Sacrificing State Patty’s day would be a futile attempt to bring our reputation back. The reason we would sacrifice state patty’s day would be because we want the world to see us as a school that cares. We would want to show our disgust about this scandal. Show is the key word there. If we sacrificed it, there would be no coverage. It wouldn’t be shown anywhere and no one outside of State College would know about it. We might feel better about ourselves thinking we did something but the world will still have the same view of us. Same tried to make it seem like that didn’t matter that the world would recognize it. But that is the whole point of doing the action, to get a positive reaction. With no reaction we would become more frustrated and start to think that nothing we can do will ever put us back in the correct light. If state patty’s day goes on like normal, I don’t believe there will be any more coverage on it than normal. It is not tied to Sandusky or the scandal. It isn’t about the riot. It is drinking, months after a terrible crime. The two are not linked and so the media shouldn’t care. That being said, it may get coverage and anything that is shown will absolutely be shown in a negative light. The sad part about this is that holding back state patty’s day does not help the victims. Us being shown in a negative light for partying does not support the victims. We always claim we will not forget the victims but if we go through with this, we are almost making ourselves the victims and the focus on us. All of that said, if we did decide we were going to boycott State Patty’s day, the fact is we will not be able to pull this off. The mentality around Penn State is drinking and partying. That is a main reason many people come here. The mentality around State Patty’s day is a party about partying. It is a party about drinking and partying. People are too dedicated to drinking for this to happen. Many people might not drink but some will because they need to. Those who do drink will be shown in the media as going crazy. It will be the riot all over again. The minority population will be used to personify the mass when the mass disagrees with the minority. In my opinion this is a catch 22 situation. We lose if we party, we lose if we don’t party because someone will party and be blown out of proportion. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

In class we spoke about how people choose to be silent about the problems and issues that traumatize their lives. This is something that amazes me and yet I do understand where the problems stem from. The victims do not want to cause more controversy by bringing up old and painful memories, while still trying to keep their families together. The people often are assaulted by people that they know or family in some manner. Many people do not want to disrupt what their family has and will try to keep it silent to unite the family. This causes silence of millions of victims and does not put the issue in the full light for all to see. When we showed the section in class that would have been victims in some way, it astounded me because though this problem is known, the magnitude of it is not publicly recognizable. Those victims who are feeling a split decision about what to do about this need to see that people around them, outside of their family, are there to help and support the decision the victim makes. Victims think a public outcry will ruin their family and so if the public were to make it understood that the problem would be brought to light but a public “lynching” would not occur. The public can show support through education of people and the publication of past events that have happened. Once a victim steps out and speaks up, more will see that person’s strength and feel more comfortable speaking about the problem. The issue could snowball and allow many victims to go public with their problems and thus bring the problem to light of millions of Americans who are oblivious to how often this problem occurs. A victim needs security in order to relive their experience. The least amount of security of control a victim will feel is during the incident so when they relive it they will not be going through pleasant memories. The process will be difficult and hard for all people involved. The public will not want to hear of such atrocities, and will not be under control once they become enraged about the problem. The victim will have to relive the memories and go through the psychological pain of dealing with the sexual abuse once again. The first step into recovery for this is acceptance that they were not wrong in any way, and there was nothing they could do about it. Once they can do this, they can become more comfortable with talking about sexual abuse so the issue will be in the limelight of society. We can stop this behavior from happening to others. The victims will want to go public so no one has to go through the experience ever again.

I did eat the second piece of chocolate. And I must say that I ate it without even contemplating for a second. The chocolate is created through slave labor and that is wrong. No one can deny this fact. The idea that not eating the chocolate will accomplish something is not true. If I were to abstain from eating chocolate for the rest of my life I might actually help in stopping this problem, however small my effect is. But I know I am going to continue to eat chocolate for the rest of my life and so not eating one morsel isn’t going to do anything to help. All it would do is waste that piece of chocolate. That reasoning may not seem very good to people but it makes sense and works for me. The chocolate represents happiness and a small enjoyment for me. If I eat it, it gives a general sense of euphoria and makes people feel good. In an ideal world I would be reminded of the slave laborers when I eat chocolate but I know that is not the case. I am a person that that has been blessed to be put into the society and status where I live comfortably and with relative ease. This changes my perspective to seeing slavery. If it is not in my face, I am not going to think about it and the problems it causes. The slave labor is an atrocity and should be stopped. The corporations will continue to keep this going because they are making huge profits on it, but we must not forget that it is the slave drivers who are not distributing the wealth. The corporations will pay the land owners and to them this means the guilt is out of their hands. They know the money is for slave labor but the matter is done. The slave laborers do not give any money and keep it all for them. Chocolate is a bad thing because it is supplied by slave labor. Many items in the world today are supplied by slave labor and so we cannot turn a blind eye to these things and only focus on the chocolate problem. We can never truly take slavery out of society so we must learn and be aware of it, do efforts to stop it, but not stop our lives because of it. Realistically it is not going to be solved now or anytime soon so we must accept this fact and continue living. I do not like it more than the next guy but we cannot focus on one area that is a problem. Our world is full of problems and we need to balance them.

