en-us https://www.intensedebate.com/users/4254974 Comments by LPIndian20 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/04/20/voices-from-the-classroom-154/#IDComment343536130 As a minority, as someone with outside experience of the United States in developing countries, and as a person raised mainly by a single parent of a difference race, many of these ideas we discussed in class were already of thought to myself. I confirmed this when looking at the Stages and seeing where I was at and how fast I’ve progressed in such little time. But there are still many topics that I’ve learned in class. I love hearing and seeing other people’s perceptions of things I see. These perceptions change one’s attitudes, which changes one’s behavior, which is nurture. Race, nature, has always played a role in our perceptions, attitudes, and behavior. It varies incredibly from race to race and culture to culture. The more I hear of these different views of any topic, the more I hear arguments or debate of every worldwide issue, the more I cherish those who stand in between. Those who are between understand both sides and are more likely to be less biased as those on the sides. These people step back and look at the entirety and not just pieces they want to hear or pieces that sound more convincing to them. What I gained for myself from this class is that those who are more diverse in both the nurture and nature aspects are more likely to make the unbiased decisions because in order to decide what side you are on you must look at yourself and ask questions. It is harder to choose a particular side if you are in the middle, but in that case, you are also more likely to make the more considerable and accurate decision than someone who stands on the sides. Experience is the best teacher. A way of how my thinking has changed is my level of consideration. Due to the variety of views I have heard, I now realize I am taking more time to make certain difficult decisions, especially in regards to race and culture. Before I make my judgment of a race or culture, I want to see how I would see, in example, homosexuality if I was a white, black, adopted, old, a toddler, female, gay, or another status. As a minority, I understand that it usually takes a much longer time for whites to get up the stages than for minorities. So minorities must be patient but also must encourage this personal growth because being understanding, considerate, and empathetic is something that benefits the world and not a single culture. Fri, 20 Apr 2012 16:36:36 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/04/20/voices-from-the-classroom-154/#IDComment343536130 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/04/10/voices-from-the-classroom-144/#IDComment338265611 I think this particular question is a great question. As to why we are most likely to remain silent instead of standing up for another in this certain situation varies from person to person. I believe the general reason why is due to the fear of the outcomes or not knowing how to respond. The fear factor can derive from the uncertainty of what will happen to you when you make your stance and bring yourself into the conflict of people who you do not know at all. One may fear of getting hurt or causing another to get harmed. This fear happens so fast you innate response occurs before you realize it, fight or flight. Flight is the most popular response here because most people have a negative feeling in them in these kind of situations that prevent them from getting into the fight. Some people do not even know how to respond to such situations because they have never been in these experiences before or they are so shocked they do not want the negative attention or any negative influence to be upon them, especially by people who they do not know. These responses are defense mechanisms, they exist today because they have allowed our ancestors to live on and avoid dangerous or potentially dangerous situations. It takes quite an amount to not remain quiet. As these days progress, more and more people will select the fight response, especially with the more education they have. Someone who is more educated about discrimination cases or who has experience with these conflicts is more likely to fight than those who have not. Myself, I actually cannot say what I would exactly do. I can see myself not saying anything or helping out the person who is being discriminated. Obviously minorities are more likely to defend another minority in these type of situations than majorities, especially if the race is similar or the same. I, along with the majority of people, would Want to intervene, but in terms of the action I would take is unknown to me. People should realize that these kind of situations can occur and that there are a variety of ways to respond while remaining safe as you can. Though, if you are not confident in what you are saying, how to say it, or how to handle this dilemmas, then you are most likely to remain silent. This is the primary reason of why we remain quiet. It is uncertainty of how to handle the situation in a short amount of time and the fear of the possible outcomes that may be harmful. Fri, 13 Apr 2012 16:40:21 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/04/10/voices-from-the-classroom-144/#IDComment338265611 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/04/04/voices-from-the-classroom-142/#IDComment333480804 I am very interested in the power of ethnocentrism despite its capability to blind endless amounts of populations in ethnic views and relations. This entire power, the power to be blinded, is inevitable. It is impossible