en-us https://www.intensedebate.com/users/2411621 Comments by brf5087 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/19/were-you-surprised-to-find-that-business-is-the-factor-that-shapes-immigration-policies-119-blog/#IDComment145216265 The strive for any economy is to have a large surplus in money. The main thing that Americans strive for is money as unfortunate as that is, that is all that matters to some people. They will do whatever it takes to get as much money as possible. They will squeeze ever penny out of the wage column and give it to themselves. As sad as it is, this is most likely the mind set of a business owner. They do not care about Americans not having jobs or pay or anything like that. They are only at it for themselves. With all of this said, it is not a surprise that business is the main factor that shapes the economy. Whatever it takes to get more money, thats what a business will do.Even if it is very questionable. I for one think it it very bad. Americans need jobs. We need to creat job opportunities for Americans to get paid and work. Even if it does cut into the profit of the owner who cares. It will help bolster our economy and also will make many Americans happy to be in the work force. But, unfortunately, owners are not out to make other people happy, just themselves. Fri, 22 Apr 2011 21:11:47 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/19/were-you-surprised-to-find-that-business-is-the-factor-that-shapes-immigration-policies-119-blog/#IDComment145216265 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/19/were-you-surprised-to-find-that-business-is-the-factor-that-shapes-immigration-policies-119-blog/#IDComment145216196 Let me give a scenario. Let us say that you have two options. Option one. You take an American worker. Well educated, good at the job he is doing, and knows how pay and all of the wage scenarios work and obviously wants at least minimum maybe even more if the job is tough. Option 2. You have a bunch of men or women from Mexico who have crossed over the border and are just looking for work. They will work for a low price as long as they are bringing in some money. They do the job equally well and know what they are doing and will do it for much less. Which would you choose. I think most people would choose the lower wage illegal immigrant workers. This would put more money into the owners pocket since he does not have to give away the companies profits to higher waged American workers. Fri, 22 Apr 2011 21:11:27 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/19/were-you-surprised-to-find-that-business-is-the-factor-that-shapes-immigration-policies-119-blog/#IDComment145216196 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/19/were-you-surprised-to-find-that-business-is-the-factor-that-shapes-immigration-policies-119-blog/#IDComment145216131 I honestly did not know that business and owners were the main people that affected the immigration policies. However, that said, I probably could have guessed it given the question on the street or something like that. When you look at it, these business owners are all about the money. They do not care how they get it or where it comes from, as long as they are getting a lot of it. As shady as it may seem, these people are all about the money, as is, unfortunately the rest of the world. I do realize it should be about making yourself happy and making others better off but that discussion is for another time and place. Fri, 22 Apr 2011 21:11:10 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/19/were-you-surprised-to-find-that-business-is-the-factor-that-shapes-immigration-policies-119-blog/#IDComment145216131 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/12/what-are-your-thoughts-on-everything-we-saw-and-heard-in-lecture-about-native-americans-119-blog/#IDComment143227942 If everyone were more forgiving and peaceful like the Native Americans I am sure this world would be a better place. If we were to talk about the mass genocide and mass hate in this country of the Native Americans, I am curious what would happen. If we fessed up to all the crap our ancestors and even people today have put them through, we would look awful as a nation and be known to be a hateful nation. It would be a very rocky situation here in the states if we admitted to the mass hate and genocide of the past and present. Fri, 15 Apr 2011 21:48:31 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/12/what-are-your-thoughts-on-everything-we-saw-and-heard-in-lecture-about-native-americans-119-blog/#IDComment143227942 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/12/what-are-your-thoughts-on-everything-we-saw-and-heard-in-lecture-about-native-americans-119-blog/#IDComment143227904 As Sam questioned to us, what if someone came to your house and told you to pack up your things and leave and that they were taking your land and your house and your life over? The Dave Matthews Band song depicted what it was like for these people as they were taken over. If that happened to me, I would be so upset and feel so much hate towards the people responsible. I do not know how their people have remained so tranquil and whole hearted even after what they have been through and the legends of the past that their people have produced. It is astonishing that a people can do that. Fri, 15 Apr 2011 21:48:20 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/12/what-are-your-thoughts-on-everything-we-saw-and-heard-in-lecture-about-native-americans-119-blog/#IDComment143227904 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/12/what-are-your-thoughts-on-everything-we-saw-and-heard-in-lecture-about-native-americans-119-blog/#IDComment143227828 