I understand what this person is saying completely. I personally feel guilty that I am not doing more to help, and honestly, that I am not more sad. I mean obviously I am sad about what happened, but I didn’t cry. I didn’t lose sleep over it, it didn’t stop my day to day activities. I feel like a bad person because I am not more sad about it. I try. I try to understand and to imagine what those people are going through, but I can’t. I’ve looked at pictures, I’ve talked to people who have gone to Haiti, and still I just can’t put myself there and I can’t imagine it. It doesn’t affect me directly, so I can’t really empathize. I wish there was something I could do, but I just feel like there isn’t. I can’t stop going to class to go there and help, I can’t donate large amounts of money. I’m really glad that Sam collects money for Haiti because it makes me feel like I am doing something, but really, is that 10-15 dollars that I’ve donated really going to make a difference?

I guess what I think about this is that the line lies between thinking that you a better than a certain individual and thinking that your situation is better than that of another individual. The situation of every single one of us is better than the situation of people in third world counties, however, that is something that is out of the individual’s control. If you would take an individual from a third world country and put him in American and in a situation like yours and mine, he very well would probably be as successful as us. Therefore, I do not think that I am any better than individuals in developing countries, but I do think that I am in a better situation than them, which therefore will lead to me being more successful than them.

This letter definitely changed the way that a view people in prison, particularly those who were convicted of murder. To me, the act of murder is so unthinkable that I have always felt certain that only the most terrible people in the world, the scum of the earth, could ever intentionally kill someone. This letter helped to change my perception. When I think of prisons, I always think of places that are dark, threatening and filled with angry people. I’ve driven by Rockview before, and it gives me chills. The old building is actually very beautiful and almost has an eerie peaceful feeling to it, because I always felt as though inside the walls there was nothing but terror and anger. The fact that this inmate says that there is compassion, and the examples of compassion that he gave us, were amazing to me. It goes to show that people can change. The most cold hearted people to society, those who commit murder, can change and can be compassionate. Don’t get me wrong, I still think that murderers are the most terrible people, but maybe being in prison can change even the most terrible. When you think about it, what do people in prison do all day? I feel like they would have so much time just to think about what they did that it would almost be inevitable that they would feel remorse. I think that being in prison must certainly give them time to come to terms with themselves, and even develop compassion. It would be interesting for me to see some sort of comparison, perhaps a study if one was ever conducted that would compare the attitudes of people who have just been put into jail to those who have been there for many years. How do their attitudes change? Are people who are first put into prison angry and hateful and if so how long does it take for them to change and develop compassion like this man has? I would also like to know how long this man has been in prison and what he was like when he was first convicted. I want to sincerely thank this man for opening up to our class and allowing us to look into a world that most of us have never had the opportunity to look in to. I think that it is awesome that Sam and Laurie do this and it is really fascinating to me. I’m glad Sam did this, and this topic is definitely something that I would like to learn more about.

I think that this is a very nice thing for this girl to say, but at the same time, she seems to be pretty attractive, and skinny. If she were fat, she might see it differently. I definitely don’t consider myself fat, but at the same time I don’t consider myself skinny, and I definitely do feel the pressures of society to be skinnier. I look at other girls who are skinnier than me and I want to look like them. I feel like guys won’t like me unless I’m skinny. And looking at models on the cover of my Victoria’s secret magazine and on TV doesn’t help. So I think yes, most women are pressured by society to look better.

I am really getting sick and tired of the way Sam talks about Christians. I understand what he is saying. If I lived in Iraq, I would think differently. I probably would fight to defend me and my family and I do not necessarily agree with the war in Iraq. I do not see what the war in Iraq has to do with a “Christian Invasion.” That is the stupidest thing I ever heard of. Christians are not “trying to take over the world.” A lot of Christians are just as opposed to the war as non-Christians. I believe that faith is a very personal thing. I am a Christian, but I do not try to force my views on anyone else. I know a lot of Christians who feel the same way. So no, we’re not trying to take over the world. Drilling for oil in Iraq has nothing to do with Christianity. If Sam practiced what he preached he would be tolerant of other people’s religions and wouldn’t be saying ridiculous things like “Christian Invasion.”

