en-us https://www.intensedebate.com/users/757673 Comments by amj198 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/christian-invaders-the-turnaround__trashed/#IDComment68796892 Sam made a big deal about this lecture being mind-blowing and eye-opening in so many different ways. Like it was the one lecture that we should all have been at because he was going to give us gold (except I seem to remember him saying something very, very similar about the LGBTA lecture, which was a good lecture, but not really mind-blowing). But wasn’t the majority of the lecture, or at least the basis on which it was built, kind of common sense? It’s pretty obvious what Americans are doing in Iraq and Iran and any other country in or around the Middle East. Think about it. There’s nothing there of interest to America except oil. America is desperately in need of it because we consume ungodly quantities of it and don’t have enough of our own to really survive for long. So what are we going to do? We’re going to go take it from someone else. We didn’t go to the Middle East because we wanted to spread democracy or any of that bull shit. We went there for our own economic gain. And of course, it stands to reason that if we go in and try and take oil from these people, they’re going to want to stop us. If you came home and your house was being robbed, you would try to stop the robber. No one just sits there and says “Go ahead, take what you want, I don’t mind.” So it’s not any different with the residents of the countries we try to take oil from. They will try to drive us out through any means possible, and that includes violence, just like you would do if your house was being robbed. And because we are trying to take what they perceive as belonging to them, they would consider us invaders. It’s kind of an obvious thing if you have any sort of logical train of though and any sort of ability to understand a viewpoint different from your own. And hey, I guess because most Americans are Christian and most people from the Middle Eastern area are Muslim, then we’re the “Christian Invaders”. There’s nothing really controversial or eye-opening about what Sam said. The entire train of thought is logical, and the “title” of the lecture is just a generalization. In fact, I think what was eye-opening was the fact that people would actually need a lecture like this to open their eyes to what it’s like for an Arab Muslim living in the Middle East area. Have you really never considered what it’s like on the other side? Are you so entirely absorbed in your own life that you’ve never tried to think about someone else’s until Sam fed you this information? Mon, 19 Apr 2010 06:15:01 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/christian-invaders-the-turnaround__trashed/#IDComment68796892 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/this-is-totally-off-the-hook__trashed/#IDComment66324990 Hahaha, oh…the Japanese. I would call them the world’s greatest perverts, along with Walt Disney, if I were to take a quote from 30 Rock. But seriously, Japanese people are kind of messed up when it comes to sexual harassment and violence. They are the perfect example of how mass media can influence public behavior negatively. As the video makes clear, there is an overabundance of media in Japan that depict sexual violence and inappropriate sexual behavior in a glorified light, ranging in mediums from video games to comic books. In Japan, there is also an overabundance of sexual harassment and sex crimes. Things are so bad that the companies running the subways have started to create special coaches that are only for women so that they can avoid having their passengers groped while they are going to work in the morning. That’s kind of a problem. It happens a lot in Japan, and no one ever really talks about it, and no one ever really presses charges against the perpetrators of these sex crimes because it’s such a prevalent thing in Japanese society that no one cares anymore. There’s no way that kind of behavior would fly in American or European subways. It all stems back to the desensitization of Japanese people to sex crimes because of the availability of media that glorifies it. And also I guess to the Asian stereotype that submissive women are good women. Kind of a sick cycle. Sometimes I wonder how Japan doesn’t just implode as a country, considering how doped up they are on super-violent video games, comic books and movies (Battle Royale is fucked up), glorified sexual media, oddly old-fashioned values and extreme materialism. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard of these types of games either, and it definitely is all because of the internet. Normally, there’s no way someone in an English-speaking country would be able to get their hands on one of these games, and even if someone did, there would be no way to understand them because they are created by Japanese companies for Japanese audiences, which means all of the in-game language is in Japanese. However, the existence of a worldwide network means that not only can these games be obtained by people not in Japan, but they can also be translated into other languages, making them much more readily available to other people. Right now they aren’t a big problem in the United States just because not a lot of people know that this type of thing even exists (although I wonder why someone here hasn’t tried to make one, considering everyone is kind of a pervert). However, I can definitely see this becoming a bigger problem in the future, especially if the Japanese companies start developing them in other languages. Wed, 7 Apr 2010 03:24:00 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/this-is-totally-off-the-hook__trashed/#IDComment66324990 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/03/flip-the-script-for-a-moment__trashed/#IDComment64713134 I thought it was really