7/6/10
I totally agree with you about the video we saw about the 2 completely different high schools. I have seen it before and didn’t think much about it. This time I really couldn’t believe how unequal the situation really was. The girl who got an A in trigonometry was completely lost and is probably going to have a much harder time in college than the other students. They have no option of what high school to go to. They are bettering themselves as much as they can in the situation handed to them. I’m sure there are some kids that go to the nicer school that slack off and only get by because they have too. Something needs to be done about education and it needs to take place soon before it gets out of control.

7/6/2010
I think that everyone will face inequalities throughout their life. Some more than others but everyone will go through some. And like everyone else is saying inequality will never go away. I’ve never really had a lecture about Affirmative Action so this was a completely new topic to me. Listening to this lecture I realized that I have known a lot of people that have used nepotism to get the things they want. I live in a very small town and in high school it was all about who your parents were. My parents were very hard working and were involved in my schooling as much as possible. They didn’t have the chance to be on the school board. Well I had many friends whose parents were on the school board. Needless to say, these kids were always getting to go on special school trips, always winning school awards, and had no problems with any teachers. I’m not saying I have never used nepotism, but I never really had the opportunity. Even in college I have witnessed nepotism. My friend’s mother works for Penn State. She throws her name mother’s name out as much as she can, especially when she was applying for Graduate School. Yeah, it makes me a little mad, but if I had a family member that worked for Penn State I would probably do the same thing.
The slides about the Ten Commandments really made me laugh. People really will try to make themselves look better in any situation. I am a Christian and I will admit I don’t follow all of the Commandments. The one that really stuck out to me was the one about envying thy neighbor’s possessions; I think there was 71% that said they don’t do that. I in no way believe that. I will be the first to admit that I get jealous of other peoples things such as cars and iPhones.
The one thing I have heard about a million times since being at Penn State is the word network. Many, many teachers have told me networking is the most important thing you can do. It is so true. The world is really all about who you know. I am someone that doesn’t really have a name to throw out to employers. No one in my family is in or knows anybody in the field I am going to work in. I can’t use nepotism. So I must start networking.
The Oprah video was very eye opening. I have seen it before but to watch it again makes me even more aware of what is going on. This isn’t only a problem in Chicago it’s a problem everywhere. To me kids and their education are the key to the future. Every child should really have equal opportunity. In my high school we had no swimming pool and only 4 sports teams. We lived about 4 miles away from a school that had about every sport and 2 swimming pools. That doesn’t bother me as much as the educational opportunities. When I came to Penn State I met someone who had already had 36 college credits because of the classes that were offered at his high school. My high school offered 3 credits. This is clearly an example of inequality. What can be done to fix this? Whatever it is, it needs to be done soon.

6/4/2010
I also feel confused after the lecture. I thought that after I watched it, my mind would be made up. I would be on one side or the other. I also have never even thought of immigration as a business issue. I was aware that many immigrants are willing to do work for very low prices but I never put the issue into a business perspective. It is so true that people didn’t really care about immigrants taking jobs when the economy was fine but when the recession came about the first to be blamed were the immigrants. I totally agree that we are a magnet for hardworking risk takers. America would not be America without all of the different cultures. Immigration needs to continue to help America keep on growing but I do believe that more measures need to be taken on illegal immigration.

6/4/2010

Immigration is a topic that people feel strongly about. It has always been an issue and I feel like it will always be an issue. You will always hear someone say, “If you move to the United States, you need to learn English.” There are some people out there that think if a person moves to the United States their culture should be completely dropped and they only should embrace the American culture. I agree America is good but America would not be America if everyone wasn’t so different. The cartoons shown at the beginning of lecture were very interesting. I especially liked the one that showed the Native Americans and it was labeled Homeland Security. It’s so true. I know that history books are written to make American history look easy but they really need to address that this land was stolen from the Native American people. That is a major part of history. When Dr. Richards brought up the topic of Congo the Dog, it really did make me think. Would this be a completely different situation if a white person was attacked? I never have heard of anything like this. I am from around Pittsburgh and we hear about dog attacks somewhat frequently. In every case, no matter what color or age the person was, the dog was put down. No doubt, I love pets and dogs in general. But Mr. Rivera was doing nothing wrong and the dog had people petitioning for him to be pardoned?
When I watched the video of that guy ranting about illegal immigrants the first thing I wanted to do was turn it off. I couldn’t stand listening to him. First of all he had no idea what he was talking about. He needs to do research before he makes these videos. Not only was his ranting horrible, but the comments left about the video were utterly ridiculous. The thing is those people commenting don’t know what is going on either. It really amazes me when people call Mexican people lazy. Mexicans are probably the hardest working people. They are coming to America and getting paid to do the jobs that other people don’t want to do and are getting paid like 2 dollars a day. The comment that Dr. Richards found from MySpace was kind of funny. Only because this person was ranting about how when people come to America they refuse to learn the language, yet this person is in Sweden and knows no nothing from the Swedish language. Like Dr. Richards said it is complete hypocrisy. American people are so critical about immigrants (illegal and legal). I’m sure when American people visit other countries they feel the same about us. I really couldn’t believe that at one point in time there were 4 million members of the KKK. I also agree with Dr. Richards about not knowing a solution to the problem. I really think there will never be a real solution. Some Americans are always going to be unwilling to let immigrants into our country. I agree that we do need a way to have everyone documented but I am not against people coming into the country. The people coming to America are coming to try and make a better life for their family, to find jobs, or to receive opportunities that aren’t given to them where they live. I guess there’s never going to be a yes or no answer to the immigration question.

