gdp's Comments

World In Conversation : Would you help someone illegal immigrate into the country, why or why not?- 119 Blog

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 22:32:37 +0000

I would, yes, but only if it was a one and done deal. If i had to do one thing and then they were on their own, I'd do it. I would be willing to marry an illegal immigrant i got to know well or give some one a ride or something of that nature. I'm not like most of the other posters here though apparently. I know in a previous class a student made a statement that said that, I'm paraphrasing here, was basically "we are college students now we have a responsibility to the world." Which is a great point and I definitely agree. However, this is one area where i will diffuse responsibility. I'm way too compassionate to ever deal with the issue of illegal immigration i could never turn any one down. This is one area where i don't feel i need to help the government out they'll be okay figuring it out on their own. The government and the law can do what they want but I would help some one trying to create a better life for their family in a second if it didn't put me in serious danger of being caught. I'm not going down for them, but if they need a ride, or maybe a hand over the border, or me to look the other way I'd oblige. Maybe it's because I'm not that patriotic. An earlier poster said she wouldn't help them because they don't deserve everything we worked hard for. What exactly did I work hard for? I was born in a spot of land in the world that was named New York and that made me what is called an American. I have strong doubts I would feel much different about things if I was born in a spot of land named Cancun which made me be called a Mexican. Sure, I would speak Spanish (Yo soy Mateo De la Prey), but I'd be basically the same person otherwise. My point is our parents and ancestors worked hard to get here all I did was get born in America. In my high school sociology class we took a personality test that applies pretty well here. Orange was for very outgoing, fun ,live for the moment, loud type of people. Blue was for people that are very compassionate and caring towards others. Green was the weird one. It was like the individuality, smart, I am an island, socially awkward color. And then finally was gold. Gold would follow all of the rules, regard the laws as just, feel society morally must obey all laws, and does what they are expected to do. Can you guess what color definitely won't help illegal immigrants and who would consider it? If you guessed gold for no and blue for yes, you're correct. I got blue-green so i don't have an above average moral connection to the law. I've broken a few laws in my time i feel like the great Martin Luther King said there are just and unjust laws. Maybe my view will change when i get old and boring, but for now, **** the police! Also because of the blue part I feel a lot of compassion for these people. If i was in their situation i would be running over the border every day. Some people will say things like "i would stay in my country and become a legal immigrant." what if after years of waiting you have not received an invitation? I'm telling you, if you were in their situation you would do the same thing to think anything else is to put it kindly is extremely naive.

World In Conversation : Don't Drink the Water

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 03:14:08 +0000

This song is brutal, man. The song really drove the point home, i love the Dave Matthews Band he's a real socially conscious guy. I think this is an issue that is forgotten so often. People just can't fathom the enormity of the crime committed so they just ignore that it ever happened. The biased media we have in this country does not allow this to come up frequently in the public eye. The video Sam showed was from Al Jeezera English a news company based in Qatar. When do you see stories on the the Native Americans in America? I'm a White American; it is almost impossible for me to feel patriotic to anything. White people have been oppressing people for hundreds of years and America has committed what many believe to be the most extensive genocide in history. As such, It's hard for me to feel strong allegiance to either. Back to the main issue I think that it's a real shame we don't know more about exactly what happened to the Native Americans and how they are still in terrible shape. We put them on reservations and let them "self-govern" because we just don't want to deal with them. The most tough thing to watch in the whole lecture for me was the racial slurs STILL used against Native Americans today. Haven't we done enough? For the love of God that just isn't right. Leave the damn people alone. The fact that a majority of violent crimes committed against Native Americans are by White people literally makes me sick to my stomach. History books are a pretty substantial part of the problem in my opinion. We talk about history in a way that blames the genocide on diseases and "wars" between the Manifest Destiny Americans and the Native Americans. When in reality, they tried to help us much more often then not and we just simply killed them and took their land any way. American school history books need to tell the truth. Andrew Jackson is consistently ranked in the top ten of greatest President's in American history. He killed a lot of Indians no one talks about that. A group of Cherokee Indians that had successfully integrated themselves into American society sued to the Supreme Court for their right to stay where they were living in American society and not be forcibly relocated as Jackson wanted them to be. The Supreme Court ruled in their favor but Jackson forcibly relocated the Cherokee Indians any way. He should have been impeached for disobeying the Supreme Court. He was a racist he has no place in any top ten American President rankings i don't care what else he did. We need to teach our children the many wrongs of America as well as the rights. Children should know the names of the Indian tribes we massacred as well as the names of the countries we have liberated. Sure, we stopped the genocide in WW2 but Hitler studied our massacre of the Native Americans in order to orchestrate his madness better*. *http://www.nightslantern.ca/nativeholocaust.htm

