It’s difficult to say that there’s only been one thing I’ve taken away from this class. I’d say the more accurate statement would be that there’s a cumulative lesson that I’ve taken away from this class. That basic lesson is to remember to always step outside of your zone. Whether that zone be your comfort zone, stepping into someone else’s shoes, or remembering that even though you don’t know what is going on with someone else, that their reactions are based on the unique set of experiences they bring to the table. All of it is important.

I think the biggest lesson that I’ve learned is that race isn’t as big a deal as it currently is. We tend to focus our attention on race and religion as dividers, when they can actually be pretty potent ingredients that go into bringing people together. I myself have learned that it’s ok to ask people about themselves when they’re different from you. It’s ok to be curious about someone’s background, and it doesn’t make you a racist if you do indeed recognize that they’re different from you. Each person is different, and some may not want to discuss their differences with you, but I was surprised to learn that I was uncomfortable with actually recognizing that those differences exist with people who I don’t know well. I feel much more comfortable now engaging someone in a conversation about their background than I did before I took this class.

I also learned that the cultures different from mine that I thought focused so much on the differences between mine and theirs, really do give just about as many thoughts as I do in my daily life about it. It was only a big deal because I made it a big deal, and vise versa. Most people don’t actively think about how every person they see walking down the street is different from them, and I was surprised at how surprised I was to find out that I held on to the belief that others concentrated on differences much more than was actually happening. I now feel much more comfortable in asking questions and broaching the subject than I was before hand.

I’ve also learned that it’s ok to have misconceptions. Everybody has them, no matter your culture or set of beliefs. What’s not ok is holding on to those misconceptions as the truth without ever trying to find out more information or having an open mind to a discussion. It’s just as unfair for someone to stereotype me as it would be for me to do the same to them, but if those misconceptions lead to a discussion about our differences, then they’ve served much more a purpose than if I were to go about my daily life believing those stereotypes to be true.

I’m not sure I would say I’m any more empowered than I was before the lecture, but that could be because this is a topic I’ve studied in some Women’s Studies classes I’ve taken before this.

This idea of women’s actions being centered around the male gaze isn’t a new one, as I’m sure a lot of people in class can agree with. We see the male gaze everywhere, especially in movies, television, and print. Advertisements tend to focus on the areas of a woman that men are supposed to like to focus on, even for products that are supposedly being marketed to women. It’s disturbing to be shown that even when women are trying to be sold on a particular product, it’s not necessarily because it’s a product for that woman. It’s a product for that woman to attract a man. Victoria’s Secret isn’t a store for women; it’s a store for women to buy products for men. The Victoria’s Secret advertising campaign – everything from their catalogs and magazine ads, to their television commercials especially, is an exercise in midriff advertising. The women in those ads are sold as being empowered, but they’re really just objects.

This leads to many issues, one of which I find the most disturbing is the blame the victim rhetoric we see surrounding the rape of a female by a male. Whether we’re being told it or not, this idea that females are hot and ready whenever it pleases a male is a background issue that adds to the idea that women are somehow responsible for what happens to them when they’re sexually assaulted. We’ve heard excuses like, “She shouldn’t have been wearing that,” or, “She shouldn’t have put herself in that situation in the first place,” and it just reinforces the idea of a male-centered world. Those types of statements don’t express the fact that it’s wrong for a man to rape a woman, but rather that it’s wrong for the woman not to have done enough to prevent the man from doing it.

It was interesting to delve into pornography in our Thursday lecture. I hadn’t thought about the fact that porn does encourage women to be ready whenever pleases a man. They also give this impression to the men viewing the same porn, which does nothing more than to feed into this misconception about women and their sexuality.

Regardless of how the message is conveyed, it’s about time that sex be a little bit less about the man and a little bit more about the woman. Women are even disadvantaged in pure biology when it comes to sex – hormonally, biologically, and mentally all the advantages have been given to men, before any lessons have ever been taught.

I’m not even sure how one goes about putting themselves in the shoes of another group of people, especially without having much experience with the culture in the first place. To even begin to imagine the type of pain and suffering an entire group of people has had to endure for so many years, when the origins of such a struggle weren’t even brought upon them willingly – I’m not even sure how to even approach doing that.

However, I guess I would first start with taking away everything I know – my house, my friends, my material possessions. Everything would be different. I don’t imagine myself living in what I would consider to be a comfortable house by my current standards. I don’t imagine having a closet full of the things I have now, and I don’t imagine having the same opportunities I have now in terms of school and a career. I would also imagine carrying something on my shoulders that could barely be considered a chip. I know that the reason for my people to be in the position they’re currently in due to the violence of another group of people who invaded my land and killed off my ancestors, and that they continue to do so with the government’s support.

