I don't think my opinion has changed about illegal immigration after this lecture. I left the lecture thinking the same kind of things that I thought when I entered class: that illegal immigration is, and will always be a debatable topic.

I feel one argument is more of a moral argument. People have and will continue to talk about how we cannot deny people from other countries an attempt at a better life. So many people are poor, homeless, and starving so why should we block them out. These people think that they would do the same thing in these poor peoples' shoes. I think most people would agree that if they were homeless and starving in another country, and they saw an opportunity to make their life better, they would take it. So from a moral stand point, I feel as though many people could not argue other humans trying to create a better life for themselves and their family by sneaking into another country.

But then there is the standpoint of jobs and economic implications of having illegal immigrants. And in this sense, I think many people eventually realize that it hurts their chances as a citizen and a possible employee of getting a job. When it starts to threaten their own lives, american citizens start to think twice about the implications of illegal immigrants.

If anything, Sam's lecture just emphasized my dislike for big businesses in America. Big business controls SO much more than anything else in America. The individual citizens wants are so pale in comparison to the needs and wants of big business. At the end of the day, it is all about the money. And it really sucks because there is so much more to life than money- but it is just an unfortunate aspect of life that us "normal" citizens have to deal with. It is horrible how big business is able to dictate a huge portion of the decision when it comes to illegal immigration. When the businesses feel as though they want more workers to create more competition, which means less money for them to pay for labor, then they get the puppet politicians to get more illegal immigrants to come in. When they feel as though there is enough, the borders just get a little more stern.

The bottom line, as the video in class said, is that illegal immigration is not going to stop. As Sam said, it is like trying to fix a leak. Unless you are an expert, you are not going to stop it. And I don't think anyone is, or ever will be, an expert in illegal immigration. Personally, it just shows me I need to own my own business so that I don't get stuck having my life dictated by big businesses' wants through many different subjects including illegal immigration.

The fact that schools now are more segregated than the schools in the 1970s says that our society is becoming more and more ignorant to the fact that there is an unfair advantage between white people and people of color. Back in the 1970's, people were more aware of what was going on, as far as racial relations, in our society. Whether people liked it or not, people were sensitive to everything that went on in life based off of race. This had a lot of negative results, but it allowed people to be more aware of where people stood in society because of their race.

Because people of color and whites were sensitive to race more in the 1970's, people of color, and some whites, felt an obligation to make the unjust just. People saw the unfairness and the segregation that was happening so they wanted to do something about it. People would hold rallies and protests so that schools could be segregated no more and so education for whites and people of color could be more equal. People in the 1970s had their eyes open to their surroundings.

Now, we are blind. We think that since racism is not as prevalent and direct as it used to be, that everything is perfectly fine- like we live in a great, non prejudice world. But we don't. Most people in our society with power are white. And they have control of most of the things that go into the average citizens mind. Things like different types of media: newspaper, television, radio, etc. These people in power make us feel this sense of "comfort" that our society is changing as far as race goes, everything is becoming better, and racism, segregation and prejudice are things of the past. This sense of comfort is just a blindfold. It is a blindfold to stop us from seeing that schools are more segregated than they were years before. It is a blindfold to stop us from seeing that whites, in vast majority, are getting a better education in our society than blacks. It is a blindfold to stop us from seeing that the majority of people of color cannot get a good education, which then stops them from getting a good job, which then keeps them in the lower economic status in our society. Then they have kids and the kids then get that same poor education, poor job, poor economic status. And then those kids have kids and it is a vicious cycle.

I do believe that direct racism and prejudice has improved and continues to improve among different cultures in our society. But, I also believe that the people in power of our society use this to make us believe that people of color have as equal of an opportunity as whites. I feel as though this resembles the "king of the mountain" analogy that Sam used. This whole sense of comfort is just something for the white race to keep people of color from climbing that mountain. And it is not all the white peoples' fault because many people of color get satisfied with where they are. They accept where they stand in society and just live life teaching their kids that if they work hard they will make it in life. People of color need to take this blindfold off and realize that their kids are not getting the same opportunities for the most part as white kids are. This society will continue to become more segregated throughout another 40 years if we do not come to realize that something needs to change.

