en-us https://www.intensedebate.com/users/3550225 Comments by Dereeek http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/11/29/voices-from-the-classroom-83/#IDComment230367952 Sam’s lecture on the war in the Middle East definitely changed my eyes and to the point now that I agree that the war is all for oil. Being in the United States, we have the largest energy consumption out of all the other countries and with the growing population, it is only going to expand and so is our need for oil. In the sense that we are going over to a land that is not ours and stealing something to our benefit is horrible. From the standpoint of an Arab Muslim, I would hate what the Americans are doing in my land. It makes no sense for us to just go over and start a war, wasting our army just so we can get a few extra gallons of oil. If anything the United States needs to lower our dependence on fossil fuel and start looking towards other methods of getting energy. I have a best friend who is currently in the Marine Corps and went over to Afghanistan last December for this war. That brought me to more attention to what has been going on there especially from hearing stories from my friend. But the other thing is that I can’t believe my friend is risking his life over oil which I use for my daily life. Seeing this from someone else’s shoes, I can understand why they are so angry with us “invaders” coming into their land and taking what is not ours. This lecture had taught me to keep an open mind and always try to see the issue from another viewpoint because it will give me a better understanding and also help me make sense of everything. The video yesterday with the American soldiers using their tank to crush the man with the stolen wood’s car upset me. It seems as if the American soldiers were having fun in harassing a civilian. If this is what we are doing over there in the Middle East to an ordinary civilian; of course the Arab Muslims would think we were wrong. The other point in the lecture that I enjoyed was the example with the Chinese invading Pennsylvania in order to take our coal, which we have a lot of. From this point I can see even more clearly how when you flip the situations or even put yourself in someone else’s position, the judgments in your heads are no different. We would be saying that this is our land and that it is wrong for them to just come in and take it by force. The biggest thing I got from this lecture is that no matter what issue arises that I should keep an open mind and try to see things from every perspective. Also I would try to understand why people do things other than just pointing fingers so quickly. I think if people started to understand other people more, it could solve things better. Wed, 30 Nov 2011 18:27:28 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/11/29/voices-from-the-classroom-83/#IDComment230367952 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/11/10/voices-from-the-classroom-73/#IDComment220213022 The emotions brought on by the tragic recent events are all very powerful. People inside and outside Penn State all have opinions and want to voice them. To the people outside of Penn State, University Park, it is hard for them to really understand what is going on inside here. With that said the most current events they can get from what is happening are from Media sources and the News. Through those outlets, the truth is twisted and becomes a totally different story. For us we see the riot as being a way that many people with strong emotions and similar views come together to voice their opinions, but the outside world may see it in a different light. They may not understand why we would riot or stand outside for hours with thousands of other students, but it does not matter because this is something that pertains to us and not them. Whatever the rest of the world may be thinking about us, they don’t truly understand unless they were here to live through it and see how much of a struggle it is to know that their school that was known for legacies, pride, respect and status flip upside down in a matter of a few days. To the rest of the world we may seem savage, reckless, pointless, out of control, but they are only seeing through one pair of eyes: the media’s eyes. After reading what people outside the Penn State community have been posting on Facebook, Twitter, opinion articles, the TV and other open outlets I see that everyone is quick to judge and create connections that may not relate to each other. Without a doubt this is something that has affected more than just our world here in our school, but we must not forget that no matter what has happened we will still stay strong and not allow events to completely ruin our school. Whatever the outside world may take us for, we know that what we are doing is the right thing and that what we are not just acting in plain craziness. I could only hope that the negativity that the world may view us for is short term and that I know as a whole we can overcome this because we are still Penn State. No matter what strife we may go through, we will go through it together and that nobody has lost their pride for Penn State, but has only strengthened it even more. I also hope that future news articles would be involved more in finding the truth in stories and rather than just a few points or trying to get the most views of the outside world. Fri, 11 Nov 2011 04:53:18 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/11/10/voices-from-the-classroom-73/#IDComment220213022 