en-us https://www.intensedebate.com/users/2404552 Comments by abrown221724 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/21/would-you-help-out-or-turn-away-immigrants-in-the-poor-situations-we-saw-them-in-and-why-119-blog/#IDComment145287643 This is a very good question because before our conversation began about immigrants, I did not think anything of the fact that at one time my family and friends were all immigrants. when you think in this way, it gives a whole new perspective on the term immigrant. Honestly, after thinking about it in this different way, I would try my best to help immigrants that truly want to work hard and want to make a life for themselves in america. If my family was not given the opportunity to come here and make a living for themselves, then I would technically be in the same position as they are so giving them the opportunity that my family had would only be fair. There is a difference though between families that want to work hard and make a better life for their family and single persons that want to come and make money the wrong way such as selling illegal substances. There currently is some type of immigration problem in America with illegal immigrants that come to this country and wind up in jail. In Los Angeles I believe that there is approximately twenty percent of the people in jail are illegal immigrants which costs an incredible amount of money to keep them there plus the fact that it is an unnecessary problem with our disciplinary system keeping all of them secured. Other than that problem, keeping other immigrants out of this country would just be selfish on the part of the people that are already in this wonderful country. If an illegal immigrant truly wants to become an american, the right thing for them to do which I believe they will do if you help them is to earn their citizenship with the money they make here once they get a balance going with their work and/or family. That would show everyone that they truly did want to become and american citizen the right way, but they just needed a little time to start a life for themselves and earn themselves enough money to pay for the multiple tests and classes necessary to take to earn citizenship. Sat, 23 Apr 2011 03:58:34 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/21/would-you-help-out-or-turn-away-immigrants-in-the-poor-situations-we-saw-them-in-and-why-119-blog/#IDComment145287643 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/14/what-does-it-say-about-our-society-if-schools-are-more-segregated-now-than-in-the-1970s-119-blog/#IDComment143234178 I personally feel like the only way to end this is to in some ways broaden the zoning so that the high income schools and the low income schools do not have such a big line separating them and can mix to make all of the schools virtually the same. This is similar to what they did in the 1970's to get rid of the segregation in schools and to do it again would solve the same reoccuring problem. A perfect example in the media is the feature film Remember The Titans. The Alexandria, Virginia school named TC Williams was originally segregated and then combined to form a non-segregated school with high and low incomes the same. The success of this school showed in the success of their football team, with the team going undefeated in the regular season and eventually winning the state championship. If actions such as what this school had taken are implemented into the public schools of today, This problem could and more than likely would be eliminated again. Fri, 15 Apr 2011 22:17:30 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/14/what-does-it-say-about-our-society-if-schools-are-more-segregated-now-than-in-the-1970s-119-blog/#IDComment143234178 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/14/what-does-it-say-about-our-society-if-schools-are-more-segregated-now-than-in-the-1970s-119-blog/#IDComment143234145 To say that our society is more segregated in schools now than before does say a lot about our country and society as a whole. The point of the entire civil rights movement was to deplete segregation as a whole, which includes the segregation of people of color and white people. There is for a fact less segregation in most public places such as restaurants and such, but for some reason the segregation in schools stays the same. Why is this? It is more than likely because of the economic standing of different races and where the housing to house these types of income lie. In urban areas such as big cities, there is a wide variety of high income and low income families, but the housing for these incomes is all in the same place. Obviously the schools of these houses have zoning that lies only within certain areas, and that is why the segregation of these schools is so bad. It goes the same way with high income, public schools have zoning that only incorporates high income housing, which segregates the schools. Fri, 15 Apr 2011 22:17:20 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/14/what-does-it-say-about-our-society-if-schools-are-more-segregated-now-than-in-the-1970s-119-blog/#IDComment143234145 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/07/do-you-agree-with-foreign-aids-use-of-pictures-of-children-119-blog/#IDComment141153831 I think that Ernso brings up a good point that I had never previously thought of before, that the pictures of impoverished children send the wrong message. I always believed that the media cameramen would just take pictures of everything