to prevent this phenomenon of occurring. Every single human being grows up somewhere. Every being learns a language, a culture, a sexual preference. These characteristics and preferences derive only from where you are. This planet is small, but diverse, there’s endless amount of options and combinations of cultures one can learn. When one learns a culture, one then sees the world through that culture’s eyes alone until the end of adolescence, not knowing it exists. For majorities, it is different in how one encounters or realizes the phenomenon. Ethnocentrism is developed when your standard is developed. When I say standard, I mean the characteristics of your culture being formed. There’s no way to escape ethnocentrism but one can adapt to it and use it for the benefit for all. To step back in certain situations and to see your dilemma from a bird’s eye view. To refuse to look through only a single pair of eyes and to accept opinions opposite from yours as valid. To consider options that you normally would not consider as a legitimate option or choice. Being open minded is built around this. To gain this, one must understand many others and be around diverse people. When one is not, one then only listens to ideas, choices, and opinions that he or she is already used to. This will prevent you from believing others in their logic and especially opinions. It is what makes us think that they’re “weird.” There is nothing that the other, who is different from you, that makes sense. If this happens for an extensive amount of time and if others around you support your initial thoughts, you will never learn and will always see it through one set of eyes. This will not allow you to be open minded in conversations, logic, knowledge, and dilemmas. It is horrible that one becomes this way, it a legitimate way for one to become arrogant and ignorant. This is why I praise people who step out of their shoes often, do something that scares them everyday, stands up for what they believe in AND accepts others opinions and logic as valid, if it is. Nothing is more important than learning the things you don’t know. Sat, 7 Apr 2012 01:05:31 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/04/04/voices-from-the-classroom-142/#IDComment333480804 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/03/29/voices-from-the-classroom-138/#IDComment327919713 It is clear that the race of the robber was a critical factor in the suspicion. However, my idea is that the racism and discrimination no longer exist in the conscious level of us, but in the deeper part of our brain, the subconscious. If you ask anyone who acted out against the African American boy if race was the factor, they would say “no,” which did occur. In this generation, we all know that the rule of racism and discrimination is now against the rules and laws. The media has showed to us that such an action is frowned upon in this country, especially by minorities. Now, since this country is a white country, no one who actually is racist will say they are and more importantly, those who have discriminated against another race probably don’t even know they have. To the conscious, we know it is wrong to act out just because of one’s skin color, but our subconscious thinks otherwise. The families that saw the African American boy obviously had something else occurring in the process of deciding to intervene or not. It was the recognition and the existence of previous knowledge and experience that decipher the reason to intervene or not. This country is full of the negative news stories about minorities, especially African Americans. This sets a tone for each of those who listen or hear this consistently, it connects that African Americans are robbers, pot heads, etc. This connection is inaccurate, it is only correlation, but the correlation has been so consistent and has been ever since the beginning that it is a norm to us to think such a way. Our brain likes to makes connections and to classify the unfamiliar in order to make it familiar. The number one thing that is associated with African Americans today by other races are prison, poor academic skills, and athletic abilities. Because majority races have subconsciously believe these ideas for so long, they seem true to us in the deeper part of our brain where we can control. The conscious is the part of the brain we can control, which is where we say racism is wrong. The simple over suspicion of the family was a mental mechanism of defense, but the mechanism has been artificially structured by society. This cannot unfold in a short amount of time. It will take almost as much time as it did to fold to unfold. This unfolding process starts here, knowing information that the subconscious has been hiding from you. Fri, 30 Mar 2012 16:32:53 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/03/29/voices-from-the-classroom-138/#IDComment327919713 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/03/22/voices-from-the-classroom-131/#IDComment322788835 The cons of learning and being submerged in the Race world are that you move ahead in the thinking and sociological spectrum, while some of your peers who are not of a minority stay behind. When you hit conversations that cover such topics of race, sociology, or even some ideologies, your input is very distinct from the others and most of the time, the others will not be able to see your perspective, especially when it is at a young age. Your beliefs will seem rigid and in a way untruthful to others until they reach the part of the spectrum where you are and see your perspectives as valid perspectives. What is also bad of learning