This is a very tough questions because I completely understand both sides of the story. I know why most people would not want to engage in such an activity and I also know why one might want to . I personally believe that it is all up to the individual. Some people are risk takers while some people are more passive. Its like Rosa Parks. She believed that racial discrimination is wrong and so she decided to break the law that was currently in place so she could prove her point. I am sure she was aware of the consequences of breaking the law but I believe that she accepted that possibility because of what she believed in. I also think that many people supported her claim but were afraid to stand up and do such a thing.
I think that we are in a similar predicament with illegal immigration. Especially the Mexican immigrants. if we look closely at the type of people who are migrating , we would see that it is poor people. Poor desperate people people are leaving their country our birth, not because they want to but because they feel they have no choice. I am sure that if things were better financially then they would stay in mexico or wherever. However some off the conditions that they live in is nothing short of in humane. When I see or hear about these situations, My heart aches. As a Human being I feel for these people. I know that they do not mean any harm when they come here. They do not want to steal anyone's job nor make it uncomfortable for Americans, They just want to live a better life. Unlike us, many of them don"t even aspire to be rich, They just want to make it. I sympathize with this kind of determination and heart. Therefore I would be willing to let someone like that cross the border illegally . Even though I know that I am breaking the law, I really think that making a family survive is worth it.
The other part of me that would propel me to help them is the fact that certain parts of America belong to Mexico. It is just like what Sam talked about with Iraq. We stole their resource and naturally we do not want to give it back to them. This while they think they are entitled to it. Even though I know that I cannot physically hand them the Land, I believe that helping them get here is a small payback. Imagine how we would feel if someone took our parents house and never gave it back to them? I know that I would be highly upset . Therefore the least I could do to is help them access what was rightfully theirs.

I have never really thought of nepotism and affirmative action as being the same thing ever before. This lecture really opened my eyes and made me realize that this is the case. In both cases people are being rewarded not on merit but because of who they are. Their identity is the deciding factor when it all boils down. With that said I do believe that in both cases it is really unfair. I think that we must be rewarded based on the work we do and not who we are. If we know that we are going to be successful because of other factors than hard work then chances are I will not want to put in the necessary effort in order to succeed.
However I do think that nepotism lowers the standards more than affirmative action does. With affirmative action one is rewarded based on the color of their skin but this is not the ONLY factor. Most affirmative action policies are meant to help students who are promising but not financially stable. Therefore students still have to put out some form of effort in order to be a beneficiary of affirmative action. Furthermore affirmative action is out of the hands of the student. It is by no way guaranteed to them. Not every single person of a particular race benefits from affirmative action. It is just like a scholarship, one might satisfy all the criteria’s necessary to receive the scholarship but it is still up to the scholarship committee to award the scholarship. Also if there is a scarcity of scholarships then some people are eventually going to get left out .This uncertainty causes minorities to work harder if they want to succeed. They cannot just sit back and depend on their race to get them to where they want to be.
On the contrary, nepotism works more in our favor it is all about who you know. Generally the people we know are the people who make the decision. Unlike affirmative action, nepotism gives us more of a hand on effect on our outcome. We can go to the person directly and beg them to make a decision in our favor. Naturally they are going to do this because of the relationship that we have with them. Also with nepotism, people in power tend to overlook our qualifications when making decisions. This has happened plenty of time with me. The people who I knew pulled strings that required me not to go through the necessary processes that other people had to. I feel like if people know that this is how things are going to turn out then they will be less motivated. I know that I sure wasn’t worried about boosting my resume when I went in search of a summer job, only because I knew the manager. In my humble opinion this is generally the case, Hence I conclude that nepotism lowers standards more than affirmative action.

