The only way I can describe what happened at the riot was that it was an experience. I did not expect it to get as crazy as it did with flipping the news truck, tearing down light poles and using mace and tear gas. There were thousands of people in the street and at Old Main and the police teams were just pushing students out of one area and then everyone would storm the other. Eventually, the riot focused in on the main strip on College ave, which is when the news van was flipped over and I saw the majority of the mace and tear gas being used. It would just turn into a mob of people running away from one place after tear gas was being sprayed, then they would double back along another alley and end up right back where they were. In all, the riot lasted about 2 hours and was finally cleared out when they brought police van to clear the street and they started forcing people out of the area by marching down the road and forcing everyone off the main drag. I’d say a vast majority of the people there were like me and just wanted to see the spectacle of it all, but even still, it was mayhem out there. The saddest part was throughout the riots, were the chants of “We Are… Penn State” that were going on in the middle of all the chaos, it seemed like many people were proud of what was happening and now that I’m back looking at the news coverage it’s making this whole school look bad as opposed to just the people involved and the football program. It’s obvious now that this scandal is going to follow this university for a long time and given the student reaction and publicity of the riot, it’s going to look bad for everyone. It’s all still a little surreal right now with how fast this has escalated and how in less then a week this whole university has been turned upside down and will most likely never be looked upon as favorably again. I know its still a few years away and this is all very recent, but I’m also wondering how this situation will linger as far as how a Penn State degree will look after this riot and scandal when applying for jobs because I’m not sure it will have the same prestige that it used to. This whole week will forever define my Penn State years and I’m always going to be a part of the student population that rioted after this whole scandal. I still have mixed feelings about the whole Joe Pa situation as to whether he should have been fired like this or not, but it seems like things are going to get worse before they get better.

For this week’s blog entry, I decided to respond to the video that is titled “How do you really feel about whites becoming the minority?”. I believe this topic was very interesting and quite frankly very surprising to me that this phenomenon is happening. I had known that there were more and more black and especially brown people being born in the United States every year, but to think that soon white people will be the minority in this country was a very shocking notion to me. To think that this country has evolved to the point of being a predominantly black and brown country just fifty years after the Civil rights movement was in full swing and just one hundred and fifty years since slavery of African American’s was legal is fascinating. As for how I feel about the fact that whites will soon be outnumbered by black and brown people, I am still not sure what to think. I am not sure how this shift in population numbering will affect me, or this country, and I cannot really form an educated opinion unless I learn more about this. As for my un educated opinion, I do not believe that things will change too drastically from my every day life. Although we may not be the majority race anymore, I still believe that whites will not be considered a minority, but instead just not considered to be the majority. The United States has long been known as the “great American Melting Pot” and this time has been an inevitability given our country’s way of life. I can see how many white people may be worried about this shift in population, but I feel that the majority of our country, white people included, are brought up in such a way as to recognize the difference between races and cultures, but not to be prejudiced against another just because of it. The truth is, there will be no real way to determine how this shift in population is destined to change this country until it actually happens. The biggest changes I could foresee happening would be in terms of government and popular elections. Although we have a black president at the moment, there is still a disproportionate number of white men that hold an office as opposed to other races. With whites no longer being the majority, other races including African Americans, Latino, and Asian people will begin to hold a more proportionate number of seats in office and therefore better represent the true population. I do not believe this will change things all that much, but it could be for the better if more diverse groups and opinions are being represented.

