It’s hard to put yourself in the shoes of a victim, but I like this question because it’s different and really makes you ask yourself the unasked question…what would you do? I have never been a victim of any crime per say and especially not one of this magnitude so I guess I will use my imagination. I would say the biggest fear for someone would be if no one believed you. That is the most tragic aspect of this case in my opinion. These children were underprivileged children looking for a parent figure in their lives because they have no influences to look up to. They finally find this man who takes the place of a “father figure,” and he absolutely betrays their trust by doing such unspeakable things to them. We may never know what was said to them to influence their silence, but our imaginations run wild. Sandusky is such a powerful figure with an even more powerful force (Penn State University) at his side…who’s to say Sandusky did not tell these children that if they said anything no one would believe them. He could make them the most hated beings on this face of the earth. He could make everyone believe they are liars and that they are only after money or Sandusky’s reputation. Who would believe a troubled ten year old boy over the trusted and beloved coach of one of, if not the most noted and famous football program of our time? As a child, with no parental guidance and at such a young age, what would you believe? Another factor that I would take into account is the shame. I know a friend who was forcibly date raped and one of the reasons she did not come out for the longest time was because she was somehow ashamed of herself. She said she played the night over and over again and felt like somehow it was her fault, she could have done something more. When such a huge part of your innocence is ripped from you, it does something so disturbing to your physiological well-being. These boys may have thought they were the only ones. How disgusting would you feel? Why would you want anyone to know? I think the main thing I would need as a victim to overcome these huge fears, amongst others, would be to have others at my side…whether that be an adult or friend or even other victims. When you are so young and helpless, you need someone to fight for you or fight beside you. It is one of those unspoken crimes that go ignored all too often, and it would take a very strong individual to take on that battle alone. I think the reason this case has not been pushed aside rest heavily on the amount of people who came out and admitted what had happened and told their stories. The brave souls who took the first step and allowed others to find the courage to follow their footsteps. I am so thankful for that mother, who against all odds fought for her son and I am thankful to those who followed in their footsteps to finally put this monster in jail and away from more children he could destroy. But who knows, maybe even then I would not be strong enough. Who knows how many people are still sitting in silence?

Ever since I was around 10 years old I knew I wanted to go to this school. When I got to my junior year in high school, I knew that Penn State was the only school for me. We grew up with Joe Pa, the grandfatherly figure whose love and pride in his school was infatuating. My ex had Penn State surrounding his room. There were newspapers, pictures, memorabilia, pictures, posters, everything you name it and it was his dream his whole life to play there. We would watch the games together all the time and he would tell me stories of going up to Penn State with his father and standing out in the cold in hopes of scalping tickets. I was mesmerized by his love in Penn State football, Joe Pa, and the school…through this, I believe my love for Penn State grew even more. It was a family school, that had a sense of community and pride, trust, honor, and an old-school mentality that reminded us of the good old days where less was more and simplicity showed integrity. These were all things that I looked up to and tried to hold myself to as a person. Penn State had Smeal, the career fair, THON, a legendary football program…it’s where everyone in my school wanted to go and I was one of the select few that got in. April 4th was one of the happiest days of my life. Who would know that three semesters in we would be a part of one of the biggest colligate scandals, if not one of the biggest scandals of all time. I have been quite literally crying for the past few days. I am confused but mostly heartbroken. Everything that I believed in, in this school seemed to not be there anymore. A mere week ago telling my friends, family and random people I know that I go to Penn State all they could say was, “Wow that’s so great. That’s such a good school to get into,” or “You are so lucky!” Five days later my friends are even reaching out via phone and facebook to make accusations against our entire school, generalizing all of us as violent miscrients without a purpose who are more concerned with our image and football program than we are about the children who suffered. It’s unfortunately that the act of a few has created the image for this entire campus and I am a part of it. Will people stop donating to THON? Will businesses stop looking for Penn State students as employees? Will Penn State’s name ever have the same meaning again? It sucks knowing that the way people view me and this university I stood up for all my life will be a constant battle. I know we still stand for all the same things and these riots and disgraceful actions of some of our administration will not define this entire school body. I intend on staying here despite the struggles we will face rebuilding its name, but I am determined to be a part of whatever this “New Penn State” will be.

