The videos of the US soldiers made me very disappointed. I had never seen any videos like that before. It makes me realize why most of the Iraq people hate the United States. From what I saw, not only were the US soldiers being mean and disrespectful, but they were flaunting their strength, and that would make me hate someone even more.
Like I talked about in recitation today, I started to have a new outlook on the civilians in Iraq. Before really thinking about it, what I knew about Muslims were that they had a few extreme radicals that for some reason believe killing themselves and killing other non- Muslims would help their religion, or was what their god wanted them to do. Besides the radicals, in the media I would always see pictures and news and videos or Muslim civilians that were attacking the US soldiers. To me and probably a lot of Americans, it seemed these a lot of Muslim people in Iraq were just anti-American and violent people. I never really blamed it on a large majority of Americans being Christian, but I guess it was more of a large majority of Americans being not Muslims. To the average American they make the Iraq people out to be violent people that have nothing better to do than attack “innocent” American soldiers.
But then after sitting through Sam’s lecture and taking the side of the Iraqi people, my view began to change. He related it to having the Chinese come to Pennsylvania and think that the corn here was theirs. They would think it was theirs to the point that they would patrol the streets with army men with guns and tanks. Anyone that got in their way of getting the corn would be shot, bombed, or anything. While it sounds funny to say, I would be pissed if the Chinese or any other people tried to come take corn from PA farmers and sell it and get rich in their company. While it sounds crazy, it may anger me to the point that I would rebel against the men stealing our corn. I would especially rebel if these men were made out to be jerks like the youtube videos that we saw of the American soldiers.
In conclusion, I have a new outlook on the average Muslims and civilians of Iraq. Maybe some of the soldiers they get into conflict with are good guys, but the guys like the soldiers in the video are giving all US soldiers a bad reputation and making these civilians hate them. I am sure it would be very annoying to have these people come into my land, patrol the streets, and be jerks. While I am not supporting creating conflicts and death it’s hard for me now to hate the civilians standing up for their country against the American invaders.

I think it is very scary to think about how common it is that abuse is occurring among many families in the world, and that it is not being reported. At first I did not really understand why it would go unreported so often, but once Sam explained the ways it would affect a family, it made a lot more sense. It would be hard to break up a family, especially when the members rely on each other for shelter and money and other things. While I do not know of any abuse in my own family, these events will help keep my eyes open in the future.
I think the best way to combat abuse is to be more proactive about any suspicious activities or hints within your family. If you not only keep your eyes and ears open, but investigate some things, I think it would help to figure out these problems that are going unreported. I wish the recent scandals would encourage more abused to speak out against the things that are being done to them, but due to the pressure and stress put on them about speaking out, they are put in a tough position. If another family member would step up and step in, I feel like a lot more problems could be resolved because then the abused do not feel the weight on their shoulders of telling this kind of information.
As for the Penn State scandal, I’m wondering the same things a lot of people are wondering; why didn’t the parents of these kids speak out against them. Such as the mother that confronted Sandusky. You would hope that any other parents that knew what had happened would have also gone to the authorities (I also speculate the authorities are at fault in this case, but that truth may never come out). Since we do not know much about the victims, besides they were second mile kids, I have been speculating that they could have been underprivileged kids in the first place. Maybe they were all kids that already had bad home lives, and Sandusky was their way out. But the perks (dinners, place to stay, football stuff, concerts/games) of being around him turned to not be worth it in the end. As messed up as it is to say, I feel like he probably would target kids that he knew needed his help in him provided for them, just like a typical family abuse case where you’re relying on your father or uncle or someone for shelter and food but they are abusing you at the same time.
In conclusion, I think it is everyone in societies job to keep an eye and ear open for hints of abuse happening. Abuse often occurs with people who rely on someone else, so keep an eye out for these types of potential victims.