In the world we live in, big business shapes everything we can and cannot see. They control marketing to let us see what we see. They control the media so the messages we hear are those that support the business. They control the government so the policies created will support the corporations backing them. This problem is not new and is not something that will go away in the near future…if ever. The businesses have a reach on pretty much every part of our world and do not let us have our own choice of free will. A person is smart but people are dumb. Corporations know this fact and will market to the people so a person will be forced to make a select decision to conform to society. Businesses have leverage on any position of power we can think of and so they do not need to control a person specifically. They can just rule the governing body of the people so people have to conform to that power, all the while the business is under a veil. OPEC is the organization of petroleum exporting countries. Countries that are run by business exporting the oil. Oil is a huge necessity in society and thus the country who owns that oil is successful but this is slightly off because it is the businesses in these countries that really hold the power. The companies can choose to do whatever they like with the oil and because of this they hold much more power than the government. Businesses in America can back certain political candidates and give them more funding. This gives the candidate a better chance and makes an individual voter less impactful because the majority of people will see more advertising for someone and vote for that person. Once in office, corporations have leverage on these politicians so laws are passed to protect the business environment. The recent ruling by the Supreme Court that a corporation is to be treated as an individual is extremely harmful to the American way. We are allowing big business to sway our votes and put politicians in power that have no care but to be re-elected, and thus aid corporations. The corporations are like a ventriloquist with a politician as a puppet. Anything the corporations do or want the politician will do because it needs the corporation to survive. These businesses are becoming America and individual people are losing rights. Not mentioning money compensation, the power and “goodwill” that businesses have over politicians has made the voter a nonfactor. This is something that we cannot deny any longer and yet it has become too large to stop at this point. We need to figure out how to adjust because there is no going back from this point.

I always have a problem when someone makes a statement like the white people won’t be the majority in the future. We will become a minority...to what is what I always think. To claim we are going to be the minority to multiple groups being put together is ignoring that those groups are individual, not together. A majority would be someone with enough spots to make a large decision just using their race to push it through. Say the numbers are something like 65% white, 20% black, 10% Hispanic, and 5% other, then white people would be the majority with black, Hispanic, and other all being separate minorities. If a time comes when white people do not make up over half of the population, they will not be the ruling majority but they will still be the largest individual group and thus will not be a minority by almost the definition of what is being said. A majority group, one with ruling power, is not a combination of 2 groups. Sam said in class that projections put white people out of the majority and black and brown people becoming the majority. Just because they combine to make up more of the population than the white people doesn’t mean they are going to agree and make all the same decisions. The largest individual group will be the majority, maybe not ruling because the other groups can unify to push against, but this does not make the rest of the population he majority. This question bugs me because people think of it as the population will be 1 white person surrounded by 10 people of other races. This is simply untrue and yet most people will think of this image because they are scared of this idea. The idea of no longer being the ruling body in the nation does not concern me in the slightest. Our country is the self-proclaimed “melting pot” of the world so it is about time the percentages of our races start to even out. Anyone who is legitimately afraid of being the same percentage of a population as someone of a different race makes me sad for that person. They must live such a lonely and narrow minded life that they cannot accept people to be their equals. White people like this give the rest of the race a bad reputation and make us seem very intolerant of other races. This is why I think of myself as a level 4 person, I am comfortable with these ideas but do not make me seem like a crazy person because that is simply not who I am. I do not want to keep other races down, don’t accuse me of wanting to.