People bitch about all this immigration and how illegal aliens are taking our jobs and ruining the economy and stealing our children and raping our women…hahah ok maybe not the last part. For years people have been begging to have the boarders completely sealed and asking our government to send all of them ‘back where they came from.’ I personally do believe our borders should be monitored and we should try to cut back on the number of illegal aliens who are living here and working here, but not paying taxes. I believe this because not only do I believe everyone in this country should have the same/equal responsibilities, but also we need to control the population to some extent. Population is already out of control and there are not resources to support the numbers that could potentially result in having no limits on immigration. We should control this by having investigations and instead of kicking them out make them take their citizenship test. Some people complain that it is unfair that people come up the United States, work, and send their money back home where their families are and therefore the money is not being reinvested into the American economy that would have been invested had the person been a citizen. This is completely ridiculous. The amount of illegal aliens in comparison to the rest of the nation is 4% and even if most if not all of that 4% was solely sending their paychecks back to their families in another country it would affect our economy by the most minuscule, insignificant amount. The big argument is that Mexicans, ‘wet backs,’ illegals whatever people may call them are taking ALL OF OUR AMERICAN JOBS. Like are you kidding me? Let discuss the typical job situation for an illegal alien. Most people will stand in a corner just hoping that at least once this week and random construction site or odd job will be offered to them by small company. Another popular job is working in the fields picking fruit and vegetables or other miscellaneous things. American Jobs? How many people do you not that actually aspire to be farm hands, picking produce and manning the fields? In Alabama, after they enacted the stricter illegal alien policies tracking down hundreds of illegal immigrants and deporting them , major farm corporations were short at times thousands of workers. They had to make local inmates man the farms in order to keep up with demand. I feel like our nation’s rank of important issues they focus on are so skewed. We have so many other issues o be worrying about that are in particular affecting our economy and the illegal immigrants have such a small part if hardly any of the problem. If anything they are allowing corporate America to produce products cheaper so that us penny-saving Americans can purchase them cheaper and buy more of them, stimulating the economy.

I guess this is a complicated question because honestly I don’t believe that white people will ever be the minority, so I will answer this question hypothetically. Even though I consider myself a stage five individual and I have no personal criticisms against other races, I have to say it would be a little strange if the US was flipped, where white people became the minority and everyone else, I am assuming the sum of all the other races, were the majority, it would be a little strange for me. I grew up in a place where there were like three black people, maybe five Asians, and one middle eastern in the entire school/community that I lived in and even now at Penn State there are very few minorities in comparison to all the minorities. I want to be able to say that it would affect me but maybe there is this subconscious going on that in some senses it does bother me if I was one of a few white amongst a bunch of other races. I don’t know why exactly I feel a discomfort when I am around a large group of people who are different than me. Maybe I am afraid of saying something offensive or maybe I feel like I just won’t know what any of them are talking about. I have been in the situation where I was the only white girl amongst a group of black people and I felt like an outsider because I felt like they did not want me there. Not because solely on how I looked but because I could not relate to anything they were talking about. I think this is something we should all think about though. With the Hispanic/Mexican race growing in the US along with the amount of mixed races accumulating that will be considered other races, I would say that within a few years, like maybe even within the next twenty years white people may by the minority. I hope actually that within the next couple years with minorities becoming more even or even surpassing the “dominant white race” that there will be more equal opportunities as far as job and even as simply as the way people treat each other. Maybe when the numbers are more even people will be seen for their abilities, personality, and capabilities of doing a certain job instead being based on race. This goes both way for white people and people of different colors. Some white people are denied admission to colleges or positions on jobs because companies are trying to “diversify” when though the white candidate is more capable of doing that job. For people of other color, when being interviewed by a conservative white employer, he may be judged because of his skin. He or she may automatically be considered incapable of doing a job just because the majority of the people in their race are known for committing crimes, being lazy, etc. So hopefully if this scenario does take place the US will be a more fair country.