Back when 9/11 occurred, I was in 5th grade, so I was pretty young. The messages that I learned about terrorists were all pretty horrible: they are horrible, they are people who want to kill all americans, they want to see us extinct, etc. etc. Everything that I heard was something to make me hate terrorists. Some of the statements had merit, but ultimately, I was kind of getting brainwashed because I only got the "American" side of the story. I had an impression that we were good and they were bad from a very young age.

So it has always been hard to break out the mold that the terrorists are evil in every way and they deserved to die and sent to hell and all of that stuff. But now I kind of see it in a different light. And truthfully it is a very basic type of fundamental grounding this is all based on: there are two sides to every story.

I have realized that Americans have its range of people just like Middle Easterners do. You have your conservatives and your radicals. You have your people who don't want to hurt anyone and then you have your people who wouldn't mind an entire race being extinct. We have citizens in this country who are around as bad as people in the middle east.

Also as I have grown up, I have realized that our government really has gone to war not only for the good of the world, but for our countries own good. I realized that our government is full of humans who make mistakes just like all of us "normal" people. We put our government and America on this pedistool like we can't do anything wrong, and it blinds us to the fact that we are just as human as everyone else in the world.

The video of the American soldiers running over a car with their tank in the middle east just confirmed for me that we have people who are so ignorant in their thinking that they make dumb mistakes. And those dumb mistakes are watched by an entire people in the middle east. So what do we expect? You have to expect these people to get mad and lash back out at us. It has come to this thing of, "why don't we check ourselves first before we want to check everyone else."

We Americans need to work on our own problems because we have plenty. If we stop doing injustice around the world then people wouldn't want to come and go all 9/11 on us so much. People wouldn't want us to be extinct if we didn't kill their people already.

At the same time, it is survival of the fittest. We need the oil to survive how we're surviving. So in that sense, I hope that our technology soon allows us not to depend on oil so we don't have to get it from the middle east. If not, I guess I can't complain because truthfully, I like my lifestyle. And I'm pretty sure people would not be complaining about us being in the middle east as much if their lifestyle was threatened to get taken away.

But for this reason, we have to take the cons to this approach. As long as we take a position of taking other's resources, people are going to be mad and have a target on us. So we have to take what comes with it. We just have to know that we are being unjust and so it won't be a surprise that others try to be unjust to us. But there is some comfort in that we are one of the strongest countries, if not the strongest country in the world. So yes we will take some hits and dents, but ultimately nobody is going to wipe us out without taking too many losses themselves. So we are blessed in the fact that we are the strongest right now. Survival of the fittest.

First of all. I just want to commend you for being real with yourself. I feel that a lot of people have this false sense of security that they are at this "stage" to make themselves feel better about themselves.

Truthfully, I don't think there is any "bad" stage. I feel as though it is the attempt to get to the humanitarian stage that really counts. If you have an urge and a desire to become the best you can be then there is no problem with whatever stage you are at. I personally feel as though I will never get to the humanitarian stage. I want to, but like you, I don't feel as though I would personally be as willing to help another culture as much as people of my own. I will feel bad about anything negative happening to any human being; however, I couldn't help but feeling more of a remourse if someone from my culture had something bad happen to them.

I think it is just because the connection one has with their own culture. How are you supposed to feel just as bad for someone who you have little relation to relative to someone you share much with? I feel as though in order to be at the humanitarian stage, your going to have to experience and connect to as many cultures as you possibly can. If you achieve this, then you can really have an understand, and true appreciation for other cultures as well as your own. And through this you can achieve the humanitarian stage. People like Sam have experienced so much in their lives regarding other cultures, that I can totally understand how he would be in the last stage. However, I just think it is pretty unrealistic to achieve that stage. As I said before, I definitely do think that the attempt to reach that level of maturity will be the key factor to how much you will progress through the stages during your lifetime.