Hanging out with people outside of their own race does not make people posers. People have friends of different races; it does not mean they are surrounding themselves to look politically correct. Some people may feel guilty and try to befriend other races for the sole purpose of being able to claim they are friends with other races, these people would be posers. This is only a small portion of people, many if not most people are just friends with people because that’s just how it is. Anyone who says a racist joke but follows it with “it’s cool I have (insert other race here)” is a poser. These people are trying to hide their racism behind the façade of fake friends. Many people do not think this way and are not this racist anymore. I like to think we are living in a society that has gotten past many problems of racism so I think people can be friends with people of differing races without having an ulterior motive about it. White people live in heavily dense black areas and black people live in heavily dense white areas. They are friends with each other because people will integrate and befriend each other. Having friends of different races can show racial integrity but bragging about it is blatantly lying about their acceptance of other races. These people are narrow minded and cannot accept their level of racism. These people are likely to be stage 3 people in that they will take up arms against white people, claiming that it is all the white persons fault. These people are feeling the most white guilt and do not want to acknowledge that they cannot see people of differing races in the same light. While these people are intolerant, I like to think of myself as a level 4 person. I see the points made by other races but I resent the idea that I personally am responsible for these faults. I have not done any such atrocities and I do not think it is right to put those things on me. Most white people nowadays are just honest people who may show occasional bouts of minor racism, but that is with people of any race. The majority of white people frown upon racism and does not believe it is right. They do not try to be friends with black people to further this idea; they just go on living their lives in the most tolerant ways they know how. Posers are almost worse than public racist because they claim to be the most tolerant of people but are closet racists. My hope is that people will no longer try to use racism as a reason to be friends with people and just be friends with people they are similar to in personal ways.

Trying to place yourself in a stage is difficult because we can all see ourselves in multiple stages. I can see myself as presenting many traits of a couple different stages so to try and pick one feels like I am not showing who I truly am. If I had to decide a stage that I was in I would believe that I am a stage 4 person. This stage is when they are beyond the idea of understanding racism and will not continue to sit back and be insulted. This does represent how I feel regarding the issue of racism. I would say I am past stage one because I do recognize racism in our society. I would not put myself solely in stage 2 but the idea of being more politically correct is still there for me. Stage three of going along with the jokes or insults towards white people for their transgressions is not really me either. Recently I have become more and more…not confrontational but more upfront about my feelings about this situation. When some of a different race makes a claim that white people did x, y, and z today and that is just wrong, I almost always feel the need to explain that this is not me, those people do not represent me. I do not agree with what those people are doing and I do not feel comfortable being labeled under the same category as people who will make racially insensitive remarks. I become disgusted with fellow members of my race when I hear these things because they are setting a bad name for the rest of us. I cannot deny that these things happen, I simply like to state that these things are not me, do not lump me in with the group of people that have differing views than I do. When I hear people try to talk about slavery and the cruel, inhumane injustices that took place, I have to concede and say yes these were terrible things that are a black mark on the history of the white race, but I never took part in anything to do with it. I have to remind them that it was not I who did these things; it was not even my ancestors because my family came to America at the turn of the century. Making the delineation between those who committed the crimes and the rest of us is essential. No one alive took part in the slavery that America saw so to consistently bring it up as a guilt trip for white people is wrong. It is insulting to be compared to people with no regard for human life. I am not like these people; do not draw parallels between them and me.

Men and women have very differing views as to how they should present themselves to members of the opposite sex. Society has made people think that girls are the ones who work hard to present themselves at a standard beyond that which men feel is necessary. Women consistently feel the need to equal up to what the other girls around them are doing and wearing, whereas men don’t really care what the other guys around them are doing. Women believe that everyone is judging them verses each other so they try to dress up and present themselves as a more available and better dressed. When women begin to get ready for the night they spend much more time to make their appearance look at its finest and then put on outfits that are absurdly slutty and painful high heels. Men will take a shower, throw on jeans and a nice t-shirt and that will be the end of it. Men do not feel the need to present themselves at the highest level because they do not feel the need to compare themselves to each other. Women all need to compare themselves to each other and need to feel superior. They are extremely self-conscious and this is used to explain why they put on the ridiculous clothing and suffer the pain of heels. Men consider themselves to be comfortable with their appearance and so they believe women will be attracted to them and they will not have to worry about how much time they dedicate to looking good. Women are never comfortable with how they look and think they can put more time into looking better. They are competing with each other to attract a guy and so they are trying to put themselves above each other and look better. They also see different magazines and pictures with women who are extremely skinny, dressed up, and covered in makeup so this leads them to believe that this is what is considered attractive. If a man sees a guy in a magazine looking skinny, or muscular, or dressed up ridiculously, a guy will laugh and not even think of trying to be this way. Guys do not try to emulate what they see in magazines because they don’t think this is how a man should look. Women believe that what they see in a magazine are the picture perfect women and that this is how women should present themselves in society. When women reach this point they begin to feel good about themselves which is a good thing but guys can feel good about themselves when they put in enough effort to get dressed. Getting a shower, shaving, and getting dressed is a victory for a guy.