6/30/10
I totally agree that people are born gay or lesbian. Like Dr. Richards said, why would someone choose to be a part of a group that doesn’t get the benefits of everyone else. And like you I also never thought about the recent LGBT movement as being the second Civil Rights movement. This movement is totally necessary. I also know many people who are gay and lesbian. Many of my mom’s best friends are lesbians. Many of them have children but it is only because they were involved in heterosexual relationships before coming out. The numbers are available for the government to see that homosexual couples are just as good at being parents as heterosexual couples. I don’t understand why some states still won’t let homosexual couples to adopt.

6/30/10

The numbers shown in this lecture were definitely surprising. I had my assumptions but the numbers shown really opened up my eyes. I do agree with Dr. Richards about how many democrats probably marked the answer to be politically correct but I can’t imagine that would make up most of the numbers. For the survey of people who “want to live in a more diverse community,” I was really surprised but the large difference from college graduates and high school graduates. When I thought about it more I understood. I was never aware of the different cultures of the world until I moved to college. I went to a 95% white school. If I would have stayed there after high school graduation, I would have been living a sheltered life. I really wouldn’t mind living with immigrants or in a diverse community. When I recently was in North Carolina, there were many Spanish speaking people living there. It didn’t bother me at all. They were no different from my family. I don’t think it really matters if I want to live in a more diverse community because I will be living in a diverse community one day.
I totally agree that there is no way that we can ignore the growth of multiculturalism. I also strongly agree that the US cannot afford to be xenophobic. I am trying to become fluent in Spanish. I feel that if you are bilingual it will help you out in the corporate world. The US mainly does business with many different countries. The only way that is going to continue is if people change to become more global. The video that showed where the planes travel everyday was amazing. I was just proving that globalism is upon us and it is not going to stop anytime soon. I loved the video of rap music around the world. They all were alike but very different at the same time. Everyone had the same kind of clothing, the same kind of movements and body language. Not only were the people alike, but so were the beats of the music. Rap music really is a global genre.
When Dr. Richards brought up the fact that one day white people were going to be the minority, it didn’t affect me at all. I really don’t think that this is a problem and I really don’t think that anyone should really worry about it.
I ‘m really glad that at the beginning of the LGBT lecture, Dr. Richards escorted God out of the room. I really think that sometimes when people talk about these issues, God is a very large factor that is brought up over and over again. I really don’t think that gay people flaunt their relationships like many people say they do. The examples that we were shown were great. I think that many people say that gay people flaunt their relationships because those people are not comfortable with gay people. I really think that gay people should be allowed to get married. The world has changed and is still changing. The government seems to have realized that in almost every issue except when it comes to gay marriage.

6/23/10
I also couldn’t believe that kids with higher grades are not very popular. I went to a very white high school and it was very competitive. We all tried to get very high grades. Normally the higher the grades, the more popular you were. I can’t believe that people are not opening up to their full potential just because they don’t want to be looked a differently. That is just sad. Kids need to be made aware that you should be who you are. People shouldn’t shy away from their intelligence because they will be made fun of. I couldn’t imagine having to purposely do badly on an assignment just so that I wouldn’t be looked at differently.

I also found the Fair Housing Act commercials very powerful. The first video really opened my eyes. The person’s voice stayed the same throughout the video but the person’s looks changed. Would this really matter to a landlord? I’m sure that many people have not gotten housing because of their skin color or culture, but then they also tie in the disabled and the single parents. The video where the man spoke in all different accents and called the same person was amazing. It just shows the when hearing someone’s accent or last name people are always judging. I can’t believe that the apartment magically became available when the man had a ‘white’ accent. Because of their accent and culture people are discriminated against all the time. I never knew there was a Fair Housing Act out there. I hope that this housing act is really helping with discrimination.
I also couldn’t believe how many Penn State students are white. About 31,599 of the 37,988 students that go to Penn State are white. I really thought that there was a higher percentage of diversity at University Park. I was just really shocked to learn about how many of the Penn State students are white.

When I saw the video “A Girl like Me” I was pretty shocked with the comments and stories that the girls told throughout the video. I couldn’t believe that all of the girls thought from a young age that lighter skin was more beautiful. I couldn’t believe that a woman started using bleaching cream at age 25 and started her children on the bleaching cream at the ages of 11 and 6. This is just shocking to me. I can’t believe that someone would want to change their looks that bad at such a young age. The part of the video I really couldn’t believe was the experiment that she conducted with the white and black dolls. I really didn’t think that most of the children would have picked the white doll. When I heard about the outcomes when the experiment was first conducted I believed that most would pick the white doll, but I thought that the outcome would change in today’s world. I was wrong. I couldn’t believe that most picked the white doll for being nice, good and beautiful and the black doll for being ugly and bad. This was so crazy to me. I was really speechless after watching that video.

6/23/10
There was so much information in this lecture I found myself taking many notes. I couldn’t believe the story that Dr. Richards told about the 4 year old girl coming home from preschool and telling her parents that the other kids made fun of her because her skin was ‘dirty.’ I can’t imagine realizing your race makes you different at the age of 4. I have never been in a situation where someone that young had a problem with their race.