I originally was not enrolled in this class at the beginning of the semester but my friend convinced me because she had heard great things about the class and we both needed a few more credits. After the first class I knew that it was going to be a class that was unlike any other I have taken and was something that I would remember as a part of my time at Penn State. I thought Sam was interesting and engaging from day one and could tell that he genuinely cared about teaching us something and changing our opinions of the world around us and the people we interact with everyday. I think one of the most important lessons that I will take away from this class is that our ignorance to other cultures and types of people is a problem. That may seem simple and obvious but I can honestly say that Sam brought to light for me how ignorant I was about the struggles of other races and cultures in America but also of groups that are different than me such as homosexuals and the lower class. I also found the discussion groups to be extremely beneficial to delving deeper into these issues and seeing what my peers were thinking when it comes to social problems like the ones we discussed in class. I found that, contrary to what I thought originally, other people my age do feel passionately about these problems and for the most part held similar views to my own. Prior to this class I had an attitude that our society is in no way perfect, but this is just how it is. Now I see that my generation has the opportunity to look at these problems in a new way and finally take steps to change them. With each passing year we grow more tolerant of certain issues, but some simply stay the same. It is up to us to start crossing those lines and getting to know our fellow human beings. I truly believe that more education and understanding of the world around us would lead to more peace all over, and that is something this class taught me that we should all strive for. The one class that really stood out to me was when Sam discussed social class in America. I was taught a lot about these issues in high school and already shared many of Sam’s views on the subject, but I know that many people my age do not. I loved how Sam explained it so thoroughly and was able to change people’s minds who thought they already had their minds made up. That was one of the best days of class for sure.

I think it is obvious why it is hard for Americans to put themselves in the place of an Arab’s or Muslim’s experience. However I do not think that this is exclusive to Muslims only. It is hard for anyone to try to picture and experience of someone from another culture. I feel that this is especially true for Americans. As we discussed in class, for some reason Americans feel that our culture is the best and that we do not really need to try and empathize with other cultures because ours is just better. Obviously, this is not true, but it seems to be the unspoken consensus of the American people. Not just for Americans, but for people in general it is hard to forget the biases we already have and the assumptions we make on a daily basis. I also think that Muslims in particular have a culture that we really don’t understand and that can be frightening to some people because of the reputation that Arab culture has in the United States. A lot of people see Arab culture as violent and harsh and that they hate Americans. This leads to a lot of misunderstanding and many people not only not knowing how to put themselves in these peoples shoes, but also not really wanting to. I also know many girls and women who think that Arab culture is outdated and does not treat its women well which another reason why they may not want to understand the differences between the two cultures. Also like I said before, many people including myself do not really understand a lot about Arab culture and though I try not to, its hard to ignore the stereotypes that we hear everyday and what we see in the media. I think that in all honesty the only thing that is really holding me back from understanding other cultures is myself. All it takes, which is what Sam says all the time, is to simply reach out and talk to people of other cultures. Traveling there is obviously ideal, but that is not necessary to start making a change now. There are people all over, especially at Penn State that have experiences that are different from my own but I have to admit that I rarely step outside of my comfort zone and my own group of friends. I think that this class has really opened my eyes to how much I don’t know about pretty much every other culture besides American. It was just something I did not even realize that I was ignorant about because I didn’t think it was a problem to not know about the experiences others go through. However, Sam has explained a lot about how ignorance leads to intolerance and that is the root of a lot of the problems the world faces today with hate. I hope Same has more speakers and real life people come in to talk to us about what goes on in other countries and cultures.

