I don’t think affirmative action necessarily lowers the quality of workers. I think companies typically make sure a potential worker is qualified for the position. For example, if it comes down to a man and a woman of equal credentials, they might pick the woman to meet the quota. Even then though, the woman will probably work harder than the man would have because in the work force, especially in a field dominated by men such as engineering, women need to prove themselves so they are taken seriously, whereas a man who is hired will be more likely to slack off because he wouldn’t worry as much about what others thought. Unfortunately though, there are other cases where employers just pick a minority to meet the quota. In this instance problems can definitely occur if the new worker’s qualifications are not up to par. I know this from experience because my dad works for the government and in his job if he interviews people of all types of races and backgrounds and does not end up picking a person of the minority then he has to fill out a large stack of papers saying why the white person was more qualified than the black person. And his argument had better be convincing or else he could be fired. My dad was actually put on trial at his job because a black woman accused him of being racist….for choosing a black man over her. This is absolutely ridiculous. I don’t think there is any way to justify this. Sometimes affirmative action can be a good thing because it keeps diversity in the workplace, but anytime the quality of the company or product is neglected, affirmative action can have very negative effects.
In regards to Nepotism, I think quality is often compromised. Usually when people help their family or friends, they are doing so because the person in need of assistance cannot find work or does not have the skills to get a job on their own. This means that the person will be given a position for which they probably do not qualify. This is not fair to other people trying to get the same position who are qualified, and it is also not fair to the employer or company. The new worker will probably do a below average quality level of work, and this will hurt the business. I definitely agree with the guy on this video that industries like healthcare can suffer. Nepotism should be used lightly, because if you help someone who is struggling to get into medical school and he/she becomes a doctor then eventually makes a big mistake such as killing someone during a surgery, you are somewhat to blame for helping them get to that position. I know this sounds extreme but there are instances where dramatic things like this can occur, and it’s not worth taking the risk. If someone isn’t qualified for a position, they shouldn’t be accepted into it. A big problem with nepotism is that it is like lying because it often involves writing fabricated recommendations for people who do not deserve them. Doing this can have a chain negative effect and hurt many people including consumers or patients.

I think it’s very difficult to pinpoint a second step. To be completely honest, I am not so sure that there is anything we can do to completely end slavery. Talking to my friends about this topic, we all agreed that if one individual did something such as stopped eating chocolate, not only would it be very challenging, but it wouldn’t end slavery completely. The only way I think it can end is if these industries shut down due to a lack of consumers. Even then it would be extremely difficult to end because the companies would continue to move their factories around the world to new workers who would easily be taken advantage of and paid nothing for their work. Until these companies make zero profit, I do not think there is a way to end slavery. It would be close to impossible for them to stop making profit, though. Slavery is embedded in so many industries that we would literally have to stop buying almost all types of food and clothing in order to hurt the industries and help the slaves. Also, if you stop eating one food that is made from slave labor such as chocolate, you need to keep in mind that you are only focusing on one industry. We could eat just about anything and it most likely would trace back to slave labor somehow. The scary part about that to me is that I had no idea modern slavery even existed until I took this class but it really is all around us and is a part of our everyday lives. It’s kind of like what Sam talked about with picking and choosing what rules you follow of your religion. He said people who only follow some of the rules are hypocrites. I think that is similar for this topic. You can cut out one food, but you should not condemn others for eating it because other foods that you eat come from slaves. Basically, there really isn’t a way to turn away from all the products that are produced by slaves. We’d have to start growing everything on our own and make our own clothes. We can help by supporting companies who produce products that are not made by slaves such as Fair Trade, but as far as ending modern slavery all together, I don’t see a way of doing so for now. With our lifestyles, we depend on many companies for technology, too. I am sure if you trace some of the pieces needed to assemble our iPods or computers or cell phones we’d see that they also come from slave labor. I think our society demands too much, and this has led to slavery. Companies need to produce mass quantities of everything to supply everyone’s desires, and therefore the products need to be made quickly. In order to produce this much, the companies need to hire cheap labor, but they often just choose to use slaves. If our world evolved to a slower pace of life, I think we could help free the slaves because they would not be needed to produce so much.