When I first heard about this 29:1 ratio, I was absolutely astonished. I struggled to wrap my mind around the fact that this is indeed a fact. It really sounded like something one would hear in a game of Call of Duty or Battlefield 2. I do not think I would have realized how serious of an issue this was if Sam didn’t tell us to imagine ourselves as being from the Middle East. This is when it struck me! I began thinking about my Mother or my sister and brothers and myself. Americans are willing to send us to our grave to kill a “bad guy.” Why do we have to be sacrificed? How did we get involved in this situation? When I started to ponder these things, then I began to realize that this is a very sad and ridiculous strategy.
So when we go into their country and kill 29 civilians for each “bad guy” who is that going to benefit? In my humble opinion I would believe that such an action is preventing us as Americans from being attacked. We are fighting to preserve the Land of the free and Home of the braves. Therefore this is all in our benefit. On the contrary what will the people of Iraq hear on their nightly news?? They will hear that their neighbor and his whole family were killed on their way home from school. Did they cause anyone any problem or harm? Yet they were killed. As Americans we say “scarified” and it all becomes a numbers game. So when a 14 year old loses his parents without any valid reason do we think he is going to have a good relationship with Americans? Better yet if you lost more than one of your family members innocently, would you welcome their killer with open arms? I sure wouldn’t. Therefore we are just adding salt to the wound if we continue to take people’s lives like this. It is as if the value of a live is nothing but a statistic. I have realized that people like the saying “numbers talk” but it that number hits home that is when it stop talks and we want to take action.
Like Sam said in class about Patriotism, It all depends on where we are born. Is it because were good in the prior life why we were born in America? NO it just happened to happen like that. We could have been born in Iraq too and then we would be the ones dying for a cause that will not benefit us. In my humble opinion, such a strategy should have never been considered. It only stirs up more animosity towards Americans and that solves nothing. I just thank God that I wasn’t born because I know I wouldn’t take my fellows innocent citizens dying lightly.

This issue is very interesting and intriguing one to me, mainly because I speak a second language that not many people can understand. I was born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica and as such I grew up speaking Patios, the Jamaican dialect. This is not a language itself but a mix of English and other languages. Therefore I am naturally more comfortable speaking in Patios when I am around other Jamaicans. It is just inevitable. As expected, I have been at the center of this discussion. There have been a lot of times when my friend and I have been in conversation and people around us say we should speak English. What really bothers me is that Americans who speak only one language never really take the time out to think about why we speak another Language. As you can see…I am perfectly fluent in the English language, so there must be a reason why I chose to speak another language around my fellow Jamaicans. It is what makes us more comfortable! There are just some things that are best expressed in that native language. If I were to speak about Manning Cup or Bounty Killer and Sizzla in Standard English, then No one would know what I am talking about and I would still be looked at as out of the norm. The next issue is that people always assume we are talking about them. I just cannot understand why. Why do we always have to be the center of attention? I just don’t get it? Chances are If someone is going to talk something bad about you, then you probably did something to upset them and then you are in the wrong. I have never used my dialect to speak badly about someone because I just do not see the need to. It’s just not necessary. Our Languages are what makes us unique! It is a part of our culture and that means a lot to us. Therefore one can’t expect us to speak English every time someone who is not around us doesn’t understand us. That is just ludicrous. The real issue is within our own insecurities. Most of us just hate not knowing. When people say they feel uncomfortable because they cannot understand, makes me feel like the wish they could go around hearing and knowing everybody’s conversations. Now to me that is what is rude. My parents always taught me not to eavesdrop but that is exactly what most of us want to do. We throw around the phrase “mind your Business” so often but yet we do not want to do that. I feel that we should realize that this country is too diverse for you to hear English every day. One should just get used to that being the norm and go about our regular day, because that is what the foreigners are doing, contrary to what we may think….. We are NOT talking about you.

so what if they know both english and another language but just choose to speak another language? Is this disrespectful?

