I was not particularly surprised by any of Basum's responses in terms of why he thought the war had started, how American soldiers treated the native people, and the stereo typical view of Americans as seen through the eyes of a native Iraqi. Professor Richards hit the nail pretty much on the head when he gave the Christian Invaders lecture as proven by Basum's answers. However I was surprised to hear that he thought American soldiers should stick around for a few more years because he believes the government and economy are still too unstable to be run properly without us. After hearing Sam's lecture and listening to Basum's responses, I was sure to think the minute American influence has left the country of Iraq, the people of that country would rejoice, when really our help is still necessary for their survival. And in my ignorance I'll say just this, Basum said that the most important thing a country like the US can help Iraq out with is electricity. So why then can't we compromise and say okay, we need oil from you and you need electricity from us, let's make a deal and call it a day and start over. Obviously it's not that easy and I'm aware of that, but I'm sure it's a hell of a lot easier than losing thousands of lives and millions upon millions or destruction of the country side. I would've liked to ask Basum one additional question if I had the opportunity: do American soldiers show more sympathy and kindness to civilians such as Basum, who have spent years in the states and know English and about American culture? And I'm not speaking for the entire United States Army, because I have much pride and faith in them to protect and serve our country but in a way that provides global respect for our country. I'm merely speaking to the individuals who would run over an unarmed, non dangerous civilian's car which is his livelihood. My "wow" moment during Thursday's lecture was actually when I heard Basum since "since the war started in 2003". I can remember seeing it on the TV one morning when I woke up before school, and it does not see that long ago at all. And the fact that it has been going on for eight years and that now it's almost been pushed back into peoples head (I know it has at least for me) is something that I'm deeply saddened with. There are kids like me or the next kid in class over seas fighting a war which might not have been needed to fight in the first place, and are risking the rest of their full of potential lives makes me proud of our generation and our country that their are kids willing to do that, but does not make me proud as an American to see the way this war is being handled. I have much respect for Basum to come forward to college students like us and be brave enough to talk about this sensitive topic, and I would love the chance to thank him. These two lectures (Christian Invaders and with Basum) have given me quite a different out look on global relations and truth under the media. Hopefully this well all be resolved soon. Another question I'd like to ask Basum, hoping that he's had experience with this is in the states, is hat he thinks about the Christian missionaries over in Iraq, furiously working to convert the natives over there as compared to Jehovah witnesses and missionaries here, such as the one I was burdened with the other day. Does he think they have different objectives or are they same, just practiced in a much more convenient and at ease way in America, such as just a passerby on the street handing out flyers. Just a little food for thought I came across the other day walking to class.

If I could meet one person that says yes, they would actively try to not benefit from nepotism if the situation would present itself, then I will most definitely eat crow. I would, as I assume many other people would, take advantage of any situation presented to me that will have a vast impact on my life, especially when it comes to my career. Let’s be honest for a second: you get hired, if someone is not qualified for the job and their work sucks, then their obviously (god willing there are some rational people in this country) going to get fired. No buddy of yours (well at least I wouldn’t, no matter how much respect and loyalty I have for my friends) will ever let his business or career crash if he gives his best friend from home an opportunity to work in his business, and that friend completely blows up and drowns in his work. Everybody knows the saying these days: it’s not what you know, it’s who you know, and this is the trend that is currently sweeping this nation. And what’s so bad about that? I’ve made packs with some of my friends that we’ll always have each other’s back and hook each other up in any way that we could. But then it’s entirely in their ballpark and their future now rests in THEIR hands, not mine. But to be able to give or receive that type of opportunity I think is a healthy thing for the people of our nation, as it encourages and basically forces you to be social, meet people, and invest in your own future by attending meet and greets, especially all the career fairs and social networking dinners that Penn State offers it’s students. This world is based around conversation, and it’s always healthy to get out and mingle. And to be presented in a situation like nepotism, it means that you have been surrounded by good friends and people in your life who believe in your knowledge, work ability, loyalty, and future. These are all positive things that stem from the actions and experiences of one person’s life, and when you get someone that close to you who believes in your talents and are willing to put their company or business at a bit of a risk if that friend is not “fully qualified”, that can help motivate someone to be a great employee with good work ethic who can contribute positive things to the company. But, I want to refer back to the beginning of this blog. If they truly aren’t qualified for the job and they do a terrible job, then I trust the people of this nation enough that they take the proper and necessary actions like they would with any other employee.

