I think the song we listened to, between the pictures, lyrics, and the fact that it was an American man taking on the role of our country’s people was one of the most powerful videos we’ve seen this semester. It’s true that the genocide of the Native Americans in our country is largely un-talked about. Usually, when we talk about racism, we talk about blacks and whites, maybe Mexicans, and sometimes the conversation extends to Jews and Asians. But we’ve learned this semester that the group of people that start furthest from the finish line is the Native Americans, and that they are the poorest group in the United State.
As far as the clicker question at the beginning of the class that asked if we could say that we know A LOT about how Native Americans live on reservations, I answered that I could. I live in Connecticut near where the Mohegan reservation is, and I have stayed in one of their huts on their reservation and I have visited numerous museums in the area, where I have heard Indians tell the stories of their lives as well as their ancestor’s lives. This is why I somewhat disagree with Sam when he says that nobody ever talks about it and we choose to ignore the reality that Native Americans have been forced to go through in this country. Maybe it was just a priority for my school, or maybe schools in Connecticut make a point to teach us about the history of Native Americans because there’s so many tribes in the area. That being said, if you ask an average person from Connecticut about Indians, they would say “Mohegan Sun,” or “Foxwoods,” the two casinos in the state that are two of the biggest and most successful in the northeast. This creates the illusion that the Indians are well off, and they have advantages on their reservations that we don’t have, since gambling is illegal in the land owned by the United States.
Some thoughts I had about the song was how powerful the lyrics and the music was to the point that when the song ended, there was a silence that encompassed the room. Nobody spoke until Sam did, and there was an uneasy feeling of guilt. But to be honest, it’s getting very annoying feeling guilty about everything. Black oppression, Mexican stereotypes, Asian struggles, the Native American genocide. All of these things have not only happened in the past but are currently happening, but not by me. While I appreciate learning about the history of our country and it’s cultures and races, we must keep in perspective that just because “our people” (meaning white people) did this, that does not mean that we can’t be better people ourselves.

I think each stage is fitting for the individual person that’s in each one. So from an individual standpoint, I think it would be hard to argue that any one stage is “better” than another. However, as far as society as a whole, there would be a lot more peace, and a lot less ignorance if everyone were in the Humanitarian stage. If everyone was in the Humanitarian stage, there would be no need to be politically correct because everyone would see race from an “it is what it is” perspective without much prejudice, and would not have as many offended feelings.
That being said, as ideal as it would be to be at the Humanitarian stage, it is an interesting question. This is because to get to this stage, it is necessary to go through each of the individual steps. In this sense, it would be impossible to have everybody be in the last couple steps. We are naturally in the pre-awakening stage, then we must be awakened to race in order to face it. White people and people of color then go down different paths in their experience with race relations depending on their environment, and the type of person they are (and likely the time period in which they live in as well). So, I think the correct statement wouldn’t be “It would be best for society if everybody was in the Humanitarian stage,” but it would be “It would be best for society if people moved through the stages quickly.”
As far as the most desirable stage, it certainly should be one of the last two stages for several reasons. I think the main reason is that people who are in the last stages are probably more happy in general, both with themselves and with the people around them. They would have come to terms with who they are both in terms of race, and their place in society. They could view others’ actions from an unbiased perspective, while still taking the experiences that they’ve had along the way in the previous steps.
All of this being said, it is horribly unrealistic to think that every person can get to the last stage. While the first few steps are inevitable for everyone to go through (at least the first two), it takes effort, passion, and tough skin to make it to the final stage. Because of that, things such as upbringing, character, geography, and culture strongly play into the factor of whether or not a person will be able to reach one of the last stages. In all, I believe that the Humanitarian stage should be everyone’s goal, because it would relieve ignorance, promote peace, and make the individual more happy. But society will always be balanced by people in every stage.

I had seen the video about the dolls in Psychology when we were talking about how expectations of our behavior could shape how we actually behave. Everything else aside, I think the most important thing to take out of this video is that it is another way we can explain why the poverty rate, crime rate, and imprisonment rate for black and colored people is so much higher than white people. If you agree with that psychological theory, it is not surprising that little kids who grow up thinking that “black” is “bad” and “white” is “good” are more likely to maintain and act in accordance to those assumptions.
I agree, though, that this video along with the video about modern day slavery in the Ivory Coast was the most disturbing videos we’ve watched this semester. You see little children who shouldn’t know about race, and shouldn’t care about it, and certainly shouldn’t have any negative feelings towards their own race, making statements that implied that they were “bad” and “ugly” because they were darker. It’s also disturbing because these little kids are going to grow up, and may be in a position to make important decisions such as who to hire for a job. If at a young age, they were taught or were under the assumption that black is bad and white is good, then how will that notion affect decisions they make down the road?
I think an important question to consider is why these children would have those thoughts at such a young age. When I was growing up, I know that Star Wars was my favorite movie series. Darth Vader led the “dark side” and those were the evil guys, and he was trying to get Luke to come over from the “light side” with the good guys. As discussed in class, there are almost never any black cartoons or princesses, and most of the news anchors and people on television are white as well. Someone also mentioned parenting, and that the parents need to do a better job at telling their children they’re beautiful and that it doesn’t matter what skin color they are. But I agree with Sam that this wouldn’t help much, because people know when others are telling the truth or just blowing smoke. So what is the problem? Is it possible that we inherently and inevitably associate light with good and dark with bad? If that’s the case, will black people ever be equal in our society? It would explain a lot of implicit racism and prejudices that people can’t control. I’m not really sure what we can do about this problem, but it is certainly troubling that these children, particularly the black children, have such negative connotations attached to black people at such an early age.