I really do believe that Barack Obama’s Presidency has helped the race issue in this country. He has done something that has never been done in our country’s history before. That in itself is a great achievement. I believe this really puts Dr. Kings’ dream into practice and help move our race forward. However I really do not think it has solved the problem of race. This issue has been going on for too long for it to just diminish with the snap of a finger. It will take time for us to get their but we still cannot ignore the fact that this is a milestone for the black race.
Barack Obama is an idol for many, a President, Father and husband but to me he symbolizes the true meaning of hard work. He is set apart from others because his background was so hard. He was never a very privileged child growing up and I think that helped to mold him into the person he is today. He is now an example that a young black boy or girl can use to model their own life. The issue is not that black people were not always determined for success or that they were lazy. In fact I think they are really hardworking n determined people. However they always had roadblocks. Every time they try to get somewhere there is always something or someone there to stop them. What Obama is, is a real life reason to believe in one’s self and ability. Before, one was always told to work hard and you will succeed but if they grow up seeing nothing but successful “white” people, then that notion will be hard to accept. This is a natural reaction though. It is very hard for child growing up to learn and understand things without witnessing it or learning first hand. Like the lady in the video said, when Dr. King was assassinated, young black men saw no hope for themselves. They say hope in the form of Dr. King but after he died where was it going to come from? That was the issue. Not only does it help black people but it also help to break down some prejudices that whites may have about black people. This shows that Black people are not always violent, they are not all dumb and they can indeed speak eloquently. They might not be accepted whole heartedly, but one thing is for sure, they are getting respected.
If we really consider that just about 60 years ago, black people were being lynched daily, and then we cannot really say this event hasn’t significantly helped the race issue. We are by no means there yet but we are definitely on the path to leveling the playing field.

I always knew that Penn State was a predominantly white University. I am from Philadelphia where there is a very strong presence of black people. I think it would be fair to say that the majority of Philadelphia is Black, at least where I come from. Therefore when I was browsing universities, one of the first things I looked for was the percentage of minorities at that particular campus, not just black people. I was not very astonished when I learned that the school was almost 80% Caucasian however I was a bit intimidated. It was very hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that I was going to be such a “minority” in every sense of the word. I was always labeled a minority but I honestly never felt like one. Like I said, I rarely saw white people in Philadelphia and the high school that I attended, there was only on white person. Therefore I naturally spent a lot of time trying to convince myself that this would not be an issue. I had to deliberately tell myself that it will be the same. However it was never the same.
When I first moved on campus, all I saw were Caucasians so I naturally made friends white them. The guys on my floor were all white and I initially felt outnumbered. My RA even made a joke about someone who was black to the floor and then at the end came to me and apologize. It was at that point that it began to sink in that I was actually a minority. I tried to put that out of my head by making a lot of friend with the guys on my floor. I did everything with them but it just didn’t seem like I was being myself. I felt like I was forced to be friends with someone rather than choose them because of values or similarities. I found myself doing things that I never would have done and I truly felt out of place.
I gradually met some African Americans and everything started to change. I felt more comfortably around them because a lot of them were indeed from cities like me. They understood the music I listened to and the way I dressed and many other things. I could actually be myself now and live the way I’ve always lived. That didn’t stop me from being friends with my white floor mates; I just didn’t go to their parties nor socials. I still go to games with them, go to eat with them and have lots of fun but I just missed the social scene of being In Philadelphia and the African American community gave me just that.
Now I rarely even realized that the campus is so “white.’ I am more comfortable around them now because I know that I am not forced to change my social behavior just to fit in. I can hang out with my white friends and still have the kind of social scene that I desire when I am in the black community.

