I love the idea of children learning Mandarin in high school. I don’t know much about the business marketplace and how it will affect our standing in business in a country, but it should be an option. In my high school we had French, Spanish, German and you could take Latin but it was only reading and writing. I feel like all we get in high school is languages and history from the USA and Europe. The world is a lot bigger than just the US and Europe, and kids are not getting the education on the rest of the world that they deserve. I feel like I have been shorthanded in regards to my education. When I was done with high school I knew almost nothing about China or the rest of Asia or Africa. Two of the largest continents in the world and all I knew was that they were there. I have recently started reading about Asia and the different countries over there just because I don’t know anything about it. It is interesting to see all the different cultures and customs. I will be taking Japanese in the fall and hope to study abroad in Asia in the near future. There is so much history, much more than the US has, in the other countries around the world.
Kids in school, and even in college are not being taught about the rest of the world. For example my friend was in a class and the professor asked the class of 60 people if they could name one ruler of any country in Africa that has ever ruled. He also told the international students not to answer because he knew that they would know. There was only one international student in the class. The rest of the class couldn’t answer the question. He asked the international student and he told him three current leaders of countries in Africa. I don’t understand how our school system can let this happen. It seems that every other country around the world has a better educational system than the US. I don’t know if we are just not pushing our children to learn more, or if we are just learning different things, but I think we need to learn more, and I think Mandarin seems like a good place to start.
I don’t know if I am just weird or need more of a challenge but I felt short changed in high school, and my high school is well known for its academics. The more options we can give our students young the more well rounded I think students will become. We need to branch out from the USA and Europe and China seems like a good place to start.

I feel bad for this kid because I think I know where he is coming from. My father is Hispanic and my mother is white, I look Hispanic but I was raised by my mom and her side of the family. I don’t know Spanish, I don’t know the Hispanic culture at all, but people look at me and think I do. An example of that would be when I was living in Orlando. There is a huge population of Hispanics in Orlando. I was at walmart doing my shopping and when I got to the checkout the cashier started speaking Spanish to me. I had to stop her and tell her I didn’t know Spanish, she said “but you’re Hispanic aren’t you?” I told her yes but I didn’t speak Spanish, her response to that was, “oh you really should learn.” And that wasn’t the only time I have gotten a comment like that from other people in the Hispanic community. I am not sure what to categorize myself as. I look Hispanic, but when I put Hispanic down on an application or other paperwork I feel guilty because I am not part of that culture at all, I consider myself part of the white culture.

I am not saying that I see myself as white, like we were talking about in class, but that is the culture I was raised in so that is what I know. I grew up in PA with an all white family who all spoke English. When I am in a new place and looking to make friends I tend to go towards the group of white people, not the group of Hispanic people. And I usually feel uncomfortable in a group of Hispanic people. In Orlando 3 of my roommates were Hispanic, and they were from Puerto Rico and spoke Spanish and everything. I did not hang out with them there, I felt uncomfortable and out of place with them, I just couldn’t fit in. I had tone other roommate that was white, and we were like best friends. Its not that I didn’t like the other girls, its just that I related with my white roommate better.

I haven’t really thought about what that means for me, I never thought felt the need o belong to a racial group, to fit in with one completely, but after Sam went over that stages in class I am beginning to wonder where I fit into all of that. One of the stages for people of color was to immerse yourself into your culture, but what culture would that be for me? I don’t really associate myself as an Hispanic even though that’s what I look like, and I am part of the white culture but I’m technically only half white and I don’t look white. Am I just doomed to a life of racial confusion?

I think this is an interesting topic, probably because I am half white and half Hispanic. Usually when I think about it I think of myself as Hispanic, not white. I think this goes back to in the old days of extreme discrimination if you had one drop of color in you, you were considered colored, not white. I do not know if this is right but I agree with this. If your multi racial and you look brown, you are. It would be wrong to say you are white, you can say you are also white, but not just white. Growing up you still had to deal with discrimination and everything else that comes with having a darker skin color, so why would you consider yourself white? I think it is weird that his friend didn’t know what to answer when Sam asked for the white people and then the Brown people to answer. To me he would obviously answer when all the brown people did.

Also during my life time it has been more beneficial to tell people on applications and job interviews that I was Hispanic even though I am both. I think this is changing but so far I think it has helped me. I think this also contributes to my feelings about multiracial people. I have been saying it “official” on documents, so it is bound to influence my personal feelings.

