My opinions on immigrants have not changed. To me people should be allowed to live here without being discriminated against. It is ridiculous that people who live in America feel threatened by these people who are just trying to do what is right for them and their family. If you are in a position where you think your job could really be threatened, work harder. I know that in some cases people may lose their jobs to immigrants because immigrants are willing to work for lower wages, but the percentage of people in our country actually suffering from this is low. From a first hand view, I have a relative who helps teach illegal immigrants English. I see this as inspiring, and not as an action working against our country at all. If you really want to look at the big picture, we are becoming more and more globalized, the more individuals succeed, the more success should spread, in a world of selfless people. Our country is just too self-centered and naive to be able to handle immigrants in the correct way. Hostility appears immature, fear of people who are fighting to live in better conditions in ridiculous. And as Sam pointed out, we’re actually all illegal immigrants in this country. Too bad many people in this country would not only reject that fact, but not even be able to grasp it.
On the other hand, my opinions on immigration are still not fully formed. I know that immigration is an issue for our country, not because our culture is truly threatened by it, but because of space issues, and taxes, healthcare, education and more. As far as policies that should be in place, I am at a loss. I obviously care about the well being of individuals, but I’m not completely sure how immigration affects the country as a whole. There’s a lot of contradictory data presented to us and I don’t feel confident choosing one side or another, or believing one side verses the other. As of now, I’m just hoping that as we discussed in class, this fear of immigration is cyclical, and eventually all the controversy over it will die down. When the world’s economy is back on stable ground, no doubt people will be less focused on the rate of immigration, and what to do about it. People will look towards anyone they can find to blame, it’s human nature, but it’s also something we, as a nation, need to get over. We were built on the idea that hard work will equal success, so we need to start living by it. Work hard, and you will find success, let others work hard, because that is what we promise.

I would definitely take advantage of nepotism if the opportunity presented itself and I have. I think most of us have. The largest scholarship I received was from my dad’s company, many jobs I’ve gotten I have heard about because of the people I know. Being connected is a huge part of our society. If everyone in the world decided to no longer benefit from nepotism then yes, everything would be more equal and people would actually have to show their worth through their skills and hard work. However, we all know that will never happen. It’s definitely who you know, not what you know, that matters.
Nepotism can be very frustrating when you’re the observer of it, or when you’re clearly on the losing end. I think that in getting jobs it does make some sense. Obviously if the person in charge of hiring knows you and knows first hand that you have a strong work ethic and are trustworthy, they will want to hire you instead of taking the risk and hiring someone they’ve never met before. People are going to choose to work with and be around people they know or have something in common with. Besides preference of who you’re working with, you’re going to want your friends and family to succeed so nepotism is really a natural drive.
There could be benefits from the lack of nepotism in the world. People in almost every career field would likely be more qualified, at the very least they would be equally qualified. You would know that everyone had gotten their job because they deserve it, and were truly the best choice for the position. When you were the one being hired you would know that you belonged there and weren’t being chosen unfairly.
Regardless, nepotism is definitely a part of our everyday lives and a driving force in the job market. The only thing I see as being wrong with it is the fact that it causes the same general type of people to dominate one area for quite a long time. If a white middle class man is looking to hire someone, it will probably be his white middle class friend. People tend to be connected with people like them socioeconomically, race wise, religiously and more. Nepotism will cause a perpetuating trend of the same type of people in one field. Because of this too, it’s safe to say that white middle-upper class people have the most unfair advantages handed to them. Since historically they dominate the job market in America. While it’s not fair, it’s the natural tendency of humans to help their friends and family, there really is no way to completely rid the world of nepotism.

While I don’t find it surprising that the ratio of civilians to terrorist is 29 to 1, I do find it disturbing and embarrassing. As a country, I would think our values would be pushing us towards valuing others lives more than that. I feel out of my league discussing an issue like this, as I do not know how things like this generally work, and I obviously can not say I have ever been in a situation where I’d have to make a decision like this. It saddens me to hear this ratio even has to exist. I actually do not like thinking about this topic because it frustrates me that this is how the world works. If people were intelligent and learned how to solve problems maturely and what not, maybe the world would not be in such disrepair. I understand how cliche it is to say that war should not exist, but I honestly think that it’s useless and a waste.
I think a big part of the problem with terrorism is that people think it’s more prevalent than it really is, and we are not educated about it enough. People make judgements, and begin to stereotype physical features, or religions, with terrorism instead of realizing that a terrorist could be a person of any race, religion, age, sex, etc. It causes more problems than it needs to. Terrorism ends up hurting more people indirectly than directly, as our fear drives their power, and our tendency to fall into generalizing people hurts relationships with other parts of the world.
If I had to give my own ration I really do not know what I would do. I do not think we should be in situations where civilians need to be killed to get the terrorist, although I know that is unrealistic. The problem with this whole thing is that I would imagine it has happened before that the twenty nine lives have been taken, and yet killing the terrorist was not accomplished. Twenty nine lives is a lot, and they are not fooling anyone by making the number sound smaller instead of choosing thirty. And anyways how often is a soldier going to sit there and count out that twenty nine people are around before they act. The rule is ridiculous and while some lives may need to be taken, no ration is acceptable. If innocent people day, guilt needs to be felt. Soldiers are doing their duty, and I know they need to, but you’re never going to kill someone and not feel some kind of negative effects, it’s natural. I trust that our soldiers will make the judgement call when in the situation, and that they wouldn’t waste unnecessary lives, that’s against human nature.