When I first heard this question I immediately thought yes. For some reason it really bothers me when people cannot speech English because it creates a communication barrier. I dealt with this a lot working in hospitality businesses (I’ve had jobs at restaurants and a hotel before). Hospitality is all about giving the customer what they want, and when you think they want a piece of bread when they actually want butter, it is very frustrating on both sides. There is also this mental problem with people speaking other languages. Say I’m in the library and you hear quiet whispers, I can normally tune out the English conversations but for some reason you cannot tune out the Chinese that is being spoken. I have no clue what they are saying, and maybe that’s why my mind can’t tune it out. This is a time when I think “why can’t they just talk in English”.
But then, the other day in Soc, someone’s comment changed my outlook on this topic. They commented how if two Americans went to a non English speaking country, that the Americans would speak English to each other no matter how well they knew the other language (most likely). This really hit home to me because next semester I’m going to Rome, only have elementary Italian under my belt. I am going with a group of American students, and I will definitely speak a lot of English. In fact, I never plan on speaking Italian to my fellow Americans. Now out in public, I do not expect Italians to know English, so I will try my best to get by with my Italian language. I am required to take Italian 2 while in Rome, so I will learn a little more, and being submerged in an Italian speaking place, I should be able to pick up more Italian. But because this is just a semester abroad, I do not feel the necessity to perfect my Italian speaking before I go to Italy. However, if I was staying for a year or more, I would make it an objective to know, speak, understand, and write in Italian so that I could get by and assimilate.
In conclusion, I do not think all “immigrants” whether illegal or not need to know English (before getting here), but I do believe they should try to learn English if they plan on living in the US for more than a year. I think this is a fair thing, because by learning another language you are not giving up your own language, you’re just opening your communication horizons. While I do not believe that Geno’s should put up the “only order in English” sign, I do think it is assumed and should be assumed that any American business (besides from Mexican or Chinese restaurants, etc) would expect conversation to be in English. I have no problem understanding that when I go to Italy most people talk Italian so I should try to assimilate in that way. You cannot expect any business to have an employee that knows every language on the planet, so most places just stick to understanding one (or two) and for outsiders; they should see it as their responsibility to learn these one or two languages, not the insiders.

This is a tough question to answer. I want to say “no, it does not”, but as I thought about it more I began to change my opinion. The right answer is no because people are people, as we are learning in soc 119, and no matter what ethnicity or race or whatever, people should be able to be friends with who they want to be friends with. But you also have to look into what friend relationships involve. First, your friends are normally people with similar interests and beliefs. Also, you feel comfortable with your friends to just be who you are, not try to pretend to be someone else. My first thought response was no because I am from a pretty white school, but I have a friend who is black. He would hang out with pretty much all white guys and girls. To me, he was never “trying to be white” or any kind of “white poser” but then if I looked at it from a black group’s prospective, maybe he would seem like to them. I occasionally noticed that when we were in an environment where more black people were around, he would act a little different. I know it’s not good to stereotype, but basically he would try to act more like the stereotypical black crowd does. He’d be a little louder and center of attention, wear some different clothes/accessories, and also just seemed a little less comfortable, maybe even embarrassed of all his white friends. I normally wouldn’t be too offended by his change in behavior because I know he was just trying to fit in with both sides, but at the same time, I hope he knew who his real friends were and wished he wouldn’t feel the pressure to impress others of his own race. I’m sure his life has been interesting because his two black parents divorced, and he has been living with his step-father who is white for many years now. I wonder if he ever went through a stage like chenj (the guy from Tuesday’s lector) where he felt embarrassed to have a white father figure being all black in race. But back to the topic, I think sometimes groups of one color see someone of their same color hanging out with a different race and they do classify them that way. It’s like if one white guy is hanging out with all black guys, you’re going to expect him to have the “Wigga” appearance, basically a white guy wearing big baggy clothing. So in conclusion, we should not classify people as posers, and we should not judge people of one race for having mostly friends of another race, because we are all just people and your friends are your friends. It should not matter what race they are. If one white guy moves to Africa, should he expect to have no friends because he’s white? No, he would hope to make friends and fit in, assimilate. Everyone wants to fit in, so people should not judge them, but sadly, it still happens.