I definitely believe I am in a different stage than my parents. I hope I am not misjudging myself but I can honestly say I believe I am around a stage 5 hopefully on the road to approaching a stage 6 mentality. My parents unfortunately are slightly stubborn when it comes to racial acceptance. Do I believe they are racist? No not at all. Do I believe they are ignorant and openly offensive around me? Without a doubt. Whenever I would have problems with my roommate freshman year and would explain what was going on, they would always say oh well that’s just because she’s black. Black people are messy and lazy. To which in my mind, I don’t know why, but I take personal offense to. My roommate to me was just messy and didn’t care about maintaining a clean room as much as myself and never once until my parents said something did I ever associate her habits and personality with her race. Another example of these offensive statements is when I would bring home boyfriends. I have dated both a Korean guy and a guy form the Philippians and in each instance my parents would say, “How’s your rice patty?” and it discouraged me a lot from continuing the relationship because I knew they would never be accepted. Ironically enough my little brother actually started to like one of my ex’s (Korean ex) little sisters. Shes gorgeous, popular, athletic, funny, and very smart and when my brother mentioned this to my parents they said we’ll let us see a picture. The only response they gave was, “well I guess she’s ok for an Asian, but we don’t know why you would date an Asian.” I have also been told on several occasions that I should never ever bring home a black man. It really sucks because I am coming to realization that in order to satisfy my parents I have to bring home a big, athletic, all-American white boy from the suburbs. Not much variety to choose from. Why do I feel like my parents are stuck in maybe stage 4? Maybe it's the way they were raised or mentality of the people they grew up with but I will never see things this way. You can say I am just a poser white girl who would not actually date a man of color or have friends of color and I am only saying these things because I want to be cool but I hope at least some of you believe that could not be further from the truth. I am aware that there are different races and I accept and respect people for who they are and there are very few times in my life where I have actually made too quick of a judgment on someone because of their appearance. I can honestly say that I would friends with whoever, of whatever race and they criteria I will base this off of is their personality and how well we get along. Period. I really do hope that when my parents say or do these things it is because they are joking but I guess I will never truly know. I really think that it’s about time they move up in their stages.

I think the fact that I am white shapes a lot of my views especially since my parents tend to say racist things and I came from such a sheltered community. It is embedded in white culture to be afraid or skeptical of other races. Certainly this is not the case for all whit people, especially those who are from more diverse towns and have more tolerant parents. I also believe that the way the media portrays other races also helps to shape my views on the world. I did come from a very small town where everyone was very religious and conservative and tended to have racist beliefs. In my school there was, I believe two black people, so the natural assumptions I make towards them are based off what I see in the media and unfortunately they are not portrayed in a positive light. I see people of color in the inner city robbing, stealing, cheating the system (as far as welfare and things go), shoot outs, drug trades and so on. Naturally as a white girl I am all but taught to be afraid of other races. My parents also have shaped a very negative image of other races as well as some of my friends. When people make openly racist comments like calling someone a rice patty or a nigger as if it’s ok, it bothers me. Thankfully I feel like coming to college has helped me to form my own beliefs and I have separated myself from typical white culture skeptics of other races. Through this class and just meeting people of other races and realizing that there are so many generalized common misconceptions about other races and my parents are wrong. I would consider myself a stage five person as discussed in class because I do not feel like I am completely comfortable in certain situations with other races but for the most part I feel like I am a very tolerant individual who will consider a person’s personality over their race when determining whether I want them to be a part of my life. I actually have dated two different people of other races. One was Korean and the other was Philippine. I also have several friends who are black, Korean, etc. I also do not stand for when my white friends make racist comments. It’s like bullying, the person who witnesses the bully and does not stop it is just as guilty as the bully him/herself. I apply this same belief to race. I am getting closer and closer every day to moving towards stage six and I refuse to let the fact that I am white and the fact that I grew up where I did, to define the way I see the world.

