I agree with you, Nepotism is very interesting and affects people all over the world. I am a Political Science major and I took a class on the politics of dictators, and we learned a lot about Nepotism and how it is a huge part of Neopatrimonial regimes, especially in countries in Central and Southern Africa and South America. In these countries, connections and relationships are the only way to get into any positions of power. Not only are these connections the only way to gain political power in certain countries, but resources such as raw materials, food, and even water as well.

I am going to be completely honest with myself, I have always been a relatively liberal, open-minded person, but since it has been a relative point my life/since I've been old enough to understand affirmative action (or what I thought 'understanding' affirmative actions was) I never supported it. Up until this class I had a very limited understanding of what exactly affirmative action even meant. When i tried to picture the meaning of affirmative action when I was in high school I always pictured someone who was a minority or a person from a poorer socio-economic school district taking my spot at a good college even though they had a lower GPA or SAT test score than me, which always made me kind of mad. When I first started college, I saw affirmative action as students who were black, african-american, latino, etc, getting better scholarships than me with the same grades from the college of liberal arts. Later in my college career, students of color sometimes had an easier time landing an internship than I did. With that tunnel-vision understanding of what affirmative action is, it is possible and reasonable to see why I wouldn't support it. after watching Professor Richard's lecture on affirmative action, I have been introduced to a whole new world of ideas of what affirmative action means and how it can benefit me as well as be a benefit to society as a whole.
I am a white woman, from a rural relatively well off family. I have always been comfortable, always had plenty of food, clothes, and even though my budget may seem tight in college, my mother would always help me if an extenuating circumstance arose. Due to the way I was raised, I never really got to experience or understand the broad expanses of what affirmative action really does for people.
Affirmative action is defined as "giving someone a benefit or an advantage solely on the basis of some identified criteria, that they would not normally receive." This has nothing to do with SAT test scores or scholarship to the College of Liberal Arts, but with helping people who need it.
I really enjoyed the section that discussed the interviews of people who think that they are guilty of something, and whether other would be the same way. 90% of people say they would never murder someone, but only 70% of people think that the rest of the community wouldn't murder someone either. It creates a really interesting interview on how people view themselves to be better than the rest of society, just like how literally 0% of high school students consider themselves to be below average in social skills. That's definitely ridiculous, and actually really funny.

I really enjoyed reading your post, a lot of the things you had to say were interesting and well-founded. I truly don't understand the people who call themselves "real Americans" who are the direct descendants of immigrants, but they tell people who are immigrants that they can't come into our country to do the jobs that their entitled asses are too good to do. You are completely right when you say that the economy would be crippled by the loss of labor from immigrants. Like we saw during the lecture, farmers need people to do labor at low costs, and immigrants are willing to do that.

In this unit we learned about Immigration and the views surrounding the issue in the United States, and I wanted to share a personal story that has always resonated with me. When I was a lot younger I lived in a rural town in eastern Pennsylvania. The area was really homogenous, most of the people who lived there were white, lower middle and middle class, mostly blue collar workers. My parents are from New York City, but moved there when I was really young to work at a local hospital (Geisinger.) There was a doctor who worked there who was from the Philippines, who worked with my mother and was actually our family practice doctor. There family became really good friends with my family for many years. About 5 years ago the visa he had to work in the United States was about to expire and he was working really hard to extend it, but was having trouble getting everything together in time. Because Dr. P was such a prominent figure in the community, the local paper did a story on his issue. What my family and I expected to happen was that after the story was published that people would want to help Dr. P get his visa so he could stay and continue to be a contributing member of the community. Unfortunately, that is not the case. After some members of the community (not all, of course, just a few) found out that he was an 'immigrant' they vandalized his house and put offensive signs in his front yard telling him to "go back to his own country." I was not only upset and sad for him and his family, but I was furious that other members of the community would treat someone this way only because they were labeled with the term "immigrant." Dr. P said that had never experienced any problems before the news story was published, but after people did not treat him in the same manner.
Ever since this happened to my friends and I experienced the unfair treatment of immigrants first hand this has always been an issue that I was aware of. This lecture really hit home for me, to further show the hardships that immigrants face in the United States. In one of the slides Professor Richards showed us a statistic that showed that immigrants to the United States often have college degrees and plan on becoming contributing members of the communities and workplaces. It really upsets me that some Americans are so narrow minded that they can't even see that. The Issue of immigration is one that probably will not resolved for years to come, and will continue to be a hot button issue inside and outside of politics and the government.

I completely agree with your sentiment about LGBT couples not being allowed to adopt children. That is absolutely ridiculous. I have this argument with a friend so many times, and he can't seem to understand where I am coming from. I said to him "You would actually rather have a child in in a potentially unsafe home just because the parents are heterosexual, or in an orphanage, than a safe and loving home with a same-sex couple?" and his response was simply "well.. yes." Its viewpoint like these that sometimes make it difficult for me to even have conversations with certain people, and keep my composure. =)