This is a topic that coincidentally we were just discussing in psychology, and one that bothers me a lot – but likely for different reasons than what everybody is going to say in this thread. I want to be very clear about the fact that I have nothing against people with a mental disability, or any disability, disease, or disorder at all. I do, however, have a problem with this constant need to be politically correct.
For example, we were discussing in psychology that old people are called “senior citizens,” people who are handicapped are called “handi-capable,” people who once considered to have shell-shock now have “post-traumatic stress disorder.” We constantly feel the need to change the way we talk to appease the feelings of others, which have become unbelievably over-sensitive. Calling someone with ALS “handi-capable” doesn’t change the fact that they can’t walk, and isn’t actually accurate at all, so why force a change in the way people talk to make people feel a false sense of security? To call somebody “old” or “handicapped,” or “mentally retarded” isn’t a sign of disrespect (in most cases), it’s simply telling it how it is.
The term mental retardation is absolutely telling of what the meaning of the word suggests. People with down’s syndrome or any form of slow brain cognition can be considered mentally retarded because their brain (mental) is slower (retardation) than the average person. I’m not sure when the negative stigma behind the words came into play, but the meaning is very simple and very accurate.
That being said, I do agree that the word shouldn’t be used in everyday conversation. The issue is that the word “retarded,” similarly to the word “gay,” is used with a negative connotation. That is, if something is “bad” it could be called retarded. This creates a stigma around what the term actually means, and creates a more negative experience for people who actually are mentally retarded. At the same time, I think it’s worth noting that if something bad happens and somebody says “that’s retarded,” it’s safe to assume that they are almost never taking a shot at somebody who is actually mentally retarded, and does not mean any offense by it. It is simply a word that has for some reason been engrained into the language and is used on a regular basis.
The kid in the video requests for there to be “some different word other than retarded” used to describe people who are… I suppose, “mentally challenged.” Overall, while I agree with him that it could be hurtful, unnecessary, and is worth attempting to correct the fact that “retard” is used so often in everyday speech, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with somebody whose brain biologically operates slower than that of a normal human’s being labeled “mentally retarded,” since the term describes exactly the disability that individual has.

I’m really happy somebody asked this question because I’ve thought about this a lot, and I think the answer is: absolutely. If two people who are poor and can barely fend for themselves have twenty kids, it is unfair to each of their kids who are going to grow up with a slim to none chance of being successful, it’s unfair to the government who now has to deal with twenty more poor people, it’s unfair to the tax payers whose welfare money is going to each of these people once they get older, and it’s unfair to the parents themselves that just created a whole new set of issues. Granted, if you’re REALLY poor, you might not be able to afford protection. But how many “oops” babies do you need to have until you learn? No, these people deliberately and knowing fully had twenty kids. That is unnecessary, it is selfish, and it is harmful to society.
If we’re being practical, any family having twenty kids would probably be a detriment to society. With the economy struggling and resources running low, it’s a difficult world to raise twenty kids and the town that they grow up in would have to deal with that situation. But say you have enough money to put food on the table, own a car, get new clothes and shoes once in a while, and send your two children to school. Now you have twenty children, and the most you can afford is to put food on the table. Is that fair? Was it worth it?
I can’t really think of a reason why two people who struggle so much financially would want to burden themselves with a huge amount of kids. This can be where the Free Will and Determinism debate comes back into play. Obviously, those kids who are going to grow up in a huge, poor family are going to be far behind at the starting line, and it will be a struggle for them to rise above their circumstances and be successful. But why is it that we rarely see very rich families with ten kids? Or twenty? Is this simply a sign of better decision making by the upper class? People who support Free Will would say that the wealthy are rich because of decisions they made, and that having one or two kids was simply another good decision.
While I am almost always a proponent of Determinism, it is hard to argue that having that large of a family while that financially unstable is not Free Will. It is simply a bad decision that leads to further economic distress for the family, and certain economic difficulty for the kids in the future. That’s why I believe it’s a selfish decision.