weird when Sam was talking about menstruation in class, not because of what Sam was talking about, but because so many people in the room were suddenly disgusted and very outspoken about, which has never happened for any of the other “taboo” topics that Sam has brought up before. Apparently everyone, no matter what race or gender, is disgusted by public discussion of the menstrual cycle. I’m not, but I’m not necessarily a great measure of what is disgusting and what isn’t. Being a pre-med major, I’ve seen and done plenty of things already that the majority of people would consider totally disgusting and inappropriate for any sort of public conversation. But this whole discussion in class made me question and think about some of the things that Sam brought up in the next class, like why is it so weird for us to talk about this topic, but a lot of us have talks about race issues and LGBTA issues. Half of the world is made up of women, and half of the world menstruates or has done so at some point in their lives, but we never talk about. On the other hand, far fewer than half of the world is LGBTA, but we have no problem talking about any of those issues. From a purely logical standpoint, it would seem that it would be weirder to talk about LGBTA issues than menstruation. I agree with Sam in that it’s important to question. If people never questioned, then things would never change. We would still have slavery. We would still have oppressive dictatorships. We would probably still be in the dark ages for that matter. I understand the argument that menstruation is a personal thing, but how is something like race issues not personal as well? Because everyone can see what race you are? Well guess what, everyone can also see that women are women, and everyone knows that women menstruate. It’s not some sort of secret. I think it’s kind of a shame that Sam has had to defend himself twice about this already, in class and on the blog. There is nothing inherently wrong with talking about it, and anyone listening can choose for themselves whether they want to join in the discussion or just ignore it completely. If you feel uncomfortable talking about it, then you could just turn on your iPod and ignore it. Or you could question why you feel uncomfortable about it instead of just attacking Sam for saying it. We should all know perfectly well by now that Sam isn’t just intentionally trying to offend us, but that he’s trying to get us to question why we are offended. Mon, 29 Mar 2010 21:25:08 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/03/flip-the-script-for-a-moment__trashed/#IDComment64713134 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/03/native-hawaiians-ever-think-of-them__trashed/#IDComment63966512 I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve never thought about native Hawaiians before. All I think about when I think of Hawaii is crystal clear ocean, nice sunny beaches, palm trees, frozen drinks, and large pools of lava. And I think about how Hawaii would look a lot like a constellation if it was made of stars instead of volcanoes. I didn’t even know that the native Hawaiians had a kingdom before the Europeans or Americans or whoever took over them. I thought they were just organized into tribes living on the different islands, kind of like how Native Americans are organized into tribes roughly by where they live. It is certainly surprising that we never discuss Native Hawaiians, but we do discuss Native Americans fairly frequently. I think this has a lot to do with the fact that Hawaii is perceived as a resort area, much like Jamaica. And because Hawaii is a resort area, we just automatically assume that everyone who lives there lives an amazing life filled with great weather, beautiful beaches and warm oceans, much like we do with Jamaica. The sad truth is that only the tourists who go there really ever experience that kind of lifestyle, and the people who actually live in these places still have to work and struggle for a living. And more often than not, the work they end up doing is in some way related to the tourism industry, which obviously booms during the summer months but suffers for the rest of the year. Not exactly a super-reliable way to make a living. And for some reason, even when we think of the culturally-based tourist things that we can do in Hawaii, like luaus and hula dancing, we never really stop to consider where those things even came from and the rich cultural heritage that existed in Hawaii before Europeans ever came along. I think that it’s a good idea to give the Native Hawaiians at least some of their land back, but I also think that it’s impractical. From the article, it seems like the general plan is to create a reservation for the Native Hawaiians similar to how a lot of Native American tribes have reservations. But what’s going to happen to the people who live on those lands now? Some of the areas they plan to turn into “reservations” have to have at least a few non-Native Hawaiians living there, so where are they supposed to go? And creating a reservation isn’t going to fix the homelessness problem either. Native American tribes have reservations, but Native Americans still have the highest homelessness rate of any racial group in the United States. I think the only real problem that giving the Native Hawaiians money, land and power would fix is the guilt problem that Americans seem to have over the injustices they’ve committed against minorities in the past. Thu, 25 Mar 2010 05:48:24 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/03/native-hawaiians-ever-think-of-them__trashed/#IDComment63966512 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/03/prom-or-no-prom-just-dont-let-the-queer-students-dance-together__trashed/#IDComment62281860 This is kind of ridiculous. To cancel an entire school-wide event, and an event that’s supposed to be a fairly important