I think I have a very different opinion on this guy than a lot of others do. I do not want to be mean but I think this kid is a total idiot. I mean sure it is a nice gesture and thought and everything but in reality people need clothes, they are a part of everyday life. Honestly I do not see what giving a few articles of clothing away would do. The clothes were already made and there is nothing we can do about that. The only way that this idea would ever work is if every single person in the world decided to not wear clothes anymore. However, we all know that that will not happen because it is simply not acceptable in society to walk around naked all the time. There are weather factors and things like that involved also. I really don’t see what a few people deciding not to buy clothes anymore will do. It is also completely out of the question for young children who constantly grow at a very fast pace and grow out of their clothes quickly. They have no choice but to buy new clothes that will fit them. Also, is this guy seriously going to say that he did not get any clothes for birthdays? What about holidays? I do not believe it for one second. The other thing is that he also happens to be a guy. Guys are not nearly as concerned about clothes as girls are so in my opinion this would be much harder for girls to do. If he can seriously come to me in 50 years and prove to me that he did not buy any clothes that whole time that is when I will believe him. HOWEVER, even though I know I have been tearing him up, it is a very nice thing for him to do and I want to wish him luck in remaining to live that way.

In my opinion, this is definitely not the first step, basically because it will never work. It is a good thought, but it is never going to happen. The first step to take would be to take a closer look into where the clothes are coming from and just refrain from buying clothes that we know come directly from slaves. But even so, clothing is just one part that deals with slavery. Putting a little dent in slavery is all that we can hope to do at the moment. It is sad and it is a shame but we will never be able to stop wearing clothes, or eating food, or anything else like that. Our main goal should be finding other ways to get clothing and food that was never touched by slaves, and that is all we can do for now.

Wow. I am totally appalled by this game. I am also completely disgusted that someone would ever think to invent something like this. Where are people’s morals? Does anyone out there think that this is okay? I am not a feminist by any means but from a woman’s perspective I feel so violated and grossed out by this. I also brought this topic up to a few of my guy friends to get their opinion on the matter and to my relief they agreed with me that this video game is unnecessary and inappropriate. It is bad enough that there are games out there that involve killing people to win. A game with the object being to rape young women just takes it too far. This strikes a chord with me because my 15 year old brother is very into video games and I would be very upset if I ever found him playing a game like that. There was a lot of controversy on the news a while back about violent video games and how they have the potential to make young children violent when they are older. The reason people thought this is because kids think that if they can play it in a game there is no harm in doing it in real life. Or if someone commits a murder in a video game and is able to out run the cops, kids think that they can do that in real life also. While this may or may not be true for all children it definitely might be true for some and lead them to a life of violent acts that could land them in jail. So who is to say that these rape video games will not have the same effect? Rape is not a joke by any stretch of the imagination and it is dangerous to expose children to these kinds of games at such an early age. If a child is really young they might not exactly know right from wrong yet and may think that this is an acceptable thing to do in society. The other part of this that really bothers me is that you can download these kinds of games off of the internet. These games are basically cartoon pornography and should be made illegal. It does not seem as if the Japanese government is doing much to stop the production of these awful games thus far. It has been a decent amount of time since these games have hit the shelves and the majority of them are still there. This needs to stop now because if games like these are around when I have children, it is not going to fly with me at all. I think that companies really need to reconsider the message that they are trying to send out to people all over the world because it could definitely be taken the wrong way.

The end of yesterday’s class was definitely very interesting. I am a young woman and even I got kind of disgusted by the conversation. However, it was for no other reason besides the way he blatantly just came out and said “bleeding” and even went into detail with him wanting to look inside the toilet after she was done her business. Like I said I am a female and I am in no way ashamed of having a period but I can definitely see why some guys would be disgusted by the topic or at least by the way he said it. I am proud to be a woman and I am proud of the fact that I will be able to give birth to beautiful children one day. When I am hanging out with my girl friends this topic of conversation comes up pretty often because, like Sam said, it is natural and every girl eventually gets one in her lifetime. I am in no way ashamed of talking about my bodily functions with my girl friends and even some of my guy friends. I think some people would be surprised by how comfortable some men are with this subject. To be honest it is really a maturity thing. This is not true in all cases but I have found that guys who find it appalling usually have had very little experience with girls, at least in a serious relationship sort of way. I have been with my boyfriend for over two years now and he is completely comfortable with it because he knows it is just the way life is. You can immediately spot the immature guys out as being the ones making unnecessary comments or laughing about it. Sorry guys but just being completely honest here, if you eventually want a serious relationship with a girl, you are going to have to grow up and get used to it. I will admit that they are not the most pleasant things in the world to deal with but it is just one of the struggles that come with being a woman.
With all of that being said though, I have to play devil’s advocate and say that even I was taken a little aback by Sam’s comment. It is all well and good to talk about his wife but that was an unnecessary time and place to talk about that. And just to throw this out there: if I were Sam’s wife I would not be happy at all. While everyone should be free to talk about it I do find it to be a very personal thing and I do not think that a sociology class made up of a vast variety of people is the best place to discuss that, especially when there would most likely be people who would be nauseated by the topic.
However, I do think that Sam’s intentions were good and I absolutely LOVED the one point he made: if it were not for women, none of us would be here. So just to put this in perspective for you, be happy that your mother had her period because it created something special—you.