World In Conversation : What do you think of the 29:1 statistic and what number would you pick?- 119 Blog

Thu, 7 Apr 2011 16:52:50 +0000

I was shocked to hear that number thrown out during class. Why is this never ever talked about in any media source ever? I guess it's another one of those things the military keeps secret. I just saw a chart in my political science class earlier today showing a declining trend in the American people's trust of the government in polls. It was actually above the 70% range before the Vietnam War. Now it is below the 30% range. Stuff like this is the reason why Americans no longer trust the government. We have a military that is okay with a 29-1 "combatant" (we don't call them prisoners of war or enemies any more because than we couldn't waterboard them) to civilian ratio. We have a military that is hiring out military duties to Blackwater who has responsibility to... oh that's right no one. A lot of people always favor privitazation to save money. This should not happen in the military in a time of war. Look up what Blackwater have done as a result of this privatazation*. I think if more people knew about this 29-1 statistic, support for these "conflicts," (we never declare war any more in America because war would have to be justified), would absolutely plummet. War is hell. Bush started two wars, that's like double hell. Remember Abu Gharib in Iraq? My Lai in Vietnam? The internment of Japanese in WW2? I think a lot of Americans to put it in crude terms favor war too much. "we should bomb Iran, we should go to war with North Korea" we need to realize how terrible war is for everyone. Weather you support these wars or not, they are absolutely destroying our reputation throughout the world, which is not a variable to underestimated. Why does no one criticize the military? Recently a case has shown up that Americans killed an Afghan civilian and were then taunting his dead body on camera**. Just because you volunteer to defend this country doesn't mean you should be immune from criticism if you are single-handedly destroying the American reputation by doing things like that. I understand most Americans that fight in these wars believe they are defending this country and are some of the most honorable members of our society; they give their lives to defend our freedom. Their actions are amazing and i admire them. To be honest i know what the Afghan war is about they had a lot of terrorist cells there and we got attacked so we must seek revenge, that's the only sensible thing to do right? Force before intellect right? If Iraq isn't about oil, what's it about? The mission was called Operation Iraqi Liberation, what do those initials spell out? They could at least try not to be so obvious about it for the love of Pete. This is one of the my most profound dissapointments in President Obama, he campaigned on ending the wars, yet he added a troop surge to Afghanistan and fought through the courts release of photos related to our torture (yes, I said torture) of Iraqis in Abu Gharib and elsewhere. My point is this: numbers like the 29-1 statistic just add to my level of distrust for our military. While some wars are justified, World War 2 and Desert Storm for example, war should be seriously avoided it should be the very last option and if we are going to go to war we better be damn sure what we are going for is there. Any one found the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? *http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/08/world/middleeast/08blackwater.html * *http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/22/world/asia/22afghanistan.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=american%20solider%20picture%20dead%20civilian&st=cse&gwh=4AC13AC41B4EA5DFD02BBCE5E434B47D

World In Conversation : How will you be treated differently if whites become the minority?- 119 Blog

