. They were supposed to repeat what the person before them said, word for word. Of course, just like any game of telephone, the story became essentially ruined. As they continued to tell the story to each other, very key parts about race and prejudice were left out. This shows how these things can be overlooked in everyday interactions and really showed me personally how I was overlooking situations in life that other people would consider to be serious.
The other thing that I took from this lecture is the use of powerful hate words, like the N word. These types of words, even if used without intent of harm, are very hurtful and can lead to conflict and even violence. People need to be careful what they say to other people. Sometimes they say too many things and don’t know when to stop.
Dr. Jones gave a good example of this when he asked people to bid money on a dollar bill he had at the front of the room. The bidding got up to $4 before he stopped it and showed the bidders how stupid they looked bidding 400 percent of the money’s worth. It was his way of showing that people need to learn when to stop and “cool it”, but most people don’t have those controls. I learned a lot from that demonstration.
Dr. Jones’ talk in class was fantastic and I hope that Sam has more guests like him in the future.

The class we had on Thursday was awesome. Skyping with Pedrum was really cool, especially in a large classroom setting. In addition, having Omar in class to rap and talk about racial issues was neat to see his perspective on some of the issues we were talking about in class.

Despite having some technical difficulties with the Skype call, the talk with Pedrum was really good for me. Knowing he was Iranian before the call put some images in my mind about what he might be like. Pedrum seemed to be sort of "Americanized" in his mannerisms and way of speech. Not to mention, he spoke very good English. I found it funny when he said that he likes to watch "How I Met Your Mother" and other American TV shows. Another thing that brought a laugh from the class is when Sam asked Pedrum is Iranians were afraid of Americans in a similar way that many Americans seem to be afraid of Iranians. Pedrum just laughed and said no.

If I had the chance to get to know Pedrum and ask him some questions, I would first start to ask him about what types of sports are popular over there in Iran. I wonder if Iranians have a huge sports fan community like we do in America. I feel like because there are wars and conflicts going on in Iran that the people don't have time to waste watching and playing sports like we do here in America.

Another question that I would ask Pedrum is what race relations look like in Iran. I am curious about what ethnic groups are in Iran, and which ones are prominent enough that he would interact with them on a regular basis. I wonder if there is or has ever been discrimination between groups in Iran.

The final question I would like to ask Pedrum is what Iranian people think of all the scrutiny that American media gives their country. Americans seem to live in fear of Iranians and the idea that they are making nuclear weapons. I would want to hear what Pedrum what he and his friends think about that.

I hope that our class does more of the in-class Skype calls in the future, as I think that they are beneficial to getting opposing viewpoints and other examples of people around the world and their dealings with race relations. Conversations like those also help to broaden my understanding of other races and cultures.