memory, all because a lesbian couple wants to attend isn’t just ridiculous actually, it’s stupid and a big mistake. First of all, who made this stupid rule that girls have to make requests to wear a tuxedo if they wanted to wear a tuxedo? I understand there are dress codes for events like proms to prevent students from wearing inappropriate clothing, but this is supposed to apply to inappropriately revealing or offensive clothing. How in the world would a tuxedo be considered inappropriately revealing or offensive? And what’s the big deal about coming to prom with someone of the same sex? What did the school board think would happen? That they would start having sex in the middle of the dance floor? Did the school board consider seeing a girl wearing a tuxedo and dancing with another girl to be so “distracting to the educational process” that it deemed it necessary to prom? And what kind of education is supposed to be going on at a prom anyway? If this high school is anything like mine, the only education going on was learning how to fool the breathalyzers so you could drink as much as you wanted without any chaperones noticing. It seems like the school board purposefully made this decision with the sole purpose of ruining this poor girl’s life. They didn’t circulate the memo prohibiting same-sex dates until after McMillen made the request, which means they definitely circulated it in response to the request. And they had to know that even if they didn’t tell anyone why they cancelled prom, eventually the students would figure out why and who was “responsible”. And if they knew all these things and still decided to cancel prom, it makes it seem like they were trying to pass judgment on this girl for being a lesbian, which is absolutely and entirely not their place to do. The decision would be understandable if this school was a private Catholic academy or something like that, but it appears to be a public school. Public schools, which are supported in part by the state, are supposed to be required to adhere to state anti-discrimination laws, and these laws usually protect gay and lesbian individuals. So not only is this decision to cancel prom stupid and a big mistake, it might also be illegal. The sad thing is that there probably weren’t even that many people on the board who wanted to cancel prom because of this girl’s request. There was probably just that one outspoken, super-religious jackass who decided that being a lesbian was so wrong that it would infect all of the other students with homosexuality. And then, of course, being outspoken, he or she had to force his or her opinion on everyone else. Good job. I hope the ACLU sues you and all of the other sheep on the school board that allowed this injustice to happen. Mon, 15 Mar 2010 21:52:04 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/03/prom-or-no-prom-just-dont-let-the-queer-students-dance-together__trashed/#IDComment62281860 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/03/this-is-getting-to-be-too-much__trashed/#IDComment60924866 This party incident that they’re referring to in the video is kind of ridiculous. Asking people to “dress ghetto” for a party? That’s called a theme. Lots of people, white, black or brown, have theme parties. I could ask you to dress up like a cowboy, but no one in Texas gets offended. I could ask you to dress like a ninja and none of the Asians will get offended. I could even ask you to throw on a sombrero and come to a Mexican-themed “fiesta”, and no one of Hispanic decent will get offended. And you know why? BECAUSE IT’S JUST A THEME. Everyone knows it’s just a theme. It’s not you being racist. It’s not you making fun of the way Mexicans dress. It’s just another stupid excuse to eat a lot of yummy food and drink a lot of yummy liquor and then do stupid and regrettable things later on in the night. So why would “dressing ghetto” be any different than “dressing Mexican”? And besides, it’s not even only black people who live in the “ghettos”. So why aren’t the white and brown people getting all offended about that statement? And they mentioned in the video clip that it was apparently a black student who asked the fraternity to hold this party in the first place. So is this guy racist against his own racial group? Because that’s pretty rare. Or is this guy the only guy on the UCSD campus who understands what a theme party is? Now while the ghetto thing is kind of ridiculous, the noose thing is less so. I wish they had mentioned in the clip what racial group that the minority student who hung the noose was from. It doesn’t particularly matter what racial group the student was from because hanging a noose is offensive no matter what, but it would have been interesting to know. I don’t understand how anyone would think that hanging a noose would be ok, considering how prevalent the topic of slavery is in the history of the United States. I think very few people would fail to understand that a noose represents the racial lynchings of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century’s. Aside from these two incidents, I find it hard to believe that the entirety of UCSD is a racist campus. I have several friends who go to UC schools, and from what I understand, all of their campuses are very diverse. In fact, at UCI, I think the majority of the student body is of Asian, and not white, decent. The same is true of UCLA and UC Berkley. You’d think that a school with this much exposure to different racial groups would have a hard time being racist, which makes it seem unlikely that any significant portion of the student body at UCSD is racist. Wed, 10 Mar 2010 01:20:55 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/03/this-is-getting-to-be-too-much__trashed/#IDComment60924866 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/02/who-could-compete-with-this-woman-on-a-level-playing-field__trashed/#IDComment58283876 