First off, I want to say that Sam Richards is a fucking awesome teacher. No matter what team you represent in race relations, your beliefs and thoughts are constantly put under the microscope and your biases are kept in check by the Devil's Advocate that is Sam. There are many delicate topics that we have discussed over the course of this semester and I feel that the two most important words that described how my thought processes have changed are "Empathy" and "Tolerance". I feel that by taking this class, my mind has been warped to be more accepting to those who are different from me. I have been training my conscious and sub-conscious brain to put all the bullshit stereotypes aside and attempt to try to fully understand where a person is coming from. There is more to life then my perception of it alone. I have made a pact with myself to use my skills as a writer to allow readers to better empathize with people because it is one facet of our society that, if improved, the global outlook on life could be a lot different. It starts with one person with an open-minded, generous attitude to influence others to live this type of lifestyle. Unfortunately, there are some people who refuse to accept some people’s character and culture. As long as there are people like this in the world, we will forever be trapped in a society that shuts itself off from others, in fear of becoming a victim of crime. But I have evolved to believe that the Earth is not a cold, dark place, but a beautiful planet with interesting new people to meet. There is still evil in the world, but we are not looking in the right direction for it. We must focus our attention on authority figures that make decisions every day; the results, of which, hit very close to home. How come when we hear the word “criminal”, we think of a hood rat kid, or a thug but we never think of cops and politicians as criminals. They don’t even have the common decency to rob us blind. They leave us with just enough to get by, while dangling the idea of the American dream in front of us. Yet, we still struggle for power, or at the very least, for our voices to be heard. Still, I must be true to myself and others by questioning what kind of thoughts would cause such people of power to be so maniacal and insidious. Lord knows, I guess. Someday, we can look back on everything that didn’t make sense and try to find a reason to justify what happened or react according to the lack of reason for justification.

I would say that the one take away message from Tuesday’s lecture is don’t swallow everything that people feed you whole. There are a lot of people in the world who try to impose their ulterior motives on others by giving them false information and misleading facts that can easily distort a person’s views on the world at large. There are also those who run mass media outlets who unintentionally brainwash the masses into thinking that the world is a cold, dark place where violence occurs on every corner. This is where the cynicism stems from. The idea that people are intrinsically bad creates a self-fulfilling prophecy where your initial perception of someone is that of a negative nature. This also leads to a feeling of isolationism and an impression that everyone is out to get you. This is why I still maintain an idealist outlook on life. I like to think of the way things could be in a perfect society instead of the way they are. From here, I can appreciate all the good that occurs in the world every day a lot more than pessimistic people do. It’s hard to do this overnight because the sub-conscious mind is so well-trained to perceive things in the way you normally do. That’s why we must step back and think outside the box. Strip away all of the biases and experiences that make up your consciousness and ask yourself what are the facts. If you have never second-guessed yourself or your beliefs, you are not truly living an educated life. We are living on a planet with an incredible amount of living organisms. We are a species unlike any other because of our ability to utilize our resources to become self-sufficient as opposed to just using our resources from survival purposes. We are constantly changing and getting older. With every day, we learn new things, see new things, and experience new events. But do we ever really look in retrospect at the events that occurred and say to ourselves, “It’s all in my head!” We are living in a time where we are discovering more and more about how our universe works. Yet, some people fail to realize that weighing yourself down with bigotry is just a waste of time. We are all living in our own little bubbles and the only time we know we are actually alive is when we communicate with other “bubbles”. So I guess what I am trying to say is that the only reason we exist is because are consciously aware of others and others are consciously aware of us. Which leads me to my final question, “If consciousness of the universe disappeared and nobody was around to experience it, did it really ever exist at all?”

I feel that the security in schools is based on the neighborhoods that they reside in. The inner-city is where youth are deemed more dangerous by society causing a dichotomy between types of schooling. Predominantly black and brown schools are where there are metal detectors and drug dogs. Those schools are threatening in the eyes of the state because of the amount of crime in those areas. Then you must think about the reasons why there is crime in the cities in the first place. Unemployment is high in the majority of inner cities, leading many people to beg, borrow, or steal to get bye. This is a generalization but this is just me speaking from my view of the issue. The local government then labels the youth of those schools, assuming that they are carrying weapons or drugs. This lack of trust towards minority schools is how the system secretly oppresses non-whites today. It starts with the schools; then it turns into authority figures labeling them. From there it is a never ending chain of oppression where the white man dominates the system. This is an unfair stigma towards minorities that is difficult to overturn because it is the product of hundreds of years of racism. The only thing one can do is take incidents like Trayvon Martin and show that you truly can’t judge a book by its cover. This history of bigotry will pursue if we don’t make changes now. Improve the communities in the inner city by giving kids an interest in learning. This means educating teachers on methods to engage students in class with intelligent discussion and introspective ways of thinking. This also means removing pre-existing notions of race. Stereotypes are what hurt our communities because they generalize behaviors of certain races and ethinicities.

