So in class this week, Sam said the greatest thing we, as Penn State students, can do is to give up State Patty’s Day in order to lessen the tension we currently face from the recent scandal. First of all, State Patty’s Day is a phenomenal thing that Penn State students have created, out of nowhere. We created this known holiday that highlights drinking and partying and it’s crazy like Sam said. It’s amazing what we can do when we come together, but too bad it’s not directed towards the more important issues in society. Aside from that, it shows the power we have to make a difference, if we are motivated enough.
However, I am not sure what to think about this sacrifice. When Sam mentioned it, I had no idea what he was talking about; how, in particular, will it help Penn State? If we sacrifice State Patty’s Day and the media recognizes it, I think it will make us look worst. People may not be aware that we have created such a Holiday and of course, that would look bad itself as it focuses on drinking and partying, which Penn State already has a bad reputation for. Then, to make it seem like a “sacrifice” when it shouldn’t be such be such a big deal to begin with, may give off the wrong notion. The media would probably show scenes from previous celebrations and I’m sure there is nothing respectable to show. So I do not feel like there would be much of an advantage.
Most of all, I think the idea would not even follow through. Penn State students would not be able to sacrifice such a big Holiday and tradition. It is like trying to cancel Christmas for Christians. There is just too many of us and we all have different opinions. Some may support it but there will definitely be others who will oppose it. We have already sacrificed Joe Paterno, which was a very hard hit for us, and it dragged along many traditions that were related to him. And State Patty’s Day is the next tradition highly valued at Penn State, right next to football, and that’s drinking. As sad as it may sound, we cannot sacrifice two of our biggest traditions at Penn State two times in a row.
There is just no way to get everyone on the same boat about this idea. This tradition involves many alumni and even parents. To sacrifice something that we have created through a strong sense of commonality and community that dates back many years will be very tough.

In class, we learned how common it is for someone to be sexually abuse within a family without anyone knowing. The one thing about it that worries me most is the fact that it is done by someone close to the victim or the victim’s guardian, someone they know and trust. It worries me because this “mental illness” is very closed up; nobody talks about it and therefore, we do not know anything about it. It is a problem that needs to be spoken out and about as Sam repeatedly stated in class. The fact is, pedophiles are not evil, they are not bad people but they are struggling with a disease and they have nowhere to go for help. As disturbing as it may be, society doesn’t want to understand it nor give it another thought; we automatically stigmatize it because it touches one of our dearest values: our kids. It is a hard situation to fix overnight, but if we continue to ignore it then it will spiral out of control, not in families but in our society. The best solution, it seems, is to not report it to authorities but to offer them help. It is not a new phenomenon; this is kind of like being homosexual in a way. Their sexual orientation is uncontrollable; they may not want to feel this way towards kids I guess but they can’t help it. Then, eventually they will pursue it when they are given the opportunity. And it is frightening because their morals are not in play anymore.
I think I will be very cautious about whom I let my future kids hang around or be left alone with. Parents can be so busy that they would automatically trust their close friends and relatives to take care of their kids without knowing that they may in fact be pedophiles. It sounds ridiculous but that’s the truth; anyone could be a pedophile as it is such a hidden situation. And kids will not say anything because they are too young to know what is going on. Growing up, I had friends that were raped or sexually abused and they didn’t even want to talk to me, their best friend, until it just got out of hand. And I see how it has affected their lives in ways they do not see. It is a very sad situation.
The fact that Penn State is now “linked” to such a scandal, it is no surprise we are getting stigmatized so horribly over it. Society has a long way to go before this problem can be handled properly.