Also something I find interesting is all the people that don’t consider themselves multiracial. I bet only a few people in our entire 750 student class are all one race. I remember when Sam asked all the people that are multiracial to raise their hands in class, I don’t know if people just didn’t want to admit it for some reason or if they just don’t know because their parents didn’t tell them, but I can guarantee that the true number of multiracial people in the room was at least triple that. Are people ashamed of being multi racial? Do they think that it somehow says you aren’t pure if you are? Even if someone is “white” they are probably a mixture of a bunch of different races that are white.

Again I don’t understand why his friend had a problem figuring out how to answer, I am the same as him and I don’t consider myself white. I think it is the same today as it was back then, if you look brown you are, no matter how much white you might have in you. This might be something we need to work as a country, or this might not be causing a problem at all. After all this affirmative action stuff goes away and people are just people, I don’t think we will have to worry about it.

This story is truly amazing, Yvrose is an amazing person, and I think there are a lot more amazing people like her out there in the world going unnoticed because they don’t have the money to stand out. And let’s face it, you need to have money to stand out in the world on your own.

It’s hilarious that people go to college to learn these kinds of things and spend thousands of dollars to start a business doing the same thing that Yvrose is doing with a 5th grade education. I do think that college is half learning the terminology of your field and half actual knowledge that you will need, but she did it all by herself.

The question is, if she was born in the US and given money and opportunity would she be a ridiculously rich and famous business women, I don’t think so. I think she is the way she is because of where she was born and how she was brought up. She has different motivations than college students in the US do. She might have been successful if she was born in the US, but unless she went through something that gave her motivation and drive to do the things she is doing now she wouldn’t be any different than anyone else in the US. She is a poor Haitian women with kids to feed and send to school, so she does what she can, and she does it very effectively and in a smart way. If she was born in the US and had money and went to college she most likely wouldn’t have kids at a young age, she probably would have parents that would take care of her, and she would not have any of the motivations that she has now.

When people are desperate their true potential reveals itself, but most people in the US don’t have that moment of being truly desperate. The people that do, however, usually rise above the rest of us. If you look into the lives of most of the successful people, not their kids, but the people that make it by themselves, they have had some moment in their life where it looked like all hope was lost. I used to get discouraged as a kid when I began to realize this because I said I’ll never be successful because my life was to good. I never had anything horrible happen to me so I will never be rich or famous. It is that motivation that drives people to go beyond the limit set by society. Everyone always argues about the nature vs nurture thing, well I think its both, and if you don’t have that specific kind of environment your nature won’t matter, and that is why it is amazing when we find someone like Yvrose out there.

This is ridiculous. I don’t understand why the united state would spend so much time and money trying to deport the mother of 2 kids in a happy family. There are so many same sex marriage couples tat should be broken up or have their kids taken away, lets not break up the good happy families because of prejudices.

There is a reason why church and state are separated, and this is a damn good example of one. Marriage is a civil union, when the state has to sign off on a marriage license the church should have no say on who is and isn’t allowed to get married. When what religion you are starts to interfere with your rights to have a family and live happily you know something has gone very very wrong.

This family is just one example of how keeping church and state not being separated is running peoples lives. The church is extremely judging and choosy. If you do not follow their rules than you aren’t going to heaven so you are just not a person worth caring about. Our society can not be run like that, otherwise good people will get the brunt everything. Same sex couples are NOT a threat to the church or anyone else! When it has nothing to do with you stay out of it, and when one person loves another person and wants to spend the rest of their life with that person it has nothing to do with anyone else.

People that don’t support gay marriage need to watch this video and then reassess their position. Who would follow a god that condemns people for being a loving happy family. And what society would tear this family apart because they don’t hold a piece of paper saying that they belong in this country. This country only exists because many people came here from all over the world. It is not right to deny people passage into our country just because we think we have enough people.

And what about those kids in the video, they had to witness their mother getting handcuffed and dragged out of the house, you don’t think that is going to scare them for life? When they think about our system and our government in the future do you think they are going to support it? The one child was brought to tears just talking about it after the fact, the kids had no idea why their mother was being taken away, and if they knew they probably would be even more appalled. I doubt any one of those kids will become a politician and I would be surprised if they didn’t end up leaving the country when they grow up and living somewhere else.

First off I would like to say that I have seen Avatar and that I agree with David Brooks assessment of the film. I felt like they were saying white people are bad overall but there are a few that good, so focus on them please. Overall the script of this movie was an extremely basic one. The characters didn’t have very many layers, it was very predictable and nothing very out of the ordinary happened within the confines of the story. But if the main characters were Asian or African or another color or race people wouldn’t have liked the movie as much. We like to think that we don’t notice the color of people’s skin, but we do and it effects our thoughts about the what we are watching.