The diversity here at Penn State is whack. The most pathetic part about the horrible diversity is that it probably won't get better and it might get worse. As this university tries to create this image of "more prestigious" they are accepting people of higher economic status. Whether or not anyone wants to admit it or recognize it, white people are, by far, the majority in this higher economic status that Penn State is trying to accept more of. And racial minorities, many of us are in the lower economic status that Penn State is trying to get away from. So therefore, as this university is reaching for a better standing in the academia world, they are denying increased diversity more and more.

Now, Penn State will try and get its numbers looking good with the percentages of ethnic minorties so that everyone looking at their brochures and website will be impressed. More high school students will want to go here, which will lead to more applications, which will lead to a more prestigious university because the number of applications will rise and their percentage of people denied will rise as well. They will look better in the corporate world because having good diversity percentages on your records allows the university to get a pat-on-the-back from everyone which will once again just make Penn State look better.

So this is to say, yea Penn State will accept just as much, and probably more ethnic minorities than in the past. However, they know good and well that the likeliness for many of these minorities to stay in school and graduate is less than many white students. And no, this has nothing to do with academia or how smart anyone is- it has to do with money. And the messed up thing about this is Penn State knows this. They know a higher percentage of minority students will have a hard time paying this ridculous tuition for four, maybe more, years. So hurray! The minorities get to stay here for one or two years, but then we start dropping off like flies because we can't afford to be here. Yet, the financial aid help is dropping if anything and Penn State is sitting pretty because guess what, there is a whole other set of minority students that keep their numbers nice and pretty.

How does this make me feel, kinda furious, but not really because I have to give them respect- they are some smart manipulative people. So I'll give credit where credit is due. And I am quickly coming to the realization that Penn State is a business. It is all about presentation, but truthfully, they don't give a crap about anybody unless a person is helping the presentation or "fighting for the cause." I'm glad I realize this now though because this is probably exactly what happens in the real world. You have to fend for yourself and there will be few people who are fighting along side of you. So screw Penn State's system, I'm going to just use them just like they use everyone else. I'm going to get my education, get my degree, and use their "prestigious" name in order to get where I want to be in my life.

Ok, so for one, I just want to say I respect you so much for asking this because I was shocked that the clicker results shifted that tremendously after a minute of discussion. So now that you ask it, I think it results to two things. One, just like Sam said in class the other day, do we really have a choice or free will to think for ourselves when it comes to an authority figure telling us "facts"? Two, this instance proved why stereotypes exist so profoundly in the world today through people's ignorance.

So in class Sam was asking us if that girl who was laying on the table had a choice to lay down after Sam instructed her to. I heard an overwhelming amount of "yes" answers when he asked this, but he responded to this by saying "no, she doesn't". She was standing in front of a class of hundreds of students with an authority figure instructing her to do something so what choice does she really have? The answer is not much. To bring it to the point about the clicker question, I feel as though a similar concept holds true. So first, Sam posts up the first story headline which was the only one that had "white school" in it and 60% of the class said the statement was racist. Why is it racist? This is the question Sam didn't ask, and he should have because my bet is that many people didn't know why the story was racist (which goes into my next point). People just concluded that since the headline had "white school" in it, that the story was racist. So, by Sam not asking people why they thought the headline was racist, I feel as though many people sat there with an opinion that had no substance. So by the time he put the clicker question up again, I feel as though most people had a sense of, 'Oh well Sam is so established, knows what he is talking about and is sitting here giving us the explanation as to why the story isn't racist like we thought, so he must be right.' I'm not saying Sam was really trying to give the impression, but since most people didn't know much about the story, they just took Sam's words and believed it. All of this is to say I don't feel like most of the class had a choice as to if the story was racist or not by the repeat of the clicker question, they were subject to the influence of the authoritative figure who was lecturing them about how the story wasn't racist.