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/11/01/voices-from-the-classroom-59/#IDComment216564833 Do I feel uncomfortable when people speak another language? Yes and No. Back in NY, all of my friends from high school were Korean. I typically hung out with other Asians most of my life and only recently since Ive been in college have I expanded outside of that small circle. My ethnicity is Chinese and I speak Mandarin so when my Korean friends would speak in Korean I would feel neglected and left out. It does not bother me when they would speak Korean to each other, but only because I was the only Chinese person out of our entire friend group so when they did speak Korean, I did feel like I was being left out from what they were saying. I sometimes did get annoyed and want them to just speaking in English because they would switch from English into Korean and mix the two languages up! It was just confusing to me, but I know that sometimes it was just easier for them to explain Korean foods or Korean games in Korean than to translate it into English. If a group of people were speaking another language around me that I didnt understand it would not bother me, but it would make me curious as to what language theyre speaking. I normally can tell the differences between other Asian ethnicity languages even though I only speak Mandarin because of my own Asian culture and the fact that I grew up around many other Asian cultures it is easy for me to decipher which language belongs to which ethnicity. When it comes to other Chinese people speaking Mandarin, I feel comfortable when I can completely understand them because I am American born it makes me feel that I share a large part of a similar culture, but at the same time I could understand why people would feel uncomfortable hearing a language they dont understand. This is because when someone is speaking a different language, the people who dont understand may have the wrong judgment or think they are being talked about and it is very easy to assume things about people when you dont fully understand them. For me, I normally only speak in Mandarin when Im talking to my parents on the phone. When I speak to my parents in Mandarin people might think that I am fluent or that I was born in China, but this it not the case. Other Chinese people could tell that I am American born because my Mandarin accent is very different from their own. Overall I do not think that anyone should feel uncomfortable when they hear a different language around them. Being exposed to different languages is a good thing because it makes you aware of the different cultures that exist. Fri, 4 Nov 2011 01:10:54 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/11/01/voices-from-the-classroom-59/#IDComment216564833 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/27/voices-from-the-classroom-57/#IDComment213160988 This debate is too complex to say that we could “just give back what we took”. Even more so now that what the immigrants at that time had taken was decades ago. By now it would be outrageous to just swap homes with the great great grand children of the Natives and of the Settlers, even though that was what had happened to the Natives. Some might say that the great great grand child of the Settler has as much blame to take as did his great great grandfather (or even older), but how could we say that he had as much fault when he was born into that home with no real understanding of what had happened back then? Nobody should be born with the burden of another person. For the great great grand child of the Native, it is too late to just say we could simply switch their lives and everything would be okay. Even if they did trade homes, then it would just be the Settlers living in poverty as compared to the Native living in poverty. At the least I believe that one of the only solutions is to help rebuild the Native culture and promote it, not through commercialized sporting teams and cartoon logos, but by spreading awareness. Prior to this class, I did not know that Natives had the highest suicide rate or many of them face prejudice from discrimination or were living in such harsh low-income situations. I remember back when I was in elementary school, my school had brought in a man with Native blood into our class. Some kids had thought he was going to be dressed in feathers and be wearing a headdress, but rather he was dressed like everyone else in his dark blue jeans and a button up flannel. Only being about 8 years old I started to really see the differences in his ethnicity and my own (Chinese) and that Natives have assimilated into the “American” culture similarly to how other cultures have. I still remember the day pretty clearly because it had opened my mind. Although we were young, he told us about Native history and informed us about Native culture. It is wrong that the Native people were kicked out of their own land, had their culture and people wiped out and have their land named as “America”. But it is far too late to simply just do a “trade-back” and give back land which now all of the descendants of the originators of the land live on. We need to help them reestablish themselves specifically and help their culture grow so that it can live, not in poverty, but back in life with pride. Thu, 27 Oct 2011 22:17:09 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/27/voices-from-the-classroom-57/#IDComment213160988 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/20/voices-from-the-classroom-51/#IDComment210313444 