The movie about the palces where they live was also a very interesting one. It is like they live in a garbage heap. Not only that, but they were here first and we just stiole their land and killed them until they would just leave and travel west and get out of our hair. We treated them like animals. I do not feel guilty because that would be a bad feeling in such a situation. I do however feel an anger and a sadness for these people who have been through so much. The music in our books shows their obvious pride for their culture and we have tried to eliminate them. It is awful. Fri, 15 Apr 2011 21:48:00 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/12/what-are-your-thoughts-on-everything-we-saw-and-heard-in-lecture-about-native-americans-119-blog/#IDComment143227828 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/12/what-are-your-thoughts-on-everything-we-saw-and-heard-in-lecture-about-native-americans-119-blog/#IDComment143227711 The lecutre today on the Native Americans was a very eye opening one for me. Growing up in north central Pennsylvania I have had little to no contact with these people and really knew nothing about them. I am glad I had this experience in class. I feel a great sadnees and anger about the topic. After the hundreds of years of hate and killing and genocide and afwul things that have happened, to remain as tranquil as they have, is so astonishing to me. The data that was most eye opening to me was the data of the hate crimes. The fact that out of every one thousand 124 or somehitng like that native americans are victim of a hate crime is astonighing. this was more than double the number on blacks and latinos I believe. These people have been through so much and now they are victim of hate and are placed on reservations. This is absolutely ridiculous. Fri, 15 Apr 2011 21:47:45 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/12/what-are-your-thoughts-on-everything-we-saw-and-heard-in-lecture-about-native-americans-119-blog/#IDComment143227711 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/05/after-this-class-do-you-still-blame-terrorism-119-blog/#IDComment141088812 This question is quite vague and I have trouble understanding what exactly the question is. I am guessing that you are asking whether we blame the terrorists for taking action on us based on the lecture today Christian Invaders. Assuming that is correct I will still say yes I absolutely one hundred percent still blame the terrorists for taking such radical actions. You cannot just give people free passes because of what they see on tv or how they seem to view us. That would be like blaming a video game that is violent for someone going on a killing spree and driving a car really fast and hitting stuff. It just does not make any sense. Just because they see some online of a few of the many american soldiers being idiots, does not give them the right to go radical and crazy and kill innocent civilians. It goes the same way in both situations. We do not have the right to have such a hateful view of Muslims and Arabs just because a few of them are very radical and terrorize for a living. It goes both ways for me. We as americans should know that it is not right to put a group of people into a general group and assume they are all the same based on what we see on the news. We all know the news only shows the bad stuff and the worst of the worst. Very rarely do you see a happy feel good story about soldiers in Iraq. As sam showed us, all of those pictures of kids getting candy from soldiers and being assisted by soldiers. And then the videos on the internet with all the views and what gets on the news are the ones of the soldiers being idiots and running over peoples cars who steal wood and just harrassing civilians. There are very few soldiers that are actually like that in all seriousness. All of this said no one has any right at all to generalize people into groups just because of a few people. It does not make sense to me and is not right. If we did this, we would all be the same as each person of the same color as us. and as we know, this is not true at all. Everbody is unique in this world. I am pretty sure that about one percent of people in these groups that we have made are so radical and have such a hateful view of everyone in every other group. We need to see past the generalizations and all of this hate and just see people individually for who they are. Then, we might get past all of the terrorist actions and the radical actions. Fri, 8 Apr 2011 21:04:38 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/05/after-this-class-do-you-still-blame-terrorism-119-blog/#IDComment141088812 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/29/what-reasons-make-multiculturalism-positive-for-the-us-119-blog/#IDComment139198352 Multiculturalism has many many positive aspects to it. At the same time it can have many negative effects for those who are completely closed minded about new and different things. For those who are complete radicals about their people or their own way of life, this could be a bad idea, multiculturalism. For a radical, there is probably no changing his or her opinions on other people. If this person had a violent though process about other people and wanted to wipe them out or something like that, the repercussions of multiculturalism involving this person could be very bad. He or she could lash out in a rage of violence and take the lives of several people of the different cultures because he is so closed minded to the idea of a melting pot per say. This