My family and friends are desperately trying to hold on to the culture they know and value beyond anything that can be purchased. But every single day I lose people I know due to depression, alcohol, and violence. And still, my family and I are looked down upon for just being what we are. The very people that took everything away from us are still disallowing us to have any chance to prosper.

It’s so very bad, and what makes it worse is that we are not even talked about. People don’t think of “Native Americans” when they think of those who are discriminated against and punished for things they had nothing to do with. We don’t even rank in the category of “minorities.” It’s like we are still trying to be wiped out of existence. And what’s worse is that it seems to be working.

Despite all of that, my people continue to hold on to our heritage and culture. We continue to practice the traditions in our lives that we hold to the highest importance. We continue to hold our heads high and hold on to the culture that everyone seems to be trying to wipe out of existence completely. It’s almost as if they can no longer see it, the sordid past of how we came to this position doesn’t exist.

Even with all of that, there’s no way for me to be able to put myself into that position, not any way close to how it’s experienced by those actually in it. Maybe if we had the ability to do that, we wouldn’t have these situations in the first place.

I think exposure is one of the most important things people can benefit from in terms of expanding their understanding of other cultures. While taking the time to get to know one or two people from a particular culture won’t give someone a complete understanding if the entire culture, it gives them a real-world glimpse into it. It gives a misunderstood or non-understood culture an actual face, and humanizes the culture to be more than just what’s presented to us by the media or our peers.

I have a friend who is originally from Syria. He came to this country a long time ago, but had to leave his family behind, where they remain today. He has married an American woman, has a full-time job at Penn State, and still practices his religion. Fortunately for myself, he is very open to talking about his country, government, and religion, and I’ve benefitted from many conversations with him. I’ve heard of the hardships he faces every day, knowing that his family remains in a war-ravaged country. He is also unable to return to his country, for fear of prosecution from the Syrian government, so he is currently unable to help his family at all.

I remember a few days after September 11th, when the United States was in chaos and racial tensions were running high. A colleague at the University asked my friend, “How could your people do this?!” Knowing this particular person, it was most likely not her intention to ask something in such an accusatory tone, but I also wonder if she had ever taken the time to get to know my friend. One of my first concerns when speaking to him after the attacks was how he was. Was he experiencing any ill treatment from anyone? Was he afraid for the safety of himself and his family? Perhaps this had to do with the fact that I had gotten to know him so well.

It’s easy to base your opinions on someone when you’ve never taken the time to get to know them. It also seems easy to “get to know” an entire population of people without ever having met them. But how do you know if you’re really getting to know the true people, as opposed to the representation that generates the most dollars for advertisers?

Without the benefit of experiences one on one with people of other cultures, I think it’s almost impossible for us to even start to feel comfortable with people of other cultures. If you’ve only lived in one town your entire town, you know that town like the back of your hand. But, the minute you move to another town, you’re lost. Feeling comfortable with other cultures is much the same.

This is an interesting topic for me especially, since this idea is the basis of my major, Media Studies. We are bombarded with misinformation every day, and what makes it extremely dangerous is the fact that people don’t realize the information they’re receiving is, in fact, not true.

We can study certain news channels, such as Fox News, as being the epitome of misrepresentation, but the sad truth is that almost all of our media outlets follow this same principle. We are bombarded with information that feeds into discriminatory perceptions all the time, and ever since our news outlets have moved to a 24/7 format it’s only gotten worse.

I think almost every Penn State student can now say they’ve seen examples of this first hand. When the riots happened last November, we saw the news media descend upon State College with mouths drooling. We saw the news reports on how all Penn State students were turning over innocent vans and drinking themselves into oblivion, but what the news outlets failed to report on were the people participating in the riots who had nothing to do with the University. While not a racial stereotype, it certainly did nothing to shed light on some of the truths that were happening that evening, and throughout the beginnings as the Sandusky ordeal unfolded.

This is a prime example of how our beliefs are based on untruths, and how those beliefs do nothing to help racial and cultural stereotypes. Once we see examples of how our media twists truths and perpetuates negative stereotypes, it’s difficult to NOT see them. Flipping through magazines, watching movies, even reading a book – they all contain examples of this phenomenon.

This has become detrimental to our society ever since we have become a society saturated in media. We immerse ourselves in it, whether it be going to the movies, surfing the Internet, watching tv, or reading the newspaper. It’s no wonder that we’ve ended up at the point where it’s the media shaping what we believe, instead of us dictating what the media should cover. Our media is now dictated by advertising dollars. It’s the corporations with the large amounts of dollars pushing agendas onto media outlets, and until those dollars stop flowing, the media will do everything it can to keep them happy.