I’ve heard a lot of mixed responses to Tuesday’s lecture entitled “Christian Invaders”. I personally would have to say this was hands down the best lecture of the year. I’m not saying that this class was the best class based on my beliefs and that I agreed with everything Sam had lectured through, but that it was the most mind riveting one that truly made me take a much bigger look on our world’s situation. I believe that any lecture that has the ability to hold a student’s attention for an hour and a half on a single topic, especially on an issue that has split our nation as it has, is what people our age need. Students have too much access to all types of media, where sometimes the truth is exaggerated or straight up wrong, and we get the wrong conviction of what is really happening. This lecture was a perfect mix of the subject, race and ethnic relations, and of informing me of our nation’s relations and doings with other countries. I had never looked at the Iraq war the way I did on Tuesday. I have to admit, I am pretty ignorant when it comes to politics and the leaders of our nation, so I honestly can’t really hold and argue a belief about it without feeling totally unconfident. Tuesday’s class really kind of helped me stay neutral with my thoughts especially since there is two sides to every story. I believe that this is true for regardless of how much I love my country and the citizens here and that I myself would fight for what our country stands for. I never imagined myself to ever take the side or see the Middle East conflict through the eyes of what Americans perceive as “terrorists”. And for me to have such hatred as a kid growing up, witnessing my first terrorist attack on September 11, 2001 and all actions taken in the years following, to actually put myself in their position and feel compassion for them is a changing moment in my life. Good or bad, the fact that Sam Richards, who I on a regular basis either love or hate, left me speechless and thinking and in a funk for the rest of the day, made me believe that this was the best class of the semester. My friend and I who were talking said that this class should be a graduation requirement as it forces students to really observe the whole spectrum and just think about how you feel about certain situations going on in our country, and maybe start forming your own beliefs and end up on one side or the other. The fact of the matter is, to think as a young student and future employee of this country only leads to positive things.

I think being able to speak more than one language is a very integral part for our society moving forward. The world is becoming more populated by the minute, and of all different shapes and sizes. For our planet to be unified I see it to be very important for every single one of us to learn at least one other language besides your native tongue. Now, that being said, I never feel uncomfortable in the least bit when people who are speaking a different language than my own surround me. However, these types of experiences make me ask a lot of questions like, what are they really talking about and, why aren’t they speaking English especially if they do know the language well (and I’m just assuming they do because people who hail from different countries are much more likely to be bilingual with the English language being their second, and by the fact they go to school here). It’s very interesting to me only because of experiences I had in the past with it. My freshmen year of high school a new bagel joint opened in town called Sam’s Bagels. Has the most unbelievable taylor ham, egg, and cheese sandwich you’ll ever eat (sorry to those of you who don’t know the taste or even know what taylor ham is…Jersey goes hard). The place employed four young people, two men and two women, of some sort of Hispanic decent because they were both fluent in Spanish first, and then English. And believe it or not, they would actually take orders and then make fun of that person in Spanish as they were getting the order together, laughing in the customer’s faces. Now where I’m from no one is really fluent enough in Spanish to make out what they are saying but there’s be numerous times where my friends and I would go in and make out some sentences that they were saying and realized what they might be doing. We didn’t point fingers yet though because we were unsure because our level of Spanish was not at their level. One of my good buddies’ older brothers just graduated with a Spanish degree from Richmond University so we decided to take a trip with him one morning to see what he could make out. And that time, and a variety of other occasions from there on out, he has reported that they really were talking about the customers as they ordered. And at some point it’s kind of frustrating to me that there’s not much we can say back because we barely speak the language, but then again it’s our fault we aren’t more educationally inclined to and eager to achieve better levels in other languages. Just for this reason I’m always aware and curious at conversations happening around me in a language I’m unfamiliar with, but at the end of the day that person has little influence on my life so I’ve decided to just ignore it.

This is probably a subject that will be questioned for years and years to come still, but it is the foundation to what our society can look at and see that colorblindness should be an integral aspect of everyday life. My older brother is currently a grad student at George Washington in D.C. and recently my brother, my parents and me went to go visit him over our spring break. We had plans to go out to dinner once we got down there. He called my mother up and asked if he could invite an old friend from home and also his new girlfriend out to dinner. The more the merrier. Little did I know, my brother’s girlfriend, Jane, was born in the Philippines. My family is white American from New York and New Jersey. Her story is very, very interesting. As a little girl she was adopted by a Polish couple and in effect, took their very polish last name. So she’s from the Philippines, with a common American name, and an incredibly hard to pronounce last night with very little vowels (such as Duke’s head basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski). Definitely an uncommon first encounter as she told us of her background. And it’s very convenient that this event had taken place as I was and still am in the middle of this semester enrolled in Sam Richard’s Race Relations Sociology class. The thing was that it didn’t matter to us at all what her background was, what her name signifies, and so on and so forth. What mattered to us was that she’s an amazing woman, and perfect for my older bro. Both majored in Physical Therapy in an undergrad, and now are working on getting their doctorate together, she knows just as much about college basketball and other sports as I do (I find this to be a rare trait), and she’s gorgeous and just a pleasant and polite girl to have around. The only problem that I had with her was that she took undergrad at the University of Michigan (damn the wolverines), but with all her other positive traits I could look past this very easily. I’ve looked up to my older brother my whole life, and this is just another stepping-stone in his life. And I believe that it is important that people hear or experience these types of stories so that they too can believe that everyone has their own intellect and humor and emotion to add to this world, whether your black, white, green, red, or orange. The people that can stand up and see through their counterpart’s surface features and see what’s deep down within, that’s a huge step for our society, our races, and our world.