When a person hangs out in a group of people that is not primarily their own race I do not think it necessarily makes them a poser. For instance, a white girl hanging out with Asian girls does not necessarily make the white girl a “poser”. There could be other reasons why she chooses to hang out with people not of her race such as having an interest in Asian culture or she simply gets along with Asian girls more than she does with girls of any other race. I think this statement can be made about any person who hangs out with people that are different from their own race. Of course there will always be people who see the situation as someone being a “poser”, but if the people are getting along well I think it is that they have gotten past only hanging out with their own race. I think it is different when a person hangs out with people of a different race AND culture. Another example would be a white guy hanging out with a bunch of black guys. If the white guy was raised up primarily with white people most of their life then it may seems suspicious that they start hanging out with the group of black guys. Then again just because an outsider of a race decides to hang out with people of not their own race it does not necessarily makes them a “poser” or “wannabe” of that group. It also does not mean that the white guy hates his own race and again maybe the white guy found out that he gets better along with black guys than with the white people he has known which is why he hangs out with the black guys. I think people are “posers” only when they were grown up from a completely different lifestyle than their own and they start acting as if they were born up in the opposite lifestyle. Such as a kid raised in an affluent neighborhood buying big baggy clothing to fit in with kids that have big baggy clothing because the clothing are hand-me-downs. I think “posers” form from the individual having a particular interest in a different culture than their own, but cannot change their entire lifestyle to match the same one as the other group of people because of the lifestyle that they were raised up in has too much of an impact on the individual to change completely. I do think that some people become “posers” without noticing it. Another example would be someone who learns choreography for one dance and tries to hang out with people who have dedicated their lives to dancing. The problem with this is that the “poser” tries to affiliate themselves with the actual dancers, but does not actually put in any effort to make them stand out from someone who just “learned a dance”. Fri, 21 Oct 2011 01:39:25 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/20/voices-from-the-classroom-51/#IDComment210313444 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/13/voices-from-the-classroom-42/#IDComment207519606 I find myself using racial labels a lot especially when they are not necessary. I don’t have prejudice towards any ethnicity or race neither do I realize half the times I use racial labels. A lot of times it happens unconsciously until later when I realize what I had said. This especially happens at times when I’m telling a story in order to give a better description to my friend. For example if I were telling a story, rather than just saying “I sat behind this cute girl in class today” I would say “I sat behind this cute white girl in class today”. Adding that insignificant race label of saying “white” does not help the story, but to me it helps my audience or friend get some type of picture in their head. Just saying “white” still makes the image very vague and is so irrelevant to the story that it really does not matter what race the girl was. I think it is just easy to use a race label for someone you don’t know. The only reasonable time to bring in race labels is when you’re trying to explain an anonymous person to someone and usually you’ll start with the race label. You’re less likely to confuse someone who is white with someone who is black than to confuse a tall person with another tall person. Obviously just saying “the tall person” wouldn’t really help, but by saying the “tall Indian guy” it narrows down the other possible tall people in the mind of the person you are explaining it to. On the other hand, other times I think it assures people that certain stereotypes are true even if that isn’t the case. I often hear people say stuff like “that Asian woman driving in front of me almost caused an accident”. By saying that people start to connect the dots that there must be many Asian women who cannot drive because it must have significantly stuck out to your friend if he or she is to mention their race. Mentioning “that Asian woman” just strengthens the stereotype that Asians can’t drive even if a black woman had done the exact same thing that the Asian woman did. I think people just pay more attention to certain things especially when there are stereotypes involved. You’ll never say a white person loves doing math, but when you see an Asian person doing math, you’ll think “of course”. Or when you see a black guy who can dance you won’t say much, but when you see a white guy who can dance exactly the same as the black guy, you’ll notice the white guy more and when you tell the story to your friends you’ll include the “white” part when describing the white guy dancing. I think race labels has all to do with stereotypes and vice versa. Fri, 14 Oct 2011 18:31:03 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/13/voices-from-the-classroom-42/#IDComment207519606 