This is a really interesting topic, and is something that I can definitely relate to. When I was in 7th grade it was time to choose which language we were going to take in middle school and high school. The only two languages that my school district offered were French and Spanish. I wanted to do Spanish, but not because I thought it was practical, only because all my friends were doing it. However, I was on my family vacation on the day that everyone chose and when I got back to school Spanish was filled and I got stuck in French. I took three years of French in middle school and high school, and I hated it, but I always got A’s. When I came to Penn State and found out I had to take three year of a language I decided just to take French since I would already sort of know it. Again, I wasn’t thinking practically at all. I ended up really liking French in college and decided to minor in it. However, last semester, the beginning of my junior year, I realized that I really wasn’t intending to do anything with my French minor, ever. I don’t want to live in France, or Canada for that matter, and French isn’t widely spoken in the United States. At the very most I might visit France, but it would probably only be for a week on a vacation. So I dropped the minor, because I really saw no purpose. However, several of my friends are business majors with minors in Spanish, which does make sense. With the growing number of Spanish speaking people in American, it really makes sense that as a businessperson you should be able to communicate with them. However, I am really big on making the point that immigrants should learn English. I am not against immigration, if someone can come to America from Mexico and make a better life for himself then that is great. However, I think that immigrants should learn English. If I were to decide to move to Spain, I would learn Spanish. I would not move to Spain expecting them to speak English, and I do not think that Spanish-speaking immigrants should expect Americans to speak Spanish. I definitely can see the relevance of learning Chinese as well. As our country does more and more business with China, it makes even more sense for college graduates to speak Chinese. I thought it was interesting that China is paying for Chinese people to come to America. I think that this is because the Chinese government wants to encourage America to do even more business with their country. Providing teachers to teach Americans to speak Chinese is a great way to do this. If a lot of Americans speak Chinese, it will be easier for them to do more business with China. However, I am against this as well. I think it’s really important to keep businesses and keep jobs in the United States and while doing some business with China is fine I think that doing too much business with China could be detrimental to the American economy.

Being a Christian, I was kind of offended when Sam was talking about this. I didn’t like the way he seemed to be mocking Christianity, like when he was saying about the “pearly gates” and almost making fun of it. Is he implying that I’m going to hell because I’m not doing anything about slave labor? I’m sure that the God that I believe in understand that there is physically nothing I can do about the slavery and Sam contradicted himself because he said that the most important thing is feeling some kind of way about it, which I do.

This is a funny comment, but in reality that’s just not possible. I could never not buy clothes for two year. For example, I have an internship. For my internship I need to dress business casual every day. I don’t really think that my boss would appreciate me wearing the same pair of two year old dress pants and a two year old button down shirt to work every day. Yes it is sad that the clothing I buy and wear every day is made by slaves, but I really feel like I have no other choice. It would be nice if I could get all my clothes from somewhere like Free People which uses no slave labor but their stuff is ridiculously expensive and being in college I really can’t afford to do that.

Do you really think that by not eating the second piece of chocolate you are making a difference? That piece of chocolate has already been made. The slave labor has already been put in to it. It doesn’t matter if you eat that piece of chocolate or not. You are not doing anything by not eating it. Sam even said, “don’t not eat it.” He said exactly what I’m saying; it’s not going to change anything. Was I upset by the video? Of course I was, how could I not be? But like Sam said, the important thing is to “feel some kind of way about it.” He said that the first step was to feel something about it, he didn’t give a second step, but if he had I’m pretty sure that the second step wouldn’t have been “don’t eat the second piece of chocolate. So are you never going to eat chocolate ever again after seeing this video? Are you really never going to eat anything with chocolate in it for the rest of your life? That means no cake, no chocolate chip cookies, no chocolate milk, no hot chocolate, no nothing. If you are really going to do that then good for you, but where do you draw the line? If your not going to eat chocolate ever again are you not going to wear clothes ever again? Do you have a cell phone? If so you better throw that away too. So much of everything that you own is made by slaves, or has materials in it that were made by slaves, yet you think that you are doing some great thing by refusing to eat the second piece of chocolate. I mean, I guess I did feel kind of bad about eating the second piece of chocolate, but I knew that not eating it wouldn’t do anything, and I really like chocolate so I ate it anyway. Do you think that makes me a bad person? I don’t think so. It would be great if someday all chocolate – and all products that was use – were free of slave labor, and I really hope that as awareness spread about slavery and people start to tell companies that we do actually care about this issue that we will reach that point, but until then one piece of chocolate doesn’t matter. Maybe you should write letters to all of the major chocolate companies telling them that it’s wrong that they buy cocoa that is made by slave labor and that you aren’t going to buy their products anymore until they stop. Even that probably wouldn’t do anything, but it would be better then not eating the second piece of chocolate.

I really thought that the saddest part of this video, as Sam pointed out in class, was the look on the children's faces, and how distressing this was for us. For example, one of the children was asked which doll was good and which was bad, and he said that the white doll was good and black doll was bad. Then when asked which doll looked like him, he got this terrible look of distress on his face, and actually started to push the white doll forward. Then he hesitated and got this distraught look on his face as if he realized that the white doll was not the one that looked like him. Reluctantly, he let go of the white doll and slowly pushed the black doll forward. It was almost like he was ashamed that he looked like the "bad" doll. This made me really sad. No one should ever be ashamed of who they are, especially not young children. As for why his happens, I have no idea. I really think that society needs to take away the "idea" that white people are more attractive.