How I feel around people speaking a different language depends on the situation I’m in. More than likely two people speaking a different language around me will not make me feel uncomfortable at all. The only time it makes me feel a little on edge is if I feel like they’re talking about me, but that’s an extremely rare occurrence. When people have a private conversation, they normally do not intend for other people to understand or hear what they’re saying, so why does it matter what language they’re speaking. If I was in a room full of people speaking another language I wouldn’t feel uncomfortable, but rather frustrated and like I should put the effort in to learn that language.
I don’t see how Americans can be so adamant about people of other countries speaking only English when American tourists travel the world and speak only English in these foreign countries. Some Americans even get frustrated when someone in another country can’t communicate in English with them. It’s ridiculous. As a culture, this makes us look naive and ignorant. In general, Americans aren’t opened to learning another language, or immersing ourselves completely in another country. It’s sad because people from other countries are usually so into learning the American culture, and they make the effort to become at least somewhat fluent in English.
In high school, I had the opportunity to travel to France, Belgium, and Switzerland. Even though most people there (especially in the main cities) knew how to speak fluently in English too us, we all made the attempt to speak in French. Some people welcomed us and tried to help us with our speaking skills, others would explain that they knew English and as a result hint that they would rather just speak in our language. When we went to the smaller towns people weren’t as exposed to the English language, but took the time to try to communicate with us. From my experiences at least, people in other countries are much more understanding, and helpful to those who speak a different native language than themselves. As long as communication is possible when needed, I don’t see the problem.
In today’s world, everything around the globe is becoming connected. It’s almost harmful to your success to not take the time to learn another language depending on what field your in. Although regardless of career path it’s definitely useful. People in America need to be more accepting of other cultures and language, we are known as the melting pot after all. The point of our country is that we are a collection of many different peoples, we should be celebrating the differences rather than shutting them down.

Racial comments and slurs make me uncomfortable. It’s one of those topics that people have a certain way of thinking about that is just engraved in their mind. I hate things like that, the worst thing to talk about with people is a subject in which your opinion has absolutely no weight, and nothing you say will make the other person change the way they act. People who make racial comments and slurs are often ignorant, there is no other explanation for how they can treat people as if they are lesser than themselves. How can you not realize that everyone is equal regardless of skin color? When you look at what makes a person, skin color is such a small factor. Maybe they’re relating skin color to certain cultural or ethnic acts, but let’s be real, if you’re speaking in a racist way you probably aren’t smart enough to think about anything deeper than appearance.
In general, if I heard someone on the street making a racist comment I wouldn’t say anything. Honestly, I’m not that ashamed to admit it. I’m a very shy person and it’s not like it’s the subject of race I’m not sticking up for, it’s just the confrontation with a random person I want to avoid. If there was ever a time I witnessed a racist-based dangerous situation then I would try to take action, but as far as exchanging words is concerned I don’t think people should let themselves be affected. A perfect example is the article Sam shared with class, that the girl (whom I would assume is black) wrote to the truck full of white boys who yelled a demeaning racist remark at her. She took the experience and not only didn’t let it affect her personally, but allowed it to be a way in which she could educate others by making it public. Those boys in the truck should be embarrassed. Put simply, if you do something like that, you look like an uneducated and uncultured idiot.
The problem for me lies with some people that I’m friends with who have racial tendencies. My one friend and his father often make remarks that are clearly things that shouldn’t be said. To his father I say nothing. But I’ll call my friend out on it all the time. Same with one of my friends at Penn State. Even though they would never say something directly to a person of color, their jokes and the way they look at the world is definitely tinted by racism. The only thing I can do is try to explain to them why saying things comments is unacceptable. To answer the question, if it was a stranger I probably couldn’t bring myself to confront them, if it’s someone I know more personally, I’ll definitely step in.

