One day at home my brother received a phone call from his “friends.” They were two eleven year olds calling my family a group of terrorists. You might say to yourself “why would these children do such a thing?” That’s what I was wondering for a while but later on I came to a conclusion. That same day my mother went to pick up my brother from swimming. Those children were there and saw that my mother wore a headscarf due to our religious beliefs. They probably saw the war in Iraq on television or thought of how a terrorist always tended to be Muslim. This stereotype has carved its way into American culture because I shared the same problem in elementary school. One day our teacher was going over a math problem with three students and one of them was I. I was sitting in the middle of the group and a question about Islam came up. I answered the question and the teacher asked me how I knew the answer. I told her that I was Muslim and she understood. However, I realized that my two classmates sitting next to me were making hand gestures behind my back. One of them had a scissor in his hand and was pretending to stab me with it. In my own situation, I wasn’t able to understand why the children were acting the way they did, so I didn’t want to start a problem. However, when a similar instance occurred with my brother I was able to react, not because of my age but because of the knowledge I have gained. I decided to call the school and set up a meeting with the children and their parents in the principal’s office. My intention was not to get the kids in trouble but to have them understand that labeling a whole 1.5 billion people was wrong. I completely understand the people who do not know much about Islam and create negative impressions in their heads just by watching this video. Unfortunately, not just for Islam but for every matter this is the biggest issue. People need to be educated and then state their opinions objectively. Those who refuse to educate themselves on a subject and continue to make derogatory comments are simply ignorant.

Why do we label people? If we think about it for sometime, the answer is actually quiet clear. It’s the easiest thing to do. Why analyze someone and try to get to know him or her? I mean it is a waste of time trying to get to know someone and realizing that they were not that you thought they were. This was probably the situation between the Temple students and the Graterford students. The case of the unknown is always a frightening experience for most individuals. When frightened people tend to make up things about others and turn others into how they see them. I took a taxicab home last night and as we all know the taxi drivers tend to like to talk. All of the drivers I ran into were wise and liked to share their own experiences. The driver from last night asked me where I was from, so I asked him the same question. He told me he had been living in State College for twenty-two years. Since he was a pretty cool guy, without even thinking about it I asked him “how did you manage to live in this shit hole for such a long time”. He laughed a bit and answered “when you perceive the situation you are in as a shit hole, no matter how good things may become later on, your mind will make the situation turn into how it wants it to be. The mind wants to know prove itself right so it will do its best to accomplish that.” I believe that the same goes for the concept of labeling. The mind makes people out to be how they perceive them in their own head, not whom they actually are. My friend pointed out something very interesting I hadn’t realized earlier. Labeling continues throughout a person’s life. As children, we consider it name-calling and as adults we tend to label people. This name calling or labeling can be seen more in uneducated cultures because people can’t find something to rely on for information about others. Ultimately, labeling or name-calling is the result of people’s misconceptions and educational background.

I have been reading the articles of these lifers just about every week. Even if I don’t reflect on their ideas in writing on the blog, I still think about how these inmates who are in prison for life and can express their emotions and feelings so well in writing. I know that not every inmate is like this in prison because there is always a few who can’t change or don’t want to. However the ones that do change are a lot better at expressing themselves then the people who are not in prison. I have read a few things on love and it seems like everyone is trying to find out what love is about these days. It’s also very easy for people to throw the love word around like it’s an everyday occurrence. Out of all the things I read, this article was the most touching. I am a man myself but I don’t think that I have been able to live up to the man described in this article. I do care for my loved ones and I would do anything for my family to make sure that they are happy and safe. However there is one thing that most of us men can’t seem to accomplish and that’s opening up. To fully open up and share my feelings as a man is very hard to do, and I believe this goes for most of the men out there. The masculine world that we live in today looks down upon the men who open up and share their feelings. A man is expected to be tough and strong and not care about his feelings. The most recent example of this is the video we watched in class today about the men in the army coming back home. They experienced emotional distress but some of them refused to get help. In example, Jeff Lucy refused to get psychiatric help and in the end committed suicide. Why did he refuse to get help? The answer was very clear in the video, soldiers who asked for psychiatric help were frowned upon and Jeff didn’t want to “let down” his unit and his family.