It’s ironic that in this country, and many other wealthy countries around the world, 18-22 year old kids pay tens of thousands of dollars to sit in a large room surrounded by 300 of their peers and learn what Yvrose managed to figure out on a fifth grade education. It’s also ironic that such a talented and intelligent woman was born in Haiti, a poor country with few resources. If she had been born into the United States, she would be on Wall Street right now earning millions of dollars a year, despite her race and gender. The title of Sam’s post asks the question “could you compete with this woman on a level playing field”? I think that many people, if answering honestly, would say that they could not. I know that I certainly could not. I have no head for business, only for apparently useless scientific information. But even many business, finance, accounting and economics majors who have studied this subject for their entire lives probably could not honestly say that they have the ingenuity, creativity and initiative to develop a business model like Yvrose’s and actually make it work, were they to live in an impoverished country with very little education. Unfortunately, however, here we don’t necessarily rely on ingenuity, creativity and initiative to achieve success. Here, we sit in classes and have our professors tell us what Yvrose figured out on her own. Here, we have parents who give us money to go to college and get an education. Here, we have all the advantages that come with living in the most powerful nation in the world. It’s unfortunate that Yvrose never had these advantages. I don’t necessarily agree with Sam’s position that corporate executives and upper management don’t deserve the positions they have, because to rise to those levels, something about you is (usually) different enough to separate you from the rest of the pack. However, I also don’t think that business is a particularly difficult subject to study in college. I know quite a few business majors who chose business or finance or accounting or economics as a major simply because they heard it was easy, they didn’t have any subject they felt particularly passionate about, and a business degree usually leads to a pretty decent job and quality of life later down the road. Some of you will probably disagree, but let me say this. As a pre-med and psychology double major, I can assure you business majors out there that what and how much I have to learn to graduate is harder and more than what you have to learn. But whatever. Regardless of the difficulty of business, I do think that Yvrose deserves more than what she has. It always feels unfair that the people who are truly talented and special in some way don’t often get the recognition and success that they deserve. Tue, 23 Feb 2010 03:18:03 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/02/who-could-compete-with-this-woman-on-a-level-playing-field__trashed/#IDComment58283876 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/02/lgbt-class-question-six__trashed/#IDComment57201094 The previous writers mention a lot of stuff about the differing gender roles that men and women have, and how women are generally more accepting about sexuality and different lifestyles than men are. They cite this as being the root of why lesbian relationships are more accepted than gay relationships. However, I don’t think this answers the question. What this answers is why women are generally more accepting of homosexual relationships than men, but the question was why lesbians are generally viewed more positively than gay men. The answer to this question stems from societal norms. One of the biggest discrepancies within modern American society is that there are definitely more women than men population-wise, and yet men control nearly all positions of power and authority within that population. As such, men also influence the way sexuality, gender roles and homosexual relationships are viewed. And nearly all men find gay sex on some level to be icky. No matter how accepting and understanding a guy might be or pretend to be, on some level, it’s still weird to imagine two guys having sex unless you yourself are also gay or bisexual. On the other hand, nearly all guys have absolutely no problem with two women having sex. Men view that kind of sexual act as arousing and erotic, rather than icky. And a lot of that has to do with society’s treatment of porn. Let’s face it. No matter how weird or icky it might seem, and no matter how much we want to pretend otherwise, porn is vastly important in our modern lives. The porn industry is a multi-billion dollar industry with a wide range of influence, especially in this modern age of internet, media and information. A simple Google search can turn up thousands of porn sites within milliseconds. You can go to Google image and type in the word “boobs” and get far more than you ever bargained for. There is hardly anyone in America past the age of 12 who is not Amish that has not seen some sort of pornographic material, and many of these people are regular consumers. And let me tell you something. No one except gay guys (and one of my friends, although she’s pretty weird) likes gay porn. Lesbians watch lesbian porn. Straight men and women watch straight porn and lesbian porn (oh yeah, straight women watch lesbian porn too). Weird nerds hiding in their mom’s basement watch cartoon porn and a bunch of other freaky stuff that would probably get me banned from this blog were I to type it. But no one else besides gay men watches gay porn. And that’s an important reflection of the male (and therefore dominant) perception that gay sex is weird and gross, while lesbian sex is not. Wed, 17 Feb 2010 07:49:03 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/02/lgbt-class-question-six__trashed/#IDComment57201094 