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/06/voices-from-the-classroom-40/#IDComment204416176 Honestly I think that girls just like to get dressed up more than guys do in general. To girls dressing up is a process and may be fun for them, but it is usually not the same case with guys. Many times, guys will just dress in whatever they feel like wearing because it is not common for guys to “dress up” to go out. You’ll typically see more girls dressed up in tight dresses and high heels than you will see guys in nice pants and shiny shoes. For me when I go out, I wear what I feel is comfortable at that time. So what if I’m in plain jeans and a t-shirt? Personally I do care how I look, but sometimes I just want to kick back and just feel comfortable in sweat pants without having to wear a button up shirt or nice shoes. Nobody is telling me that I have to wear a certain type of attire when I decide to go out just like how there is no written law for girls wear a dress or not bring a jacket when it’s below 30 degrees outside, but they do it. I think one reason for this is that our entire generation promotes girls looking hot in make-up and high heels. For instance, I once went to a club where they had an event that if girls dressed up in tight hot pink dresses, they wouldn’t have to pay to get in and got a free drink when they approached the bar. This was just a perk for the girls dressing up and for the club it brought in more money because guys had to pay $20 just to get in. Not just the clubs, but it is evident all over in the media that girls are portrayed in this way. In many magazine covers, girls are wearing a lot of makeup and showing skin and I think the reasoning behind that is that guys who find the girl on the cover attractive may stop and maybe even purchase the magazine or if a girl admires what the cover girl is wearing, she’ll also buy the magazine. But these methods for the media and clubs start to create a message in people’s heads that girls who dress up to look hot will attract more guys. I do think that when girls dress in minimal clothing and show skin that it is attractive, but I think that a majority of girls can still attract guys without having to show skin. If a girl really has it going on, then it wouldn’t matter what the girl dresses like. I love a girl who could rock sweat pants and I would still find them just as attractive or even more than if she was dressed up in a tight shirt and mini skirt. Fri, 7 Oct 2011 16:13:21 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/06/voices-from-the-classroom-40/#IDComment204416176 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/27/voices-from-the-classroom-23/#IDComment201107853 I don’t necessarily agree that your race determines your drug use. Instead I think that the culture or people that is around you are what determines your drug use. I know of people back from my hometown in Long Island, NY who started using drugs at a young age. Some of them started because they always wanted to hang out with the older kids and at that time that is what the older age group of people was doing. What I mean by culture is if there is a general habit of using drugs or alcohol and although I don’t think race has anything to do anything with drug use, I do believe it has some influence to an extent. For instance, I think many people with low-income use more drugs than people with higher income because of their living conditions. I think that some people use drugs as an escape to temporarily get out of reality or to relieve stress. People in poverty can be from any race and not necessarily have to tie any specific one race down, which is why I don’t believe it has anything to do with just race alone. I believe that drugs are commonly used in slums or ghetto areas and a good number of Asians, Whites, Hispanics, Blacks, Indians, and other races live in these ghettos. I think any group of individuals can act like another or completely different group of individuals if the situations were flipped. At home a lot of my friends started using drugs during high school and at many times I was also tempted to do it because it was around me, but I did not give in to it. This had nothing to do with what race we were (Asian), but what was the culture around us. Many kids from our high school smoked weed and drank alcohol and it never was that big of a deal. To be honest we probably did it as much as the other kids in our school, but most people didn’t know that about us. We also probably made a small percentage of the total number of Asians in our high school that drank alcohol and smoked weed at that time. To me this had to be by culture more than race. Currently, I see a trend in marijuana/alcohol usage and people going to college. I know a good number of my friends who absolutely did not drink or smoke during high school, but once I came home during the breaks to hang out with them, that is what they started doing. The culture in college is definitely different than the culture in high school especially because the more people there are, the more different cultures and backgrounds you are going to encounter. Fri, 30 Sep 2011 01:04:50 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/27/voices-from-the-classroom-23/#IDComment201107853 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/27/voices-from-the-classroom-23/#IDComment201107688 I don’t necessarily agree that your race determines your drug use. Instead I think that the culture or people that is around you are