Life is not fair, whether we like it or not. I believe that the society in which we live in is a game all in itself. Not just the people who “cheat” their way into becoming rich or move up in the social class. I believe that this is directly proportional to the freedom that we have in the United States. After all, this is the land of opportunity, right? I’m not defending the people who are at the upper class of the pyramid and I am nowhere near that class myself, but I completely understand that they took the chances that were given to them. Everyone wants to live that American dream and the people who made it, might have done something wrong that they felt was right at the time. I remember Sam talking about how people tend to oversee the wrongs done by themselves. Since were not in that one percentile we try to point out everything that they do, but if we were in their shoes I’m one hundred percent sure that the actions we would take would seem completely in line with our moral principles. The world is based on power and that power equals money. The government that we see is also not the way it actually appears to be. The decisions made behind closed doors are made based on the interests of those people who are in that meeting. An example of this is Dick Cheney himself. As we have seen in the documentary, Gasland, before becoming vice president Dick Cheney was the CEO of Halliburton, oil based company. Once he became vice president a law or whatever was passed to allow oil-drilling companies to search for oil in the United States. It does make sense since he wants the best for himself even though he might not have had a direct relationship with the company after becoming vice president he probably received some benefits. It makes sense that there is an unequal distribution of wealth in the United States because of “democracy”. Then again people think they are free just because they are made to believe they are living the life they want.

This was one of the most interesting articles I have read. However the research conducted by this group is not very reliable. The only reason they were able to count the nine countries in their study was because those were the countries where the census recorded the religion of its people. Furthermore, the United States was the “fastest” growing country where religion is disappearing but there are no numbers to support the evidence. So it made me question why the religion in the United States was supposedly disappearing. I think these people just assumed this because we encompass so many different cultures that they thought people were probably “melting” in the melting pot. It was also very interesting to see the social networking sites come into the discussion. Can these networking sites really resemble who a person is as far as religion? Personally, I don’t think that’s a very accurate statement.
I did some research on religion and came across a few numbers. A website I came across mentioned that only sixteen percent of the world was a non-believer, including atheists and agnostics. This shows that religion will not disappear anytime soon.
Putting all the research and scientific reasoning aside, religion is not something we can measure by taking a number of people together and putting them all in the same boat. Religion is a belief one has with God or another being. Although the number of atheists and non-believers is rising this does not mean the believers themselves are losing faith. Majorities of people live their lives by the guidelines of religion, it is a reason they continue to live and seek eternal peace. It is simply a reason for them to live and understand their role in the world. However, I personally think that the world, not it’s people is turning into a place where religion is no longer recognized. What I mean by this is those people who are against religion are trying to wipe out the whole understanding of religion in peoples lives. They call this “freedom” of religion but where is the freedom in condemning people from practicing their own beliefs?

From what I understood from class, listening to the experience of Zach Wahls gives us an understanding of how a child raised by a gay couple focuses only on one person, which turns this into a psychological argument rather than a sociological case. I’m not taking any sides in this argument as to same sex marriage because I come from a culture, which has taught me certain values I support. Then again I believe that people should be “free” to choose however they want to live their lives. Anyhow as I said earlier the situation Zach Wahls is in is only from a psychological standpoint. He does try to look beyond the concept of same sex marriage by emphasizing on the qualities of a family; no matter what kind of family they are, by stating that a family “is a commitment to each other”. However he only does this during a small percentage of his speech. He talks more about his own family than families’ altogether. This is why it makes his speech not as effective in a sociological viewpoint as it could have. We must look at the big picture of same sex marriage instead of this one specific example. The gay couple may be happy with the way they are but how about the child of this couple? How would he or she be affected by the possibility of a same sex marriage? In the society that we live in I believe these children would be more prone to bullying and have a higher chance of sociological problems. It would be great if the society we lived in as a whole was as nice and accepting as the place Zach grew up in. I did a quick research on same gender parents and came across different answers. Some research claims that children of same gender parents do just as well as other children just like the primary example in this video, Zach Wahls. Then again in other research it states that children of same gender parents are more inclined to have more problems. This argument can go both ways and I can understand both sides but in conclusion I believe that people should be allowed to make their own decisions and choose whether to raise a child or not.

What made me want to watch this video was because I didn’t know what the “r word” clearly was. I thought it would be something like racism and people trying to bring an end to racism. I was very surprised when the word turned out to be retard. I didn’t know that people took such a stand against it that it turned into a social movement. They even have pledges not to use that word anymore. However if you really think of it, it makes sense. People should not be labeled as a retard because of a health issue such as down syndrome. I believe that the word “retard” is not like any other words that people use to insult others. It’s actually an illness and should not be dropped the way people drop the “f-bomb” all the time. Whenever there is a situation where someone does something we are annoyed by or displeased with we tend to call them words such as stupid or retard. However, I never came to realize that people actually took offense to the r word before I watched this video. I thought that it was completely appropriate to call someone with a certain disability mentally retarded. I actually thought that was the formal way of stating the illness. It’s a great thing that the person with the down syndrome is actually one of the people leading this issue. He is defending his own beliefs and values and does not mind being put on the spot to talk about an issue he himself is a part of. However there is one big problem with stopping people from using the r word and that is its meaning. If we stop the use of the r word other words will replace it and have the same connotation. For example, the words that changed meanings throughout history like the ones shown by Sam in class have been replaced by other words that carried out the same meaning. The only thing people really need to do before saying something that might offend someone else is put himself or herself in the same situation as that person. This is the only way that we can truly stop hurting each other’s feelings.