that they see, not being biased in anyway. That was an ignorant thought on my part because if you look at the past, the media has been biased towards just about everything. A perfect example is of the war in Iraq. The pictures that are portrayed to the American public are pictures of soldiers handing young Iraqi boys and girls candy bars, but what you do not see is the pictures of American soldiers in tanks running over Iraqi citizen’s taxi cabs who are just trying to make a living and avoiding trouble. If the American public were to see these types of pictures, the moods of most Americans towards the war would most likely change because then it would look like we are almost playing the bully in Iraq and that we should not be there because it is pointless. Another example is Vietnam. This war was one of the most historically opposed American conflicts in the history of the country, and a huge part of this was because this was the first war that the American public saw first hand through the media. For WWII and other previous, they could hear broadcasts on the radio about how the American military was taking over German and Japanese bases, but in no way could they see the true violence that most of the soldiers witnessed. If they did, again, the stance of the American public would most likely turn towards opposing the war instead of supporting it. The same scenario can be placed concerning the pictures taken in Haiti. The media essentially can control the American viewpoint of what is going on there by simply showing them the pictures they want them to see. When they show the public pictures of starving, malnourished children, Americans feel extreme sympathy for the Haitian citizens and are more likely to donate towards the cause of helping them rebuild their demolished cities and towns. If the media instead would show pictures of the Haitians rebuilding their infrastructure, the American public would most likely be swayed towards believing that the Haitians are okay and that they do not need help because they are doing it themselves. In a way that is a bad thing because they would not receive as much support from other countries, but thinking in a sense of a typical Haitian, they are far too proud to exploit themselves for any type of aide and/or comfort and sympathy from any other countries. Sat, 9 Apr 2011 03:14:47 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/07/do-you-agree-with-foreign-aids-use-of-pictures-of-children-119-blog/#IDComment141153831 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/24/has-barak-obama%e2%80%99s-presidency-helped-the-race-movement-119-blog/#IDComment137614829 With Barack Obama becoming president, being the first president that is anything but all white has helped the race movement but to be honest the presidency should not be about race. With him becoming president, the biggest positive it brings is that it gives children of color who did not previously have hope in succeeding the mindset that if you put your mind to it anything is possible. According to the video that we watched, during the civil rights movement and in times of racial distress, children of color feel as though they have nothing to live for so they mine as well cause problems and destruction because they have nothing to live for anyways. They feel like they will never amount to anything because no man or woman of color has. With Barack Obama being elected president, this should be able to completely change the mind of young children of color into thinking that anything is possible and they can achieve anything if they put their mind to it and work hard. It also might and probably should change the mindset of very young children of color. When we watched the video of the children of color picking which doll they believed was “good” and which one was “bad” per say, most of them picked the black doll and said that they thought that this one was the bad one and the white one was the good one. With Obama being elected president, hopefully it can show that the color of skin has nothing to do with what is “good” and what is “bad.” The president is a symbol for peace and justice, and with him being dark skinned, hopefully it can show children ad a very young age that the color of their skin does not dictate whether or not something is good or bad. In the conversation of older people of color, I really don’t believe that it should matter so much the color of Barack Obama’s skin, the presidency should not be about race whatsoever. The presidency should be about which man or woman can do the best job running the country. The president is a symbol and a representation of our entire country and our country is not one single color, so the president should not be looked at that way. The president should be looked at as a person who is the epitome of a leader. Color should only matter to younger children to give them a sign of hope instead of them thinking that they cannot make it in life because of the color of their skin. Once people of color realize this, the color of Barack Obama’s skin should not matter in a racial sense. Sat, 26 Mar 2011 02:02:52 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/24/has-barak-obama%e2%80%99s-presidency-helped-the-race-movement-119-blog/#IDComment137614829 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/15/how-do-irrelevant-racial-signifiers-affect-racial-stereotypes-119-blog/#IDComment135972990 The underlying racial signifiers have to effect racial stereotypes because they are used so commonly. When something