I’m really happy somebody asked this question because I’ve thought about this a lot, and I think the answer is: absolutely. If two people who are poor and can barely fend for themselves have twenty kids, it is unfair to each of their kids who are going to grow up with a slim to none chance of being successful, it’s unfair to the government who now has to deal with twenty more poor people, it’s unfair to the tax payers whose welfare money is going to each of these people once they get older, and it’s unfair to the parents themselves that just created a whole new set of issues. Granted, if you’re REALLY poor, you might not be able to afford protection. But how many “oops” babies do you need to have until you learn? No, these people deliberately and knowing fully had twenty kids. That is unnecessary, it is selfish, and it is harmful to society.
If we’re being practical, any family having twenty kids would probably be a detriment to society. With the economy struggling and resources running low, it’s a difficult world to raise twenty kids and the town that they grow up in would have to deal with that situation. But say you have enough money to put food on the table, own a car, get new clothes and shoes once in a while, and send your two children to school. Now you have twenty children, and the most you can afford is to put food on the table. Is that fair? Was it worth it?
I can’t really think of a reason why two people who struggle so much financially would want to burden themselves with a huge amount of kids. This can be where the Free Will and Determinism debate comes back into play. Obviously, those kids who are going to grow up in a huge, poor family are going to be far behind at the starting line, and it will be a struggle for them to rise above their circumstances and be successful. But why is it that we rarely see very rich families with ten kids? Or twenty? Is this simply a sign of better decision making by the upper class? People who support Free Will would say that the wealthy are rich because of decisions they made, and that having one or two kids was simply another good decision.
While I am almost always a proponent of Determinism, it is hard to argue that having that large of a family while that financially unstable is not Free Will. It is simply a bad decision that leads to further economic distress for the family, and certain economic difficulty for the kids in the future. That’s why I believe it’s a selfish decision.

I’m really happy somebody asked this question because I’ve thought about this a lot, and I think the answer is: absolutely. If two people who are poor and can barely fend for themselves have twenty kids, it is unfair to each of their kids who are going to grow up with a slim to none chance of being successful, it’s unfair to the government who now has to deal with twenty more poor people, it’s unfair to the tax payers whose welfare money is going to each of these people once they get older, and it’s unfair to the parents themselves that just created a whole new set of issues. Granted, if you’re REALLY poor, you might not be able to afford protection. But how many “oops” babies do you need to have until you learn? No, these people deliberately and knowing fully had twenty kids. That is unnecessary, it is selfish, and it is harmful to society.
If we’re being practical, any family having twenty kids would probably be a detriment to society. With the economy struggling and resources running low, it’s a difficult world to raise twenty kids and the town that they grow up in would have to deal with that situation. But say you have enough money to put food on the table, own a car, get new clothes and shoes once in a while, and send your two children to school. Now you have twenty children, and the most you can afford is to put food on the table. Is that fair? Was it worth it?
I can’t really think of a reason why two people who struggle so much financially would want to burden themselves with a huge amount of kids. This can be where the Free Will and Determinism debate comes back into play. Obviously, those kids who are going to grow up in a huge, poor family are going to be far behind at the starting line, and it will be a struggle for them to rise above their circumstances and be successful. But why is it that we rarely see very rich families with ten kids? Or twenty? Is this simply a sign of better decision making by the upper class? People who support Free Will would say that the wealthy are rich because of decisions they made, and that having one or two kids was simply another good decision.
While I am almost always a proponent of Determinism, it is hard to argue that having that large of a family while that financially unstable is not Free Will. It is simply a bad decision that leads to further economic distress for the family, and certain economic difficulty for the kids in the future. That’s why I believe it’s a selfish decision.

I’m really happy somebody asked this question because I’ve thought about this a lot, and I think the answer is: absolutely. If two people who are poor and can barely fend for themselves have twenty kids, it is unfair to each of their kids who are going to grow up with a slim to none chance of being successful, it’s unfair to the government who now has to deal with twenty more poor people, it’s unfair to the tax payers whose welfare money is going to each of these people once they get older, and it’s unfair to the parents themselves that just created a whole new set of issues. Granted, if you’re REALLY poor, you might not be able to afford protection. But how many “oops” babies do you need to have until you learn? No, these people deliberately and knowing fully had twenty kids. That is unnecessary, it is selfish, and it is harmful to society.
If we’re being practical, any family having twenty kids would probably be a detriment to society. With the economy struggling and resources running low, it’s a difficult world to raise twenty kids and the town that they grow up in would have to deal with that situation. But say you have enough money to put food on the table, own a car, get new clothes and shoes once in a while, and send your two children to school. Now you have twenty children, and the most you can afford is to put food on the table. Is that fair? Was it worth it?
I can’t really think of a reason why two people who struggle so much financially would want to burden themselves with a huge amount of kids. This can be where the Free Will and Determinism debate comes back into play. Obviously, those kids who are going to grow up in a huge, poor family are going to be far behind at the starting line, and it will be a struggle for them to rise above their circumstances and be successful. But why is it that we rarely see very rich families with ten kids? Or twenty? Is this simply a sign of better decision making by the upper class? People who support Free Will would say that the wealthy are rich because of decisions they made, and that having one or two kids was simply another good decision.
While I am almost always a proponent of Determinism, it is hard to argue that having that large of a family while that financially unstable is not Free Will. It is simply a bad decision that leads to further economic distress for the family, and certain economic difficulty for the kids in the future. That’s why I believe it’s a selfish decision.