For this week’s blog entry, I decided to discuss the question, “Are people who hang out in mixed race groups posers?”. I think this is a very interesting topic that was brought up for a numerous amount of reasons. I would first like to begin by saying that I do not believe that people who hang out in mixed race groups are posers, although to some, it may seem that way. I believe a poser is someone who tries to give off an appearance or front of someone that they really are not. An example of this would be someone who is from a very wealthy or moderately wealthy family that tries to act like they are from the streets of a tough inner-city neighborhood or someone who pretends to be part of a group that they perceive to be as cool, even though they do not fit in to that kind of social standing. The reason I do not believe that people who hang out in mixed race groups are posers is because if that person is routinely hanging out with that group, then they must have some qualities that are in common with that group since the group still exists. If a person was a poser, I do not believe that they would be readily accepted into that group for long periods of time as the group would eventually determine that this said person was a poser and would no longer be accepting to them. As a white male, I cannot speak for people of minority status and how they view a person of their race hanging out with a group that is different from theirs. I thought it was interesting how our guest speaker on Tuesday brought up the argument that many people of his own race considered him to be selling out because he was predominantly associating with white people as opposed to people of his own race. As a white person, I do not believe I would view someone of my race hanging out with mostly black or brown people as a sellout or a poser, but would merely view it as that person may have a lot in common with that group of people. In my opinion, there are too many outside factors to call someone who hangs out with a mixed race group a poser, unless you know more about the situation. For example, where I went to high school, there were less than ten black people in my graduating class out of almost five hundred. The black kids did not have much of a choice than to hang out with people that were not of their race since there were so few to associate with. Overall, I think this was a very interesting topic that could be discussed further.

For this week’s blog entry, I decided to comment on the article from Cracked.com discussing the abstract idea of happiness and how the definition and perception of happiness has changed and evolved into how we know it today. Although this article does not specifically coincide with the course, I believe it is a very interesting topic, especially in the world of sociology, and does not get enough attention, as it should. I thought it was very thought provoking how in ancient times happiness was considered to be a product of luck and of the will of the gods and not about any factors that you can control. Eventually, throughout time happiness evolved into an idea that it is something that can be attained through actions you can take on your own and by doing certain things. I also find it intriguing that happiness is something can never be fully attained since it does not last for extended periods of time. This completely contradicts the modern belief that one must strive toward happiness in their life, because that feeling that one can describe as happiness does not exist in the way that we picture it. At best, one can keep attaining different situations of happiness based on achieving goals or having experiences in which one can experience different levels of pleasure. Another thing I found interesting in this article was that places with the highest suicide rate directly coincided with the states with the highest level of personal happiness. According to this article, this is because that people who are contemplating or about to commit suicide are striving toward the happiness of the others around them, and when everyone is at a higher level of personal happiness. Also mentioned in this article is that happiness is more sustainable through experiences, rather than buying expensive items or things that you think will bring you happiness. The argument made for this point is that experiences will only become more pleasurable over time as one will look back on those times with rose-tinted glasses and reminisce about how great those times were while when purchasing something material, one can see that item deteriorate and become outdated over time. I have found this to be true for me as well as the experiences I have had mean more to me than the things I buy or own because they have more of a sentimental value and are something that cannot be replaced. To go along with this, the idea of “what if” is one of the biggest detractors of happiness as one can always say things would be better if they made a different choice, but the truth is no one can really know. I thought this was a very interesting and well thought out article and I am happy that Sam included this for the blog entry this week.

First off, I would like to say that the “needy penis” lecture was by far my favorite of this semester. I thought it was very interesting to hear the opposite, female, perspective about living in a male centered world. I, for one, had never even stopped to think about how the world we view is so directly centered around the male spectrum and gives such little regard to the female needs and wants. There are many different topics to discuss when the topic of a male dominated and female disregarding world to choose from that it was hard for me to choose just one of them, but ultimately, I chose the one that hit most closely to home. The question, “Why don’t men sacrifice their comfort when going out while women spend much more time and effort on their appearance and often are uncomfortable in their clothing?” was a very interesting question asked by two females. I would first like to state that men do not always completely disregard comfort for looking good and some men spend a great deal of time on their appearance as well. Some men that I know often go out for the night in clothing that they consider to be uncomfortable. If it were up to some men, they would be going out in sweat pants, sneakers and a sweat shirt rather than going through the time of choosing a nice pair of pants, shoes and button up or nice tee shirt instead. On the other hand, I will acknowledge that the clothing that females wear is often much more uncomfortable then even what guys would be considering to be uncomfortable. I have witnessed girls to be dressed up in very, very short skirts and impossibly high heels to walk in, walking almost a mile outside to go to parties while there is ice on the sidewalks and the temperature is almost below freezing. As for why this happens, I do not really have a good answer as to why this is, but it seems that throughout history it has always been the females in society that are pressured in to dressing up as opposed to the males. While the styles have changed drastically over the years, it always seems that women are being dolled up in uncomfortable clothing to impress members of the opposite sex in the style that is considered attractive in that society. Whether it is something that is encoded in human DNA, or it is something that has been progressing and evolving throughout the ages is something that I cannot attest to. In conclusion, it is unfair and unexplainable why women go to such greater lengths to try and dress up and impress members of the opposite sex, but with the way our society is evolving, it may be something that could phase out all together.