How does my race shape the way I view the world. Well I think it completely shapes how I view the world. Sometimes, its for the better, but I feel like a lot of times its actually for the worse. Let’s first look at the positives. Okay, so I’m white, and this is (like same talks about) an advantage for me. An advantage in a lot of ways. Like the job interview study that sam taught us about, white people have a clear advantage to getting jobs over other races (at least here in the US). Also when you walk into a store, or anywhere (given it’s not a cultural restaurant) you are not judged by some like other races. Like a middle eastern guy goes to the airport and he is more likely to get checked. Or a black person walks into a convenient store and the sales clerk may keep more of an eye on him. Like the stealing a bike sam showed us, the black kid was clearly “stealing” the bike while the white kid was overlooked doing the same things. So how does this shape my views of the world, well I think as a white person I kind of realize these prejudices and sub consciously probably take advantage of these things. But like I said I think this can also be a bad thing. Because I am white its hard to understand what its like to be that person that is judged on the color or appearance of them. I feel like non-white people in the US have a better understanding of people of all diversities, and I wish I had that experience. I am traveling to Rome next semester to study there for a semester. I hope being the outsider and living in someone else’s culture will give me a better understanding of both sides to the race story. I feel like it’s always whites vs non-whites. I think this class is helping my understanding of how I, as a white person am programmed to think, and it’s also helping me disregard some of the prejudices that have be instilled in me being a white guy from Lancaster (a farm town) PA. It would be interesting for me to go an all black school or something like that. Besides having a few black friends (who were raised in a white environment and school) I do not have as much knowledge of the views of other races. I honestly wish there wasn’t a white supremacy, because it creates a class system and whenever there is a class system, whenever you split people in a room up (like the readings said) they are going to start to grow to hate each other for no reason. I think not having white supremacy would help with racism in general.

Why do women dress a certain way but one to be treated a different way? After getting to college I wondered the same thing myself. My old beliefs were that girls at college who dressed (dare I say) “slutty” were just slutty girls. But after arriving a college, getting to know some girls, and then seeing what outfits they went out in to parties, made me realize, a lot of good girls are dressing (dare I say) slutty. The worst part is, some of these girls have boyfriends, at they still dress this way.
I dated a girl for 3 and half semesters in college. She was in a sorority, and constantly went out to fraternities with her sisters. It was very tough as her boyfriend to see her get all dolled up to go hang out with a bunch of guys, who I knew would be hitting on her. It was a touchy subject, but after asking her why you tried to look so good for others, she said it was because all her friends were looking good, she didn’t want to not look good just because she had a boyfriend. Another girl explained it as, “boys would literally ignore you if you wore t shirt and jeans out compared to the girls in tight dresses or skirts.” She also added “you just wouldn’t want to be that girl”. So while it’s hard to believe they do not want the attention of guys when they dress up slutty, it’s almost just trying to fit in the culture. If all girls stopped dressing like that, then according to girls, they would stop dressing like that and wear something more comfortable.
Now to address the second part of the question. Like I talked about in class, the article from the collegian “chivalry is dead” really stood out to me. It talked about the how the dating scene is dead, but it’s not all about the guys being bad guys, it’s about girl’s not expecting guys to ask them on dates and such. So this brings up the question, how do girls want to be treated? Most girls try to act all innocent but then when they drink and go out wearing those outfits and hook up with guys, it seems there true colors come out. But is it their true colors, or is it just them being pressured into the college life’s society? While it defiantly would suck to have people call you mean names, like a slut and such behind your back, I think girls are too worried about their reputation sometimes. If they like a guy they should not be ashamed to hook-up with him. At the same time, they should expect him to be a gentlemen, and take her on dates and do nice things for her. They should not be okay with hooking up with a guy and getting a taxi home, that’s not chivalrous. They should also not be ashamed to not dress slutty because they have a significant other that they don’t need the attention of all these other guys. It’s hard to answer these questions because I’m a guy but I defiantly would like to bring this up at recitation to talk about.