what determines your drug use. I know of people back from my hometown in Long Island, NY who started using drugs at a young age. Some of them started because they always wanted to hang out with the older kids and at that time that is what the older age group of people was doing. What I mean by culture is if there is a general habit of using drugs or alcohol and although I don’t think race has anything to do anything with drug use, I do believe it has some influence to an extent. For instance, I think many people with low-income use more drugs than people with higher income because of their living conditions. I think that some people use drugs as an escape to temporarily get out of reality or to relieve stress. People in poverty can be from any race and not necessarily have to tie any specific one race down, which is why I don’t believe it has anything to do with just race alone. I believe that drugs are commonly used in slums or ghetto areas and a good number of Asians, Whites, Hispanics, Blacks, Indians, and other races live in these ghettos. I think any group of individuals can act like another or completely different group of individuals if the situations were flipped. At home a lot of my friends started using drugs during high school and at many times I was also tempted to do it because it was around me, but I did not give in to it. This had nothing to do with what race we were (Asian), but what was the culture around us. Many kids from our high school smoked weed and drank alcohol and it never was that big of a deal. To be honest we probably did it as much as the other kids in our school, but most people didn’t know that about us. We also probably made a small percentage of the total number of Asians in our high school that drank alcohol and smoked weed at that time. To me this had to be by culture more than race. Currently, I see a trend in marijuana/alcohol usage and people going to college. I know a good number of my friends who absolutely did not drink or smoke during high school, but once I came home during the breaks to hang out with them, that is what they started doing. The culture in college is definitely different than the culture in high school especially because the more people there are, the more different cultures and backgrounds you are going to encounter. Fri, 30 Sep 2011 01:04:12 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/27/voices-from-the-classroom-23/#IDComment201107688 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/20/everyone-respond-to-this/#IDComment197037300 After watching several videos, I have started see the trend in the hard work that the Haitian people have put in even with little machinery and sometimes only one worker. Adding to the price of some of the materials their business to me they are not generating enough revenue. Take Anaes who designs and produces handbags and totes. She has a small workshop of about five employers and has to pay for their salaries along with the cost of her materials. For her one unit of yarn costs between $6 to $7 U.S. dollars which she uses three of those so about $18 to $21 U.S. dollars and sells the bag for $40. She’s only making net revenue of about $20 dollars and then adding to the salary payable to her employees she is making very little amounts of money. Then take Yvrose who also is in the business of clothing making and does advanced stitching work in her products. She also has a small shop but pays a lot for her equipment, which varies between $400 and $500 U.S. dollars. The market place there in Haiti is hard to survive through and it is amazing to see the talent that these people put into their work in order to bring food home to the table. Another entrepreneur I watched was Sonia who created lunch bags, bags, luggage, backpacks, and purses with just ONE sewing machine. This amazes me because I am sure that creating one of those bags takes a consuming amount of time and yet she is able to do it with her single sewing machine. My concern is that if her sewing machine broke then she would have to halt production until she fixed it or attained a new machine. I also watched the video of Euclid who has a husband, a six-year-old daughter and another kid on the way. She also has her own business, but she creates designer clothing. Her artwork is amazing despite the fact that she did not copy or trace anything, but rather creating the designs from her head. It is amazing how most of these entrepreneurs self sustain their own businesses despite the limited amount of workers or equipment they have. To me I am very surprised to see such talent being put into hard work and some of which making very small amount of revenue. When I typically think of Haiti not at all do I first think of the entrepreneurs and to be honest before this video I had not even thought that there would be several self-made businesses. Something that we could help them do is give them better technology or production machinery and cheaper materials. This would greatly benefit how fast and how easily they can produce their items that they could then sell for a cheaper price. Then they’re production and revenue would increase and perhaps hire more workers or obtain a larger workspace with the money. In the U.S. it is difficult to become a very successful entrepreneur and in Haiti I would expect the same with the large population, which could mean that there is a lot of competition. Thu, 22 Sep 2011 23:06:59 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/20/everyone-respond-to-this/#IDComment197037300 