I find it amazing that there are still so many people of all ages that hold on to the idea that being gay is a choice. I think that by choosing to believe that it is a choice, people can somehow find it easier to place blame on homosexuals for choosing to be the way they are, which is “bad” or “sinful” in their eyes. I find this totally outrageous for many reasons but mostly because the people that say it is a choice are basin that fact on nothing. It is the same for heterosexuals and homosexuals. I am straight, but I did not get to a certain age and decide that I would be attracted to boys. I was never told who to be attracted to or how to feel about either sex, it was just something that was a part of me that I never questioned. I believe that it is the exact same for homosexuals, except for the fact that they are made to feel bad about the way that they are. And for those who think it is a choice I don’t understand why they think that a person would choose the harder path in life with so much opposition. What would motivate a person to simply choose to go against the social norm if it truly doesn’t matter to them either way and they can just be either gay or straight? It is just something that doesn’t make sense to me. I also just do not understand why people care so much about something that has no impact on their lives at all. If you are straight, what difference to you is it if your neighbor or classmate is gay? People just like to be high and mighty and tell other people that the way they are living their lives is wrong. I just don’t get that, people can do pretty much whatever they want and if it doesn’t affect my life at all then why does it matter to me? I think also that homosexuality makes a lot of people very uncomfortable for some reason and I guess that is because it is less common to see and people do not like things that are different. This is most likely another reason that people look down on it and take comfort in the fact that they think it is a choice. So they can feel better about looking down on gay people because they made that choice, so they should deal with the consequence that people are going to look down on them. Again, I find this infuriating and I think that everyone really needs to get with the times and realize that people are incredibly complex and that being gay is first of all just a reality that people need to get over and that just because a person is gay doesn’t mean that is all they are.

Honestly, while the efforts of my classmate are admirable I do not think that this small choice is something that would make a huge impact on the global marketplace. This is simply because something as small as one person’s cell phone is not going to end slavery in any way. In the four and a half years that he has saved his same phone I can think of probably twenty-five people I know that have bought or received at least three new phones. Especially as new technology continues to come out people that have phones that work perfectly well want the newer ones with better features. A difference could be made if way more people decided that they would forgo having a newer phone to try to make an impact on slavery in others countries that is connected to our technology. However, I have to say it but this is very unlikely. People in this country, especially people my age are obsessed with their cell phones and other technologies and we all patiently wait for each new version of each device to come out. A lot of people do not even know the impact their cell phones have in other countries. With all that said, I admire his efforts. It is because of people like him that any change is able to come about. I feel the same way as I recycle my plastic and paper. Am I really making a difference? Honestly, a lot of the time I feel like I really am not. This does not mean that I shouldn’t do it though. Like my classmate, I would rather make some small difference rather than contribute to the problem any more than I already do in my everyday life. Like most things we discuss in class, I think this is an issue of being uninformed. I think that if we were all a little more aware of the impact of our actions and the real ways that we could or make a change a lot of people would be more likely to help. Many people maybe do not decide to recycle or keep an old cell phone because they do not want to inconvenience themselves for something that probably will not even make a difference. I think that if companies or non-profits explained more thoroughly the work they do and how it all works that people would be more likely to inconvenience themselves to help someone else. There are many things that we all contribute to everyday that we do not even realize is bad. Honestly, before I took this class I did not really think that getting a new cell phone was a bad thing. As I said before I think Sam’s whole point in everything we talk about in class is that we all just need to be a little more aware of what is going on with the rest of the world.

When Sam explained that our beliefs are often not based in fact, but rather on misinformation I totally agreed. This is something that one of my high school teachers would often talk about and it really made me see things in a whole new way. Sam gave the example of the children getting abducted, and many people in the class originally thought that you should tell your children not to ever talk to strangers, however I knew the statistics previously and understood that the safest course of action would be to ask for help. This was a perfect example to show how we often have irrational fears that are not based in fact. There are tons of examples of things that people are scared of when simply getting into a car each day is much more dangerous. We often hear something once and adopt it as a fact. Sometimes our opinions about an event or group of people is based on the opinions of others that seem to be correct. And when you adopt a pattern of beliefs and of thinking a certain way it is easy to forget that you might have to check your facts or listen to the opinions of others. For me, I often listen to the first opinion I hear and kind of run with it. Especially when it is a topic that you are very unfamiliar with, it is easy to simply adopt a stance without really learning from both sides of the issue. Also it is much easier to follow what the general opinion or consensus is on an issue than to go against the grain and do your research and maybe find that you disagree. It also makes sense to agree with the opinions of your parents and friends. For example, when it comes to the upcoming presidential election, a lot of college age people want to vote for the candidate that their parents are voting for. Though it might not be right, it kind of makes sense. If an individual has little knowledge of a topic it is easy to say, “I trust this person and their opinion so I will just agree” without looking into themselves. And this goes for everything from racism to politics to simple day-to-day issues. In order for this problem to be helped or even solved it is important for people to do their research before forming their opinions and also it is important for people to be open to changing their minds on certain issues. Like I said before, it is easy to be set in your ways and to have strong opinions but when new information presents itself, you have to accept it and be open to change. This is not hard to do, but will be worthwhile.