Fri, 1 Apr 2011 06:11:08 +0000

I think the important thing to remember is the definition of a minority. While a statistical minority is simply having a smaller amount of people than the other group, a sociological minority means that you have less power than the other group. In the case that matters most, sociological, the group with the most amount of members can actually be in the minority. A great example to answer this question is the nation of South Africa. During the Apartheid regime, event though the black South Africans outnumbered the whites in sheer numbers they were the minority because the whites held all the real power. An interesting aspect of this that applies to the situation we will encounter in the future in America as long as we don't go off the deep end politically, is that after Nelson Mandela led the South Africans to defeat Apartheid they didn't radically redistribute the land to give it back to the native South Africans who probably deserved it. This would have been too controversial and may have sabotaged the movement. While I'd like to think that we will move forward in the coming decades leading up to the majority shift, I don't think the white people in power now are going to willingly relinquish said power. So for me, a white male, I don't think things will change much although I hope I'm wrong. If the new minority-majority tries to shift the power in their favor I feel like certain racist white people will become outraged. I do think society will become fairer as a whole as a result of the growing minority presence in America. We will have more black and brown representatives, more black and brown senators, more black and brown Presidents, more black and brown CEOS, etc.. One would also hope that jobs would be awarded more on fair competition and merit because there are a larger pool of people from all different races so maybe the multitude of different races could remove it as a factor from employment decisions. That is not simply a statement against affirmative action; hopefully it will remove some white privilege as well. Louis CK (not CK Louis as Sam always calls him :-)) has made jokes about this very scenario. Basically, he says us white people have been being way too inconsiderate and oppressive towards minorities over the years and when they take power it is going to be bad for us. While what Louis Ck says is hilarious, I think as Chris Rock mentioned in class, some minorities will definitely think that in private (Chris' racist old African-American jokes) but I don't think there will be any substantial, soild action in that kind of way. What if find amazing, as Sam mentioned in a previous class, is that after people are given freedom (in this case it would be freedom from a demeaning minority status) they don't seek revenge. So the minority-majority will be much more loving towards their white brothers and sisters then the whites will be towards them. That is wrong, but it is the way it is. If there are angry white tea-party people yelling that we have lost the country now, imagine the outrage when statistically we do lose the country. I, as well as most white people, will be happy that America is living up to its name as the Nation of Immigrants. It wasn't too long ago my grandpa came here from Italy and was too poor to get his last name fixed (they messed it up at Ellis Island). What generation American you are means nothing we're all citizens of this great nation, some one please go tell the tea party that. Overall, I believe things will be mostly the same for me as they are now, hopefully I may lose some white privilege and have to earn jobs and college admissions on my own merit and hopefully we can heed Rodney King's words and "all get along." here's that Louis CK video i was talking about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4f9zR5yzY

World In Conversation : Have you ever felt guilt from being of a certain race?- 119 Blog

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 03:57:07 +0000

To start, I think this is a great question. First off I'm a white male. I kind of wrestle with this issue. A lot of people above gave a sound "no" because you can not choose your own race and i think that is a fair point. The word guilt implies an action that you have taken. I have felt guilt over telling lies to my parents about where I'm going because that was an action directly attributed to me. How can i feel guilt for being white when that was chosen for me by a higher being, natural selection, or a series of random events whatever the case may be? So maybe not guilt in the strict sense of the word but i do feel like I have an unfair advantage, some times. I was actually vaguely aware of white privilege before this class but not to the extent that we have talked about in class. I've always been interested in the police aspect of race relations. I've been pulled over twice and busted a different time (i'm either unlucky or ignorant when it comes to being discreet :-)) The first time i got pulled over it was soon after i got my license so i think they knew i was a bit of a novice driver and they would have reacted the same way no matter my race. The second time I was driving with my friend back to Penn State and speeding a little bit. When they were interviewing me i was real nervous for some reason and did some things the Officer didn't like. "Keep your hands on the wheel, I speak the King's English too" (real funny side point is that a cop told my mom the same thing when she was pulled over some 30 years earlier. I guess only cops use that phrase) he eventually gave me a ticket and we were on our way but i thought then and think now what if i was African-American or Hispanic would he have responded to my nervousness the same way? It has been well documented that African-American's have their car searched a lot more than white people. The people i was in the car with over this past Christmas break were smoking what is usually referred to as Marijuana and i happened to be present and participating in the same action ;-). They searched my friends car and realized we didn't have a large amount or anything dangerous so they let us off with a fine and no criminal record. While everyone in the car besides me was Hispanic I'm not entirely convinced their reaction would have been the same if the racial mixture of the car was changed. There are a lot of African-Americans in jail in this country for possession which i could have been charged with. Why wasn't I? Because of changing marijuana laws? "Lenient" cops? or is there the possibility that my race had something to do with it? My point is that while i do not feel guilt for being white, i do feel guilty of having benefits not ascertained from my personal or physical abilities but from things out of my control. Even more than feeling guilty for having these benefits i feel terrible that other people are penalized for the same thing that is just as much out of their control. Griffin's book Black Like Me documents just how different these two experiences can be. In short I think, my opinion here, that the police need a lot more diversity training and the War on Drugs should be at the absolute least be revised at the most be disbanded and started fresh with the most highly educated people crafting it, not the loudest. These things can hopeful help destroy White privilege in the criminal justice sector and we can move from there. So yes, i have felt guilt from benefiting from White privilege but not for being White.