and experiencing the racial world at an earlier age is that you start to see different images of practically everything and you begin to justify and see things racially, which in today’s world, is run by white supremacy. When one makes a simple mistake by tripping on a side walk, dropping a pencil, or writing the wrong answer on the exam, your observers in the environment may or may not recognize your mistake and act on it, like anyone goes through. However, the minority who committed the mistake reasons why they are being looked at a weird way after their mistake not because of the simple mistake they did, but of what stands them out. What stands a minority out is simply their appearance. The human eye is the king instrument that is used to judge others and a minority’s reaction to that is always forcing them to think why am I so different? Pros of going through the stages at a younger age than others is that your view of the world and beyond has a stronger and more accurate base than those who are not of minority. Not only does one experience the hardships and learns from them, but one also witnesses them to others and learns from their experiences. You are exposed to parts of life that the majority will practically never understand to its entirety. You are able to reason through things at an additional level that the majority will struggle to understand. By going through the stages at a young age, it is almost like having start school at an earlier age than everyone else. Some may not like starting school earlier, but in the long run, that one may have the higher probability to graduate first than the rest. Finally, when the others who are not of a minority reach the maturity age and begin to see the racial world at a level that you do, they realize how much you were right about some things. They will eventually then come to you for questions that relate to such topics and will most likely not question your authority. In going through the stages at an earlier age, one can then say that if he or she can go through them all at an early age, then one can handle future stages and obstacles and go even further into true experience. Fri, 23 Mar 2012 16:37:01 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/03/22/voices-from-the-classroom-131/#IDComment322788835 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/03/15/voices-from-the-classroom-123/#IDComment317643972 To be honest, my perceptions and outlook of War still has not changed. Perhaps they were reinforced a little, but I’ve already for the most part remained the same. I understand why nations, countries, and people have gone to war and its consequences. I understand when you look through more than one pair of eyes, particularly the other side’s, you realize you looking into a mirror. You see that the other side is fight for practically the same exact reason and that the civilians think at the exact same level you do. They believe they are the good guys and you are the bad; that some of their beloved ones are going to war to fix the problem and will return home safely. They lose friends and families like we do, they breakdown like we do, and they suffer like anyone else. Once the war is over, we judge the other side as good, bad, or okay based on the outcome and not who they truly and actually are. Once the other side is judged, ANYONE who they see as a member from that side, whether it is a military member or civilian, they are judged as well. BUT, when you get to know that particular member from the other side, you realize they are not “bad,” or “good,” or “okay,” they’re just like you, the mirror image. You then realize and see that those members are not the ones who took your beloved ones away. If it is not them, then who is to blame? My thoughts go right to the ones who decided to go to war, those who forced people to kill others, and perhaps those who killed. The biggest candidate for the guilty is the government. It is the governments that make the radical decisions and actions to kill. They use civilians to make them pawns to fight, excluding those who volunteer. If a war must break out, it must be the ones who are within the argument, not others. If there is a fight or war that must occur, “take it outside.” Why? Because who wants to have two random people fight to the death where they live, raise families, work, and make a living? The war’s setting should take part where those who are not at fault, the civilians, are not involved in the consequences of another fight. Yes, a place to find for this is merely impossible to locate or even create, but it saves thousands of lives. Lives of sons, daughters, mothers, and fathers. The more I learn about when two different people from different sides look into war, the more I realize that they are fighting for the same thing, the more they realize they are being used to wipe out, not the enemy but the enemy’s muscles (the military). An eye for an eye makes us all blind. Fri, 16 Mar 2012 16:36:40 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/03/15/voices-from-the-classroom-123/#IDComment317643972 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/02/29/what-more-do-you-want-to-think-about/#IDComment306404169 Surprisingly, as a minority who admires the fields of psychology, sociology, biology, and philosophy, the things Sam has taught us in class were things I had already thought of. Many of those ideas that were presented to us in class already existed in my mind. To think is the strongest and most ambitious trait of the human being, of the homo sapien. The best thinkers are not just those who have the strongest cognitive abilities, but those with the