First off, I would like to say that the Haiti project seems like an amazing project, and I am looking forward to being a part of it. What these entrepreneurs have done to help out the people of Haiti is nothing short of amazing. With the little resources they have, these entrepreneurs are able to create things and operate businesses that support themselves as well as making quality products. The projects that really stuck out to me were Sonia Joseph’s business of making insulated lunch bags, hand bags and luggage and Suze Fleuriza’s business of producing and selling candied peanut products. Suze Fleuriza seems to have a very stable business model and started her business from scratch. Although she doe not have much, she makes the most of it and has a business model in place to expand her enterprises to widen her customer base to surrounding towns and in schools for children. What she is doing is very impressive and has a high probability to succeed if she sticks to her plan. I was especially impressed that she started the business by herself and already has three employees that are working for her. Sonia Joseph’s business of making insulated lunch bags, hand bags and luggage is equally impressive to Suze Fleuriza’s business of producing and selling candied peanut projects. Sonia Joseph is able to make quality insulated lunch bags, hand bags, and luggage all while using a limited amount of supplies and one singular sewing machine. I know I am not able to see the products up close and in person, but from the video it seems as though the products are made very well and appear to be of high quality. I think the idea of the bags being handmade will also be very popular with her target market and has an opportunity to make an impact with her business. What impressed me the most about Sonia Joseph’s business is that she does all of the lunch bags, hand bags and luggage all by herself. She obviously is very gifted at her craft and has the potential to really succeed with her business. Over all, these entrepreneurs really impressed me with their creativity and resourcefulness and I have a very deep appreciation for what these people have been able to accomplish given their situations. Each and every one of these entrepreneurs have set very high standards for our group Haiti Projects, and it will be very hard to top or even come close to what they have accomplished. I am looking forward to discussing what our project will be, but I do not have any ideas that I think would be comparable to what these entrepreneurs have done already.

When Sam first posted the statistics that clearly demonstrated the positive correlation between a student’s family income and SAT scores, my immediate thought was that money did not have anything to do with a student’s ability to take a standardized test. My opinion was that just because someone comes from a more affluent family, does not necessarily mean that they have a greater chance of doing well in school. However, the more I thought about this statistic, it started to make much more sense, but not for the simple reason that they are more affluent, but because of the outside factors that having more money can have on a student. The most obvious factor being that by having more money, a student’s parent can afford to hire SAT prep tutor and send their children to a better school. As demonstrated in the Oprah clip shown in class, a student living in a wealthier area is given the opportunity to attend much nicer schools with a higher quality of education than those of schools in a poor inner city or rural community. This gives the students in the wealthier areas a much greater head start in learning from a young age as well as being given the tools to succeed that less affluent schools cannot afford. Aside from the obvious factors that coming from a wealthier background can have, I believe there are other key issues in play when discussing this statistic. Both of my parents are teachers in a school district close to Philadelphia with two very distinct sections concerning monetary standing. In one section is Lower Merion, which consists of hundreds of million-dollar or more houses and is home to many prominent doctors, lawyers, and businessmen. In the other section is Ardmore, which has some very nice areas, but is also home to some quarters that are considered very low-income neighborhoods. As teachers, my parents see the discrepancies of income even when students of both sections are attending a very nice school. On one occasion, my mother told me that it was near impossible to try to teach an eighth grader algebra when their main concern was where they were going to get their next meal. The difference in income is still readily apparent in a student’s learning environment even when they are attending the same school. While one student can afford to go to an after-school tutor if they are struggling, another might be scavenging just to get something to eat with school being the last thing on their minds. In addition, students coming from less affluent neighborhoods may not think that college is within reach for them because of the astronomical prices of tuition so they would be less motivated to study for the SAT’s, while in more affluent families, students are expected to go to college and take the SAT’s very seriously. With these vast differences between socio-economic classes, I do not believe it is surprising at all to see the differences between SAT scores between different family incomes.