World In Conversation : Do you think in today’s society people are more racist toward Muslims or Blacks?- 119 Blog

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 23:41:48 +0000

I think this is a great question, fulfilling and rich (excuse my mindless Anchorman plug :-) ). My answer is that I think people are racist towards both groups pretty equally just in different ways. I feel like racism towards people of Muslim faith or Arab descent is a lot more vocal and overt whereas racism towards African-Americans is more covert, latent, and unexpressed. The reasons for the more overt racism towards Muslims are in my opinion almost entirely because of 9/11. Probably because I was only ten, but I don't really even having a formulated opinion towards people of the Muslim faith before 9/11, only what I saw from Aladdin (I know that may be bad but that was the only knowledge of them I remember having). After 9/11 with the beast that is Fox News and the American media came hours of coverage, some rightly some not so much, about Muslim extremism and how people in the Middle East hate America. For a year or two after 9/11 I would understand. Disdain for Japanese was high after Pearl Harbor. But the fact that we still harbor this overt racism almost a decade later is appalling. We know all the facts now; we were attacked by extremists (the definition of the word means a wide majority of Muslims did not attack us) and we are doing our best to destroy the terrorist cells in the Middle East. A majority of Arab people have a neutral or positive outlook towards the US and a wide majority of Muslims are the most peaceful people you will ever meet. Consider the experiment shown in class on the show What Would You Do, where the Muslim woman was insulted by the store owner. Personal opinion here, but I've heard people say the same things the store owner was saying about her about all Muslims on multiple occasions. Imagine some one saying the same things about African-Americans out loud in today's culture it would be jaw dropping. Again I will return to the pride of the American media Fox News (sarcasm). They talk about Muslim extremism all the time, spend a disproportionate amount of time covering Iran, (a country that is rather extreme run by a madman, who by the way, the Iranian people have tried to overthrow twice [2009 and 2011]), and recently Bill O' Reilly got himself in trouble (as he has a habit of doing) for saying "Muslims attacked us on 9/11." What if he said, "Black people are the reason for crime in this country." imagine the firestorm. He wouldn't say that out loud because it is abhorrent, first and foremost, and secondly because racism towards African-Americans is more covert. One final example for Muslims and people of Arab descent: look at what just happened in Egypt! While most Americans cheered on the Egyptian people who showed up to protest together (Muslim and Christian, man and woman, young and old), a lot of media coverage (again by Fox News notice a trend here?) was devoted to coverage of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood although mostly non-violent is an extremist group. Here’s the thing: they played no major part in the revolution and have at most 10% of the support of the population. Imagine people touting the Libertarian Party or the Green Party as the most important party in America. Apparently no one told Fox News this though and they continued to harp on the possibility of an extremist post-Mubarak Egypt. To me this is racist, to ignore the facts and assume that Muslims can’t establish democracy only extremism. Racism against African-Americans is displayed covertly by statistically significant disparities in income, wealth, job discrimination, and home loans. It has also been proven, by Sam and others, that African-Americans are more likely to be arrested and/or serve jail time for the same exact offenses as Whites. Not many people openly express racist views towards African-Americans any more (thank God) but these disparities illustrate we still have a long way to go.

World In Conversation : Why with more education do people believe that success is mostly a result of hard work?- 119 Blog

Thu, 17 Feb 2011 03:16:58 +0000

I believe that the reason people believe success is less a result of hard work as they become more and more educated is because of rather straightforward explanations. To be fair let me start off by saying I'm definitely a liberal so i definitely lean in the determinism direction. With education comes awareness. When you are more educated you start to learn the world isn't all flowers and cupcakes. There are a myriad of problems in every corner of this world and being aware of them definitely changes your perception of things. When you are higher educated you learn of the problems other people have to face, the obstacles they have to overcome in their life. You start to realize that while life may be a race, it is not a race where everyone starts at the same starting line. Millions, actually probably billions, of people are disadvantaged from the start. Weather it be being born in a Third World country being born to lackadaisical parents, or even being born into poverty in a developed country, some people have to overcome serious obstacles before the race even starts. When you are younger or less educated you are always shown the "rags to riches" story or the American dream. Both of them center around the idea that if you work very hard you can achieve success. This belief is not unfounded there are plenty of examples of people who have worked hard and achieved success, some from good starting places, like Bill Gates, others from disadvantaged starting places, like Oprah Winfrey. When you look at the world objectively, however, a majority of people die in the same socio-economic class they were born into. The rags to riches and American dream ideas are the exceptions rather than the rule. When you are higher educated you start to recognize the benefits you were born with (being born in America, being born White, being born upper-middle class, etc...), undoubtedly, helped you achieve success When you are not as highly educated you are usually not as aware of the world issues and therefore may rely more on personal explanations. You may know an uncle or friend who worked hard and achieved success through the fruits of their labor so you think that is the way things work for most people. Something i find very interesting is the factor modern technology plays into this. In the old days television/movies, books, and higher education were the main means of finding out what is going on in the world. To me this means that if you weren't pursuing higher education you didn't know as much about the outer world because if it wasn't on television or a movie you had to go way out of your way to gain information. This would lead to a higher belief in free-will because you are not as aware of other people's situations. With the advent of the Internet, however, almost everyone has access to outstanding amounts of information which, i believe, is in and of itself a form of higher education. In the end, i believe there is an inverse relationship between level of education and willingness to see success as mostly a result of hard work because of the world awareness higher education brings.