would be a very negative effect that would probably only occur in the most radical of situations. This is probably the absolute worst thing that could happen with multiculturalism. unfortunately there are people like that who think like this. For most of the rest of the world, it is a very positive thing to have in the world. If you put people into situations in which there are people from many different cultures, it forces them to keep an open mind about them and will probably make them curious about other people and their way of life. It can really educate people about the rest of the world. Multiculturalism definitely an educational tool for people. They can learn so much just from talking to people from the other side of the world. It can also round people more. By that I mean people will be more well rounded in a world of melting pots. Once you get to know people from other places and befriend them, you will have many opportunities to go out into the world with them and take on many more experiences in life with them. In addition, they will have other friends with other connections to other cultures and what not and by this, we can all become more well rounded and more connected with the rest of the world. I would say there is much more positive to come out of multiculturalism than negative. Most people can be open minded and grow as people when they encounter a different situation and take it on in stride. As for the few rest of the people, it is a real shame that they cannot be more open minded. If everyone had an open mind and were much more willing to take on a different and out of the comfort zone situation, we would not be having all of these arguments and wars and all the negative aspects. People just need to be more accepting of the way people live their lives and see past it to the person within and accept them. Fri, 1 Apr 2011 21:09:40 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/29/what-reasons-make-multiculturalism-positive-for-the-us-119-blog/#IDComment139198352 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/22/why-do-we-need-to-show-the-clips-of-comedians-before-having-serious-discussions-about-race-119-blog/#IDComment137569418 This is something I have also always been curious about. Why, before every topic that is serious or uncomfortable in any way shape or form, do we have to show a comedic video that makes a serious topic into a hilarious and completely comfortable topic? I believe there are several reasons for this. One is that it obviously helps to make the room light and happy. If we were to just jump into a serious talk on race, the room would have a very awkward feel to it and no one would want to say anything at the risk of offending people or things like that. If, however, we watch a video that both is hilarious and sheds light on the topic, the room instantly becomes alive and with a comedic light shed on the topic of race, everyone in the room feels very comfortable with the situation. That being said, I feel like the person who is making the jokes or trying to lighten the mood has got to be someone of note or someone famous. If I were to try to lighten the mood in the room, it probably would not work. If someone like chris rock, a noteworthy comedian, does it, it will definitely work. I also think it helps that he is black. If it were me, being white, that tried to do this, I do not think people have the same opinion of white people making fun of race as they would a black or brown person. It seems like black or brown people are entitled to make fun of racial issues in the world while white people would make the topic slightly awkward because of the past history. Another reason is that a comedian in a room with a bunch of people, can get everyone laughing and on the same page. I noticed in our room whenever we watch a hilarious video, everyone is laughing and seemingly on the same page for the discussion and nobody feels awkward at all in any way shape or form. A comedian can serve as the string to tie the room together and be able to have a reasonable discussion on a once awkward topic. Finally, laughter is the best medicine. Obviously this is a topic that has once caused pain, suffering, and torture to so many people in the past and still has some lingering effects on people today. Having the ability to make fun of or be light hearted about such a delicate topic can be a great way to get everyone, those who have suffered from it and those who have not suffered from the discrimination, on the same page. It just brings a great connection into the room and brings everyone together. Laughter does all of those things. It is great but at the same time I wish we could just have these kinds of serious discussions right away without any awkwardness about the topic or any uncomfortableness throughout the room. Everyone would have to be at like stage 6 though so it is tough. Fri, 25 Mar 2011 20:56:37 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/22/why-do-we-need-to-show-the-clips-of-comedians-before-having-serious-discussions-about-race-119-blog/#IDComment137569418 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/18/where-do-the-messages-come-from-119-blog/#IDComment136267155 This video was a big time shocker for me. It shows me many things about today's society and also I would imagine a lot of white people in the room were feeling at least a bit guilty of the whole thing. However, we cannot feel guilty at all because that will only hold us back and not help the issues in the world today. Anyway, I think those doll videos show that parenting plays a key roll in the thoughts and actions of the children. The