I hope you will still accept this. I was getting ready to go out while trying to submit this and it apparently did not got through and I only noticed this morning that it was not in fact on the World in Conversation Board. I understand if you cannot accept this but nonetheless here it is.
Women sacrifice their comfort because they are searching for something. They feel as if (as sacrates/diotima/agathon would say) women are only half a whole without a man. This may sound primitive but you know in the back of every woman or man’s mind they believe that they need that significant other to feel happy or complete. Unfortunately, women are the more sensitive out of the two sexes and so I feel like women are more prompted to feel this emptiness of a missing a piece before men and act upon it. I am in a philosophy class of sex and love and this weeks lecture was about the different interpretations of love according to the most famous philosophers of our time. We discussed the universal belief that people are incomplete without having experienced or currently having a deep, meaningful connection with another being. Why do women always seem more desperate than men though? My personal opinion is that women are cursed. We are cursed with the need to feel love, devotion, and a closeness where I feel most men only desire the satisfaction of an orgasm. If only it were that easy for women. We are such complicated creatures. We don’t have these very basic and simple sexual beliefs that men have. When a random hookup happens between a man and a woman, women get satisfaction because a man paid attention to her, flirted with her and made her feel special amongst all the other girls, where as the guy is happy that he got to whack off to more than just his hand and the swim suit edition of sports illustrated. I call this condition that women have as the peacock syndrome. Peacock syndrome relates to how women act and how the male peacock act during the mating process. Male peacocks will flaunt their feathers and do a traditional dance in hopes of attracting a mate, and having a higher status amongst the other males in the group. I feel like women share this same culturally influenced need to be mate and be the most desired (not to put it bluntly) and so women flaunt themselves in hopes of attracting said attention from a man. I always found it strange actually that men are the usually ones to show off, have brighter colors, and have the need to flaunt in order to attract a female in the animal world for the large majority of species, but humans have it reversed. I do not know if it was adaptation over the years that caused these roles to flip, but unfortunately women today don’t seem to see the very fine line between looking sexy (showing their feathers) and looking trashy. We talked about this in our Social recitation groups as well and guys do not even know what they want. Some kid in my group claimed that he likes a good girl who isn’t going to put out too early and respects herself, but let’s be honest when he goes out on a Friday and Saturday night is he going to look for that girl or for a skank who has her vagina and breasts hanging out? His response to this is well in between looking for ‘that girl’ you need random hookups to hold you over. My question is how come it is ok for a man to be sexually active to “hold them over” and that is considered normal, but when a woman does a similar thing she is considered a hoe/skank/slut/easy/etc? What happened to equal rights man?

We have very generalized, outdated assumptions about the behaviors of men and women. I believe our idealized view of women comes from the early 1920’s. A woman is very feminine, weak, stays at home, shes the caretaker, and she requires a man’s protection. She is the innocent damsel in distress in need of a rescuer. Also, men are led by their penises so 85% of the normal thought process is thrown out the window when an attractive woman is in the picture. I think we assume women are more innocent because we have this idealized image of them and also men are easily distracted by a women’s motive if she is attractive. Men are generally assumed to be the bad guys. How many female villains do you remember reading about in comic books as little kids? I can personally think of one or two. Women are “too sweet and good-hearted” to ever pull off a crime. Just like the video from class, we saw not only could an attractive woman get away with committing a crime but men are so blinded by their libido that they even would jump in to assist them get away with it. The men were not so easy to get away with the process of stealing a bike, but even more interesting was the amount of attention the black individual got in comparison to the white male and especially in comparison to the white woman. Just as we stereotype for genders we also make similar stereotypes for races. That’s what this whole class is about isn't it? I’m not saying I personally believe these stereotypes but let’s be honest, when you’re on a plane and you see a man dress in typical middle eastern wear and they seem quiet, you start to worry in your head that there is a bomb on the plane, there’s a strong discomforting feeling as a woman walking in any inner-city area and a black man is following too close, and if we see someone with a confederate flag we associate them with white trash and being in the KKK. Are these assumptions right or fair…probably not, but we always associate certain things like crime to certain races. We base our opinion of a mass group on the actions of a select few but unfortunately the actions of a few speak loudly for the group. People will always have these natural prejudices because it is embedded in us by where we grew up, how we were raised , and the people we surround ourselves with growing up. Some people grew up in more tolerant atmospheres and had parents who encouraged acceptance, but for those who grow up in areas that are sheltered and not very diversified…it’s a different story. I don’t know how you go about fixing years and years of these built up prejudices but we can chose not to continue them.