passion to think, the philosophers. People like Aristotle spend the lives not pursuing a single academic field like Einstein in math and science or famous politicians who think about history and politics. It is philosophers that think about Everything and more importantly, why. People who like to think go far in life because they take in much more than a single perspective like most people. They will not judge until they understand all or most of the internal and external possibilities that may have influenced the behavior of one thing. By doing this over and over again, one is training their mind to think in a logical sense and way that no other can. Experience is the best teacher; if one incorporates experiences and the power of thinking, they can even predict future behaviors, which is what sociologists like Sam Richards do for a living. You step back from the situation and look at the macro, not the micro. You step back to look at the whole and not just one view point. Psychology is how and why we think that way and how we make one thinking our second nature artificially. As a minority of a minority, or an outlier, I have experienced, as a Psych BA major, I know why we think the way we do, as a sociology minor, I understand how these thoughts influence masses of people and their permanent behaviors, as a biology minor, I can see the micro and scientific aspect of what shapes our thoughts. Many of the major ideas Sam has delivered to us in class were already conscious and subconscious knowledge in my head. He just solidified my thoughts and like he likes to say, “Yay for white team,” I’d like to say “yay for Richards Team.” Just like Sam Richards as a teaching profession, I admire seeing others learn and more importantly, stricken by what they learned. I like to see others make the difference not for just a single minority’s or majority’s good, but for the good of mankind. I know there are people in the class who don’t give a shit about what Sam says, people who are the polar opposite of Sam, people who are exactly like Sam, people who are just taking the class for credit purposes, and people who actually care about race and ethnic relations. I would like to see all of those who have the passion like Aristotle did, shine their lights. Fri, 2 Mar 2012 17:32:36 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/02/29/what-more-do-you-want-to-think-about/#IDComment306404169 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/02/23/voices-from-the-classroom-113/#IDComment300687313 To erase racial discrimination in our world, is a step as incredible as understanding our universe. For centuries, we have lived by a code of judging others with the information given to the eye itself. Due to the laws of nurture, if something happens repetitively for a long enough time, it become habit and habits are very powerful and are incredibly hard to break. This habit of judging others for one’s skin has been a habit for so long, it became a biological mechanism. It is now a part of our biology to judge other humans for what you see; however, this is fair. It is a defense mechanism to judge not just humans, but any animal or thing that looks like it could potentially harm you. To reverse the habit, one must not be racist for a long enough time to make it the norm and that will take too long for us all to witness unfortunately. Not even our great-great-grandchildren will witness that complete change, but by generation and generation, a change will be made. One possible way to end racial discrimination, hypothetically, is to have us all look similar enough that we are not considered “different.” What if over centuries and even millennia that we all interbreed with one another until we are all mixtures of all. What religion would one be? What sport would they play? What language would they speak? It wouldn’t be a matter of race anymore, it would be a matter of culture. Culture matters by one’s location on earth. So if a mixture human that looks like everyone else on earth was in the United States, the person would most like speak English, watch football, eat burgers, etc. We are better at not discriminating against cultures because we see and even understand the actual differences, but in race it would no longer matter. This theory however, of us all looking the same, will not happen due to outside factors that will prevent it from occurring. What if….what if you had a black person raised with white parents, or an Asian raised by Latino parents, or a white person raised by black parents? Due to chance and development, they would be “Latino,” “white,” or “black,” despite their color of their skin. This would prove that a black person can be just as white as any white person. It would show that a Latino can be just as Asian as any Asian. It would prove that the color of one skin is just a color that would lead one heritage to a particular location and culture. What if every Asian in America spoke Spanish, which they can if raised in a Spanish speaking family, just like Hispanics. What if all black people had a British accent in America, which could happen if they were raised in Britain just like white British people. Mix it up. Fri, 24 Feb 2012 17:41:31 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/02/23/voices-from-the-classroom-113/#IDComment300687313 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/02/16/voices-from-the-classroom-108/#IDComment295002601 This question is an interesting one. A lot of it comes from the Nature AND Nurture. On the biology side of this response, or nature side, there is a type of muscle fiber that is typically found in African roots. Whites have