kids said specifically that their parents did not like that their hair was kinked or that their skin was darker for example. They said they did not want them going out with their hair kinked. They wanted it straight. They also said their families preferred their lighter skinned family members as opposed to them. I Think this just shows that the so called white look is preferred even in black homes and it is sad. Individuality is not preached in the home anymore. They just wanted their kids to fit in and be the same. That is kind of sad to know that black parents will not let their kids be themselves. The doll portion of the video shows a couple of things. It reiterates the idea of parents preaching to their kids that light skin and straight hair is better, and also the media probably plays a role in this. Whether is be cartoons or daily normal shows or news or whatever, black people in the eyes of those little kids are depicted as bad. The kids chose the white doll as the NICE doll and the black doll as the BAD doll. The parents and the media are responsible for this. There are very few places such young kids can learn this other than parents and media. It is sad. That video shows me many things about today's society. We have not moved on from the problems in the past at all. We have come a long way now do not get me wrong. But we have a ways to go. For black and white parents to be preaching that whiter skin and straight hair are the nice and best way to look is ridiculous. We just need to let our kids look like whatever they look like. Once they get into schools and whatnot, their friends will also have a large influence on what they think of themselves. I think peer pressure plays a large role on this white is nice black is not business. People claim the same things parents do straight hair and lighter skin is more beautiful. It is ridiculous. Let them be themselves. If we do not preach individuality in the home and media, we will continue to be a long ways away from any type of conclusion to this issue of inequality. Sun, 20 Mar 2011 17:29:05 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/18/where-do-the-messages-come-from-119-blog/#IDComment136267155 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/02/how-can-we-save-our-scarce-resources-119-blog/#IDComment134055942 The answer to the first part of your question varies a lot in accordance with where you are from and what you are raised around. The question of when will we realize that we need to cut back on our massive consumption of resources depends. If you are living in poverty already and eating very small amounts of food and have small amounts of money, then you already realize that we need to cut back in order for our resources to last. If however you are living like we are here in the US, until you are shown data or video, you really do not notice because we have so many resources and so much food and goods here. I knew that a lot of the world was living in poverty. What I did not know was that I was living in much better conditions than around 97% of the world. Our population right now is around 7 billion. 97% of that is over 6.5 billion people. That is a very eyeopening statistic. Now, not all of these people are living in poverty. But the point is that if we keep up our consumption rate eventually a lot more people will be living on scarce resources. I did that ecological footprint thing for edesign 100. i am sure a lot of you have done it. If everyone ate as much as I do and lived like I do today, we would need around 4 worlds worth of resources to sustain an entire people living like me. That is ridiculous. What can we do? I have actually heard that the birth rate is steadily declining. However, I dont think that we can stop people from having children or putting a time table on it. I think we all just need to cut back, eat more homegrown foods, not buy so many processed foods and goods that require so much work and fuel for transporting it. There are little things we can do to cut back all of our ecological footprints. That thing we did in edesign was pretty revealing. I usually notice in inordinate amount of recyclables in the garbage cans. If people at the university and all over the country would recycle most if not all of their recyclables, our footprints would be cut back a good amount. Also, we can use our lights and other electrical appliances at a much lower rate and turn crap off when we dont need to use it. It is ridiculous how much stuff we waste here. Also, hopefully solar technology is used much more by everyone. It is a great source of energy and doesnt not harm the environment so much. We just need to be smart about how we use our resources and do obvious things to salvage our resources. Fri, 11 Mar 2011 05:36:28 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/02/how-can-we-save-our-scarce-resources-119-blog/#IDComment134055942 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/24/why-are-black-and-brown-people-more-expressive-of-their-problems-than-white-people-119-blog/#IDComment130694520 This is a very interesting question. I have noticed in my high school for example (a pretty diverse high school) that black people in our school were much more open about their financial standing and their socioeconomic class than white people were about their financial standing. Whether it were a rich or a poor white person or a rich or poor black person, black people were generally more open to discussion about their standing. to focus in on open discussion about poverty, I feel like there are several reasons why black people are more open about their standing than white