Now the more important subject of this is why? Why were people so subject to what Sam had to say? It is because most people were ignorant about the story. I don't feel as though most people really read about that story of the mother being arrested, otherwise, they wouldn't have thought the headline was racist because they would have known what the story was talking about. I personally read the story so right when I saw the headline, I wasn't thinking about the specific words the headline was using as much as the story it was talking about and so I knew the story wasn't racist.

This was a prime of example of how people are so easily influenced when they are ignorant to a subject which is the reason why media can convert our minds to think stereotypes about other cultures we don't know about. Since people did not know about the whole story during the first headline and clicker question, they just threw their ignorant opinion out there. However, once Sam informed everyone of what really happened, people had a foundation to really give an answer. So as i said before, if Sam asked people why they thought the story was racist after the first clicker question, most people would not have been able to give a legit argument, but if Sam asked why the story wasn't racist after the second clicker question, most people would have been able to explain their decision. This was definitely a prime example to what is the difference in our thoughts when we aren't informed about something and when we are.

I was not going to put an answer to this video initially because I just didn't find it the most intriguing at first. However, my close friend wanted to say something about this as I was watching the videos in her presence. As the video ended, she commented, "of course we would be better off if we lived to just live."

And so I asked, "What makes you say that?"
She responds, " If we just lived to live then we wouldn't be harming the earth as much as we do now."

I just looked at her. I couldn't find the exact words to explain how dumb of a statement that was to me. I am a religious person and believe God is my Lord and Savior and so does my friend. So I asked her,
"Are you saying that God has made a mistake in creating us with a consciousness knowing that we would use this mind he has given us to constantly revolutionize our current being?"
She claimed no she is not saying that, but she could not say anything more but repeat herself about us harming the earth.

My point is this- God has created us how we are for a reason. He did not make a mistake in giving us a consciousness and he does not regret his mistake now. If he did not give us a conscious, we would be unable to even choose whether we want to follow him or not. Animals do not choose, they just "live to live", and God wanted something greater than that.

So for one, we did not learn how to think for ourselves in my opinion, the gift was given to us. As far as history can tell us, the human species has had a conscious; therefore, we have always been able to think for ourselves. Yes, our thinking has grown and we continuously open doors for our minds to grow more, but that doesn't mean we learned how to think- we simply learn how to use our ability to think.

Two, what do you mean by, "will our world be a better place"? Because when you ask that, I can take your question two different ways. One being is would the present state of our earth be in a better place or will our mental perception of "our world" be a better place.

If you mean will the state of the earth be in a better condition if we didn't have a conscious, then I would say I don't know- none of us do. One argument could claim, even if we didn't have a conscious, that does not mean we wouldn't have the many abilities that we have now. We wouldn't lose our emotions, our intelligence, etc. Other animals, such as monkeys, still have an intelligence and emotions to them although they aren't guided by a conscious. So would the world be a different place if the human species just lived to live- absolutely. In my opinion, I think we would leave this world worse off. We would be more destructive and abuse our natural instincts. It has been said that one of our natural human instincts is greed. Even with our consciousness, there are countless examples of greed throughout the world, now imagine how it would be if we didn't have a conscience. That is only one example, but the list goes on and on.

To quickly hit my other point, if you were asking about will our perception of our world be a better place- no it wouldn't. I happen to like going to college and knowing that I am living a blessed and privileged life by being here at Penn State. I also like my choice to follow my religion, my beliefs and my morals. I think most others enjoy their freedom of having a choice as well throughout most of their lives. So if they loss that by losing their consciousness and "just living to live", I don't see how that would make most lives, and therefore, most people's perception of the world, any better.

First off, I feel as though your question is wrongly phrased. I do not believe that something can be right, but not necessary. The right thing is directly correlated with what is necessary. Therefore, when you ask is it right or necessary to be politically correct, I don’t know how to answer it because it’s either right and necessary, or it’s not. So I will be answering is it right and necessary to be politically correct.