a different type of muscle fiber that would enable them to do things differently than Blacks and some Brown people. The point is that the particular fibers in Blacks tend to be a fiber that reverts to strength and has a rapid and strong contract motion. The fibers in Whites tend to be slower, but this would allow them to have more endurance than Blacks who have the strength. I ran track all throughout high school and our coach was a great one. Blacks tended to be the sprinters and Whites tended to be the distance runners. Rarely would you see a Black doing the mile or a White doing the hundred-yard dash. Blacks have this fiber because of how they evolved in their ancestry, which was primarily in Africa. In Africa, there are a wildly diverse amount of animals and predators. Those who were able to escape and run faster survived. AND because much of Africa is hot, the bodies tend to be slimmer and taller. So if you put the strength, speed, slimness, and height together…you got a decent athlete. On the other side of this response, the Nurture, Blacks were better at doing a sport such as basketball primarily because of their physical abilities. As a result of them realizing that many of them can exceed in the sport, many practiced the sport as if it were natural to them and their culture here in the United States. Then the trend began, Blacks started playing basketball because their biology made them the most suitable to succeed and from another’s eyes, the stereotype is created. With a stereotype, just the knowledge of knowing one, it can affect one’s performance consciously and unconsciously. If one believes that they are in a racial group that is good at math for example, then that fact or stereotype alone is enough to change the output performance! The nurture of “blacks do good at basketball and football, etc,” is, by itself, influencing them to perform better. This trend has existed long enough to make all of us as a society to believe that being Black and playing good basketball is “normal.” If there is a person who is White or from any other racial group then Black, they get looked at either consciously or subconsciously and get judged. Jeremy Lin is that example. On the other side for Whites, hockey is more of an endurance sport then strength and speed. Yes, they will have to sprint up or down the rink or hit the puck with all their might, but the vast majority of hockey is staying balanced on your feet and being able to go up and down in many articles of clothing for what feels like a long time. Biology, or nature comes first, but nurture is now taking its course because the more scientific we become, the less natural we are. Fri, 17 Feb 2012 17:56:31 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/02/16/voices-from-the-classroom-108/#IDComment295002601 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/02/08/voices-from-the-classroom-99/#IDComment289968842 I have no doubt that it is primarily white people who generally shy aware from the race topic more than any other. This is simply because they are the majority. Over time, they have learned that it is wrong to taunt for certain cases, this one especially. Modesty is highly looked upon at a situation like this in both a conscious way and an unconscious way. In terms of what I mean ‘unconscious,’ I mean that we do not speak about this situation most times. In fact, we have not spoken about this so much that the topic itself is naturally awkward to talk about. However, for minorities it is easier because they encounter and think about race more often than whites. When the white person is encountered in such a situation or conversation, they do not know how to respond to such minorities simply because they are not used to it, they don’t know how, or they feel a slight guilt and do not want to offend anyone. Whites, in general, are exposed to white people most of their life. When they talk about race with another white person, they kind of just go with the flow, but when they speak with a person of another race, it becomes confusing. They do not know how to talk about such a topic because they are not in the shoes of the minorities. They do not know what it is like to live in a white dominant country and world as a minority, so they just assume, but when they are speaking of it to a minority they finally think about what they are going to say but then realize they do not know how or what to say. The guilt comes from the fact that they are the majority and the minorities are not, therefore it is easier for the white people to press bad buttons than minorities. When a white insults or accidentally insults any minority, there is a sub-concept or sub-meaning beneath it. It is one that is either true or just a joke, and a joke or fact is only dictated by the ears it goes to. The true reason why whites would shy away from this is simply because of exposure. For minorities it’s because of numerous account and for whites is because for the lack. Now that the word is out, we should talk about it, whether we want to or not because it will open more doors than it will close. It is for the greater good for both groups to see each other’s perspectives and beliefs. As time and generations go by, more and more whites are becoming familiar with the idea and concept. No progress will be made if we continue to have the doors shut. Sat, 11 Feb 2012 21:18:53 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/02/08/voices-from-the-classroom-99/#IDComment289968842 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/02/02/voices-from-the-classroom-98/#IDComment282968405 You raise a very important and interesting question. For