My mother and father had lived in Queens, New York their whole lives. They had my older brother Kevin there, and both me and my twin brother Matt, before moving out to North Jersey when we were about one-year-old. When they were looking for homes in North Jersey, they were looking for both an easy transition for themselves but also for the best opportunity for my brothers and I to be completed submerged in a diverse culture. They were looking a lot around Montclair, New Jersey, a town/small city that is very integrated. There are parts of Montclair where many famous actors and athletes reside in beautiful mansions sitting atop a steep hill with an unbelievable view of the New York skyline, but there are also parts ridden with crime. This is the type of community they both grew up in and they wanted the same experience for us. They felt it was important that we were exposed to all races and ethnicities so that we grow up with no bias and no racial tension. They decided to buy a home about 15 minutes up the road from Montclair in a small town named Caldwell. 15 minutes made a huge difference. Throughout my high school career there, I’d say about 97% of the student body was white American, with a huge lack of diversity. And although I obtained a great academic and athletic lifestyle, there was also that integration missing. So apparently when deciding to come to Penn State I did not feel that a large, diverse student body was essential (since Penn State is not) to achieving my degree. Coming back and forth through Queens to visit family and having friends in Montclair I was still somewhat submerged in an integrated community, but the one thing I regret is that my friends from Caldwell didn’t get to have those same experiences as me. I’m with my parents, I believe that experiencing a community with different levels of class and a variety of different ethnicities is extremely important in terms of depleting some assumptions and ignorance towards other races. Skin color and ethnicity is a passing surface, and the more that people, young students especially, are exposed to diversity every day, the easier it will be for our world to finally come together in one color. I still believe that coming to a University like Penn State will enhance a student’s openness to a variety of cultures, I just always believe that when you can experience something on a day to day basis, your world becomes a lot clearer and full of knowledge, rather than the ignorance and arrogance it may have been filled with before.

“A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.”

- Martin Luther King Jr.

Let me begin by saying that I’m not taking a stance on one side or the other from this video until I’ve told my story.
I’m sure everyone’s father’s have had their times of nostalgia and have shared stories of their old high school and college days with their children, so I’m going to tell you one of my father that ties in with this video pretty nicely.
He was a junior in high school when a scholarship opportunity came up for a couple of students in his class to go towards their college education. My father was one of the students chosen and a week later found himself in a room filled with about ten other students all gearing up to take the scholarship test that was to decide who would receive it. As my dad looked around the room he noticed that he had a rats ass chance in receiving the scholarship because the top ten students in his class were also taking it. So being the sarcastic guy that my father is, he marked down “Spanish” as his ethnicity on the exam. Now he did and didn’t do this just for s*** s and gigs. My great grandfather, Eduardo Enselma Garcia, came to the United States from Spain, and therefore my family, including my father, does have some Spanish blood (unless Sam proves me wrong by taking a DNA sample). A week later, my pops got called into the principal’s office and received his scores. The principal said, “Mike, I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is you’ve received the scholarship. The bad news is, you’re not Spanish and therefore the scholarship will not be rewarded to you”. So it seems that my father didn’t score the best of the students among him that one day, but just because his ethnicity was something other than Caucasian, he would receive the scholarship. Now my father didn’t mind in the least bit obviously since he wouldn’t have received it anyway, but does something like my father’s story and this former Army enlister’s scholarship effort go hand in hand? I would absolutely say so. What does it matter the skin color or the ethnic background, even if you are a white Caucasian male or a African American female, shouldn’t the best qualified person for the scholarship or the job opportunity or the admission into a college receive such honor? We continue to separate ourselves from one another and this is the worst thing for us. Names and ethnicities and race should all be blind when it comes to being an applicant, but who knows if it ever will be.
And by the way, is it just me or did Christine Roman’s comment at the end of the video (“After men received the preferential treatment for so long, it makes them a little nervous”) make any sense whatsoever? #justsayin