When discussing issues about race, and more importantly race relations, it is inevitable that one thinks why these certain distinctions even matter at all. Throughout the class so far I have learned that race, as I previously perceived it, is not that clear-cut at all. In many of the examples, it was nearly impossible to discern which people belonged to a certain race, yet the initial opinions as to what I thought they looked like often times ended up being way off. Regardless, classifying people by race has persisted for generations and will continue to persist for the foreseeable future. The question “Why can’t we just be human?” is a very novel idea, but because of the many differences we can see in skin tone, facial structure, and other factors that play into identifying people by race, I do not see how we can disregard race all together. As Sam stated in class, categorizing people by race began when Europeans started to travel around the world and felt a need to distinguish one group of people from another. This was much easier to do and to rationalize back then because traveling such far distances was not very common and the mixing of races was not as profound. Today, it is much easier to ask the question “Why can’t we all just be human?” because we live in a global community, especially in the United States. One can walk down the streets of any major city and see people with a myriad of ethnic backgrounds from all over the world, and we have a better understanding that a person’s race does not encompass who they are. Just because someone is a different color than you, does not mean they are any better or worse than you because of it. I believe that racial integration as made us aware of how wrong racism is and what it can lead to, but to say that race should not be accounted for at all and we should all just be one human race is not practical. Race and ethnicity should still exist because it is a part of who someone is, but it is not the only factor in determining who they are. People can have very strong ties to their race and/or ethnicity because it can be a very important part of that person’s life and it should not be ignored. As far as classification of races goes, I believe it should be up to each person what they classify themselves as, because that is the most accurate way to see what people believe about their own race. While I do believe that we are all human and we should all be treated fairly and equally, I do not think we should all be considered one human race.

In this class, there are a lot of questions that I look forward to discussing, but due to the nature of the subject, I don’t know if there will be any right or wrong answers that I really want to find out. One thing that I really look forward to discussing is how different races and biases have formed and developed over the years and how they continue to change. I find it very intriguing as to how some races have developed the stereotypes and prejudices about other races and how they have persisted and evolved over the years. In my experience, it seems like many of the people that I know that I would consider to have strong racial biases have had those beliefs passed down to them from their families, but there must have been a starting point in their lineage to harbor such feelings. I also am interested to find out where many of the racial stereotypes that have become common place in our society first started. Stereotypes such as Asians being good at math and science, African American people liking watermelon and fried chicken, and Jewish people being cheap are from my experiences, not any truer for that race or culture than for any other that I have come into contact with. But for some reason, these stereotypes are burned into the culture and society of America as being common knowledge and some people would even tend to agree with them on a large scale. Although these stereotypes persist, it is interesting to think about how our perception of race equality has changed so dramatically in just a few generations and where it could stand in just a few generations from now. Back in the early 1900’s, African-Americans were considered a lower class of citizen almost without question, then in the 1960’s and 70’s the civil rights movement took hold, and now, just 50 years later we have an African American president in office today. Despite of this, racism and racial biases still linger to this day, but as each generation passes on into the next, it will be interesting to see where our nation stands on the issue of racism just a century from now. Although my questions about the evolution and development of racial biases and stereotypes are what I am most interested in, I am admittedly uninformed of the intricacies of race relations, and I am sure there are many questions and historical precedents I am not considering. I am glad I am able to take this class and be able to broaden my knowledge about these issues and form my own educated opinions about some of the most intensely debated subjects today.