This story is actually very sad. I don’t care what anyone else thinks or says but I am so annoyed with the issue of LGBT. When is the world going to get over this concept? Love is love, no matter what form it is in so everyone needs to leave these people alone! If everyone were comfortable with gay people there would never be a thought of cancelling the prom at all. Unfortunately the school knows that there are going to be families of the students that will not be okay with two lesbians attending the prom so they feel like they are forced to make this decision and have no other option. They might not want to run the risk of losing students or faculty that does not agree with them. In all likelihood the school board might actually be okay with it, but it is the community as a whole that they are more worried about pleasing. If I were the parents of both of those girls I would be outraged. I also feel really bad for those two girls because they did not ask to be gay. It is bad enough that LGBT people are socially rejected as it is, they do not need the whole school being mad at them too.
If I were to put myself in the shoes of the other students at the school, I would be so upset if my prom were to be cancelled. Just thinking back to the proms I attended I remember that those were the best times of my life so far. These kids should not be deprived of having the same experience that I did.
I have a friend who went to a school where two boys went to prom together as dates and everyone was fine with it. My friend even said that those boys were the most conservative couple at the prom and represented the school well.
From my perspective I went to a catholic high school so a lesbian or gay couple could not attend my prom. It is a real shame that the world has been taught to have these views about people. It is basically along the lines of discrimination of race, they both get treated differently and it is not fair. I want to know when the world is going to stop discriminating and just leave people alone. If it does not affect them directly why do people care so much? Unfortunately I do not know if things will ever completely change, they might improve but sadly I do not believe we will ever get all the way there. Situations such as this story cause setbacks in our effort to put a stop to the discrimination against the LGBT community.

This story completely blew me away. Yvrose Jean Baptiste is truly an inspiration to so many people and to so many aspiring entrepreneurs out there who have heard her story. This is a true example of how hard work and decision making can get you to where you want to be in life. Granted, Haiti is a third world country and doesn’t have much money by any means but considering the circumstances that Yvrose is in, I think she is doing very well for herself. I could not believe my ears when I heard that she only had a fifth grade education. I am not a business major or know much about how to run a business at all but it sounds as if all that she has accomplished for herself could not have been easy. It makes me wonder how she only had a limited education but yet still manages to know more about the business world than I could ever hope to, and I am currently going through my college education. I’m sure that this also goes for a lot of others out there as well. Somewhere down the road she learned all about running a business on her own which not many people are able to say.
The earthquake that hit Haiti was truly a natural disaster that has negatively affected the country in so many ways, especially for this woman. Her business relies on having clients and other businesses to loan her products to. Unfortunately the earthquake killed many of her clients and destroyed the businesses that she worked with so she lost a great amount of money that she will never be able to get back from them. On top of all of that, she said her house also collapsed and she has children that she needs to provide for and take care of. My heart really goes out to her for all that she has lost and I cannot even begin to imagine how much she and her family are struggling through this hard time. It is such a shame that she owes 100 US dollars to her bank and doesn’t have that kind of money to pay them back as a result of all that has happened. From reading the previous comments I noticed that people were concerned that the bank wasn’t having pity on her with her situation but, just to play devil’s advocate, the bank has to be under a lot of pressure right now to get money so I can see why the situation is the way it is. However, I really hope that Yvrose was able to get the money in time somehow. I will be honest and say that I could never have a prayer to survive if I were placed in her situation. I truly have faith in her that, once she gets over this rough patch in her life, she’ll be able to pick herself and her business back up and get back to where she was, if not further, because she is such an intelligent and inspirational woman.