This was by far the strangest video I have ever watched. I always heard about those guys having multiple wives and that seemed a little strange but a woman having multiple husbands just seems absurd. Then again the practice of Polyandry is something that culture needs to practice in order to sustain themselves. For example in the video they talked about how the fields in the Himalayas were very small so a family couldn’t split apart and have the brothers marry different women. This seemed like a legitimate reason but then again the world we are living in today shouldn’t confine this society into the small Himalayas. They could move to different parts of the world. Education also plays an important role in breaking this system down. In about two generations if the educated class of this system realize that a change is needed they will implement a change. I was reading through some of the comments that people made and most of tried to understand the reasoning behind the actions of these people but most of them tried very hard to understand them. Which in itself shows that the society we live in and overall the societies we have encountered have shaped our thoughts and actions against such encounters as absurd. Ever since this class has started I feel like everything takes me back to the invisible strings Professor Richards told us in the beginning. If polyandry existed in our culture and we saw a video about how a couple only consisted of a male and a female we would probably be shocked. Our reactions would probably be something like “why waste the land” or “no need to cause overpopulation”.
In addition to the whole polyandry situation it’s very strange how the husbands are actually brothers. No matter which angle I look at this I cant come up with a logical answer. Jealousy would definitely be the biggest challenge. Although they are brothers if the wife pays more attention to one of the males it would cause tension in the house. It would also affect the children growing up because they wouldn’t be able to adapt to other cultures very easily.

This video was a funny way to depict how the individuals in our society have become almost identical to each other. I think that the best way to see this in our actual lives would be to just walk around campus and analyze all the people who wear similar clothing and act alike. I remember when I was in high school, the fashion changed year to year. In example, one year everyone over the course of the summer turned out to preppy. These actions of the students in my high school were all done to fit in. Those who didn’t change their style slowly realized that they were standing out and sooner or later they also became preps. This occurs because nobody wants to stand out and be different. However, those who do stand out are usually very “popular” or they have been ridiculed so many times for being different that they are used to it. Furthermore, I believe that everyone has been in this situation before where they had to a make a similar decision. It was either sticking out and being made fun of or compromising ones beliefs and actions and taking the other route. These “invisible strings” seem to be pulling on everyone to act the same and feel the same. If our society encouraged diversity instead of pushing everyone to be the same we wouldn’t be in this situation. Then again our freedom is taken away no matter which way we look at the situation. From what I understood in class sociology looks at the society as a whole but claims that people should make their own decisions by decreasing the level of impact others have on his or her decision. I don’t think that this problem will ever be solved due to the way our society has been shaped. The media only makes matters worse because of its ability to reach wide audiences in a short amount of time. It tells us who to become and what we must believe in. The prejudices also occur because of this conformity. If anyone speaks against the prejudice they are usually labeled and pushed away from society.

I can’t imagine the countless number of times that this man has thought about these things he no longer has. Being locked up is one thing but losing support from everyone but your mother must have been the worst for him. However, I was very shocked that he couldn’t remember his first day in prison. Knowing that he is going to spend the rest of his life in prison and not remembering the first day seems rather strange. I have a feeling that this man indeed does remember all the days which he says he is no longer able to recall. He just doesn’t want to remember those days because those days must have been the worst days of his life. Losing support from everyone and the first day in prison is something I wouldn’t want to remember myself. However, I believe that just trying not to think about something or that someone makes it even harder to forget. If I was in prison for the rest of my life and I had nothing to do but think, all I would think about would be the people I loved the most in my life; my family, my wife, my friends. We don’t think of these things now but once they’re gone there would be no way for me to forget even the times that seemed so boring and mundane.
Then again can we blame the people who can’t forgive him for taking another persons life? I personally can’t, because I know that those people were hurt just as much as the family of the person who was killed. Those invisible strings that we always talk about in class can’t even help this man. Society does frown upon some of the things that aren’t wrong in nature but taking another man’s life is completely on a different level. I do feel bad for this man though, not completely because he is doing life behind bars. I feel bad for him because he was completely forgotten by the people he cared about the most. I think that’s worse then being behind bars for the rest of his life.