i completely disagree with a statement like this and I believe it was asked out of ignorance. I do not say that with the intention to offend anyone but I just feel like the question was asked by someone who was under informed about the reality of racial preferences. We have NEVER lived in a world where someone who is not a minority was at a disadvantage and we are certainly not living in such a world today. We are getting closer and closer to equality everyday but we are not even there yet, therefore we cannot even begin to think that minorities are at an advantage.
If the only thing one should have gotten from this class so far is that racial preferences still exist when it comes to hiring people. Sam clearly showed us that people have done the studies to prove this. The statistics say that a white male with a criminal record is more likely to be hired than a black male without such a record. When I first heard and saw those statistics, I refused to believe it because I thought the world was way past those days. This is just one example that distinctly shows us that white people are at an advantage as opposed to minorities. Whenever we realize the extent that prejudices like these are still prominent, is when we will begin to see the real need for affirmative action.
Affirmative action is meant to level the playing field. It is obvious that the field is currently tilted in the favor of the Caucasian. This has been the case for a really long time. Whites continued to build on their supremacy while minorities were stationery. Do we really think that 60 years of affirmative action has overcome hundreds of years of oppression? I refuse to believe that this is the case. I have yet to see someone who is not a minority be refused an opportunity such as a place in college or a job. In fact I highly doubt that the person who asked the question knows of any situation like that either. Whether we believe it or not, we are living in a world dominated by White people. Look at Penn state for example. This school is made up of 13% minorities. How can we conclude that affirmative action is hindering non-minorities when we have statistics like that? If I was to offer my humble opinion, I would say that according to those stats, minorities are still significantly at a disadvantage compared to our white counterparts.
I agree that affirmative action might sometimes be unfair to one or two whites, however it is NOT the majority and that cannot be compared to the millions of minorities whose ancestors were once seriously oppressed for years! that very oppression is the reason why many minorities are still underprivileged today .

I do think it is selfish for people in poverty to have many children. However I first want to take the time to describe the situations that fall into this category of being selfish. If the parent is in poverty because of circumstances out of their control such as the loss of a job or death of the main bread winner of the family then this is a different case. In this case the Parents had already had their children and were above the poverty line before the any unfortunate event. The issue comes to the fore front when someone is in poverty at the moment, struggling to provide for themselves or even maybe one child decides to bring another human being into the world. In my opinion this is absolutely Ludacris. Situations like these really anger me solely because I cannot see any feasible reason for doing such a thing.
We all know that our children are our responsibilities! If this is not the case then those parents are excluded too and need to be educated. However if we recognized that as pro creators, we are responsible for the needs of not only ourselves but for others too, then I am addressing you. When one makes a conscious decision to have more kids with not even enough resources for you are they expecting a magic trick? How on earth will bringing a new child into the world possibly help your situation presently? I have heard justifications that they need the children to help work and eventually support them in their old age. If this is the real reason then they are even more selfish as they want to subject their kids to a horrible life just so they can benefit in the long run. If this is not being selfish then I do not know what is. This is selfishness at its peak; I would also go as far as saying it is cruelty!
I also want to clarify that by many children, I am referring to three or more. I am in no position to tell anybody that they should not have any children at all, because I know that many people dream about being a parent. However the line has to be drawn somewhere when it comes to being able to provide for them. I am also more lenient towards parents such as my grandparents, who were living in an era and community where birth control was not readily available. Therefore in order for them to completely ensure that they did not have, they would have to abstain. I do not think any married couple would do that. On the contrary, Modern day parents such as my one cousin who has 4 kids ranging from ages 16, 8, 5 and 2 really have no excuse. They are many different forms of CHEAP contraceptives available in this day and age. Why would you not use them?
I honestly cannot see why people living in such terrible state would want to subject their kids to that. It really puzzles me. Therefore I can only conclude that they are selfish, insensitive and cruel.

I do believe that it really is his flesh that you are eating. This is so because he is planting and harvesting our cocoa while he is bleeding. He is forced to work after he has been beaten very badly. He works all day in the scorching sun with scars and cuts on his body. He has no medication, no antibiotics or anything. How can u say that this is not his flesh? His skin is being torn up all for the sake of cocoa. If we think of it literally, you can imagine the blood from his wounds dripping on the ground while he tries his best to plant crops that he will never enjoy. These boys do work that will never benefit them at all. They do not know how chocolate taste or do I think they desire to do so. I totally understand why he would be mad at people who consume chocolate.