people are. The first reason is general geographic location of the people in poverty. I would say that generally, poor black people generally live close to cities, while poor white people generally live in a rural area such as the one that Tammy in the video lived in. In a rural area, not as many people are around you obviously. This does not give the poor white people a chance to discuss their situation with anybody and word does not get out that they are in a tough situation. In a poorer area of a city, they are many people who usually all become friends. I imagine they stress communicating with each other and helping each other out where they can, so poor black people are probably more used to communicating their financial issues with other people than white people. The second reason I think is idea of inequality in the world. Generally, it is said that white people have the best chances to succeed and get good work from employers because of their white skin as shown by data in class and other things like that. A white poor person really does not have any excuse to lean on as to why they are not a great success with money and a family and a good education. It is supposed to be easy for white people to get ahead in the world. Therefore, poor white people are probably more embarrassed about their financial standing and have no excuses to be a failure so therefore they do not tell anyone. Black people on the other hand are the ones being discriminated against. If they are poor they can lean on the excuse that they were discriminated against in the work field and were not given a job because they are black. They openly express their grief over the inequality in the world and have a legitimate excuse for being poor. until there is absolute equal opportunity in the world for everyone no matter their skin color, there will be this continued difference in the poor because of skin color. Which is not right. The poor should be treated equally as should the middle class and the rich and wealthy. Fri, 25 Feb 2011 22:06:45 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/24/why-are-black-and-brown-people-more-expressive-of-their-problems-than-white-people-119-blog/#IDComment130694520 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/17/how-do-you-feel-about-the-way-people-live-in-america-compared-to-other-places-around-the-world-119-blog/#IDComment128924273 I feel like the general consensus of Americans, as is the case with me, is that we feel sympathy and sadness for those people in other countries living on such small amounts of money every day. The statistic that the poorest of all Americans live better than 97% of the world is one that really hits home. At the same time, however, we cannot feel guilty about this. We can be angry at the distribution of wealth in the world and try to do something about it, but guilt is the last thing we should feel. As Sam said, guilt is an emotion that tortures people. If we feel guilty about it, we would all be too tortured to try to help these people. I do not think Americans feel guilty about the scenarios of poverty in the other country. We are just upset. However, not everyone tries to chip in and help. Only a small portion of the American population i would say attempts to help out the poor people around the world. We are just too uninformed. The video about the slavery in the Ivory Coast in the chocolate industry shows how uninformed we really are. I know I had no idea about that problem in the Ivory Coast until I saw that video yesterday. And I am sure there are a whole bunch of other issues of slavery and poverty going on in the world that I have no clue about. That is the whole point. We are just uninformed as a society. We are all only focused on ourselves and living for ourselves.Do not get me wrong. It is always good to go out there and get yours (live for yourself), but to a certain extent. You cannot live inside of yourself forever. It was mentioned that it took 9 years for that story to surface from when it started to get to America. That is ridiculous. If it took us nine years to surface half of the missile threats and terrorist threats and bomb threats, I do not know how many lives would have been taken, but I know it would have been an awful lot. We would have so many problems if we were uninformed about oursleves. This is the case with the world around us. If we go out of our way to figure out some of the issues in the world, we can try to help these suffering people in other countries. Until people stop being selfish and lazy and go out of their way to help other people besides themselves and other Americans, there will be nothing done to help these people. People just need to wake up and get educated on the issues. Enjoy what you have in your life, but help others who are less fortunate in their living situations. Fri, 18 Feb 2011 22:05:35 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/17/how-do-you-feel-about-the-way-people-live-in-america-compared-to-other-places-around-the-world-119-blog/#IDComment128924273 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/10/do-we-have-a-responsibility-to-fix-inequality-119-blog/#IDComment127454515 I think that we definitely have to take it upon ourselves as a nation to try to eliminate all of the inequalities in the system today. We are supposed to be a nation of freedom and equal opportunity. The given freedoms to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness cannot be fully used unless everyone is on a level playing field. I was honestly rather clueless to the inequalities in the schooling system until I saw that video about the two high schools