I support the gay community and all of the rights that they deserve. While I myself am not gay, I believe that being gay is something that you are born with, which means it is out of that person’s control. So I say leave them alone already! A person cannot help who they are attracted to. This story makes me so sick to my stomach. What kind of people can just come in and break apart a family like that? Any healthy, loving couple should have the right to have children and create a family, whether they are the same sex or not. The story also tells us that this woman ran away to protect her own safety. However, they do not take any of this into consideration at all when they want to remove her from her loving home and deport her. The really sad part is that Jay is unable to petition for Shirley to be able to stay in America because they are same-sex partners. Of course some people would say that it is not a matter of same-sex partnership but a matter of illegal immigration. People find it wrong that getting married to someone in the United States grants that person citizenship automatically. While there is a point behind all of that I still find it very sad when I hear the story directly from them. It absolutely amazes me that even though the divorce rate in this country is so high they would try to break apart an actual healthy, functioning relationship. Also, the children did nothing wrong but they still have to watch their mother being taken away from them. I cannot even imagine what it would be like to be in their situation. It is truly heartbreaking to hear that this kind of thing actually happens to families. Sam brought up a great point when he said that getting drunk and having sex before marriage is just as bad as being with someone of the same sex, according to the bible. So why are people so hypocritical with these rules? You either follow all of them or you follow none of them, you cannot pick and choose. I will guarantee that the people that wanted the one woman departed were not all perfect. I will also guarantee that those same people were probably guilty of doing one of the things that the bible tells us not to do. So who are they to try to tear that family apart? They have no right to do that. I really and truly hope that the law that was mentioned does get passed because gay human beings deserve to have all of the same rights as straight human beings.

Sam’s lecture on Tuesday was very empowering and caused me to think of things in a completely different way than I ever have before. We were basically told that the places people get in life depend on their biological makeup, decisions they have made all throughout their lives, or events that have happened that were outside of their control. I was always taught that your life is what you make of it. But you need to consider the fact that your life is not always completely under your control. Sam used an example in class saying how if someone is in college trying to follow their dreams, but then that person’s parents get laid off, now that person needs to drop out of school to try to provide for his family. What he really wanted to do was to graduate from college with a degree but something occurred that was outside of his control and there wasn’t much he could do about it. Sam also said that on average, white people are on top and are generally more successful than blacks. There are definitely exceptions but this is an example of how the way you were born affects where you end up in life. Lastly, personal decisions can only get you so far. That’s what Sam meant when he said it was a mix of all three ideas.
Sam brought up in class how some people have more obstacles to overcome in life than others do as a result of all the factors that got them to where they are today. I consider myself to be more on the side of someone who has been able to skate right through life. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have it THAT great, but I know that I am definitely better off than a lot of others out there. I am fortunate enough that my parents take care of me and give me everything I want in my life because without them I would be nowhere. It really puts into perspective how lucky I am when I think of how bad others have it. My grandparents on both sides of my family are immigrants but they came to America with a decent amount of money. After that my parents built their way up and now are considerably wealthy people. As a result of all of this, statistics show that I have a better chance of being successful because my parents are very successful. Statistics also show that since I am white my IQ is most likely higher on average than most black people’s IQ’s. It really is a shame that the world works the way it does because I think that all people deserve a fair chance, regardless of race or ethnicity.

A few weeks ago my friends and I went to the movies and we were trying to come to an agreement on what we wanted to see. One of my friends suggested Avatar but I shot that idea down so quickly. Just from the name of it I could tell that I had no interest in ever seeing it. However, as time went on I heard from many people how great of a movie it was so naturally I got sucked in, along with many others out there, I’m sure. It turns out that I absolutely LOVED it and would definitely see it again and recommend it to anyone. That is why when I came across this article my jaw dropped. I read the blogs and watched Sam’s video and realized how true this theory of the “White Messiah” was. This plot has been used over and over again but for some reason I never put two and two together and realized it until this very moment. I do have to say though, when I watched this movie race never played a part in my mind at all. I guess since all the avatars were blue in color that is all that I saw. I never thought too much into it and just tried to enjoy the movie but if I were to see it again, while keeping all of this in mind, it would probably alter my view on the movie just a bit. I can’t help but bring myself to wonder: would this movie still be as big of a hit if things were the other way around? By this I mean someone of a different race coming to save a whole village of white people. And the sad thing is I do not think that it would be as big of a success. White people have always been viewed as the ones on top, people who are able to take care of themselves. So why are the people who need saving usually something other than white? I really don’t know if it is coincidence, I have a feeling it may be done purposefully. Why do white people always need to come to the rescue? It really does not need to be this way at all. It is amazing that I have never noticed this in movies until it was brought to my attention in this article. At the same time, I do believe that people look a LITTLE too much into things like this. It is only a movie after all. Who knows if it was actually meant to take that approach, I highly doubt it. Regardless, it does fall into the “White Messiah” concept and, intentional or not, is not right, in my opinion.