The “us” in this question groups all of us as one whole group of people despite how completely different every white person is. Throughout this semester in the lecture hall, Sam continually refers to the white race as the “white team”. I understand he is trying to make a point and all, but right there is where I put up the red flag. As soon as we start identifying each person with white skin as a team or a squad, it automatically separates the white race from every other ethnicity in the world. What we need to learn as a society is that no matter the race, no matter the culture, each and every person is just as different than the next, whether we are comparing two white girls or a white girl and a black man, the amount of differences are relatively the same. As a naïve child, I honestly thought the world back in the day was black and white, due to the only type of photography back then was black and white. And now we’ve moved into the HD era where we feel like we are sitting in the studio watching the scenes unfold before us. And although political correctness wishes that everyone viewed the world in a colorblind form, I believe that the littlest differences we notice about people on TV today is important. We need to recognize these differences as a sense of beauty rather than comparing skin color and culture. I believe some view others from other world cultures as different because maybe they haven’t been exposed to a variety of different ethnicities, and there fore become shielded and awed whenever they come into contact with someone of a different race. I thought the end of class on Tuesday, when Sam brought up the five students of Arab decent was the type of thing we as young people and our country’s next generation need to experience. To hear their own story rather than someone of a different race trying to explain, and especially in such a well educated and thought out delivery, is something that every individual needs to experience. It opened my eyes to the type of profiling and unfair treatment that normal and more sophisticated people than myself receive. It’s a very upside down world we live in right now and what’s most important for everyone to be receptive of is questions. Questions questions questions will get us through the day, because questions can only help us become more educated and aware of the real world we live in, not the racially diverse and naïve one we live in now. And hopefully all races are receptive to these questions, because I’m sure they can learn a lot from the “white team” as well.

Although it’s impossible to predict how different my life would be had I been born into a different family than my own and in a different state than New Jersey, I know for a fact that I would not be attending the Pennsylvania State University if it weren’t for what my parents have done for my family since and before my existence. Determinism has undoubtedly placed me in the shoes I now wear today, and has even shaped the “free will” part of my life. It’s tough to write about this and not sound conceded and ignorant, but my father’s success has had a huge impact on my educational well being. He attended college and my mother did not, but both always stressed the importance of making my education a number one priority in my life. Now, it was up to me and myself only to put in the work and develop those good study habits, but that’s where my determinism has influenced my own free will. I wanted to do well in school, I wanted to be one of the top students in my class, I did not by any means have to be, as long as I was doing my absolute best and was happy with my life my parents were satisfied. They only wanted what was best for me and I just had to give them my best in return. There was also the opportunity to take an SAT prep class weeks before I was to take the SAT’s of the first time. I’m aware of the going rates for classes and tutors and realize that there are many students across the United States who may not have this same opportunity as I did, and therefore could show up to the testing center less prepared than I was, leading to lower scores. Without my parents help I could not see myself investing in this same opportunity out of my own pocket, but I do know that the class had much of an impact on the scores I received. Since location had such big impact on where I would attend school, living in New Jersey was not something I could choose, but it helped with getting into one of the most prestigious universities the country calls its own. I almost feel like this question shouldn’t be two separate questions, and instead should be combined into one. Determinism and free will always go hand in hand because America lives for liberty and that’s what each citizen of this country has, the free will to do what they’d like. But where you’re born and into what family has such an important purpose as well and shapes the people we are today. Like Sam said, “C” is always the best choice, and I’d have to say the answer to my life question is “C”.

What’s most unfortunate about the world today, in my opinion, is that there is little pride and excess controversy when it comes to race. In my eyes, it’s all about what’s the most correct and polite term to describe each other according to their ethic origin. But who really even knows how to go about that anymore. My advice and what I wish would be universally accepted is how different every human being is, whether they are of the same race or not. I am as different from my three white as can be roommates from the farms of Pennsylvania as I am from a city kid in the heart of Harlem.
In what way can we describe someone’s exterior make up without using adjectives like color? It doesn’t make me racist or ignorant to do so, because I consider myself on the same level in society as any person you present to me. In fact, I consider many others as far better than I am due to their contributions to our world and societies. I look up to those who can truly say they are proud of ethnic makeup and the way they look in other people’s eyes.
Everyone generalizes. It’s easy and isn’t that what life is all about these days? The easy way out? What we all want and ask for could be an impossible task. To have universal blind eye to race will take another century and then some. Some people from different regions will always see their kind as up and above any other ethnic groups. Wherever you go, ethnic groups tend to colonize together, which makes parts of the world the way they are, in their natural and cultural beauty.
So I technically don’t have an answer to this question, but I do have a question in return? Can we, as human beings, not monkeys, learn to accept who we are first before other people can? There’s nothing we can change now because we have learned to think for ourselves. But then again we haven’t, because everyone seems to have the same stereotypes about the same ethnicities so why don’t we try to start acting like humans AND think for ourselves. I’ve never actually encountered someone who was truly racist in my life, and I believe that if we all do act and think for ourselves that the idea of “race” will be celebrated rather than condemned. Because I have fully accepted the person I am, where I’m from, and where my ancestors are from. I bleed red, white and blue. I don’t bleed black and white. I bleed my true colors, and that’s something I’d be proud of no matter where I am from.