in Chicago. I attended a pretty diverse high school with pretty good facilities and teachers. When I watched that video, I realized that not every school is diverse like mine was, or has good facilities like mine did, or has good teachers like mine did. I finally saw the best and the worst and it is pretty ridiculous. It is impossible for a kid to learn as much as a kid in an extremely wealthy school. In the wealthy school, all of the resources and facilities for success and advanced learning are right there for you. Well educated teachers, good counselors, tough curriculum advanced placement classes etc. However with the less fortunate schools, great teachers cannot be afforded and thus high level classes are not there. High school students will never be on a level playing field for preparation to college until the curriculum at each school is the same. Athletes at different schools will also not be on level field until the facilities are of the same quality at each school. How this can happen? It is tough to say. Tax money would have to be evenly distributed between schools which would bring uproar to the wealthy schools taking money cuts. If people would look around and accept the inequality that is obvious and had any type of heart, then it could be possible for money to be distributed evenly, even if some money from a rich family has to go to other school districts. This is only one example of inequality. That video really hit home though for me. We just have to try to remain active in equalizing the playing field and if everyone can unite with one goal it may be possible. However, people do not want to take such a big responsibility on themselves because it requires work which is a shame. I think it also needs to be remembered that it is not the responsibility of one particular group of people to fix the issues in todays world. Sometimes, i feel like the finger is pointed in one direction, when everyone needs to accept some responsibility for the current situation in the world. It was generations in the past that were the cause of inequality, not todays generation. Todays generation is just to narrow minded about the issue and does not want to take any responsibility at all to work to fix the problem. People need to take action as a group, not as individuals. Sat, 12 Feb 2011 02:07:02 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/10/do-we-have-a-responsibility-to-fix-inequality-119-blog/#IDComment127454515 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/03/why-dont-we-live-like-the-monkeys-119-blog/#IDComment126049060 The video at the end of class Thursday was very interesting. It showed me two things. One: we are all just people (monkeys in the video). This tells me that we are all the same. As displayed by Sam with the data, we are 99.99% the same in our genes. Anybody of any race can be just as alike as someone from a different race. The exercise in which Sam used himself, another white man and a black man and said that he could be more alike with the black man than with the white man was powerful. The outer exterior is 0.01% of the genetic makeup. This is a very negligible number in my eyes. It really does not matter. We are all just monkeys. The second thing the video showed me was that there are both positive and negative things to the question presented here. If humans had not been given the ability to think for themselves it could be a good thing. We do not know what animals are thinking, but for the most part, there would not be any discrimination. Without the ability to think for ourselves, we could not compare ourselves to other people and try to feel superior to others. So, people would not feel the need to put others down and we could all just live life to live. With the thought process to just live life, there would not be nearly as much fighting and war. Granted, animals fight for territory and dominance, but it is usually short with little bloodshed. The animals usually have respect for one another and know each others territory. With our thought process we want to continue to fight for what we thing is ours. Whether it actually is or not we do not know. However, the point is that no war would be waged if we just lived life to live and not for the ultimate power of the world. While this is all well and good, it is also a bad thing if humans had never been given the ability to think. The world would be a jurassic park of sorts. There would be little to no intelligence in the world. There would be no technology of any kind. People could not communicate with other people far away. Without the ability to think for ourselves, there would be no unique qualities to anyone. We would all be the same exact people. The world would be so underdeveloped and with our physical weakness compared to other animals, i do not even know if we would survive as a race if we could not think for ourselves. No weaponry or anything could be made to help survive. In the end, i would say that it is a good thing that we can think for ourselves. It is what makes us unique and intelligent in so many different ways. It is what makes the world such a great place to learn and grow as a person. We would have no depth as humans without our own minds. Sat, 5 Feb 2011 01:42:43 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/03/why-dont-we-live-like-the-monkeys-119-blog/#IDComment126049060 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/01/27/what-the-most-beautiful-race-means-to-you-119-blog/#IDComment124421335 Me personally, I do not believe there is a most beautiful race at all. Every race has beautiful people within it. The only reason that there