In class when Sam asked us to take the poll talking about if we think people’s children are entitled to something that was violently taken from their parents I didn’t really know what he was trying to ask. My answer was no because the question without any context seemed like an obvious answer. However, after he started to describe how Native Americans had their land taken violently from them and their children have no access I realized that they should have rights to that land, and that it never should have been taken in the first place. Today we do not think that Native Americans have any right to the land they lost because now we consider it ours. Just because something happened a long time ago does not mean that we should accept it as something that it right. I think that was Sam’s point in the lecture. It is our ancestors fault that these people are living in these terrible conditions and mental states and it is our fault today that we are not doing anything about it and not really even thinking about it. I will admit that this is the first time I really have thought about the struggles of Native Americans and our roles in this today. I had no idea that they had the highest suicide and alcoholism rates in the United States. And it is no wonder that this is the case because they are born into a situation that they did not create and have to live with the consequences of the actions of a few who felt that they were more entitled. However, it is hard to find a solution to a problem like this because no one today feels that it is his or her direct obligation specifically to help the situation. The fact is though that we are all responsible to right this wrong. Even though I did not specifically contribute to this problem, I am contributing now by letting these horrible things go on. The Native boy who spoke to our class was also a very interesting and real life example of what life is like on the reservations. Though I was a little confused by his views on women, it was cool to see someone like me that was in a situation as serious as those on the reservations today. He made the whole thing seem real and he explained how sad it is that people as young as thirteen are killing themselves because they cannot deal with the pressure and realities of living in such extreme poverty. These are things that no child should ever have to deal with, especially at the hands of our ancestors that felt the land should belong to them for no real reason besides that they had more power.

Pretty much every decision I have ever made has affected my life in some way. However, there are definitely bigger and smaller ones. I would have to say that the biggest decision I have made so far is the decision to come to Penn State. Like everything in life, this decision was based on my own free will and also on outside factors. I actually always thought of my decision to come to school here as my own and while I did choose freely where I wanted to go to college, it was definitely more based on other factors that were outside of my control. If I had not gone to my high school, I may not have even gotten into Penn State and then obviously it would not have been an option at that point. There was also the influence of my mom. I originally did not want to apply to Penn State but my mom influenced me to at least consider it, so I applied. Had I not applied, I obviously would not have come here. There is also the fact that I was born and grew up in Pennsylvania. If I did not live in Pennsylvania, I would not be able to afford school at the out of state tuition rate and maybe I wouldn’t even have wanted to come because most of the people that go here are from Pennsylvania. Also related to money, if my parents could not afford it or were not willing to pay my tuition I would not have the opportunity to be here. My friends were also an influence. If none of them had chosen to come to Penn State, then maybe I wouldn’t have either. This prompt made me think about all the ways that choosing where to go to college was not really a decision all my own. There are many many things that could have prevented me or encouraged me to go to school here, but I always thought of it as a very personal decision that I made on my own based on my own wants and needs. I think that this was Sam’s point in class when he was polling us and using different examples including the two students standing at the front of the class. Every single decision we make is based on our circumstances and on influencing outside factors that we may not think about while we are making these choices. This is why he was saying that while free will obviously has its place because we do make our own decisions every day, it can never fully be free from the influences of factors outside of our control. We only control our fate as much as we can, but for the most part we are not totally in control.

In class when we did the “guessing game” at first I thought it was kind of pointless and that Sam was just trying to do something a little more interactive than usual to get people interested. However, then I saw a boy I went to high school with and I realized that I have known this kid for like ten years and I honestly had no idea where he was from. Then when the girl with the 4.0 GPA started to randomly guess where each of these people was from I realized that she had no more idea than me where they each were from. In addition, all the people around me in class had no clue either. Then I realized the point of the exercise. No one in our entire class that I could see knew where any of the people at the front of the room were from. This “guessing game” was supposed to show us that we are playing a guessing game every single day in life when we just assume or guess we know where people are from or how they identify themselves. Sam gave the example of, say a person has some sort of prejudice against Chinese people and he goes around seeing all of these people that are Japanese or Korean and thinks they are Chinese. Those people pay the price for that person’s ignorance. And we don’t even take the time to notice the differences between the countries. Once Sam said it, it was so obvious, the South Korean boy looked so completely different than both of the Chinese girls, but the people guessing could not tell the difference and neither could I but it is because I have never really paid attention to these obvious differences. People can always distinguish between Italian people and Irish people even though many of them look similar. This is because we try to notice these differences and we remember them. I know so many people that use “Asian” to cover pretty much anyone with that skin tone and “Asian eyes” even though as we learned there are tons of countries that have people that look like this and they are all completely different. We even looked at the fact that Cambodia is technically an Asian country, but we would never really call a Cambodian person, Asian. Something that stuck out to me was a boy sitting near whispered to his friend, “ I thought that you had to have slanty eyes to be Asian” Asia is a part of the world, not a facial feature. There are Asians who have these features, and those who do not. This “guessing game” opened my eyes to how lazy I was being and will hopefully help me to remember to pay more attention to all the differences there are between Asian people.