Unfortunately, we are now suffering for these limited agendas. The saddest part about this is that most of us don’t even know it’s happening. We’ve allowed people in no way connected to our lives to shape our opinions and form our perceptions of other people, and we don’t even know they’re doing it. How are we supposed to amend a problem we don’t even know exists?

I’ve been the recipient of people’s misconceptions about how I got my start in my position for quite some time now. For the past 7 years I’ve been a full-time employee in Information Technology Services, the technology department of Penn State. Since ITS is dominated by technology fields, females and minorities are not the most prominent groups of people present.

I got my start as a consultant in Penn State’s Computer Store. My job was to answer technology questions relating to what products would best fit the customer’s needs. We would also offer occasional technology support – such as installing memory, assisting customers on choosing the proper product for their needs, and troubleshooting minor technology issues. There were only two female consultants who worked there, of which I was one.

It was interesting to watch customers exhibit sexist behavior while not even seeming to recognize that they were doing it. If a male coworker would be nearby, some customers would inevitably end up starting their questions with me, but subtly shifting to asking the male consultants their opinions. It would even get to the point where I would be able to remove myself completely from the conversation, without the customer even missing a beat. That subtle mentality of men being more technologically adept than women was prominently present almost every single day.

I was always amazed at how women, in addition to men, would be apt to want to speak to my male coworkers over my female colleague and myself. I would think that surely women would be more sensitive to discrimination against other women, but it didn’t seem to be an issue that they even gave a second thought to. I think this speaks volumes as to how deeply ingrained some of our prejudices are. We think certain ways about certain groups of people without consciously realizing we’re even doing so. The bike video is a perfect example of this, and is something we can apply to several aspects of our lives.

Even though I’ve moved on from the Computer Store to a marketing position, I still face this same type of behavior from other people on almost a daily basis. I also observe it happening to other people consistently, even though it may not be deliberate. It tends to happen more to women in my area than men, although that could be the instances that I’m observing. This could also be due to the fact that my area is not very racially diverse, so the instances happen more to women, since there are more women present than racial minorities. Whatever the reason, it’s a disturbing trend to watch, made even more disturbing by the face that people are not even seemingly aware that they’re doing it in the first place.

Affirmative action is a tricky thing to talk about. It’s original intent and purpose was to work on placing everyone on the same footing to begin with in terms of their opportunities to get a job. However, I’m not sure it's actually achieving the goals it set out to in the first place anymore.

I think a program such as Affirmative Action is good in principle. As a white person, it can be difficult for me to imagine not being given a fair opportunity at a job because of my race. As a female, however, I have felt what it’s like to miss out on opportunities because of my gender. I think an argument can be made that the female gender is discriminated against as well, no matter the color of the person’s skin.

It’s easy to look at Affirmative Action from the perspective of it giving people an unfair advantage. I think to do that is to look at the program while losing sight of the reasons the program was developed in the first place. As much as we may hate to admit it, discrimination based on race is still well ingrained into our society. Unfortunately, this means that many people are not given the fair opportunities they should be given. As someone who may not understand what it’s like to face this discrimination, I think it’s easy to look at Affirmative Action as not being fair.

I don’t believe the purpose of Affirmative Action is to place anyone above anyone else. I do think the program may have altered enough from where it first began to, at times, discriminate more than it helps to curb discrimination. Much like unions, Affirmative Action began with a certain set of principals in order to protect a certain group of people. While I believe those principals are still in existence within the program, I don’t believe the program has done a good job keeping up with the changing times.

We have a Personal Development Program at Penn State that is open to minorities. Basically, a person who is accepted into the program appends three years in three different areas, and at then end is allowed to choose one of those areas to receive a full-time position. Unfortunately, we find that many of the areas within the program are not well-defined enough to be effective. There is no definition of a “minority” and no way for Penn State to actually turn an applicant down based on their race. This means that even a non-minority person could apply to the program and be accepted. We’ve gotten to the point where we are so careful about making sure not to discriminate against minorities that we end up doing it anyway.

I think people may have been hesitant to speak up to being rich in class because t’s not necessarily the student who is the rich one. The majority of the time it’s their parents. Does that really make them rich, or are they simply a part of a rich family? Do they students themselves have any control over the family money? My guess would be no. I guess part of the reason people could be hesitant to speak up, at least in a college class, is that they don’t consider themselves to be the wealthy one.

I think just as there’s a stigma to being poor, there’s also one when a person has a certain amount of wealth. We perceive rich people as being entitled and having little to no challenges in their lives, but we tend to forget that a lot of rich people didn’t start out that way.