A couple classes ago, Sam made a good point when he said that a lot of people refer to America as “the greatest country on Earth” without ever traveling to different countries, or at least enough of them to make that statement. That being said, there are several reasons why I believe that America is one of, if not the greatest countries in the world, at least from my socioeconomic and cultural standpoint.
However your feelings may be about our country, it is hard to deny that we live in a unique nation. For the most part, we are free of tyranny, oppression, and have basic inalienable rights that we all are granted. We have the right to pursue happiness, as well as many other rights that most countries around the world do not allow. Our government is unique in the sense that it is a representative democracy, which means that the people don’t necessarily rule the land, but we decide who does.
However, my admiration for America stops there. The way we live in America is alarming, disrespectful, and inappropriate at times. We overuse resources, such as water, that other countries are in dire need of. We take hour long showers, leave water running, own swimming pools and hot tubs, run through sprinklers for fun, and spend a large amount of money purchasing bottled water when we can simply drink from tap. We eat horribly, and waste food. We have hundreds of fast food chains that through capitalism have broken off into thousands of competing restaurants and shops that makes us the most obese country in the world. I’d be willing to bet that University Park campus at Penn State wastes more food in a day than the entire country of Haiti does in a week. We throw food away after taking more than we can eat and don’t even consider that our excess living is leading to the misfortune and lack of resources for others.
It doesn’t stop there. We build massive SUV’s that chew up gallons and gallons of gasoline, while our government lies to us and partakes in years and years of war over oil (oh, sorry, I mean against terrorism).
To answer the question, I’m not sure that there is much we can do to change. Hundreds of groups have been here at Penn State, let alone around the country advocating for energy efficiency, oil efficiency, not throwing away excess food, recycling. Yet, people continue to act in the same wasteful manner, and indirect slap in the face to all third world and less privileged countries (which is about all of them).
The final thing that bothers me about the way we live is our media attention and public obsession with gossip and celebrities. It is very obvious that we don’t have much to work for, fight for, be worried about, or struggle for if we spend our time in our nice homes with big screen TV’s watching Simon Cowell judge on American Idol (he’s British by the way… go figure).

I thought the ‘King of the Hill’ exercise was an extremely useful presentation of what it’s like to be on top, and what it’s like to not be on top. King of the Hill showed that whether the power is obtained by luck or by skill, once a person or a people is on top, it is very difficult to take them out. The most important reason is because the people at the top control the ideology of the people at the bottom. Because of this, people will listen to whatever they say and assume it to be correct. This is why, despite having the man power to overthrow a leader, people usually don’t. For example, on a plantation, despite the fact that 15 slaves could certainly overthrow a white landowner, they either chose not to, or it never crossed their mind. Part of the reason was likely that they were uneducated, part a large part was because they bought in to the fact that whatever the white man said was true, and right.
Another reason we discussed why it’s difficult to overthrow someone who is already on ‘top of the mountain’ is because they make the laws and rules of the land. Because of this, they can make laws that would keep them on top. For example, Sam made me and one other guy step back from the table, possibly because we posed the biggest threat to his position at the top, and was able to selectively choose what people he wanted closer to him.
This exercise is applicable in the real world in many different situations, but certainly in American society. For example, when the Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves, the white people were still empowered, but the large population of blacks posed a threat. Because of this, many laws were passed to limit the freedom of the blacks, so that they could not vote (such as vote one of their own into office) or become as well educated as white children. If they were educated, they would have a better chance at becoming powerful. A key tool in obtaining power is wealth. Since laws were passed by the government, which was almost exclusively made up of whites, that forbid banks from granting loans to blacks, they could not start their own business, invest, or buy nice things. In this sense, their socioeconomic status was not as high as white citizens, which again made it less likely that they could have power.
The lesson in class taught us that in the real world, once a person and/or their people is in a position of power, it is extremely difficult for them to lose that power. They have the power to control the ideology of the land, the laws, and decide who can become powerful.