is used as much as these are, it becomes second nature and part of our lives whether it be good or bad. When it becomes part of our every day lives is when stereotypes form because we group certain groups of people with things that we see some of them do. A perfect example is that all asians are smart. When there is an intelligent person who happens to be white, most people will call that person by their name, with the aspect of them being white completely out of the picture. If the intelligent student happens to be asian, most people will call them that smart asian student. If individuals happen to work hard enough to be an intelligent student and most of them are asian, a distinct stereotype is created. Most people would say that all asians are very smart and smarter than any of the other races. Simply because there are some of them that work hard and are noticed as being intelligent, the entire race gets grouped as being smarter. I have an extremely strong opposition to any type of stereotype, because I believe that every individual is different and that everyone works for what they achieve, whether it is academically, athletically, etc. When you stereotype someone, you take out of their hands the ability to achieve for the people that do not belong in the particular stereotype. What I mean by that is that for example, if you are a white basketball player and you are extremely talented, you are stereotyped against because most people would say that basketball at any level is dominated by people of color. The same thing is true for the business world and white people. They are generally involved as CEO and presidents of companies, but that does not mean that all of them are or want to be involved in business. It is a choice of someone personally but not a whole group of people but this is something that people do not normally understand or try and fix. People generally seem to group people together on what they see in some, basically to better understand certain races. The way the mind works to better understand unfamiliar situations and feelings is to group similar things together. This is exactly what stereotypes are, groupings of specific types of people or races to understand how they act and react to situations. To reiterate, this is something that I simply cannot stand. I believe everyone should be looked at as an individual person no matter what their race, so that everyone has an equal shot to achieve and succeed. Sat, 19 Mar 2011 03:52:21 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/15/how-do-irrelevant-racial-signifiers-affect-racial-stereotypes-119-blog/#IDComment135972990 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/02/do-people-feel-guilt-about-their-current-positions-when-knowing-about-the-disadvantages-of-the-freed-slaves-119-blog/#IDComment132461281 When it comes to feeling guilt about the current positions of freed slaves compared to my own position, there are a couple ways to feel about it but I would not say that guilt is the correct word to use. The only way that I would most likely feel guilty is if I was the one who was enslaving them in the first place and they were liberated from my control. To feel guilty pretty much means that you had something to do with the slavery to begin with. You could go on a tangent and say that everyone is connected because the demand of let’s say cocoa is very high so farmers employ slaves so that they can get enough people to work in the fields, but in my opinion that is not a very sound reasoning. The reason that the farmers captured slaves is so that they could make more money off of the cocoa because they do not have to pay their employers. It really has nothing to do with the demand or that people are buying the chocolate, but much more to do with their insatiable greed. This is why I do not think that guilty is the correct word to use in this sense. Of course everyone should feel compassion and pity towards these free slaves and want to help them, but guilty for the regular population of citizens is not the word to be used. The only case that I can think of when a person should feel a little guilty is when they have enough money to buy fair trade and they do not simply because they do not want to. That is just feeding the cause of slavery more and keeping the slave trade alive. The people that should feel guilty are the corporate owners and CEO’s of these companies that are buying their products well knowing that they come from slaves. They are the ones who are trying to save money by buying chocolate that is a little cheaper, only because the farmer can charge less because he keeps all of the profit for himself. These people should feel guilty because they are in a sense keeping the slave trade alive. I said earlier that feeling guilty means that you had something to do with the problem, and in this case the corporate owners did have something to do with the problem, because they are feeding into the problem. The people that should feel guilty by far are the corporate owners of big companies buying products from slaves. The general public, which most are unaware that they are even buying slave made products, should only feel guilty if they do know about the slavery going on and they have enough money to buy fair trade, but they choose not to because of their laziness. Fri, 4 Mar 2011 20:37:11 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/02/do-people-feel-guilt-about-their-current-positions-when-knowing-about-the-disadvantages-of-the-freed-slaves-119-blog/#IDComment132461281 