World In Conversation : Interpret the Lupe Fiasco lyrics- 119 Blog

Wed, 9 Feb 2011 19:59:26 +0000

I love Lupe Fiasco he has so many good songs. I remember waiting on Lupe's website at midnight until this song was officially released. I think it is an excellent line to use as a catalyst for discussion. "I think that all the silence is worse then all the violence," is such a simple but powerful line. The responses above have hit the nail mostly on the head; I think emw5195 had a very very good point in how this line can be used to describe racial relations. To me this line kind of leads to a belief that I have that a lot of the problems we have in this world could be solved. I think people see an issue as so complicated that nothing can be done about it and just keep silent about it. We as a people can accomplish anything if we work together, we went to the moon! Think about that for a second we left earth and stepped foot on another planet! We went to the moon in 1969 more than 40 years ago and in 2011 Israelites and Palestinians can't call a truce? We can't find a better way in America to fund schools other than property taxes (which lead to systematic inequality)? We can't help Africans move into the future with better schools, better food, less corruption, and more freedom? We went to the moon these seem like small things compared to that. If we just keep silent and accept these things as complicated issues that can't be resolved then they won't ever be resolved. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy in a way. If we don't believe we can fix these things then we can't. I don't know if you guys remember or saw the speech but after the shootings in Arizona, President Obama gave a speech and I don't remember the exact words but he was praising the 9-year-old girl who was shot. She went to the event just to simply learn about politics and how they work. What Obama basically said is we should do everything in our power to make our democracy and political system worthy of her idealism. We should make her proud. Frankly, the system as it is now doesn't make any one proud. It should be as grand and functional as she imagined. Just because perfection is hard to reach, that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. We should always be trying to "form a more perfect union." In the previous verse of this song Lupe addresses the way us in the West perceive the concept of Jihad and other issues regarding the Islamic religion. Lupe knows very well how much of a touchy subject this is in America after our post 9-11 fear of Muslims, he speaks out any way. We live in one of the most free countries in the world, we need to speak up. Look at the people in Egypt they are fighting to have their voices heard, a privilege we take for granted here in los Estados Unidos. Speak up!

World In Conversation : Stories for Uplift

Wed, 26 Jan 2011 22:18:52 +0000

Both of these stories were really uplifting, i enjoyed watching both of them. I was more moved by the first story concerning the man who donated his kidney to the woman he knew from the local grocery store. In many ways i'm an idealist and I feel like some aspects of the older times we need to go back to more. One of these is the level of trust that we used to have towards each other that i think has lessened over the years with the advent of the Internet and mass media and terrible crime stories. I recently bought a used Ford Mustang from private owners not a dealership, i really enjoyed learning about their life, why they were selling their car, and getting to know them better. I was supposed to get the car inspected and throughouly checked by a mechanic but i just kind of "forgot" to do that and bought the car from them. I trusted them and my trust pulled though I've had no problems with the car. I love stories like this, people trusting each other and not disrespecting each other even if one person has a higher occupational position in life.I used to work as a cashier at Weis Markets my local supermarket and people would often yell at me if they didn't like the price or if i bagged things not to their liking. This man always treated Mira with respect the way everyone should be treated. I have been going to my local gym in my hometown for upwards of 5 years now and i have developed a friendship with the older African-American janitor who cleans up during the night shift. At first glance it would not appear as though we would get along well me the young white kid at the gym and him the older African-American employee. My father is also a member at the gym and over the years the three of us have talked on multiple occasions. One time during the AFC Championship football game i don't know what year, (the one where the Colts beat the Patriots in the last minutes of the game) the gym closed midway through the 4th quarter but he let us stay and we along with some of the other employees watched the end of the game together. I always make sure to talk to him whenever I'm at my hometown gym, he's such a nice guy supporting his family and never seems to let people get to him as you can expect some people don't treat him with as much respect as he deserves being a janitor. I don't think he would ever let me know if he was sick, he's too tough but if he did i would love to be able to help. I really admire what Dan did in helping Mira, he made a real difference.

World In Conversation : Last Name “D” – Intense Debate

Fri, 14 Jan 2011 06:05:47 +0000

Soc 119