Is it right and necessary to be politically correct? If you look at the definition of right: in conformance with justice or law or morality, one could say that, if the majority of society conforms to the idea of political correctness, then yes, it is right and necessary. Having said this, I do believe that the majority of our society at this moment in time does follow this idea of political correctness; therefore, society does believe it is right and necessary to be politically correct. However, in my opinion, this argument has a flaw in it. If the majority of people in a society felt as though killing an innocent person is right, does that make it right? The answer is no. Although I feel most people would agree with me, some may agree more with the definition above, and then others may say something totally different than both statements. Ultimately, I come to the conclusion that the definition of right is all relative, so is it right and necessary to be politically correct? The answer is it depends. It depends on who the person your asking the question to is. It depends on what background and culture that person grew up in. It depends on what each person thinks is “right”.

I feel as though society would answer, yes, it is right and necessary to be politically correct. As we’ve discussed in class, after the Civil Rights Movement, people rather appear respectful while ignorant than culturally aware while running the risk of being called racist, stereotypical, etc. Our society has put appearances on such a high pedestal that the risk of being thought of negatively by others is too insurmountable to overcome. Something that many of us are oblivious to are the people who would think of culturally aware people negatively are just ignorant themselves. So truthfully, the thoughts of someone who is ignorant on a subject are irrelevant. Having said this, as long as there are people who are not educated about other cultures, we will always be stuck in the media trap of appearances and feel as though we must be politically correct.

As a student who is blessed to be in such an educational experience as this class, I can say that political correctness is right and necessary at this time, but it doesn’t need to be.

To answer the first question. We continue to have stereotypes about each other that are wrong because society won't allow us to think otherwise. You have to remember that being in college is a rarity in America and in the world, so the majority of the human species does not sit in a classroom such as ours and hear about the things we discuss. We have our minds opened to research, studies, and facts that allow us to take an educated look at how the world really works. Therefore, we can sit here and ask questions like, "Why do we have stereotypes that are wrong?"

For the people who do not have this privilege, it's a totally different world. For one, most people live in the same place, in the same community, around the same people for most, if not all, of their lives. So they are not given the opportunity to become more cultured outside of where they live. Because of this, I feel as though the main source of the world's knowledge of other cultures is through television and other sources of media. And, here, lies the problem as to why we will probably never leave racial stereotypes. The media portrays the ongoing, typical, and demeaning stereotypes to the public because, lets face it, this is what the people want. These stereotypes entertain people and, ultimately, make the rich richer. So as long as humanity is intrigued by these false stereotypes, which I have a feeling we will be, the rich owners will never alter the way they portray their characters. It's a viscous and unfortunate cycle, but one that has a high probability of never dying out.

Also, to go back to the point of people usually live in one environment their entire life, the media is the only source of information about other cultures. So, whatever the media portrays, that is what people will believe to be true. Now one could say, "yea, but there are books and other means of finding out the truth about other cultures." However, to this, I would say many people in the world find their information from the media more than a historical book for any culture.

I cannot totally blame it on the media though. Some cultures emphasize the what the media says about them which just allows the media to have more power because then they have evidence. For example, the percentage of African American males in jail is horribly pathetic. So although it gets to me anytime people are intimidated of me at night because I am black, have dreads, etc. I really only can be upset and mad at all of the brothers that have emphasized this stereotype of black males.

To answer your second question. We can change the stereotypes. And, I believe it starts with our generation, especially the ones who are educated and know the dangers of false stereotypes. We have been privileged to have our minds revealed to much more information through the internet, school, and plenty of other means. Our world is becoming smaller with the growth of technology and our lives are being forced to intertwine. It is up to us to accept this and make the most of it, or reject it and regress back to a world of ignorance. So it starts with keeping our minds open throughout this semester in this class and spread the knowledge we learn here at Penn State to others, especially the others in future generations.

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