I think that “women are more innocent than men” is a completely false statement, but this type of statement is what the minds of the general public thinks. As displayed in the “Stealing the bike” video, no one believed that a girl would try to steal a bike, but they were definitely convinced the guys were up to no good. I think it stems back to the universal idea that men are the more powerful between male/female. Males have historically been the gender of power. They are also known as the providers for the family whether it be working or even in this case stealing. I think men sometimes abuse their perception of power, and believe they are smarter than they really are, and thus result in doing things like robbing a bank or selling drugs because they believe they won’t get caught. I think a majority of women are more rational than men in the sense that they would not try to do these things because they know they would not get away with it. But at the same time, going back to my original topic, I know a handful of girls that have played the innocent card many times. I’ve seen girls steal small items because they think no one will say anything to them, or girls get out of speeding tickets/traffic violations because they are girls. I think this is an unfair biased, because if someone does something wrong, it is sexist to not give them the same punishment. Everyone knows what is right and wrong, no matter what gender.
Certain races are also targeted as being more innocent than others. This was also evident in the bike stealing video. The black boy was noticed immediately by almost every observer. I think that this idea of black people committing more crime comes from the idea of crime in general. When people think of crime, they think of city crime such as robbery, theft, assault, rape, and other things that happen in the street. A lot more black people and non-white people make up the populations of a city, thus when a street crime happens, there’s a greater chance it is going to be a non-white person because of these higher percentages. When people think of crime, they normally do not think of white-collar crime, which happens in the high levels of corporate businesses where often white men are in power. This type of crime often gets pushed aside in the minds of the general public when thinking about criminals, but it should not because it can actually affect more people than a neighborhood bike thief. In the end, girls and white males do seem more innocent, but it should not be that way, because we are all human beings, and whether you do right or wrong is about the person you are, not the color or gender.

First I want to start off saying I really enjoyed Thursdays class. I am a business major and the economics of the discussion was very interesting to me. I thought this Haiti project might be “just another project” that no one wants to do, but after watching some videos and reading about it, it could be pretty exciting. I say this because Haiti is much undeveloped compared to the United States, and being an “entrepreneur” there means starting your own sandal business, or making luggage and handbags. Seeing these are rather simply things that Haiti does not already have, it opens the door to many new ideas. These are ideas that we, as college students, defiantly could provide Haiti. This means that really anything we, as a group think of, could help someone someday, besides just sending money and having it go to the government, like we discussed in class.
While I cannot think of anything at this very moment, I think once we get into our groups and spit some ideas around in SPAZE, something great really could come from it. I think to arrive at a good new product; you have to actually work backwards. Instead of thinking what do Haitians want, you have to think, what can Haitians not get? Once you figure this out, you can think of something that can’t be shipped to Haiti, and thus must be made there. The newness and exclusiveness of whatever this product is, will certainly create a demands, and bam, that could be the start to an entrepreneurial business.
But I’m pretty sure the project is actually about improving the entrepreneur’s current business, so we’ll try to really focus on the videos and think of ways to do this. One things I noticed, is they all have little advertisement. None of the videos I watched actually had stores, so I’m guessing they did their advertising through “word of mouth” but this can be hard sometimes. Sometimes all someone needs is a little marketing help to get their product to the proper consumer. For example, if you wanted to sell toys to kids, you would have to advertise or have a store somewhere kids would see. I think there could be a lot of simple ideas like this that my group, being smart Penn State students, could bring to the entrepreneurs, as consultants (in a way).
Like I said in the beginning, I am actually looking at this project positively because one, it could defiantly have an impact on the lives of a lot of people in need and two because it is a business oriented and that’s what I’ve been studying for the past two years. If we can create more jobs for the rice farmers the United States is putting out of business, it would be a win-win, because the Haitian consumers are getting cheaper rice, and the farmers are still having jobs.

