I also enjoyed the lecture about Haiti that we had today. We really are very negligent of the caliber of the disaster and by comparing it to a September 11th in our country it really beings to hit home. We can see how devastating it really was for people to recover from something so terrible its almost unimaginable. I am grateful to see the resiliency and drive that these people have to continue their lives in spite of disaster. They just want things to go back to normal and even though that probably won't happen for years down the road there they are trying to make do with that they have. I am happy to see that they are continuing business and doing all that they can do to make things a little better for themselves, their families and their economy to gradually recover, slowly but surely.

I agree as well. We are a powerful country and we do have many more resources and opportunities that help us to become successful in the society that we live in today. And your right, its hard not to feel a little superior to other people, but does that really mean we are racists? I mean I would say its more ethnocentric than racist to be honest. I mean as long as we care about other countries and we don't try to take them over completely and make slaves out of the people, I don't see why we should necessarily label our selves as racist. Its crazy to think that because we are to the point where our standard of living is much higher than some of those developing countries and we have a sense of security about that fact and we feel lucky to be able to have freedom of speech and all sorts of other things that we are discriminating other countries and other peoples because of race. I am thankful everyday that I was born in to America and realize how lucky I am to be here. I think that as long as we are thankful and don't hurt or feel more rightful to certain things than people of other countries we are not racist, we are human.

That truly is amazing. People are so resilient even in the toughest times of their lives and they continue to thrive and make do with what they have, even if they have lost everything or almost anything. The lecture in class today about Haiti really hit home for me. I guess I had become one of those people who had let the knowledge of yet another natural disaster effect me for a few days and then moved on with my life because forgetting about it is much easier to do than to actually get up and do something. Yeah I contributed money and prayed for the victims, but I didn't really think about all of the people who died and were injured and lost someone in that earthquake. I feel like the lecture today helped me to see how sad the situation there is. There are so many people who don't have anything but the knowledge that they survived the earthquake and some of their families, friends, relatives, coworkers all could have perished in that disaster and they were lucky enough to survive. All of the pictures of the people who were standing on piles of rubble, looking at their world now and how it once had been was truly eye opening. I cannot possibly imagine the pain and the hurt of the people who lived there who barely caught a break before their world was destroyed yet again. In that situation however I would be doing the same thing that all of these people have been doing and that is making the best of it. I can't say that I know what its like to go through that but I can say that I empathize with the people who are just doing whatever they can whether that be making a beauty salon or charging cell phones.

It depresses me to think about the things that we talked about in class about the fact that many of the NGO's are just making a big problem bigger by hurting the economy. I never thought of it that way. I just assumed that by handing out rice and water and other necessities to the people there was the best we could do. I never took the standpoint of it hurting their economic status. I understand now that what we need to do down there is more intensive than just funneling money to ourselves and organizations that send things. I know that being a poor college student I can't really afford to do much because just going down there and helping would be over my budget. All I can hope for is that other people who are pretty well set and have extra time on their hands would consider doing more for the people and at least maybe give a little time to help these people. It just is the right thing to do. People were talking in class today about why they should care about these people and what happening and Sam is right. The whole, do unto the least of these is what you would have done unto me thing comes right back in our faces. would we not want other countries to help us in our times of need? Of course we would, so why would we not care about something terrible that has happened to another country... especially one that is right outside of our boarders. Its amazing how ignorant people can be even if the problem is pushed right in their faces. Yes we have our own problems but what about these poor people living in tents... for possibly years? Who is going to stand up for them?

She is very right. Women are all beautiful no matter what they look like. Its not just women either, men are handsome in some regard as well. Women have such a hard time finding their place in an ever changing society because the thoughts and preferences of people will always be changing. Its easier to say that women just need to realize that they don't need to conform to societies norms of beauty and just be happy with themselves because being a woman I know that is extremely hard to do. The constant pressure to be something that you can only dream of being is hard to do and also putting those thoughts out of your mind is harder yet. But she is right, women are all beautiful in every way that they allow themselves to be. They are each unique and big, small, tan, pale, kinky hair, straight hair, slanted eyes every women has features that make them who they are. I just wish it were easier to realize that in our society.