is such a conversation as a beautiful race is because of advertising and media. For example, when we discussed that white creme they are selling, that shows you that people around the world feel as if white is the most beautiful race because of the ads and products out there to make people more white. While over here in the US, we are trying to get tan and dark because we think that is most beautiful because of ads and tv shows depicting dark people having success. With all of this said, I feel like it is a big time factor in who people hang out with. I have found that some people (they have told me themselves) hang out with uglier people in order to better their own appearance to the people around them. It is pretty shallow but some people do think that way. As for the dating, I know a lot of people are probably brought up with the belief they should date within their so called race. My parents probably would not care, however, if i brought someone of a different race back to like my grandfather, he would probably not be too happy. Although I am sure a lot of the older generation (especially white) feels that way because they were raised in a time when interracial anything was a terrible sin. I think that anyone should be allowed to choose whoever they want to date. There should be no boundaries at all. I think it is in the nature of most people to be in the most comfortable position possible. That being said, I think people here at penn state want to be in the most comfortable position possible amongst friends. And to some people, that means being with people similar to you in all ways. That would include race. So, yes there is definitely an effect on who you hang out with by race. Some people feel as though a conversation can get awkward or stop if you start talking about something that only white people can reference or black people or whatever race it is. If everyone was open to talking about all of this race business, then there would not be any issue with hanging out with people of other races. The only reason people stay within there zones is for comfort. I know me personally it does not matter who i am with because i dont care. conversation never gets awkward because im pretty open about talking about race and what not. It should not be a big deal to make a joke here and theree or anything. But you do always have the uptight people that cannot take a joke which is fine. If people would lighten up, no awkwardness would be there and everyone could comingle as one. Fri, 28 Jan 2011 22:20:35 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/01/27/what-the-most-beautiful-race-means-to-you-119-blog/#IDComment124421335 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/01/14/why-do-we-still-have-stereotypes-blog-1/#IDComment122860103 Stereotypes are still around today because we are exposed to them on a daily basis. It is nearly impossible to eradicate something that occurs daily. Generations before us came up with these stereotypes and taught them to our parents and our grandparents and their parents and so on. It is a chain effect. Everyone in the world is exposed to these stereotypes and the only possible way to eliminate them would b to brainwash the entire world. There are so many different ways people are exposed to stereotypes. Some people are exposed through their racist families. Their children bring these thoughts to school and deliver them to their friends. Through peer pressure, the friends of these kids are forced to speak out and believe what their friends say. The chain goes throughout the school and everyone starts to believe these stereotypes. I know this was the case in my high school. The white kids were in the honors classes, called crackers, got straight As, didn't play any sports and the list goes on and on. The black kids were in the normal classes, barely did enough to get by, played sports, ran really fast, dealt drugs and that list also goes on. It is a ridiculous mindset to have, but pretty much everyone felt the same way and used these stereotypes to judge everyone they saw. Not only are stereotypes passed through friends, but the media plays a huge role in continuing the stereotype chain. For example, in the recent western based movie True Grit, if I recall correctly, every single cowboy or western person was white. That is because the stereotype is that only white guys are the old fashioned kind. While if you look at a movies based in the urban setting (in the streets), you will see a wide variety of black characters. This causes stereotyping like white people being hicks and black people being gangsters or what have you. The media is feeding the mind a lot of stereotypes and it is not helping the cause of trying to equalize all people. (Check out Blazing Saddles if you are looking for a movie that makes fun of racism and racist people to no end). Stereotypes eliminate the need to learn about every single different person of the same race. The people that use stereotypes are those who do not want to take the time or effort to learn about the individuality of every person in the world. We are people that like the easy way out, and stereotypes provide an easy way to learn about people even though they are completely wrong for the most part. If people will stop and take time to learn about people as individuals without judgment, there may be hope to somewhat eliminate stereotyping. In the end, there will always be a select few who do not want to take the time to get to know people. Fri, 21 Jan 2011 22:23:33 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/01/14/why-do-we-still-have-stereotypes-blog-1/#IDComment122860103