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/24/why-are-black-and-brown-people-more-expressive-of-their-problems-than-white-people-119-blog/#IDComment130682543 I do not believe that black and brown people are more open about their negative problems, I just believe that it is in their culture to be more open and talk about issues related to them. This may also come because of their past issues with suppression. The civil rights movement brought back many freedoms and liberated people of color who were facing problems. This rights movement was only started because people took a stand for what they believed in and voiced their problems to the people and the government. If they had not taken a stand and voiced their opinion, who knows what may have happened. If they had not voiced their opinion, they may currently still be in the same position as they were before it. This may also translate into the future. If black and brown people feel as though they are being treated inappropriately, they may voice their opinion like they did in the past to achieve their goal. Sometimes this may be taken as excessive voicing of their opinion, but that is how they got what they ultimately wanted in the past. I truly believe that black and brown people do not voice their negative opinions more than anyone else, but that it seems that way because they are the minority and recently in politics, the focus has been on taking care more of the minority than the majority. Some cases prove this such as college scholarships just for the color of your skin. Just because they are the minority skin color wise, the government chooses to listen to their opinions first to protect them from the majorities opinions, which causes them to voice their opinions more. If you think about it in another way, such as you got what you wanted if all you did was ask, you would ask much more because you know you would get it. This is similar the case for voicing opinions. If the minority voices what they feel they need, depending on who is in power and what they believe, they have a greater chance of attaining it. It is not always the case because no one gets everything that they want, but if their opinion is voiced they have a much greater chance of getting what they want. It is not always black and brown people either who are the minority, it is also the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transexual community and many others that are the minority in America. It seems as though any time there is a minority in the United States they get treated with special advantages opposed to the majority. This is the direct reason black and brown people voice their opinion, because since they are one of the many minorities in the United States, their opinions that are voiced get heard and acted on much easier than the majority. Fri, 25 Feb 2011 20:57:27 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/24/why-are-black-and-brown-people-more-expressive-of-their-problems-than-white-people-119-blog/#IDComment130682543 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/17/how-do-you-feel-about-the-way-people-live-in-america-compared-to-other-places-around-the-world-119-blog/#IDComment129034908 There is a vast difference between the way everyone in the United States lives and people living in poverty in other countries. Ninety-seven percent of people in the world do not live as well as United States citizens and that statistic alone should say a lot about our (Americans) style of living. For example, many of the products such as electronics, tin, copper, cotton, and others are made and imported to the United States by slaves. I am not saying that there are not slaves in the United States, but if there are it is way less than some of the third world countries. The slavery problem in the sub saharan african countries and sub continental indian countries is so bad that it is documented by american reporters, which does not happen here. There are many ways that this can be changed, but it all starts to the people with money just like any other political dilemma. The first thing that people with money need to do is take initiative, because without the initiative to make a difference and bring some of the lower countries up from extreme poverty, there is nothing that can be done. The next thing that can be done is to eliminate the no pay slavery work. When a slave is used, the farmer that owns the slave receives one hundred percent of the profit while the slave gets none. This creates an extremely large border between the wealthy and poor of a country which puts the poor into even more of a depression. This is also how a country can crumble within itself, making the line between the extremely wealthy and the poor too large. The way that slavery can be slowed down if not stopped completely is to buy fair trade products. Performing this action eliminates the middle man, giving more to the workers which would in some cases be the slaves. The third thing that can and should be done is to support anti slavery groups and anti slavery bills in congress that would potentially eliminate the importation of slave produced goods. This would bring the prices down however, and in turn have the slaves work harder, but eventually the industry would slow down and less slaves would be needed, cutting down industries that use slaves. It might even persuade farmers to start paying currency for their work that they receive from slaves, which would therefore bring them back into the market with the United