I think that the way people look at diversity coming into college has a lot to do with their high school experiences. I think by that time a lot of people realize if there school is mostly white, or they notice that there are groups of black kids, white kids, and asians who are generally separated. At my high school I was in classes that I happened to have some diversity. While all in all my school was absolutely largely white, I had a lot of friends who were indian, egyptian, and asian. I loved hearing my indian friends imitate their parents accents, or my egyptian friends talk about going to Egypt during their summers. I had another friend who lived with his family in Greece every summer. Their lives were so different from mine and I enjoyed having them around me to learn new things and just have fun. However, I never put much thought into the fact that they were culturally different from me, and many of them had darker skin. Because of this going into college I wasn’t worried one way or another about the level of diversity, it was all the same to me. Looking back on it maybe I would have been less comfortable in a school that was much more diverse than my high school, I can’t name many times where I have not been in the majority racially.
When I was looking into colleges, diversity was not one of the main categories that I was concerned about when making my decision. I never really cared about the racial percentages, and didn’t even bother to look at those statistics. At one point I do remember my mom saying that a certain school I was looking at had a large minority population, and asked if I thought I’d be okay with that. I dismissed her and said that it wouldn’t bother me whatsoever and I stick by that. My final two schools I had to pick between were University of Maryland and Penn State. Honestly, at the time I wanted to go to Maryland more than anything, and if Penn State wasn’t such a cheaper option I would probably be there today. One thing that I loved about the atmosphere of Maryland was that it was much more diverse than Penn State. I was excited about the opportunity to be surrounded by people with such differing backgrounds. Today I can confidently say I can’t image being happy at another other school, but who knows.
Being here I do notice that so many people I see are white, while on my floor we have quite a few international students, and a few girls of color, that weirdly seems to be a rarity. The lack of diversity doesn’t bother me, but I think more diversity would create a richer campus experience.

Ever since I took environmental science this topic has been on my mind fairly often. One of the main focuses of the class was how the rate of growth of the population was affecting our world and the way in which we live. I can’t even tell you how often our teacher described the growth rate as a “J” shape, instead of the ideal linear, positive line of growth. Our population is growing exponentially, and sooner or later there will be too many of us for the world to be able to naturally support.
The distribution of the resources that we do have are already incredibly skewed. There is no reason for there to be so many starving people in the world when many parts of the world (especially America) are living well above their means. We throw out so many resources without batting an eye it’s disgusting. It is our way of life, which is not an excuse but rather an explanation. American’s like to go on long drives, wasting gas, eat whatever they want whenever then want it, leaving the excess behind, and in general do not often think about what they are wasting. What needs to happen is that the distribution of resources has to be evened out more so around the globe. The problem is going to be implementing plans to do this.
As far as completely running out of resources, yes, I guess one day that will be an extremely pressing matter. I think that as a collective group, humans are turning a blind eye to the problem because 1. No one can imagine a way to deal with it. and 2. most people who have the abilities and resources to fix the problem are not directly affected by it. The problem is huge, and probably should have been dealt with a long time ago, making it more manageable. For now I think people will continue to glide along without considering it too much, until the majority of the population starts to feel the strains of a world that is running out of resources.
I honestly think that the population growth rate does need to be controlled. Ideally, there would be a limit on how many kids one family can have, we all know having seventeen children is not going to exactly benefit you in anyway (see TLC). In the olden days people had large families so they could survive and run their farms. Today most people don’t rely on that, the average person is living in the suburbs or city, where kids are more a personal fulfillment than anything else. It gets tricky when placing restrictions on family size, especially in America, the land of the free. But something needs to be done.

As mean as it might sound, I do think it is selfish of people to have many kids when they are a poor family. The point of having a family is to provide a unit of security and to bring happiness, I would think more often than not poor families cannot provide either of these as much as a better off family could. This question reminds me of the women who had octuplets. She should not have even put herself in a situation where something like that could happen (as in taking fertility drugs) because she clearly would never have been able to care for all of her children. If she had not had her situation explode all over the media she would have had to fend for herself, undoubtedly with tremendous difficultly. When people who are poor make the choice to have a lot of kids, they are not thinking of the future, or of their kids. If they can’t even consider how their actions would affect their children before they have them, what does that say about how their parenting skills will be later? If people in this situation refrained from having many kids, maybe they themselves would have an easier time escaping poverty, and the size of that economic/social class would decrease in size. At least there is a chance.
I think that when poor families have a lot of children it could be for many reasons. One explanation applies to those poor families that became poor at the direct fault of the parents, as in lack of motivation or making bad decisions. For those families, I would say many of them are careless and do not think of the consequences of having a large family and how much more that will strain them. For other poor families, maybe some of them feel like the only way they can be fulfilled in life is by having a family, since they don’t have much else. Others yet probably have a large family because of lack of birth control (as it can be expensive) and bad luck. Really though, unless you are a family who had many kids while in a comfortable financial situation and then lost your money, it is in poor taste to have any, or at least more than one or two. It should be the first priority of parents to consider if they are financial ready to be able to support kids. If this is not considered, they are just setting their kids up for failure, as their lives will be harder and more stressful than the average kid. Some people overcome their poverty ridden childhoods, but most never climb out of the lower class.