Before class on Thursday, when we got asked to answer what shaped people’s lives on the click question, I clicked mostly free will. This was because I have always been a believer in you can do better for yourself, you just have to have the will to do it. However, at the time I did not know what sam meant by the term “determinism” and how that would play into the argument. After a full class period of understanding both sides, I start to conclude that it really is a combination of both free will and determinism, but even so, I still would say it is about 65 % free will, 35% determinism.
Determinism talks about your circumstances that you were given; how you were raised, how much money you had growing up, what values were instilled or failed to be instilled in you. I defiantly believe that young adults can be put into situations based on their surrounding circumstances. Like the main example used in class, it wasn’t that the kids at the poorer Chicago high school were intellectually less capable than the kids at the rich school, but yes because of their lack of money and lower level education, they were at the time of graduation dumber than the “richer kids”. This is a sad thing, because going into college, where everyone starts at one even level (aside from honors colleges), these kids are at a great disadvantage. But there is a time in life where I think determinism starts to fade and it becomes more of your free will to do well for yourself.
Coming into college, you may not be the smartest, but a lot of doing well in college is about hard work. Its about attending classes, reading the books, doing assignments, and getting help when you need it. All four of those things are free-will decisions to do or not do. For one to say “oh, I came from a terrible high school, I’m not going to do well on this test because I don’t know how to study” is just feeling self-pity, and blaming determinism. But really, like sam said, you always have a choice. If your goal is to do really well you can go to do those four things I mentioned above, you can choose not to go out at night, and then essentially waste precious review time. What you do in your “free-time” is really you displaying your “free-will”. Someone who sits around and watches tv and plays video games, then does drugs and alcohol excessively, and complains about their parents not giving them money or how hard class is, is full of crap. I respect the people that aren’t sitting and watching tv, but always doing something to make themselves better, displaying their “Free will” to become something better. So in conclusion, I think where you start in your young adulthood stage depends a good bit on determinism, but where you go in life, and how you provide for your children is the act of free-will.

Why can’t we all just be human? I believe it’s similar to the question, why aren’t all fish, fish… Whether we have different genes or not, it seems there are many different species to the human race. We look different, act different, smell different, talk different, believe in different religions, and even eat different. So as you can see, it has to do with a lot of different factors. But I believe one factor that really stands out to me is language. The failure to communicate with all humans creates a barrier that is like no other. A quick hit on google said there are 832 different languages spoken in the world. While many people are being bi and trilingual, I’m pretty sure no one comprehends all 832 languages. This creates a natural barrier to other humans, because communication is everything. To form a relationship with someone, you have to be able to communicate. Even the so-called cave men, had hand signals and grunts and groans to express themselves. But with no common language on earth, a foreigner seems extra out-of-place because they probably look and dress different, and you can’t even understand their language to understand the ways of their culture. I am going to Europe this Spring and only know a little bit of Italian and German, so I feel this will be a great opportunity to see how it feels being a foreigner in someone else’s country. I will probably get the feeling of, “why can’t we all just be human” because I will be judged and have preconceived notions about me before anyone even talks to me. I have never really been outside of North America, so I have never been in the place of being a foreigner and not fitting in. Here in the US, I am an average looking white Caucasian male, and have never been told I do not fit in. Hitting on my other points, we look different. Some people can’t get over the fact that one person is as white as white can get, and one is a black as black can get. Some can’t understand others religions, and why they wear robes or headdresses. Some people don’t understand how someone can eat raw fish or insects as a delicacy. Some people just need to stop, and really think, “We are all just human”. We all are faced with diversity and challenges in our lives. We are all born from a woman, and will die. We all have emotions, and are pursuing happiness, however we can. If you keep in mind those things, it should help you keep your mind open, and realize it is better to get to know someone different, then hate them for being different.