Despite the fact that I lived in the suburbs of North Philadelphia my entire life, the town I grew up in was predominantly Irish Catholic. The general view on race in my hometown was that it was almost out of place to see minorities walking around my neighborhood. It’s not there was anything wrong with seeing minorities walking around; it was just the notion around town. My grade school was mostly white, but there were a few exceptions in each grade. While in high school, I began to notice the ways that city kids interacted and I began to see differences in sociology between races. For example, the cafeteria is a social scene that says a lot about your character. There are your jock tables, nerd tables, stoners, etc. But the way I saw it, there was an underlying segregation, where students just stick with who they know. There were tables with black students, white suburban students, white city students, Asian students, and a few integrated tables. There wasn’t any blatant racism that caused this. Every student stuck to their comfort zones. My thoughts on race just became generalizations of minorities based on single incidents. In retrospect, I was a closed-minded, little Catholic school asshole. I had no shame in this at the time, but once I started smoking weed, my ability to empathize increased exponentially. It sounds a little ridiculous, but some illicit drug studies have shown that drugs can have a lasting impact on your perception of the world. When I entered college, I began taking mind-altering hallucinogens with my friends that come from very diverse backgrounds. Communicating with people on that level is an unreal experience. I saw an energy that binds us all together. From this point, I saw the need to do some good in the world. I became conscious of social injustices that occur every day and felt compelled to make a difference. I went on a service trip to Guatemala and became aware of the different levels of poverty. It was culture shock to say the least. I couldn’t imagine how a family of eight was living in a house the size of my living room was still so happy. I began to think about how every pre-existing judgment I ever had about somebody went out the window. I felt washed away of my closed-mindedness and questioned the world I was living in and still do to this day. My current view on race relations is not one that doesn’t see color. Rather, I acknowledge it because I believe that by acknowledging race, you can spark an interest into their background and start a conversation about where they come from. Communication is the first step.

After the first half of the semester, we have delved into a very diverse realm of racial discussions and put a variety of sociological aspects under the microscope. In this class we have examined the entity of white supremacy that has taken place over the course of human history and how it affects us today. I feel that this is, by far, the most intense point that we have discussed thus far. It is incredible to think how we have come throughout human history with science and technology, yet there are underlying human rights violations that it seems we can’t do anything about. The fact that our social constructs are just pillars of age old racism and pedestals of Caucasian dominance is a bewildering reality to soak in. It is important to keep in mind that there are some ways we can tear down this edifice of bigotry. This is through education and avoidance of going down the roads of our ancestors. Living a life of ignorance and failure to empathize is what will prevent us from moving forward. Another lecture that got me thinking was the Creationism vs. Evolution lecture. After sitting through this lecture, I gained a greater desire search for truth. Since this lecture, I have watched two incredible documentaries that have severely altered my thoughts on religion and consciousness. The first was called “Religulous with Bill Maher.” In this movie, Bill Maher goes around the world and interviews people of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim creeds and questions them on their beliefs. I don’t want to spoil this amazing documentary for anybody who hasn’t seen it, but let’s just say that the end caused me to think very hard about what kind of role organized religion is serving in today’s society. My answer to this is a very saddening one. Although I respect any religion that promotes making ethical and moral decisions, I feel that there are too many people that view the holy books of each religion too literally and use their “faith” as some sort of ulterior motive like in politics. This made me wonder if religion is one thing that is keeping us from progressing as a human family or not. The other documentary I watched was the final episode of a three part series called “Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking: The Story of Everything.” In this episode, the brilliant physicist talked about our current understanding of how the universe works, where it most likely came from, and what directions it is possibly heading in. At the end, he addressed the idea of how “God” is an idea that humans use to try to justify everything around us. We don’t just accept the fact that everything conveniently fell into place. But maybe we can call this chain of lucky circumstances that has occurred over billions of years “God”. There is just so much we still need to find out before we just settle on one idea of how everything works.