The past few days have definitely harmed Penn State’s reputation. It was overwhelming to find out that our president has resigned and that Joe Paterno has been fired. The sex scandal was even more distressful to take in. In addition, the media and a lot of other people who are not part of the Penn State community have been making ridiculous comments about it all. They think it’s inappropriate that students and alumni are so angry. Like Sam mentioned in class, people think we are crazy but the truth is, we are not so crazy. Penn State has always had a lot of pride and a good part of it was because of Joe Paterno. He is a legend and it’s just very sad to see his legacy end like this. He was a symbol of our community, who raised millions of dollars for our school. And after sixty-one years as a Penn State employ, the Board of Trustees fired him over the phone. I was most upset at the fact that the media found a scapegoat in Joe Paterno and blamed him instead of Mike McQueary, Tim Curly, Gary Schultz, and Jerry Sandusky. Facts are still unknown about who was involved but the main problem is that Jerry Sandusky has been molesting boys for almost 15 years! I am just confused as to why Paterno was fired and everyone else, including Sandusky, is still not.
So as a Penn State student, I am very worried about what people will think of my status. I am graduating in December and I feel like this scandal will not help me in any way. I’ve heard that people are starting to back down on internships and even Thon donations, or just un-affiliate themselves with the university in general. I feel anxious about the future, but I have confidence that Penn State will overcome this. Even though we pride ourselves in football, we are much more than that. We are one the top fifty public national universities, have the best undergraduate programs and so much more.
Most of all, I feel awful for the kids that had to go through all of this. The victims are whom we need to invest most of our time in. The fact that people are so upset over Paterno, they forget about the real victims in this case. I pray for them and hope they find peace. This is a horrible tragedy that should never happen again.

I believe most immigrants have tremendous work ethics, compared to Americans. American society is not the same as other countries, especially the countries where immigrants are leaving from because of poverty or because of their government. They come to American to pursue the American dream. They come here so their kids can have a better future and their main focus is on advancing their lives. So, they are willing to do anything, such as cheap labor, in order to provide for their families. Americans, on the other hand, do not have that mindset; they are fine with their lives and they are fine with their country.
America has a history of just using immigrants. By that, I mean we invite them in whenever we need their cheap labor and kick them out whenever we can’t stand to look at them anymore. These are lives that we’re playing with. I understand it’s impossible to not have limits but we should have a safer and better structured way of dealing with immigration policies. Also, we do not see the tremendous benefits that immigrants actually provide America, such as in innovation and our economy.
My parents emigrated here from Vietnam during the World War II I believe. They came here for us, my brother and I, they said. Ever since I can remember, they were always hard workers and encouraged us to do well in school so we can have a great future. The fact that they were always working, they hardly had any time for anything else, including learning English. It was very hard to live in between two cultures, going to school and coming home, and just the fact that my parents weren’t Americanized; it was tough.
But everyone’s ancestors were immigrants at one point in time; they all had to struggle so are families could end up where we are today. So where is American’s empathy for immigrants? I don’t know, but there are a lot of people struggling today and you think we would learn from our past so not to repeat it. We give the same treatment to Muslims and Hispanics today as we did to the Japanese during Pearl Harbor and all the other countries we’ve had problems with. America is the melting pot and it should be embracing and supporting and helping immigrants.
In the end, the American dream has come true for some and has not come true for others. They either end up in ethnic enclaves, gangs, or they do become very successful. Essentially, immigrants depend on their kind when making that transition into another life that is often very different culturally, politically, religiously, ethnically, and socially. The least we can do is accept them socially or not be so ethnocentric.

In my opinion, we cannot give back what we have taken from the indigenous people even though we should have, at least decades ago. Sam gave a metaphoric example in class as he had a student sit on a chair and then have another student take that chair from him or her. The prior student then had to occupy a box on the floor. He asked us if they agreed or disagreed about whether or not to give the chair back to its original owner. It was interesting to see that the results started to skew towards disagreement as generations go by. I agree with Sam; I just don’t know what we should do now. This country is so old and Americans have completely taken over everything. This country now has American history, American culture, American societies, and of course American people. If we give back the land now, it’ll be destroying a whole country. Where would Americans go and settle then? Go back to their original countries? The world would be in chaos. Especially since America is an important part of globalization.
But we can, however, help the indigenous people reestablish themselves, it is the least we can do. This generation may not feel responsible for what we have done in the past or what our ancestors have done but we can definitely learn from it. Which I don’t think we have since we continue to abuse new immigrants coming into America every today. America is suppose to be the melting pot so why are we not welcoming new flavors? We want their cheap labor but we don’t want anything else to do with them.
It is very sad to me that Native Americans are now the poorest ethnic group in America and also have the lowest life expectancy. They have given into the life of alcohol abuse and suicides. It’s like we’ve taken their land and are now in the process of wiping out their race completely. This should not have happened; we need to help them reestablish themselves and embrace their culture, not just in the forms of sports teams. I don’t know how they have become to be this way but how would you feel if someone just took away your house. After the recent recession, people were committing suicides and drinking more because they were so depressed after losing their jobs and houses. The indigenous people did not have any American support whatsoever and so they are crumbling away. America needs to change its ways and help the indigenous people reestablish themselves. We can start by education and awareness; I did not realize this at all until Sam’s class. I also want to point out the Native Americans would have one of the toughest challenges integrating into the American lifestyle as they were completely the opposite. They valued nature and were much more spiritual, aspects I believe America is desperately lacking.