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/13/voices-from-the-classroom-8/#IDComment193477039 What characteristics make an athlete? For typical athletes for the major sports I would say that characteristics would involve being physically fit, having stamina, agility and strength and also being young. Young definitely plays a role because many sports need the body to be able to take damage as it repairs itself such as in a game of football. In other sports such as bowling and golf you rarely need agility or stamina, maybe strength, but not necessarily the same amount of strength you would need to participate in a game of football. I do think that in order to excel as an athlete you need to have some type of physical advantage that makes you better at that activity than other people would be. For example in fencing, having longer arms than your opponent can give you an advantage because when you are attacking your opponent you have a further reach which could also mean that you wont have to fully lunge. Although this is only one slight advantage it does not mean that just because you have long arms you will be a great fencer, there will always be other factors such as having a fast reaction time that could also be considered a physical advantage. I also believe that along with the athletic physical qualities there are also athletic mental qualities that make an athlete. Back to the fencing example there is a lot of strategic planning that goes into a bout (round). Some strategies involve knowing when to parry your opponents blade and close in for an attack, but sometimes when your opponent decides to parry right before you close in for the attack you have to recover and find a way to get close enough to land a touch. This is what I mean by having the mental ability because with just physical strength alone it would be hard to win without having some type of strategy. Thu, 15 Sep 2011 00:53:19 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/13/voices-from-the-classroom-8/#IDComment193477039 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/07/questions-from-the-classroom-2/#IDComment191336270 How do I classify myself? There is no single answer to this question. Classification can go as far as gender, ethnicity, race, occupation, family status, characteristics and culture to name a few. I could classify myself as a Chinese, Asian-American male who is also a son to the family as well as a younger brother. Anybody can see me as something else because these descriptions dont exactly make what I am, but it helps in explain whom I am or what I do. To other people I am a bboy (break dancer) and to other people I am just a student. To a religious person I may appear as an atheist and to a Buddhist I could be seen as one of their kind. I could put all of these images together to make something, but would it really describe who I am as a person? How could someone know me from just these adjectives and nouns? It certainly could describe my hobbies and interests but my question is if I were to be put into one category that anyone could understand, what would that be? Would I be categorized from Male as the primary classification down to Asian American as the most specific description of me? Or maybe teenager all the way down to the exact years of my age? Fri, 9 Sep 2011 04:30:03 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/07/questions-from-the-classroom-2/#IDComment191336270 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/08/26/what-do-you-want-to-know-before-its-all-over/#IDComment188536049 I've always noticed that no matter where I am or where I go, people always make cliches of people who are similar to themselves. I thought that this would change when I came to college, but now in my second year I see that there are just even more cliches than there were in High School. For instance I always see that international students always hang out with each other or someone of the same race or ethnic cultures, but rarely of different ones. I know that people like to associate themselves with other people who are similar and even all of my friends and I have something in common or are the same race or ethnic group, but why do we do this? There must be a reason why I chose which friends I did judging by having similar hobbies or similar personalities besides having similar ethnic backgrounds. The other thing I would like to know about race and ethnic relationships is why is it that people only associate themselves with people of the same race or ethnic background? I was originally introduced to this class because I did a World in Conversation extra credit assignment for my MGMT 301 course. They specifically asked me why were there stereotypes and how do they form and also why did race matter in who we chose as friends. I argued in saying that we "choose" our friends based on their personalities and similarities in interests, and that race and ethnic backgrounds should only be a very small portion in why you would choose someone as your friend. Yet people use this as a first resort sometimes and because someone is black they associate themselves with a black person first or an asian person would associate themselves with an asian person first and then get to know them after. Race should not matter in terms because no matter how similar you are to someone, everyone is still unique. Wed, 31 Aug 2011 22:15:35 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/08/26/what-do-you-want-to-know-before-its-all-over/#IDComment188536049