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/02/animals-vs-humans-vs-welfare-cheats__trashed/#IDComment56242946 I can’t believe this guy still has a job. How can any public official say anything that offensive, intentionally or unintentionally, and not be either fired or forced to resign on the spot? First of all, you’d think someone with a highly public position like lieutenant governor would have learned already how to control what he or she says. Second of all, you’d think anyone with a highly public position in general would have more sympathetic views on social problems in the United States, or at least understand how these problems arise. Being on welfare isn’t really a choice that most people make. It is an inevitability that results from a number of factors such as our poor economic situation, a general lack of employment opportunities, responsibilities for supporting a large family, and other factors that are outside the control of anyone. And, as Sam points out, most of the people who are on welfare are children who have never done anything to deserve the kind of life they are forced to live. Bauer says that he didn’t mean to offend anyone. That’s a load of crap. How can you possibly liken any group of people to animals and not expect someone to be offended? You have to be either a giant idiot, or lying through your teeth to try and cover your own sorry ass when your critics come around to knock you off your pretentious high horse. His remarks weren’t just “immoral”, as his rivals have said. They were downright inappropriate, offensive, and entirely unacceptable in any situation, political or otherwise. And being known for making “intemperate remarks” doesn’t make this any better. In fact, that should make this worse, as it demonstrates a consistent lack of censorship and self-control. No one with this kind of discriminatory attitude should ever have been allowed into public office in the first place. And while his idea that welfare recipients should be required to take drug tests and attend parent-teacher conferences does make sense in a somewhat freedom-restricting kind of way, these proposed rules in no way make it acceptable to compare welfare recipients to animals. An apology isn’t good enough when you say something this offensive. Bauer didn’t make a mistake in the words he chose to use. Rather, he made the mistake of revealing what he really thinks of the poor, and it turns out his attitude towards them is disgusting. I think the South Carolinian voters should call for his immediate resignation. Yeah, that might seem harsh, but when you’re in a public position of power, if you can’t control your own mouth, then you don’t deserve to keep that position. Either way, at least this guy probably won’t be winning the governor’s seat in November’s elections now. Wed, 10 Feb 2010 21:24:15 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/02/animals-vs-humans-vs-welfare-cheats__trashed/#IDComment56242946 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/02/avatar-and-the-white-mans-burden__trashed/#IDComment55517004 Let me first say that if you haven’t seen Avatar and are planning to, then don’t read this. There are some spoilers. I did see Avatar, and in 3D no less, and it was amazing, at least in some aspects. The special effects and visual spectacle blew every other movie to this date completely out of the water. On the other hand, the story was a giant pile of crap. The same jaded love story that all too often features in movies these days. In fact, if you think about it, the storyline was pretty much the exact same as that of Pocahontas (you know, the Disney animated film), except with a lot of explosions. And predictably enough, at the end of Pocahontas, everyone is saved by the white hero as well. I don’t think the film’s intention was to be racist or anything, but it inadvertently does it anyway. And I’m not talking about the storyline. Even in the casting of this movie, there is a stark contrast between the number and roles of the white actors compared to the number and roles of the non-white actors. The only two major roles that are played by non-white actors are that of Neytiri, played by Zoe Saldana, and Trudy, played by Michelle Rodriguez. Both of these women are technically Latino, which is nice because in general, there is a huge lack of Latino actresses in Hollywood. However, there are no leading black actors or actresses in this movie. There are a couple playing blue savages, but none in leading roles And the only Asian in the movie was this Indian guy playing a stereotypical role as a researcher. I don’t recall seeing a single Asian from one of the “oriental” countries even making a fleeting appearance on the screen. Basically, all of the people who are in charge in this movie are white. And even though there is an attempt at diversity in the casting, it still feels backwards. While there are two Latino actresses in this movie, neither of them is cast in a role that is especially flattering. First of all, Michelle Rodriguez’s character, Trudy, dies. And not just dies. She dies in a fiery explosion of bullets and missiles that certainly guarantees that she won’t be returning for the inevitable sequels. Second of all, Zoe Saldana portrays what amounts to a savage, a very tall, blue savage with big yellow bug-eyes. Not exactly a flattering interpretation of an actress who I consider to be very attractive. And not only is her character “uncultured” by the white standard, she also has some sort of weird, magical voodoo tentacles sticking out of her hair-braid that allows her to commune with weird voodoo earth spirits. Aside from that, while Zoe Saldana has black skin, if she had white skin, she would look like every other white person. She has very white features. Straight hair, with a slim and slender body frame and pointed chin. The only thing not white about her appearance is her nose. So much for diversity. Fri, 5 Feb 2010 19:49:31 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/02/avatar-and-the-white-mans-burden__trashed/#IDComment55517004 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/01/the-enlightened-west-knows-best__trashed/#IDComment54172094 I can’t believe that France would ever even consider a law that would forbid women from choosing to wear a burqa in support of their religious beliefs. I thought European countries were supposed to be more tolerant of diversity than the United States was. But even in the United States, this kind of suggestion would never even make it past the internal sounding board of some crazy racist’s mind. And the video makes a point of saying that the French government estimated that only around 2000 people even wear face-covering clothes like the burqa. 