States as a major retailer. There are many ways to combat the major difference between the way that americans live as opposed to the way the rest of the world lives. The most important and vital though is to eliminate slavery in third world countries. Sat, 19 Feb 2011 04:22:10 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/17/how-do-you-feel-about-the-way-people-live-in-america-compared-to-other-places-around-the-world-119-blog/#IDComment129034908 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/10/do-you-identify-as-a-conservative-119-blog/#IDComment127466068 I would definitely still consider myself far to the right of the line and very conservative. You can make arguments that are very valid about determinism, but just like Sam said, once you know these arguments, you can build a solid foundation on what you truly believe in. Being liberal definitely involves more of a deterministic stance on what goes on in the world. While some of this stuff does happen, such as the color of your skin affecting types of jobs and other financial issues like that, I still strongly believe in going out and getting what you deserve using hard work as your motivation, which correlates with the right side and the conservative point of view. Sam brought up great arguments against free will, such as his example with the black painter who just could not get a job, reason looking like it was because of his skin color. These are still prevalent today but not nearly as much as it was before. If you realize that this still does happen and most likely will happen for a long time into the future, you can build your stance against determinism. A lot of the determinism argument, which is normally a liberal stance, implies helping the weaker and minorities, no matter what type of minority that is. They can be any skin color, but anyone that needs help is what liberals are supposed to help with. This does not normally happen like that because there are many people that abuse the privelage. There are rich people taking welfare all the time, which is a liberal created program. The same thing is true with the social security program, it was started to help the people in need during the second world war, but at this point and time it seems as though it will never stop putting us in debt and has plenty of people abuse it all the time. A more conservative approach to this is to only give them a certain amount based on their achievements. If someone wants to be successful, better than the situation they are currently in, they need to put in the hard work and take initiative to be better and to make a better life for themselves. That is the basis of the American dream, to come from another country to seek opportunity, work hard and make a life for you and your family. If you do not believe in at least a little bit of a conservative approach, you do not agree at all with the American dream, what so many immigrants strived to achieve. I truly believe when it all comes down to it, that if you strive to make a better life for yourself, you can put in the work and achieve what you truly desire. Sat, 12 Feb 2011 03:33:30 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/10/do-you-identify-as-a-conservative-119-blog/#IDComment127466068 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/03/do-you-think-race-can-stop-being-an-issue-in-the-future-119-blog/#IDComment126038737 Race has consistently been declining since it reached its peak, but to be honest Im not sure if it will ever completely disappear. It all depends on how you classify the word race. With my stance, I tend to always think biologically, so what I believe is this. Humans are just animals, they are very advanced animals but animals none the less. Instinctively, animals group with the same species as each other as well as animals with the same physical features that they posses. You would not see a lion and a tiger hunting for prey together, but you would see a pack of strong female lions hunting together. I do not believe humans are much different. They instinctively group each other with people that look similar to they look because they came from the same area on Earth and share the same customs. It gives any type of humans a sense of security and comfort being with people that share common characteristics. If humans are grouping themselves like this, there is an intrinsic motivation to group people that hang out together as one whole, so that they can make generalizations about groups as a whole and organize thoughts in their head. This is just the way the human brain works, it makes information as easy as possible to comprehend, and in this case the easiest way to comprehend different people is to group them together so that you know about them and their customs as a whole. If people act like the way they keep acting, people will continue to group and make assumptions based on race (which is a loosely based word to begin with). Sat, 5 Feb 2011 00:52:45 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/03/do-you-think-race-can-stop-being-an-issue-in-the-future-119-blog/#IDComment126038737 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/01/26/how-do-you-classify-yourself-119-blog/#IDComment124398152 To classify someone is to put them into groups that have been determined by society but also determined by physical features and one’s background. I feel as humans, we can choose to classify ourselves however we would like, but that is not the case with how society classifies us. I am a perfect example. My