We have made a good thing into a bad thing with this war. We may have helped lives and done some good things for our country as well as theirs, but in the long run we have created more havoc and chaos by just having our presence in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq. The things that our soldiers have done in order to get "prime suspects of terror organizations" have just created more people who are willing to lay down their lives for their country and their cause. We know that everyday we kill people who are completely innocent from the crimes that we have placed on certain people in their country and we are willing to keep doing that until we get where we want to be with our oil and our resources that we are taking from them. When will it stop? Will it ever stop? Will we have to kill everyone in their country in order to get what we want? Its pathetic how much we are willing to do to have one resource that we can live without with more research. The truth is we're making it worse, but who knows whether leaving will make it worse or better.

This lecture did give me a new perspective on what the people over there feel like everyday when we come over and invade their land, kill their friends and families an is essence ruin their way of life so that we can continue with ours. Its sad to think that it takes so much pain and suffering of others in order for us to feel comfortable and safe in our own home. People are used to thinking that the people over there who are fighting against our soldiers and against our cause are bad and evil people. They really are not bad, nor evil people they are just fighting for what they believe in and trying to protect their families and their rights to their own land. Its hard to think in the same way that they are evil when you put yourself in their shoes and see what we are doing, us, the Christian Invaders who have come to steal their resources. All they want is peace, all they want is their country back to the way it was and to have their families back together their home fixed from shambles and safety for everyone that they know and love. We went over their for our own selfish cause as the main reason and though I have so much respect for our soldiers and our leaders I believe that we have taken our interests too far. We have stopped thinking about how much we are effecting the lives of all of those people, arabs and middle easterners alike and begun to only continue for our own self interests. I know that wars are going to happen and that there are some things that a country as powerful and needy as ours needs to survive and prosper, but we didn't weigh all of the costs that we have ensued to these people over the years. We have created this monster of ourselves and we have been over there so long that we can't just reverse the happenings. We messed up by taking our self interest as more important that civilians lives in another country. Nothing is more important than the lives of other people. For the most part, people don't know the whole story and are brainwashed to think that everything our government does is right, when in truth it makes mistakes and so have a lot of people and we've gotten to the point where we should just stop, but we can't. We can see what its like for them, we can see how we are trying to make a difference but in truth are just justifying our reason for ruining the lives of other people... I understand how they feel. I can see and imagine their pain and I wish we would stop this war but can we now that we have gotten ourselves so far into it? Who knows...

Yeah, you weren't kidding. This is disgusting. I can't believe that there are people who actually support this kind of game in any situation. I don't care if the person playing it has a lot of sexual tension or whatever in their life and this is the only way they can relieve it, its wrong and they know it. I mean to be honest its not as bad as it could be but the truth is there are way too many innocent minds who could be corrupted by a game like this. I mean in most cases parents will buy there kids whatever video games they want just so they don't have to deal with the whining of the child anymore. People don't realize how much dangerous stuff there is on the internet and in video games. They don't understand how something as silly as a television or computer screen can effect a child or teens mind. Its absurd to think that people support this game because it could be helping someone who really needs to just get it out and abuse a women, without actually hurting anyone. But who knows how much this story could brainwash the person and all of those video game rape/molesting if women could really get someone hurt or even killed in the future. The video game industry is very interesting coming from a psychological standpoint. Its amazing how the content of a game can effect so many people and have such a drawing to them. People wait in lines for hours, even days at a time for new video games and computer games that come out in stores. I mean I have played my fair share of video games in the past mostly mario brothers, halo, and crash cart. I realize that most of the stuff on there is fake and has no intention of brainwashing a person in any way shape or form, just to occupy time. But a rape game?! Who ever thought that was a good idea is an idiot and I will not be ashamed to say it. Thats just so absurd. Do they want to create more petafiles, rapists? There is so much violence, hate and crime in our society already with all of the things that we see on television and through video games like grand theft auto, doom and call of duty. People don't think anymore, we're so inclined to just go with whims nowadays. I hope that the japanese government really thinks about this problem. I mean I don't believe that this sort of game would ever come to american homes, at least I would hope, but there are people out there who would love to play this game. Its a sick and twisted reality that people would actually want to play a game where the whole idea is to rape and abuse women to win. I hope something happens to stop this from coming to our country. Rapist go to jail, they are not welcome in society, why would we give them an outlet to vent their sick desires?