From the realistic viewpoint, it is very difficult to change the system because our society has been built around the recognition of race. This first impression of race leads us to assume an entirely false past based on stereotypes and biases. The first step would be to change this thought process into a more progressive form of thinking. The alteration that we could make could lead to a more communicative world. We can’t just dismiss race as a thing of the past. This will lead to a sea of ignorance in a modern civilization. We must take the time to learn about where other people come from before prior judgment ensues. Through this comes conversation of background and a mutual respect for another being. A person’s culture and ethnicity is something to be proud of. The fact that this aspect of a person’s being causes a delusion of hatred for false facts is what causes a rift in our sociology. Discrimination stems from the failure to understand cultural backgrounds. If we educate the masses that racial biases are outdated and pretentious, we could possibly work towards a common goal. The next step would be to somehow disassemble the social constructs of white supremacy. In order to do this, we must remove the census polls that intimidate certain minorities. One example is the SAT score statistics that Sam showed in class. This is a prime example of how minorities are discriminated against through the inner workings of the system. It is important to tear down these walls in order to fix this issue of discrimination. This is not an easy thing to do because of the pit that we have dug for ourselves over the course of human history. You can look at it from a realistic standpoint, an ideological standpoint, or a proactive standpoint. You can sit back and bitch about how the system is flawed, or you can expose the system. The statistics show that there is an underlying issue that needs to be brought into the public light. We can’t remain ignorant of how much error there is in all aspects of our everyday life. If this aggression goes unchecked, we will become a selfish world. There are two roads that we can venture down. There is the road where we can change our thought patterns and avoid bigotry. The world can be a place where respect for your fellow man or woman would flourish and equality is prevalent. The other road is one of racism, selfishness, and further discrimination, in which the Whites supervise all decisions made, causing the further suppression of minorities. The choice is ours. Is it possible to end discrimination and create a world of equality? The world may never know.

There are a lot of questions that we face in this world. You have your everyday socializing where people ask you “How are you today?” and “What are you doing later?” But then there are questions that we all come across during our existence on this plane and our perception of reality becomes warped just at the notion of how insignificant we are in this universe. How can we even comprehend the scale of the universe without our heads exploding? When you peel back the layers of your consciousness and you ask the age old question “Who am I?” the answer might surprise you. There are some truths in this world (and a hell of a lot of bullshit) that we see as facts. The fact that we are living beings with an ability to communicate with one another, the fact that we are on a planet revolving around a star, whose rays travel miles just so we can feel the warmth, and the ultimate fact is that we are not even anywhere remotely close to the center of the universe. We are so lucky to be alive! We are creatures who have evolved into a way of thinking unlike any other. We all have our own viewpoints and experiences that we bring with us to the table. And the crazy thing is we have the opportunity to hear about these incredible experiences by simply getting to know the person. But I digress. Anyway, I feel that there is an interconnected chain of vibrations that binds us all. Everything in our memory, everything we perceive now, and everything that will happen to us in the future is linked together in such a perfect way. This is an ultimate energy that we call “God”. Think of it as a variable into the equation. There are some things in life we can attempt to understand, but in reality we will never become fully enlightened on everything. This is where faith comes from. There comes a point in the story of consciousness where we run out of facts, and the rest is speculation. There is an intrinsically good nature to all of us when we are born. There is a need to look out for the group, and not just the self. This can be molded and changed depending on your environment however. Ultimately, there is a unity among us and we can either create progress or we can impede our human family from moving forward. Every action we do has a ripple effect, and all the alternate possibilities are in an entirely different dimension somewhere. I can guarantee that nobody read this entire rant, but if you did, I want you do something. Think about this idea. Our brain is just reacting to light and sound. Our memories are just a collection of photographs that we try to interpret what they were like when we experienced them. Peace and Love brothers and sisters. Thank God I just ate some magical fungi about four hours ago!

There are many interesting thoughts that come to mind when I think of the method of learning that occurs amongst the shamans. Their ability to transcend their consciousness onto a different plane is an incredible feat that stuns the scientific world. They can connect with another dimension and receive answers from some higher power. This form of learning is practically incomparable with our form of learning. Our society has a learning process that doesn’t allow us to find our true inner beings. We learn about the world around us through a constant search for truth but we fail to recognize the search for truth starts with perception of reality and asking ourselves what consciousness is. We must first start by peeling away the layers and blocks in our mind and find out what we truly are. Shamans have a divine connection with the spirit world that many people cannot attain. This is where the sociology of drug culture comes in to play. There are chemicals in the living plants on this planet that have a myriad of effects when consumed. Cannabis, Psilocybin, Peyote, Ayahuasca, and Opium are some plants that come to mind when we think of natural drugs. These substances are a shortcut to the ways of learning similar to the shaman. Perception is altered in a way where your thoughts put consciousness under the microscope. From there you realize that consciousness is subjective and that everything in the universe is just our mind constructing a reality around us that becomes what we base our decisions around. This is why equality is such an incredible ideological concept, but from a realistic standpoint, it is nearly impossible to unite everyone together because there is always a fairness variable where somebody will always have it better then somebody else. Someone will always benefit from somebody else’s inequality. We, the white race, should stop claiming that the best way to end racism is by ignoring it. This doesn’t work because there becomes a failure to understand someone’s background and know what type of adversity the person went through. We have come so far in our society, yet we have skewed in terms of race relations. Shaman can see and feel the energy that minds every living thing to each other. Similarly, Buddhist monks are trained to view only one race: the Human Race. With this viewpoint, we can better recognize human rights and how everyone on this planet has worth and should be respected. Our society has to be one which moves forward in a progressive motion. We must tear down the walls of Social Darwinism and create a prosperous society.

