I think the same way. I do see the similarties between nepetism and affirmative action but I think they fall on two totally different spectrums. How you said it was alot easier for you to understand a man giving his son a job rather than a boss giving a black man more of a chance than a white man. Even though affirmative action is needed,I also think it is alot mroe controversial, and has alot more to deal with race. For exhample, my roommate has a 2.3 gpa, but because she is panamanian, she gets so much more grants than I do. I am a white women, with a 3.7 gpa, but just because I am white and the majority, I do not get the special loans from penn state, no matter if I have a better gpa or not. Im nots saying I do not want her to get these loans, and I understand that white women benefit the most from A.A but I think the program itself is so scewed.
I believe we should be able to get ahead based on our credentials, not on our people skills. This society has so many deeper problems with inequality that programs such as affirmative action are needed. When Sam asked us to solve the inequality at the schools, I honestly could not think of a real plan. Things ran through my mind like, take the best of one school and the worst of another and switch them into the better schools, but then I thought, the majority of the lowest scoring at the better school are still higher than the best at the poorer school. Affirmative action is such a tricky topic.
At the same time, when we get into Nepetism, I have never had any sort of nepotism. My father knows a lot of people, but in the past jobs I’ve worked, and my furture career, he has no connections. I have done all of it on my own. I think I have faced the reality of nepotism this summer while trying to get a summer job. It is so hard for me to find work, and even though I have a lot of past experience, there is not a lot of openings. I believe that the openings that there actually are, were taken up by people who have connections, and this is not fair. I found it interesting when Sam pointed out what most of us have heard, Its not what you know, its who you know. This quote is so sad to me, you can work so hard but if you don’t know someone you are less likely to get where you want to go. This is why we need affirmative action.
The other day I went out with one of my friends who is black, we met another black male at a bar. I started to tell them about our lecture of blacks and whites, and the job applications and house loans. Both did not seem to be surprised by this at all. We had a long discussion on it, and as each person drank a little more, the discussion became more real. The black male said to me all of the obstacles he faces day by day and gave an example of how he was scolded by a white man at work who was above him, and thought that if the same thing would have been done by a white man, there would be no scolding. He said he thought the white man just wanted to show superiority. After this, he began to tell me that he does not want “special” treatment. I think in some way he was talking about affirmative action. He said he does not want to be hired to a job just because they need to fill the “black” criteria. He ended this thought by saying “I do not want special treatment, but I do want to have the same opportunities, but it will never happen.”
Affirmative action is a strange topic. Just like Sam noted, how do we have some type of equality for people without it, but then at the same time it’s sort of needed because our society does have so much inequality in it. GIVING SOMEONE A BENEFIT OR AN ADVANTAGE, SOLELY ON THE BASIS OF SOME IDENTIFIED CRITERIA, THAT THEY WOULD NOT NORMALLY RECEIVE is the definition of affirmative action, and this alone seems unfair to me. I am a white woman in the United States, and I knew before this lecture that the majority of people who benefit from affirmative action are white women. This being said, I am personally a libertarian also. I believe that people should have their own opportunities to advance, and also to be content with a lower stature.
I feel that same way, all of us are immigrants besides the native americans. Alot of us just dont view it that way because our families have been here for years, but AGAIN our ancestors came to this country as IMMIGRANTS. I think if the United States develops a better policy about immigration, there would not be as many illegal Immigrants coming in. I dont think having a diverse country has any negative effect, but I do think that having people in our country who are undocumented could be potentially dangerous to our well being. It is not just specifically one country ( South America) who have people coming into the country illegally. We are seeing more people from terror driven countries entering our country with purposes not to do better for themselves or their families, but to do HARM against us, and our families.
I think we need to reach a happy medium dealing with illegal immigration. If the United States had a better policy set up, maybe we wouldn’t have so many illegal immigrants coming in, because it could be easier to allow them to come here legally, that way we all know who is here and why. I want more diversity and understanding, but I do not want illegal immigrants coming here that can cause potential harm.
I never really had sat and thought about the issue of immigration until this year. The most I ever thought about it was immigrants coming here, getting a green card, and becoming an American citizens eventually. In my English class, I had to read a paper, which had two sides, one being for immigration and one being against. We had to choose a side, to either strengthen our borders, or allow more immigrants. After reading more into it, I chose the side to strengthen our borders. DO NOT GET ME WRONG, I am all for making this country more diverse and allowing all groups of people, but after reading it I became aware of the illegal immigrants who are coming here illegally not to work, but for terroristic purposes.There now is such a thing called “other than Mexicans”. In 2005 the border patrol caught 165,175 “other than Mexicans”; a worry that these people are increasingly from terrorist supporting countries, and that presents a national security threat. The United States deals with enough terroristic acts without adding another possible 165,175 from illegal immigrants from the border.
Towards the end of the lecture, Sam played a video which had a man doing a rant about illegal immigrants. In which he addresses Hilary Clinton, saying that they do not have the same rights, and are illegal and should not be allowed equal opportunity. The man also compares illegal immigrants to convicted felons, giving an example of how a criminal couldn’t work in his back yard for just two dollars without him getting in trouble for housing and providing work for the criminal. This man, even though he has the right to express his views, does it in the most ignorant way I heard in a long time, and the comments made after are just as sickening to me.
I really was intrigued by one of the slides at the beginning of the lecture, immigration part one. The slide showed a business man saying “we need to take back America from illegal immigrants” and to his left is a family of immigrants. Then the slide showed to the right of this man, a Native American saying “I’ll help you pack”. Until I took this class, I never thought of how badly the settlers had treated the Native Americans, and the hypocrisy we show to this day about letting illegal immigrants into this country. People who “run” this country, and think they own it, also, at one point, were illegal immigrants. Another interesting fact, which has come up in a few previous lectures, is how history is written to make the specific group sound like heroes, not murderers. I especially enjoyed the example of Jackson’s battle at Horse Shoe Bend Alabama. The history book claimed that the battle was bravery, heart ship, and community, while Jackson himself writes about murder and corpses. He wrote about how they cut off the tips of the Native Americans noses to keep the body count. (Sounds nothing like community to me)
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