After listening to Clorene’s story I think to myself, “wow.” Here is a woman with really big dreams and a very limited amount of resources, but despite the challenges she’s currently facing, she refuses to take hand-outs. I really admire and respect her for her determination in trying to start this company on her own. I believe in the saying that you give some rice and corn they can eat for a month, give someone seeds and the means to plant, they can eat for years. I think she recognizes that she needs to figure out how to do this on her own because she cannot sustain a business on materials and resources that are just given to her in the short-run. So this presents a problem that I am assuming Sam wants us to assess and create a plan through this Haiti Project. Through this project we are supposed to work with our group members to figure out what these entrepreneurs are looking for and how we can put together a game plan to help them achieve their goals and improve their businesses. Clorene has started her own textile/T-shirt shop in Haiti. The problems she is currently facing is out-of-date machines, lack of availability to affordable raw materials, and a need for machines such as embroidery, screen printing, and silk machines that will allow her to create tags to establish her own company’s logo as opposed to the random assortment of American brand tags she finds in her town. So since she needs all these things we need to figure out how we can, as Sam says, micro-finance these necessities to her. I don’t know if she would be willing to do something like this, but I was thinking she could finance a trip to the US where she could bring a collection of her shirts and have an auction, which will have dual-purpose as a Haitian Awareness and promotion for her company. With the jump start money that she could accumulate from this event she could finance the new machines she needs to create better quality shirts for a lower price. Over time she will have an increase in profits do the increased efficiency of shirt making. We could then set up some sort of system where WE could mass purchase her materials in the US and she can finance the material’s cost back to us (similar to credit card payments with a very, very low interest rates). That way, she can pay us back over time but still get the materials she needs to further increase her ability to mass produce. With her new machines in conjunction with an increase in raw materials to work with, she will be able to hire more workers, expand her company, and create a wider portfolio of shirt options as well as purses which she has recently started to get into as well. It’s all possible.

The SAT is a standardized test that was designed to measure a student’s literacy, writing, and mathematical skills that are necessary to be successful in college. Basically it’s an accumulation of random questions that tests how well your high school prepared you and how well you prepared yourself to make it through college. So if we think about the SATs in this sense, even though a large portion of the outcome of taking this test resides on the students efforts, we must also look at the student’s educational facilities to see if they even offer the level of difficulty in curriculum and resources needed for students to be successful on this exam and in college. Personally I think SATs are horribly outdated and is an inaccurate description of a person’s intelligence or ability to be successful in college but nonetheless I will humor it for the sake of answering this question. Now, if we are being realistic, we must recognize the fact that our educational systems throughout the US are by no means on the same playing field. How can we use a standardized test without truly having a standardized schooling system? When my mother started out as an educator, her first job was at an inner city elementary school in Philadelphia…a slightly different kind of school than I was used to. She would come home and tell us stories about how there weren’t enough books for all the kids and the ones they had were ripped, missing pages or there were three different versions of it. She would tell me about days where there were shootings on the playground and sometimes inside the school…hard to imagine wanting to open a textbook when you’re too afraid to even open the door to get to school. So when you’re dealt a shitty hand, it’s not a surprise that most kids fold and turn in their chips. Obviously these are extreme conditions but these are conditions kids from cities all over the US have to deal with , and the majority of kids from these area are from low income families. There are even conditions outside of school within families that effect kid's performance such as divorce, deaths, or care givers getting too sick to provide. Some kids are even forced to get multiple jobs to help pay for bills and at times will miss school in order to do that. You could consider that if a student comes from a low income family, their parents most likely didn’t go to college and don’t really push their kids to do well in school, which has a huge effect on their confidence and ability to find a direction. We need those guidance figures when we are little and our parents are usually the most influential people in our lives. This statistic is pretty straightforward and makes a lot of sense. Parents who are well-off in life, probably got a college degree and encourage their kids to follow in their footsteps. People who have more money live in better communities which generally speaking, provide better quality education systems that will provide SAT prep classes, along with just having an overall better curriculum. Then even if the school doesn't provide this help, parents have the monetary means to find their children help elsewhere. There are less obstacles to overcome (generally speaking) in families of higher incomes. After considering all this, it’s no wonder why there is a positive correlation between family income and SAT score.