On a day to day basis, I don’t think much about how privileged we are to live in America. Sadly, I’m sure that many people in our country are much the same. A majority probably doesn’t even realize how privileged we are when they do reflect on it. We are so fortunate to live in a country like ours, and yet we take it for granted every day.
When I really think about it. The way American people live is disgusting. We are wasteful, and assume that we deserve things just because. Not only do we throw away extraordinary amounts of food, we spend extraordinary amounts of money to take care of the waste. And we do this when other, less developed, countries are in dire need of provisions such as food, or other basics that we throw away much too easily and without thought. If people would only buy what they need we would be much more efficient and only be producing what we need, or we could at least find a way to get these less developed countries our leftovers.
Even though America is consistently up there in the ranks of the richest countries in the world, we somehow still have the most poverty of the developed countries. So, not only are we being greedy by not helping the poorer countries, we can’t even help our own poverty stricken citizens.
The issue of poverty is tough to beat. As was recently discussed in my Human Development and Family Studies class, the poverty line for America isn’t even accurate. They’re using an old equation to set the precedent and so even people who aren’t officially qualified as “poor” in our country are struggling to get by (and can’t qualify for aide). Now I know the question is how to deal with the poverty in the rest of the world, but the distribution of wealth is so messed up in our country alone how can we manage to even out the wealth around the globe at this point? It’s a tough situation because no matter what the solution is, it’s something that will have to happen over a period of time. We can’t just order people to give their money away, or put it into the market, in order to have an equal distribution. I honestly don’t have a solution to share, and I feel way to under qualified and under educated on the topic to give my opinion on a possible course of action. The best thing to do at this point, I believe, is to fix just that. Make sure people know what’s going on around the world, and take small steps towards at least assisting the people in poverty stricken countries. Being aware is the first step.

Sam's lecture this week really drove the issue of inequality into us. While people may disagree on what causes the inequalities, no one can positively deny that they exist, and that's a tough fact to face. Even though our world has progressed in so many ways, somehow we haven't managed to move forward in thinking. Being aware of the issue makes us partially responsible to working towards the solution. Therefore, yes! Knowing about inequality means we need to be active in changing how the world looks at people who are different to themselves.
As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "Nothing in the world is more dangerous than a sincere ignorance and a conscientious stupidity." Ignorance is what has caused all the inequality around the world, through the years. People thinking they're better than others because of their beliefs, or even their skin color. No one ever should have had the power to make the decision, as to who was to be on top. The ignorance in that lies in not only the people who allowed themselves to be divided, and pushed down, but also in that person on top, who has the audacity to think they are for some reason better than anyone else.
Clearly this question tied in really well with the King of the Hill exercise. As the paragraph before stated, it's all about who was on top, whether they got they because of skill, lies, or luck, none of it matters. The fact is that as humans evolved into what we are today, we should have eradicated the whole inequality mess. Anyone with a clear mind can see that humans, although not the same, are definitely equal.
Because of all this, every individual has a responsibility to fight inequality. Especially for people who are educated, there is no excuse. You can't fight the fact that there is absolutely no physical, or mental difference between people of different skin colors or religion that would make one lesser than the other. The whole thing, quite honestly, reminds me of George Orville's, Animal Farm. The line "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." How naive does that sound? Yet sadly that is what the human population as a whole sounds like to this day. We are hung up on the competition and think the only way to succeed is by keeping others down. Maybe we're afraid of having to really compete with these people, or maybe we truly are naive.
As far as making a change, I believe the best way is through example. If you don't treat people unequally, and stand up for those who are treated poorly, and others like us do the same, eventually things will change. Obviously there are more drastic ways to go about changing how the world works, but how often do sudden changes like that really work in today's society? The change has to come from each individual. People need to be educated, and actually see, and understand that the old way of thinking is wrong. There will always be the stubborn ones who can't wrap their heads around a new concept, but one day, I have faith that inequality will at least be at a minimum.