2000 people. Who gives a crap. It’s only 2000 people, and France has a population nearing 66 million. Only idiots with vendettas against people different from them bother to make laws restricting the freedoms of less than 0.00003% of the population. The pretentious sounding French government guy in the clip said something about wearing a burqa being a statement, a position. But what is it a statement or position of? Fundamentalism? Well guess what, no it’s not. It doesn’t reflect any sort of fundamentalism. The only way you could think it does that is if you’re secretly biased against Muslims. Women choose to wear a burqa as a reflection of their support for the religion that they believe in. It’s analogous to you choosing to wear the colors of your favorite sports teams, although on a less superficial level. And you’d think that other Muslims would be more supporting of these women’s decision to honor their faith. But no, they all think it’s too much. Even the imam thinks it’s too much, because there’s nothing in the Koran that says that women have to do this. Well they don’t have to. They want to. So why stop them? If they want to be so hardcore about being a faithful Muslim, then why should you care? But at least the French police show some sort of sense. At least they admit that they don’t know how they would enforce this law, and that they don’t even really care enough to do it should the law get passed. Good for them. I think the real reason that the French government wants to make these clothes illegal is because they look creepy. Let’s face it, they do. They make you look like imperial guards from Star Wars or something. I can definitely imagine someone wearing these clothes whipping out an array of laser weapons when attacked by Jedi. And covering your face in general is kind of creepy. That’s why masks are so weird. When you can’t see someone’s face, it becomes much harder to tell what they’re thinking and what their intentions are, and that makes them instantly less trustworthy. Thu, 28 Jan 2010 07:29:51 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/01/the-enlightened-west-knows-best__trashed/#IDComment54172094 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/01/last-name-begins-with-i-or-j__trashed/#IDComment53868148 hi. Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:47:29 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/01/last-name-begins-with-i-or-j__trashed/#IDComment53868148 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/01/haitis-calamity__trashed/#IDComment53431233 I know this is a terrible thing to say, but I find it hard to care about Haiti. I know that what happened in Haiti is one of the worst natural disasters to ever occur in the western hemisphere. I know that tens of thousands are already dead, and tens of thousands more are still missing or unaccounted for. I’ve even seen some of the pictures and news stories about the aftermath of the earthquake. I know some of the facts about what happened in Haiti, but I still can’t bring myself to truly care. Even though I know all of these terrible things, and even though I feel bad about what happened, I don’t have any desire to fly down there and help the Haitians rebuild their country. I barely even have any desire to donate some of my hard-earned money towards relief efforts. Laurie talks about how Haiti for her is a modern day image of the crucifixion. She says that what happened in Haiti has made her less concerned with her own possessions, ideas, hopes, and things she thinks she deserves. But why did it take this long for you to feel that way? Things just as terrible as what happened in Haiti have been happening around the world every day since long before I was ever born. There are millions of children starving and suffering in Africa right now. Teenagers are still being sold as sex slaves in Thailand. Drug lords are probably butchering families in Columbia as I type this post. And who the hell even knows what kind of atrocities are even going on behind the borders of Cuba and North Korea. But no one seems to care about that. No one seems to realize that countless people are dying and suffering every day around the world, and that there is no chance of money or help for them. They only seem to care about Haiti. And that’s why I can’t care about Haiti. People only care about it because it’s big news right now, because major news networks have exploited the power of mass media to make people care while neglecting those who have been suffering for far longer. This might be a harsh thing to say on a public post, and I have no particular religious beliefs, but I think it is hypocritical to compare Haiti to the crucifixion. I’m not denying that the people in Haiti are suffering. But I am denying that they are suffering the most. I don’t deny that Haiti deserves help. But there are people around the world who deserve far more. No one seems to care about those people. So why in the world should I care about Haiti? Fri, 22 Jan 2010 19:56:30 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/01/haitis-calamity__trashed/#IDComment53431233