Professor Richard's lecture on multiculturalism was very interesting, and I really like his five reasons segment. He showed us a map of the United States which showed where people who were hispanic immigrants settled after coming to the United States to build their lives. There are certain areas throughout the US that have huge hispanic populations and some that have almost none whatsoever. While the large amount of hispanics in California, Texas, and Florida did not surprise me, I was a little surprised by the fact that New York City was not the top city. The Los Angeles area beat it by an overwhelming landslide. Later in the lecture, he discussed the inevitability of globalization. Soon, being a part of the global market will be the only way for companies, and therefore, people to make money. Americans are going to have to get over their ethnocentrism and learn other languages. I am actually a Russian double major, and often when I tell people what I am studying, they just laugh or they say "what the hell are you supposed to do with that?" I am actually really proud of my ability to speak another language competently, besides the fact that it is a unique one. I think that my ability to speak Russian is my most marketable skill, and the only job leads I've had after applying endlessly to jobs have been because of my language skills (I also speak Spanish). A lot of friends (recent or soon to be Penn State, and other university, grads) don't even see the need for Russian, besides adults. (A lot of people haven't gotten over the cold war yet, which seems like a joke, but its not. I studied abroad in Russia last year and my, ahem, narrow-minded, grandfather asked me, fresh off the plane, how I dealt with a bunch of 'commies' for four months.) They don't realize that if the United States doesn't keep up with Asia and other upcoming places in language skill, then we will fall behind. So many Chinese people speak English, and that gives then immense leverage over us.
When the girl who lived in China for years spoke during class I thought what she had to say was very interesting. I thought I was surprised at first by the Americans reactions to Chinese culture at first, but then I realized that I shouldn't be. You'd think that when an American decides to spend a huge portion of their lives in another country they would want to at least experience the culture, even if they don't adopt it for themselves. Professor Richards always does a really good job of laying out the things that most people are afraid to say, which is something I admire about him.

I respect your opinion in your statement that these people are 'crazy' or suffering from a psychosis when you say that people who are Asian or Latino identify themselves as white. But, personally I don't really see anything wrong with this. I'm not sure f my opinion is a widely accepted one or not, but I personally think that people should be allowed to identify themselves with any race they choose. There are historical precedents of people, especially Latinos identifying themselves as right so they could get equal rights.

When I watched the two youtube videos about the fair housing act, I was astonished by the fact that this was even a problem. The first video I watched was "accents." I was really surprised by the reaction of the realtor, I never knew anything like that ever happened. The lecture discussion on the fair housing act really interested me and I decided to look further into it. I did a little bit of research about it on the internet and it is also known as the Civil Rights Act of 1968. The refusal to sell or rent a dwelling to any person because of their race, color, religion or national origin is prohibited.
The accents video really surprised me because the person on the telephone didn't even see the person on the phone in person before they discriminated against them. (I was also really impressed by that actor's ability to do believable accents!) On a serious note, for something that I wasn't even aware of, it is a huge deal. The other video started of with a white man looking to rent an apartment. The perception is that he is an upstanding citizen who pays his bills on time. He seems like someone who any logical landlord would want to rent to. Then the person in the video changes to a black man, an indian man, an older women, and a disabled man. They start asking if you would still rent the apartment to all of these different people. I never knew that this was a type of discrimination that we had to think about. I would personally think that if someone has enough money to pay their bills on time, any landlord would want to fill the spot immediately, but I guess they would prefer someone who was white, or a native born American just because of the preconceptions based on each minority race.
I was also really interested when we were looking at the city racial make ups. I was very surprised to see that the black population percentage in Harrisburg was much higher than Pittsburgh. I always thought the central Pennsylvania area was predominantly white, which I'm still fairly certain it was. I grew up an hour from Harrisburg, but never really spent an extended period of time in the city. Also, I thought that New York City would be significantly less white then it actually was, I think the statistic was that it was around 44 percent white.
Overall it was interesting to learn about people different than myself and how they face different issues than I do everyday. Professor Richard's lectures are always interesting and educational no matter the subject.

I agree that the video was scary, but I asked myself how I would feel if the video featured people who weren't of my own race. (I am a white female). I wonder how I would've reacted if the video featured black children or latino children who were supremacists of their race, which puts an interesting perspective on it. I really feel bad for the children, because their parents instilled hatred into them at such a young age, and they do not understand the weight of what they are saying. They really can't grasp the cultural and societal perspective of their statements.

In the beginning of the lecture Professor Richards showed us a video from an old news broadcast of two twin sisters who are part of the white supremacist movement. I was very shocked at the beginning of the clip when they first stated discussed the meaning of their song 'fourteen words." I really was taken aback by these girls and their nonchalant answer to these huge issues. But then I really thought about what they were saying. They are really a product of their upbringing just as much as I am. My parents raised are both very socially liberal, and strongly instilled in me from birth that I should stand up for others when they need help. Im fairly certain that those girls don't really understand the weight of what they are saying, and instead of being mad at them I feel bad for them. Their parents told them that the execution of six million jews was not a huge issue and the one little girl told the reporter that her statement of fact was "an exaggeration."
While this class has taught me the importance of accepting other views and analyzing them instead of pretending they don't exist, that adds a whole new level to my understanding of this situation. After thinking about that video clip I had to ask myself if I was overreacting, and unfairly judging these people based on their point of views and voicing them out loud, just like someone in my family would do with something they believe in. Is voicing your opinion about something that is socially accepted and considered morally acceptable or a social 'norm' better than voicing your opinion about something that is not okay according to society? I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to make a decision about this.
Looking at the stages of racial identity, I think that the stage of reversal is very interesting. First we see a pattern of anger towards white people and the there is a change to anger toward people of color. Discomfort leads white people to fall back into old patterns. It takes a lot to move through these stages, including a great self-awareness as well as general awareness.
I really admire Professor Richards ability to break down huge barriers in our society using humor and doing it respectively. I really wish I would have had the opportunity to actually sit in this class and experience first hand. For example, the washcloth example was funny and wildly fascinating to me. I can't believe that statistic was so spot on in the classroom. I am floored. I feel like I've learned more in this class than any class I have taken for my degree or major (and this is my last college class ever!) =)