any organism, their main objective in the biological view point is to survive and produce viable offspring to pass on their genes. We all know about Survival of the Fittest. To be the fittest is to have the best adaptions that enable the organism to survive and prosper in their specific environment. In order to have the best adaptations is not just a specific trait or even a few specific traits, it’s all. For example, suppose there were two Homo sapiens stranded on an island with only edible fish around them to eat as food. Let’s say that one of the Homo sapiens cannot eat raw or rare meat and survive whereas the other can. Who dies and who lives on? What if it was visa-versa and one cannot eat fish if it’s cooked? Now take one of the Homo sapiens and give him the ability to eat both raw or rare meat and cooked meat. It’s clear that the one, not with just a specific trait, with all of the traits live on better than any other. It is diversity. It is not being single colored. The environment around us tries to make us a single color naturally and we ourselves try to become a single color naturally because it’s a hell of a lot easier if it is that way, it’s a defensive and innate mechanism. However, we know that if you are a bunch of colors together, you are better off to survive. Each and every organism is born with just a single color. Sometimes they will have mixtures of others, but none will have all. Due to each of these organisms starting with one color, they strive to get another of it’s, sometimes, polar opposite in order to survive or to be satisfied. In this case, white girls like to get perms because it is different. In the other case, black girls like to get their hair straightened. The white girl generally starts off with straight hair as their born color. The Black girl generally starts off with curly hair as their born color. It’s natural for one color to go for the other, it makes sense. They choose the others so they can be different; to better survive. There was an experiment I heard of that recently took place. The experiment was that males in their mid-twenties were to wear the same t-shirt for an extensive amount of time without taking baths or showers. Each of these males was from a different race and ethnicity. After the time passed, the shirts were then smelled by females of each race who didn’t know which shirt belonged to which male. The females had to select which shirt smelled most pleasing to them. It so happened that the females chose the shirt that belonged to the male that is the most opposite of their own race. It’s the desire for diversity, the winning ticket to survival of the fittest. Fri, 3 Feb 2012 17:39:40 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/02/02/voices-from-the-classroom-98/#IDComment282968405 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/02/02/voices-from-the-classroom-98/#IDComment282967466 You raise a very important and interesting question. For any organism, their main objective in the biological view point is to survive and produce viable offspring to pass on their genes. We all know about Survival of the Fittest. To be the fittest is to have the best adaptions that enable the organism to survive and prosper in their specific environment. In order to have the best adaptations is not just a specific trait or even a few specific traits, it’s all. For example, suppose there were two Homo sapiens stranded on an island with only edible fish around them to eat as food. Let’s say that one of the Homo sapiens cannot eat raw or rare meat and survive whereas the other can. Who dies and who lives on? What if it was visa-versa and one cannot eat fish if it’s cooked? Now take one of the Homo sapiens and give him the ability to eat both raw or rare meat and cooked meat. It’s clear that the one, not with just a specific trait, with all of the traits live on better than any other. It is diversity. It is not being single colored. The environment around us tries to make us a single color naturally and we ourselves try to become a single color naturally because it’s a hell of a lot easier if it is that way, it’s a defensive and innate mechanism. However, we know that if you are a bunch of colors together, you are better off to survive. Each and every organism is born with just a single color. Sometimes they will have mixtures of others, but none will have all. Due to each of these organisms starting with one color, they strive to get another of it’s, sometimes, polar opposite in order to survive or to be satisfied. In this case, white girls like to get perms because it is different. In the other case, black girls like to get their hair straightened. The white girl generally starts off with straight hair as their born color. The Black girl generally starts off with curly hair as their born color. It’s natural for one color to go for the other, it makes sense. They choose the others so they can be different; to better survive. There was an experiment I heard of that recently took place. The experiment was that males in their mid-twenties were to wear the same t-shirt for an extensive amount of time without taking baths or showers. Each of these males was from a different race and ethnicity. After the time passed, the shirts were then smelled by females of each race who didn’t know which shirt belonged to which male. The females had to select which shirt smelled most pleasing to them. It so happened that the females chose the shirt that belonged to the male that is the most opposite of their own race. It’s the desire for diversity, the winning ticket to survival of the fittest. Fri, 3 Feb 2012 17:38:04 