I think this question really depends on the person. There may be people who are purposely avoiding friendships with people of the same race because they have no pride or do not want to be a part of “them.” I’ve seen this sometime and I assume they must be in the lower stages of race relations, where they are just not accepting their own culture. They may be embarrassed by the stereotypes, as there are preferred and non-preferred races in this society. So I guess in a way they do become “posers” and hang out with a different group of race.
However, it may not be intentional because people may simply just get along with that other race better than their own. Skin color should not be the only determiner in friendships, if at all. There are plenty of minorities that have primarily white friends because they lived and grew up with only white people. Not to mention if they were adopted into the family, then they are most likely no different than that race and therefore become associated with it. They are friends because they are similar to each other, not by skin color, but by attitudes and opinions, or even status and class, unfortunately.
Another situation I’ve observed may be that they may want to be seen different. In my high school, the lunchroom was segregated; people sat and hung out with people in groups of a particular race. So to try not to be a part of that segregation, they become the “token” in another group. Even though this may not always be the case, I am just thinking of all the reasons why.
In my personal experience, I grew up in Philadelphia and went to a middle school full of mostly minorities. And I had friends who were white, black, asian, and hispanic. I think it was because we all sat in the same group. I still remembered them very well and didn’t realize we were so diverse. As I got older, people began to segregate and I was mostly close friends with Asians. Then I went to a high school that was known for its academics and diversity and the lunchroom was segregated. However, everyone was friends with everyone else too. I had friends based on my extra circular activities or who sat next to me in class, or through associations. Then in college, I went through a culture shock because this town is mostly white. And it was interesting to see the segregation within whites themselves. I had friends who were Russian and Turkish and they all hung out mostly with their own race as well. All and all, it’s not about skin color, it’s about similarities.

If the discussion was about race and gender, I don’t think Sam’s points would have been much different in class. He was trying to make us see how unaware of race we are unless or until we develop that awareness into one of the six stages of race, where the final stage is to have a full understanding and acceptance of race and its relations. Just like race, people are not aware of their gender differences and how it can give people very different experiences in life.
We are like fish, unaware of the existence of water. We have to step outside of the water and notice that such a factor of life has very dramatic effects on us. Race and gender are aspects of life that we think we understand but we don’t. The fact that every individual is born into a life where he or she is labeled one race and one gender, it is hard for people to see how it is otherwise.
Race is more tricky because there are so many different races that it’s hard to label everyone. Nevertheless, race is segregated in the world; people live and interact among their own race in their own land or own community or own household. People prefer to be among their own kind because they are uncomfortable with differences. However, gender does not have such a large scale. Inter-sex genders exist, but mostly people are men or women. And gender was never segregated because that would just be crazy. So it would make sense that people are more aware of the differences between genders than race.
The worlds of women and men are extremely different. Even though we have come a long way, at least in America, women are still less equal in the world. We live in a male dominant world; men have more power to control society where people are simply the products of society. For example, Laura’s “needy penis” lecture showed us how men dominate the perspective of sex in society. And women are now used to that idea of sex, depriving them of their potential for what sex could really mean to them.
In this melting pot of America, we have a long history of race relations, in particular racism. Every immigrant that has come over here after the Europeans have been discriminated and treated unfairly, from the Japanese to the Muslims today. Slavery was abolished centuries ago but the feelings have lingered as we see discrimination and inequality in the lives of African Americans today. Just like race, our gender equality runs in the same direction. Women and minorities will always be inferior to the powerful white male, directly or latently, in the past or in the future.