America has been a cultural melting pot for the longest time now. People from all parts of the world have banded together and created an ethnically blended nation. This is the American culture. Our pasts, ancestors, family traditions, and practices have made this country what it is today. If we just dismiss other people in our country for speaking the language of their culture, it would just go against everything the Constitution stands for. One article of the First Amendment talks about free speech. How far could this amendment apply? Language is speech. There is no national language, therefore why should others be forced to learn English? There are plenty of places in the United States where entire communities choose their native language over English. Look at Chinatowns, Little Havana, Little Italy, etc. These are called ethnic enclaves and they are scattered throughout major cities. One thing that we have failed to recognize is the fact that immigrants to the U.S. are trying very hard to assimilate to the English language for when they need to use it. When I was down in Guatemala on a service trip, I had to use my very limited knowledge of Spanish in order to talk with locals. Every time I would have a conversation with somebody down there, they were very grateful that I tried my best to communicate with them with their language, as opposed to just giving up. This was the method of some of the chaperones on the trip. They would invest in a Spanish phrase book, but they would not be able to converse with locals because they didnt understand the words that were being said back to them. They would proceed to try to speak to them in English, followed by an awkward silence and a shrugging of the shoulders. In the U.S., we dont even thank non-English speakers for attempting to talk to us in English. This is just another example of Americans taking everything for granted. When you look at the grand scheme of things, Americans in general dont speak English very well. Some of the diverse dialects in the U.S. use slang that cant even be understood by other English speakers. Look at urban vernacular in relation to backwoods jargon. There can be such a broad gap between people of the same country who speak the same language. There would be no reason to spend millions of dollars on suppressing the speech of others just because things are lost in translation. Why cant we accept people for who they are instead of preventing the inevitable? If they dont want to speak English, dont blame them. They are making a choice and they arent affecting us in anyway except a greater diversification in our culture.

Child sex abuse is a very delicate subject matter and it is one that must be handled very carefully. There are two ways to go about attacking the issue of child sexual abuse. One is on a personal level and another is on a societal level. There are very limited ways to talk to a victim a sexual abuse. Many might not want to talk about their incident because it can strike up very bad memories which can lead to panic attacks and emotional breakdowns. The objective of the personal level is to open yourself to them by means of communication and to show that you are a person that someone can vent to and will not judge them. It is imperative to be the listener when a victim is willing to talk with you. This is to create thought patterns for each person. For the victim, it will make them feel important and it allows them to open up and tell their story. For the listener, it creates a direct flow from the speaker’s mouth to the listener’s eardrums and then it reaches the listener’s conscious mind. With this comes a keyword when communicating with someone. This is empathy. Becoming so consumed in the story that you couldn’t even imagine how the victim has been bottling these emotions up inside them all this time. As for the societal perspective, there are many different types of ways to create a positive environment for victims of child abuse. One thing we can do is educate people about the issue of sexual abuse. Teach others the statistics, ways to spot a victim of sexual abuse, how to report the abuse, et cetera. Another thing we must do on the societal level is to encourage victims to report their assailants instead of letting them go free and attack more children. Teach the victims how important it is to make sure that pedophiles don’t do these types of things again. If these types of crimes go unreported, the pedophiles carry on with their actions and the victims won’t be able to seek the type of counseling that can help mend the incurable wounds of their experiences. These crimes are so difficult to handle because they involve children who have been told to respect authority. When they are being violated by adults, they begin to feel uncomfortable and start to question their own self-worth. They lose their innocence and become confused about what to do. It is important to tell children the necessity of talking to their parents. That line of communication is vital for these instances. When the crime occurs, the child can go to his/her parents. From there, the parents can hire a lawyer who can keep the child’s identity anonymous, thus bringing about justice in the world.