Think about it, if the guy who saved the Na’vi was black or native American or asian in the film people would take the message as something completely different. Everyone would be asking themselves what James Cameron was trying to say, instead of how cliché the script was. I can grantee that white people wouldn’t have liked the movie as much and it wouldn’t have made as much money as it did if the main character wasn’t white, and for that matter if the main character wasn’t a white male. They need that pat on the back, the assurance that even if the military is bad, or the scientists are corrupt that there is still such a thing as a good white man that can live among nature and not destroy it.

When we get right down to it this movie has been made a thousand times throughout the history of movies and it never changes. The person that has to be the one to save the “lesser race” has to be the race that is at the top of the chain right now in people’s minds. And so far that has not changed from white since forever. I don’t know how white people became the head race in people’s minds today, or why all the other races seem to play into this idea, but if a movie tried to challenge people’s everyday moral and expectations it wouldn’t be as big as James Cameron’s Avatar. Part of the reason people like Avatar is that it doesn’t challenge anything, you can simply sit back in your seat and enjoy the movie without getting pissed off at someone else’s interpretation of the world.

I find this article truly hilarious. To think that someone could be doing something so innocent and have it be looked upon as something so harmful. If I was a passenger in the plane I would be worried too, but I think I would get more details before I landed the plain and handcuffed everyone. Sure they asked him what he was doing, and he told the truth, so why ask him if you weren’t going to believe him in the first place.

I think our world has just become so complicated, it’s so complicated and different that people can’t even be on a plane together without someone thinking people are going to die. I think our whole world just need to relax a little and have a little more faith in the human race. We are all human and we all have the same basic needs. Its hilarious when people get hung up on things like land and religion, these things are not tangible, you can draw a line in the sand but that doesn’t mean you own it, the earth is the earth. Religion is worthless so I don’t know why people get hung up on it. But that’s beside the point, the attendant should have asked and believed him, and if they didn’t believe him they should have inspected it before they landed the plan made a huge deal out of it.

I also think it was funny how his family didn’t think it was that big of a deal. Even his Rabbi said he probably shouldn’t have done that. His mother even pointed out that the kids were only handcuffed for a little while, as if it was no big deal. I’m not sure what my mom would have done but I’m sure she wouldn’t have been that relaxed about it. I’m not sure if she was that relaxed about it because she really didn’t care that much, or is she did care but wanted to put on a good face and show the public that it wasn’t a big deal.

I think this is just an example of what happens in the US everyday, just on a broader scale. We have so many cultures in the US, so many different people, but no one seems to care. People here should be jumping at the chance to get to know other cultures, other cuisine, food, languages and traditions, but we only seem to want to stay within our own. Your world might be good for you, but that doesn’t make it any better than anyone else’s, In the US especially we almost need to branch out and learn about others. We are the United States, not individual communities tolerating each other side by side.

cartoons

First off I want to say that my thoughts are with those that have suffered and are still suffering in Haiti. I could never imagine what they are going through and I don’t think many people ever will. So stating that, I don’t know what seeing that kind of suffering would do to me or my beliefs about god and Jesus. I am not religious and I don’t think religion has a place in modern day society, but I think when modern day society falls apart (like in Haiti right now) the people need something to turn to. When it seems no one is there to help, or not enough people are there to help, you cant just give up. People need hope and I think the idea of God and Jesus give people that when they feel like they have nothing else to turn to, as well as others turn to their gods in times of crisis.

On another note, I also know people who claim to have God and Jesus in their life, but like to ignore the teachings that come from them. I know someone (I will not name names) that says she doesn’t watch the news or read the newspaper because its to depressing, she doesn’t want to know about it. When I told her about Haiti she got mad at me, she said “I don’t want to hear it.” I told her she could help by sending money to aid in the relief efforts and she said that “they are all dead already so what’s the point?” and then she went on to say that she is a poor college student and needs to keep all the money she has (as she left to go buy concert tickets). She claims that she is Christian and she follows all the teachings of the Bible and that she is a good Christian. But how can you be a good Christian and ignore the suffering of other people because you don’t feel like listening?

I do think that suffering is a universal thing that makes most people feel bad and want to help. The situation in Haiti makes you look at you life and make better choices. Does it make people believe in god? I don’t think so. But people will turn to who ever they can to keep that feeling of hope alive, we all need to know someone is looking out for us. I don’t think any “all powerful being” came down and decided to make an earthquake in Haiti and kill thousands of people, but I do think it is a wake up call to the rest of the world. God is not going to save these people, other people are going to save these people. When we choose to ignore what is going on, we are condemning the people of Haiti to death, we need to know what’s going on and we need to know how to help. Relying on some “being” so save these people is only killing them.