The idea that certain races are more innocent than some is not exactly true to me. I would say that some races are more suspected and therefor people see the others as more innocent. All people do things that are not legal, regardless of race. Some races are suspected more often because society has taught us that these are generally the people at fault. When we see a movie or picture about a prison it is generally populated with African-Americans or Hispanics. This causes our view of people who do illegal things to be focused on these races. The white race is not looked at with much suspicion because it is never depicted as being that bad. Other ideas show the white race as performing the white collar crimes and thus in a different league than those who are more “street” if you will. Society makes us believe that someone who does crimes involving technology or a more “legitimate” finance institution is not as guilty as someone who performs a crime involving drugs. These ideas show a warped sense of reality and a disconnect from how our society should view criminals. The innocence of these races is based off of what those in powers continue to tell us is innocent. The point that females are seen as more innocent of the sexes is based on the shape of the caveman society. In caveman time and through most of history, the man is the one who would do the dirty work. The man would do what is necessary and not always what is acceptable in society. The woman would be the person who is clean, wholesome, and does not involve herself with the dirty work. They would not be seen as someone doing something illegal or against the grain of society. When a person thinks of people who have done major crimes, like against humanity or genocide, it is almost invariably a male. This gives males a bad rap and makes the woman seem very innocent. In Mission Impossible we see a major arms dealer whose name is Max. This makes a person believe it is a male automatically. The movie goes on to show that it is a woman named Maxine and uses the common ideas of male crimes to protect herself. The belief in man’s ability to cause problems and the woman’s ability to be clean is going to continue because that’s how nature makes us see it. We will not change our view of the world just because we know it is wrong. We are a stubborn species and we have chosen to overlook this misconception because we do not want to show that we as a whole are stupid in our way of judging people.

The Haiti project seems to be a very interesting idea for students to undertake. The problems that are facing Haiti are ones that cannot be solved by just throwing money at it. As we discussed in class, a lot of times when money is “donated” to Haiti, most goes directly back into the American economy with little really being done to help out the problems. People are attempting to create their own products to help produce solutions to their own problems but they cannot do so without some help from other people. Watching some of the videos, you can tell that these people are dedicated to being self-sufficient and creating their own products. They do not want to rely on others to help them but they understand that they cannot hope to survive on a large scale without help from some Americans. As seen with the bag maker, they are creating products they think will be useful and efficient but Sam showed that the bag cannot possibly hold enough weight for laptops. The bags can be sold in America for a larger profit margin than the $40 selling price on $21 of supplies but she did not want to invest more money into the product because she wouldn’t have enough profits. Other videos showed the tumultuous roads that the entrepreneurs have to travel to get to and from work. Having to walk a half hour to and from work every day becomes excessive and very demoralizing. People should be able to get to and from work in a respectable way. The woman who was making clothing had to use cheap knockoff brands and a patchwork of different clothing. These articles of clothing are nice and affordable for the other people of Haiti but they should be of better quality. If students become involved in the development and aid of Haiti and other countries, the positive progress will become much apparent and happen quicker. Sitting on the sidelines and watching the problem get worse hurts more people than we can imagine. We must take action but not through the normal channels we have seen in the past. These channels are watered down and useless at this point in time. The people of Haiti need our help in order to develop their economy. We hurt their economy beyond any measurable value. Subsidizing rice in our country to be sold in Haiti has set their entire country back millions of dollars. If students could purchase the products created in Haiti and also help fund more investment into these budding businesses, there is a chance the country could rebound and build back to a level acceptable for people in the 21st century to be living in.