I believe race plays a significant role in criminals. A sector of this issue is the racial profiling that occurs in this nation, especially in the urban inner cities. I’ve recently read an article, “Driving While Black” by David Harris that explains this issue. He makes some very interesting points that I would like to share.
He states, “racial profiling is based on the premise that most drug offenses are committed by minorities. The premise is factually untrue, but it has nonetheless become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because police look for drugs primarily among African Americans and Latinos, they find a disproportionate number of them with contraband. Therefore, more minorities are arrested, prosecuted, convicted, and jailed, thus reinforcing the perception that drug trafficking is primarily a minority activity.”
The problem is nothing new; the abuse against people of color by the police may be a legacy of African American enslavement, repression, and legal inequality. Blame can also be laid on the government’s “war on drugs.” Harris states that it is a misguided crusade enthusiastically embraced by lawmakers and administrations of both parties at every level of government. From the outset, the war on drugs has in fact been a war on people and their constitutional rights, with African Americans, Latinos and other minorities bearing the brunt of the damage.
This issues carries with it profound personal and societal costs. Unfortunately, with many cases, it may result in the persecution of innocent people and even death based on their skin color. There has been numerous media coverage of racial profiling as a phenomenon in law enforcement over the past decade. Which includes many scenarios of
minorities getting pulled over under violations of “traffic code” but would continue into getting searched and questioned for drugs. There is significant evidence via traffic reports that shows a disturbing trend throughout multiple national inner cities: blacks are stopped two or three times as much as whites.
What outrages me more is that despite the overwhelming evidence, including the police’s department’s own statistics on traffic stops, officials in law enforcement continue to deny the reality of racial profiling. It is both symptomatic and symbolic of larger problems at the intersection of race and the criminal justice system.
Harris concludes with five solutions that may address the problem of racial profiling on our nation’s highways: to end the use of pretext stops as a crime-fighting tactic, pass the Traffic Stops Statistics Study Act, pass remedial legislation in every state, ban racial profiling in all federally funded drug interdiction programs, and collect city-by-city data on a voluntary basis. In general, we need the U.S. Justice Department, law enforcement officials and state and federal legislators to join in on the battle of racial profiling, where race plays a significant role in criminals.

Going through the project details, I must say I am looking forward to this project. I think it is a great idea that Sam is actually making the class do something that will positively influence the real world. It’s cool that we will be communicating with real entrepreneurs from Haiti and helping out with community projects to help Haitians improve their lives.
The first video I saw was Sonia’s insulated lunch bags. Not surprisingly, I noticed the working conditions were poor. Sonia made all her lunch bags from a single sewing machine in one room it seems like. It’s not much of a shop at all. It’s also sad that she does this to support her entire family, parents and children included, selling at about four American dollars for each lunch bag. I do think that it’s a good idea to invest in lunch bags because they can be very useful in Haiti. Everybody needs a lunch bag.
The next video I saw was Euclid’s “Boho” chic clothing designs. Euclid’s business was more developed. She is not just making clothes; she’s also an artist and is very passionate about. However, she lacks resources to improve and develop her business. I think the business has a lot of potential because a lot of people like her clothes. Maybe the assistance we can give her is more networking and more resources and inspiration for her to work with.
I’ve also check out the community project, Haitian Partners for Christian Development or HPCD. I saw that this was where Euclid started her business. I think the business incubator is such a wonderful idea. It really is like a business incubator, producing entrepreneurs that have a lot of potential to be successful, like Euclid. Through this program, Haitians are educated about business plans, accounting, and leadership skills. And having the help to get started afterwards is especially supporting, along with continued guidance and advice.
I liked the young adults program within HPCD as well. It reminds me of similar projects that America has going on. Working with young adults from some of the poorest areas will help steer them in the right direction protecting them from gangs and violence. There was not much detail about how they plan on working with the youth, but I think there are a lot of creative ideas to be found here.
All and all, I think this project will be insightful and fun. Hopefully, our group will come up with many creative ideas to support these entrepreneurs and community projects. They all have a lot of potential and can definitely prosper which will in turn improve the lives of Haitians dramatically. They have the skills and motivation to be great; they just lack a few resources and support which we can offer.

Coming off of that, I feel that determinism plays a huge role in shaping people’s lives than free will. From the color of their skin to the amount of money their family has, these factors have dramatic impacts to a person’s life, as proven by the SAT scores and income level statistics from class. Also, the environment in which they live in shapes everything about them. For example, Sam said how Obama’s daughters would obviously have better opportunities than the rest of us. The daughters were born into that life and of course, they will take those opportunities, with the help of their parents. This is where Sam would say they still have free will. They can choose to prosper like their parents or they can choose not to. But just like the gun example, they have an obvious choice.
I am sure everybody would choose the same option, unless there is another determining factor that makes them choose otherwise. For every choice that we get, there is a determining factor behind it. So is that still considered free will? Free will is the act of making a choice, a choice that is determined by various factors.