You can almost liken it to being white in a discussion about race relations. Typically, the white person is looked at as being the “privileged” race because of the perceived lack of challenges they’ve had to face given the color of their skin. We’ve touched briefly on the notion of “white guilt,” and I think you can make a strong comparison to “wealthy guilt.” Wealthy people are not necessarily bad just because they’re wealthy, and yet there’s a negative stereotype of what wealth does to people. Society tends to view money as both the root of all evil and the answer to happiness, so those who possess large amounts of money are evil people with no problems.

I think we also tend to focus on what we perceive wealthy people to not be doing with their money, as opposed to what they could very well be doing with it. If they don’t make it known that they are donating large amounts of money to charities, or putting their money to what we see being a good cause, then they are selfish. Even if we have a wealthy friend who doesn’t treat us to lunch anytime we’re out, we wonder, “why so cheap?” It’s as if we expect the wealthy to throw their money around. To flaunt it any chance they get – rub it in our faces that they have money and we don’t.

If you started off on that footing, would you admit that your family was better than well off? I’m not sure I would. Why is it up to the wealthy to make their fortunes known, when we feel it a breech in confidentiality for the poor to admit their poverty? Poor people are looked at with pity, but rich people are looked at with disdain. Either way, it’s unfair.

The Internet has done so many wonderful things for our society, and yet has brought along with it such terrible things. The comments on this article are just an example of some of the extremely negative things we have to deal with in the Internet age (I’m older, so I remember pre-Internet).

Anonymity is such a double-edged sword. For some, it allows a comfort level that enables them to truly express their ideas without fear of repercussion. For a lot, it allows for expression regardless of how hateful and ignorant it may be, while knowing it may never be traced back to them. I can’t help but compare it to the behavior of football players. Once the equipment is on and that mask is taking away some of their identity as an individual, they feel free to smack each other on the butt and embrace in hugs of celebration. I find it doubtful to think that this same behavior would take place on a regular walk to class. But because, at least in their minds, they are just that much more anonymous (although, they are identifiable on the field by other means, so go figure) and are “allowed” to do these things, it’s ok.

Commenting on the Internet has become our way of feeling ok smacking each other on the butt in public. We choose how we are identified online, whether it be by picture, user name, or even our real names. The power is in our hands to control who knows who we are. This breeds a culture of say it without thinking it, and I highly doubt the majority of what is posted in online comments would ever be muttered in person. In person we can be held accountable for our actions. Online and anonymous, we cannot. I guess the real question to ask would be, would these commenters still make these remarks if they were face to face? If the answer is truly yes (which I highly doubt would be, even if they were to say so), then there’s an even bigger problem.

I made a conscience effort a long time ago to use my real name for online accounts where I would be voicing my opinion, such as this one. It’s my way of making sure that I’m held accountable for what I’m saying, even if others disagree with it. This is not to say I refrain from voicing an opinion I know to be the opposite of others around me, but it’s my way of making sure I really think about what I’m about to say. Is this something I would still say in front of these people or this person? If it’s not, then it’s time to re-evaluate.

This quote was as effective as it was because of the way it was presented. It’s sometimes difficult to recognize someone from your own culture as being “crazy,” or as being someone who differs greatly from the way you feel when they make quotes such as the one by Franklin Graham. What truly makes the quote stand out as being so extreme was to present it as being from someone in power from a country that the U.S. tends to label as a terrorist nation. It tends to be extremely easy to label someone from particular countries as being a particular way, and by first presenting the quote as being from someone belonging to one of these countries lulled the class into certain preconceived notions of a particular group of people.

I actually used this quote on my own to conduct an informal experiment. I have been attempting to have a meaningful conversation with some family of mine who believe all Middle Eastern and Persian countries should just be wiped off the planet. As non-confrontationally as I could muster, I have tried to open their minds to at least recognize that other points of views exist, but they are insistent that their way of thinking is the correct way of thinking. So, under the guise of a class project, I posted the quote just as it was in class. I asked them to consider the quote and answer the same questions we were asked in class. Of the ones who answered, they said very much the same as what was said in class – the person was incredibly intolerant, extremist, and gives no apparent pause for the loss of human life. When I posed the follow-up question, no one responded. I’d like to think the real quote gave them the kick in the pants to really start opening their minds, but I fear this is not the case.

It’s scary to think that these types of people are in powerful positions. While I have no opposition to leaders choosing to be a part of any particular religion, I do have an issue with that religion playing into their duties as leader. Separation of church and state is a fundamental part of the ideals this country was formed on, and this is a great example of why those ideals were in place. You cannot lead a country full of a population of people with varying religions and traditions by stating that yours is the only, correct way of thinking. By theoretically basing governmental decisions off a religious advisor’s ideals, you become no better than the “terrorists” you’re trying to defeat. Instead of fighting to defeat terrorism, you become a part of it.