Art and music are two universal connecters. Through art in general and music we can bridge the gaps that divide us. This is because music doesn’t know race or ethnicity or handicaps. Every different type of person can like any type of music and not have stereotypes or racial barriers hold them back. A great example of this was the performer we saw in class Omar Offendum. When Omar explained his background and how he felt like a part of two feuding communities it showed me that there are people that can feel ties to two different places. Omar’s music combines his passion for hip-hop music and rapping and his Saudi Arabian background. Omar explained that after the attacks on the twin towers on September 11 his music changed. He said that people began to refer to him as that, “Arabic rapper” instead of just another musician. I thought that was very interesting and it was something I had never thought about. Aside from music I’m sure there were many people that noticed a difference in their identity after September 11. Many people were probably referred to as, “my Iranian doctor” or “middle eastern teacher” when before they had just been a doctor and a teacher. Omar’s example showed that these differences don’t have to exist. He uses his music to bring together his two cultures. I was really surprised and impressed when he began to rap in his native language Arabic. This is not something I am used to hearing in rap music and it is an interesting way to introduce a little bit of Arabic culture to mainstream hip hop music fans. His lyrics also say a lot about the pull between his two cultures. When he says, “its hard livin in the West - when I know the East got the best of me” it is clear that he struggles with the two. I thought this line was really powerful and he goes on to explain that he feels both blessed and cursed to be a part of both of these cultures. I think what he is trying to say is that he feels fortunate to understand both sides of the story when it comes to east vs. west but he also feels cursed because he has to understand the struggles of both sides. Besides just music, art can be a universal connector as well. This is because, similarly to music, people of all races, genders and backgrounds can come together and appreciate the same art. Art can also be created by any type of person. Paintings and sculpture and other types or art all point out the similarities between us as humans and tend to leave out the differences we have. Art is something that can bring people together and make them see that we really are not all as different as we think. The point of art is to make us feel things, and no matter who you are there is art being created out there that will touch you and make you feel a certain way.

I thought that what Sam said about paying attention to our differences to make them a part of our reality made a lot of sense. As we discussed in class many times, it is easier for people to ignore the things that do not apply to them than to confront them. This is because we don’t know how to confront those things if we are unfamiliar with them. We used the example of white people in class. It is easier to just pretend that race doesn’t exist than to distinguish between them and possible hurt someone’s feelings or cross a line that we didn’t know we were crossing. This is the same as the wheelchair example as well. It is easier to pretend that you don’t notice someone has a wheelchair (even though you obviously notice it) than to risk offending them or alienating them. As a girl mentioned in class, we also have no idea how different people are going to react to different things. One handicapped person may expect and want people to hold open the door for them while another may find it offensive and feel that they don’t need anyone’s help. I think Sam is right in the fact that it doesn’t make sense to pretend that we don’t notice these obvious differences. Pretending we don’t see that other people are different from ourselves only perpetuates these problems of misunderstanding and ignorance. How can an able-bodied person like me ever understand how a person in a wheelchair would like to be treated if I pretend I don’t notice that they are or am too afraid to ask or talk about it because I don’t want to say the wrong thing? I think another point made in class that was very important to understand is too not get offended by others lack of knowledge of your situation. In general, especially in this class, I don’t think that anyone’s intentions are to offend others. I think we all took this class so that we could learn how to talk about these things without stepping on anyone’s toes. We took this class so we could stop pretending that we don’t see that others are different from us and so that we could learn how to go about talking about these differences and hopefully by the end of this class those differences wont be as obvious to us. It is stupid to think that I will ever, not notice that someone is a different race as me or that they are in a wheelchair but I hope that at some point these differences wont be the first thing I notice about a person and they really wont matter to me.