Affirmative Action is dangerous to our system I believe. I agree with you, if there are people in the field who are more qualified than the another person who only got the job because they are of a different race and they want to promote more equality in the workplace. I believe that the most qualified person should have the job especially in something like the medical field. I know that affirmative action was put into place because it gave people who would not normally be given a job are placed ahead of people who would have been given the job just because they are already in that range. I understand that its going to try to make the situation better for some people and if they are more qualified, good for them. I just don't see how people think its fair that others should get a job that they rightfully earned by doing a good job and trying really hard in their life. I don't believe affirmative action is necessary in as many situations that it is put in to practice with. If they really wanted things to be fair they would just let things go, because its luck of the draw where your are born, nothing anyone can really do about it cause its just fate.

To be honest if we shut down welfare completely it would create a lot of mass chaos. For some people, welfare is the only reason that they are able to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. There are thousands of poor people in this country alone who are not able to hold a job or just don't have enough education to get a job that can support their family so they live on welfare until A. They are able to finish an education and be able to get a job or B. find another system where they can get money to support themselves which is probably very difficult. To be honest I don't believe getting rid of welfare would help anyone in anyway. Yeah, it would lower taxes by a significant amount for those of us in the working class, but we would see a complete influx in the amount of people who would now be forced to get jobs because they couldn't survive. What we need is a new system that greater filters through the people that apply for government aid. This way we could have out cake and eat it too.

Its interesting that you bring this up. As for me, I was brought up in an entirely opposite community. I went to a predominately white school in a predominately white town. We didn't have much diversity in my school in particular because we were mostly suburb and a rural community. I feel like I was sorta held back in my stages of how we view race because I was not able to get enough experiences with the people who were of a different race than me. I mean I knew that people of other races existed but because I was brought up in a really white area I just saw white people as the dominate group, even most of the television shows I watched were composed entirely of white people. The reason why I took this race relations class was because I was interested in learning about other races of people and trying to get past what had been instilled in my mind as a white person. The only experiences that I did have with people of a different race was when we would go on vacation or go to the city where there was much more diversity in the people. One might think that because of this I would have become really racist because most of of my experiences and memories with white people but honestly it made me have the utmost respect for people of color I believe. I think it was because of my lack of experience with people of color that I began to want to know more, even though I did not go out of my way to seek out and become friends with these people I did want to learn. Through this class I have finally been able to see how bad race issues can sometimes be. In all honesty, I didn't even really know about race issues such as in the criminal justice system and so forth until I took a sociology class in high school. I feel sorta bad that It has taken me to long to become immersed in people of other races and ethnicities, but I mean there was nothing I could really do about it when I was younger. I feel like I am still a little behind everyone else in the stages that Sam has been talking about because I really wasn't given the opportunity to gain insight into people of other races world. I don't know if I will ever live in a community that is not predominately white, maybe I would be a little uncomfortable with it at first but at least I know I could be accepting and get used to it. I'm sure that if I had been brought up in a more diverse community, I wouldn't even have these thoughts about what my childhoods "whiteness" so to speak would have impacted me. I'm glad to hear the perspective of someone who has grown up white in a mostly multiracial community. To be honest I think thats better than being forced into a society where white is the only thing you know. Because at least you have a understanding about people of other races. I wish I could say that I had that, I might be a better person if I had... but I can't say because I don't know. And about the lion king thing, I have to say that I loved the Lion King. I don't believe that Disney is trying to be racist when their movie was about animals rather than people. Its a children's story, to be honest kids are more easily able to relate to animals sometimes than other people. Why do you think that kids after watching that movie wanted to be lions themselves? I see what you mean about the it being sad that their first one from africa was about animals and all, but disney is very children oriented. They are good wholesome movies for the whole family and since the lions were the main character, the humans would have been bad guys. An because most of the people who live there are dark skinned they would have been seen as the bad guys. Why would they want to instill in little kids heads that the "dark skinned" people were the bad people? But whatever, just my opinion.