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/02/02/voices-from-the-classroom-98/#IDComment282967466 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/01/26/voices-from-the-classroom-92/#IDComment278961557 A lesson that I have learned…where do I begin? One thing that I can pick up from the top of my head at this moment is in class, Sam posted a clicker question regarding standing up for people who you are most close to. The question asked: if the one person who you love the most, whether that is a spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend, family member, or friend, committed a crime as strong as Jerry Sandusky’s, whose side would you be sitting on at the court room? The officials, not even arrive at the court, or your loved one? Surprisingly and unsurprisingly, the majority answered their loved one. I learned that in terms of macro-analysis, meaning of all others around you, they will see the “right” answer or side to be the side that is charging against. However, in terms of micro-analysis, meaning to just yourself, you take the side who is being charged against (in most cases). This, I believe strongly, is for the majority of humanity. No matter what culture you are from, what country you are from, what faith you believe in, or where you were raised and nurtured, you will most likely defend the one who you love the most even if they are a murderer of one or many. If this is true, then why do we all see it as not when it comes to macro? I believe it’s because you didn’t truly think it through. You need to see it through the eyes of the other, which, sadly, many do not do. I step back to look at the macro and micro before I give my personal thought and once you do, you realize how much one side is wrong, visa versa. What I also learned is that good people, not all, are remembered, even if they have committed a mistake that thousands and thousands of others despise. Joe Paterno, a man who I have never met before, I was able to know very well without even speaking a word to him or shaking his hand. This man has sacrificed so much of his time for the sake of Penn State, and who is Penn State? We, the people, are. He dedicated his time to us, each one of us. Everybody makes mistakes, but step back and look at the macro and micro before you judge. Don’t just focus on one chapter of this man’s life, look at the whole book. People make judgments so fast that they blind themselves. People are giving a power that makes us the dominant life form on the planet and that is our brain. To think is not as easy as to walk, talk, or sit. It takes energy, effort, and mind power to think. Thinking is why we are here today, but we neglect it as though it’s just a benchwarmer. Mon, 30 Jan 2012 20:47:50 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/01/26/voices-from-the-classroom-92/#IDComment278961557 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/01/16/voices-from-the-classroom-33/#IDComment269300980 I certainly believe that it is critical to have someone identify there own race; however, not everyone has the same definition of “Asian,” “Indian,” “Hispanic,” “Latino,” or even “Black,” or “White.” Therefore, we will come into a conflict when it comes down to sharing what our ethnicity is. As the people said in the clip, how are they supposed to mark themselves as one and not the other? Despite that some people truly believe it is important to know what your own race or ethnicity is, others might not even care and may just go along with what seems the simplest answer for them. If one does not care, then one will most likely not think. If one does not think, then one will not be accurate. I myself have an interest in knowing others’ ethnicity, including my own. Just knowing what race you are mainly a part of can be extremely powerful in one’s social life. Sometimes an Asian will only feel they belong in a group of friends who are Asian as well. I believe this as unbeneficial. As Sam Richards said in the lecture of 1/19/12, the person who is more accurate is the person who learns the way through others’ eyes. If you’re a liberal, have conservative friends; visa-versa. If the Asian friend hangs with the Blacks, then God knows what would happen or visa-versa. When you are told or when you appear like a subgroup, you may end up hanging with that particular group whether you like it or not and may be missing out on other cultures that may even suit you better than your own. There are many people out there in the United States who switched from Catholic Christian to Buddhism because they believe it and put faith in it much more comfortably than the other. Identifying yourself can have serious positive and negative consequences, IF you care. If you don’t care and accept who you are, you may not even see the difference as well as another would. For example, to be white and to not hold your true Caucasian culture to a country like the United States is not as prominent as a person from Israel coming to the United States. If the difference is small, then it is harder to see. That difference can only be scoped by your approach to racial identification itself. I am from Bolivia and I place myself as Latino over Hispanic because I am better defined as “Latino” than the other. Maybe someone else may see it differently but I truly believe my position is the right one. I will only change my decision if I believe I see or witness something else that would make my answer to my racial identity more accurate than “Latino,” but until then, I am Latino and proud. Fri, 20 Jan 2012 05:31:39 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/01/16/voices-from-the-classroom-33/#IDComment269300980