mother is from New York City and my father is from Lancaster, PA. I wound up living in lancaster, and for some reason society would classify me as a country boy or a farmer who is very closed minded and who comes from a very strict background. Some people will even go as far as to classify me as amish, simply because of where I grew up. This is not the case. I am actually and Italian-American and am Catholic. If someone were to ask me about how I would classify myself, this is what I would tell them. That is a perfect example of how society can influence people’s opinions of the type of person someone is even if it is not correct. Society would also come to a consensus that because I am from such a rural area in Pennsylvania, that I would never make it in a large university. This is also incorrect, because obviously I am attending Penn State University. Social norms given out by society may not always be correct, but it is what the majority of people believe. The point I am trying to get across I guess is that you can’t judge someone without speaking to them first and actually asking them about their social classification. To classify myself I would say that I am an Italian-American who is catholic, obviously I am a male which I did not choose either way, and I have tan skin but am from europe so I would be classified as white or the caucasian race. I am not the only example of society incorrectly classifying someone based on where they are from. From what I have observed being around cities at points in my life is that most people classify African-American males and females from inner cities as Democrats. I can assure you that not all of them are democrats but that is what society has chosen for all of them to be classified just because the majority of them are classified that way. There are also many places in America that are predominantly republican, and just because the majority of the men and women living there are, society classifies all of them as republicans. This can be very offensive to some people but on the other hand some people will just pass it by and explain to them that they are not what society has classified them as. It all depends on the type of person that they are. Classifications are widely assumed in society but the only way to really classify someone is to ask them yourself. Fri, 28 Jan 2011 19:58:01 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/01/26/how-do-you-classify-yourself-119-blog/#IDComment124398152 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/01/18/what-do-you-think-blog-2/#IDComment122899014 I think that what he did was controversial in a sense but at the same time what he did doesn’t surprise me because what he mentioned at the very beginning of class. One of the first things that he said during the first class was that he is not ashamed to speak about any type of race because the more you speak about it the more you become accustomed to what people believe is a racial comment. The activity brought up a great point as to how race is a man made creation and has not always been around. He challenged students to speak what is in their mind, showing that in any student in the back of their mind, racial profiling is programmed. A great example was placing the native american woman with the asian students simply because of the physical appearance. The reason for that is because different types of appearances are often associated with race. Because of this fact is why race has formed. Another great point that this exercise brings up is that it does not matter what type of student you are, race is associated with all types of people. 4.0 students still grouped classes of people together based on such things as their skin color, nose structure, eye shape, etc. This is not to say that students with sub par education would not do the same thing. In my opinion, I believe that people with a lesser education than a college student would group people by their race much more than students with a college education. The activity brought up a thought question as to whether or not people with certain physical features group people together in different ways than others. What I mean by that is an example of an italian and a french person, would the italian person group people together more on their skin color and the french person group someone more with their nose structure? There really is no way to tell other than trial and error. Sam Richards is a very controversial person to some people, but to people that are more accustomed to not grouping people together, he may be less controversial than previously thought. He’s used to people grouping by race and with his activity, he showed that people are not normally as correct as they believe they are. Example would be a girl with red hair, typically thought to be from Ireland or the United Kingdom, but actually from Iraq. Pre conceived notions do not work most of the time for “race” or whatever it is considered. The physical differences come from a specific places on earth, and it shouldn’t be grouped with race. This is what the activity showed. Sat, 22 Jan 2011 02:15:38 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/01/18/what-do-you-think-blog-2/#IDComment122899014 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/01/10/last-name-%e2%80%9cb%e2%80%9d-%e2%80%93-intense-debate/#IDComment120986302 soc 119 Thu, 13 Jan 2011 03:25:54 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/01/10/last-name-%e2%80%9cb%e2%80%9d-%e2%80%93-intense-debate/#IDComment120986302