When I first heard the story about Chi Omega dressing as Mexicans for Halloween, I figured that the reason people found it so offensive was the fact that they were holding signs that said things like “we don’t mow grass, we smoke it,” inferring that this is the Mexican standard and basically trying to making fun of the American views on Mexican culture. This was my initial thought behind their costumes. But I would be almost certain to make the statement that these sorority girls had no intention of harming the views we have on Mexicans. I personally wouldn’t have thought twice about Chi Omega being racist if I saw the now nationally known picture of the girls dressed in ponchos and sombreros. I know many, many people that have dressed like that for Halloween or a theme party. Even in elementary school kids were dressing in sombreros and colored clothing for Halloween, and I really doubt they were trying to insult the Mexican culture. There is no difference from dressing like a Mexican than dressing like a cowboy. Being a cowboy is a way of life also, and dressing in plaid shirts and cowboy boots is not inferring that it is necessarily bad to be a cowboy, much like I’m sure these girls did not mean anything against Mexicans.
I called my dad this week, and among conversation told him about Penn State’s latest scandal. He laughed at the story and said I should not even waste my time with it because that’s barely a scandal. It shouldn’t be on Yahoo’s front page because there is no real story behind it. He also said what if these girls were celebrating the Mexican culture? There is no way to tell what their intentions were from one picture of them dressed for a party. I’m sure they weren’t exactly celebrating the Mexican culture, but how do we know this? Many people celebrate the Indian holiday Holi, and are not from this culture. If I were to take pictures of me covered in this colored chalk, would I also be assumed to be judging the Indian culture? This may have no real connection, but who’s to say what these girls intentions were for dressing up for a party. I’m sure they did not mean to hurt anyone’s feelings. Even if they weren’t holding up the signs saying “will mow lawn for weed and beer,” would people still have deemed this sorority racist? Also, if there were only two or three girls dressed in ponchos would they be the racists and not Chi Omega as a whole? I’ve seen students dressed like this for Halloween and the last thing I think of them is that they are culturally insensitive and a racist.

Personally, I think about this question very often on a day-to-day basis. I wonder all the time why girls dress the way they do. Take for example girls who wear high heals to class. Why would a girl choose to walk around campus all day in heals if not to impress a guy? I do not think a girl that chooses to dress up a little everyday with jeans and a nice top, or a sundress in the summer is trying to impress anyone in particular. There have been studies that show dressing nice and feeling nice does improve your studies. As long as the clothes aren’t deep V-necks or anything that is too revealing I think a girl is mostly dressing for herself. I have a boyfriend, and am not looking to attract any other male attention, but I will dress nice every so often just to feel good about myself. Although I do dress nice sometimes, I mostly dress for comfort. With the changing seasons you will see a lot more girls in baggy hoodies and comfy sweats to stay warm on the icy December days. One male in class made the comment that a girl was trying to dress for male attention because she was wearing yoga pants. Regardless of her baggy hoodie and sneakers, just because she had tight pants on he thought she was looking for male attention. I wear yoga pants basically every other day because they are the most comfortable things I have ever worn, not because guys like to look at your butt.
Another question I ask myself often is why girls who are in relationships wear skintight dresses and skirts when they go out on the weekends. When I go out I often wear jeans and a tank top so I don’t end up attracting guys. I do own a few skirts and dresses that I wear once in a while, but not often. I guess most girls do it in order to fit in with their group of friends. When you take the traditional ‘going out’ picture of all your girlfriends, you do not want to be the only one wearing jeans when everyone else looks hot in a dress. I still think this is no excuse to dress like you are trying to attract a guy when clearly you are not. I tend to only dress up like that when my boyfriend comes to visit and we go out together. I guess a lot of girls do keep what guys like in mind when getting ready to go to class or go out, but not everybody. Those like me who do wear sweatpants very often are looking for comfort for themselves, not only male attention.

I personally think that stage five into stage six is the ultimate stage. One creates meaningful relationships with EVERYONE, and race takes the backseat in terms of importance. At the same time, this person has gone through the first four stages and is conscious of his or her race and culture, and knows about their ancestors. They should be appreciative of their own life, as well as others. While they care about their own culture and ancestry, they can still understand that everyone matters, and create relationships with people of all races, even white. The transition into the sixth stage is important because it is a spiritual shift. This person in the sixth, and final stage wants betterment for ALL people, regardless of race. Ethnicity is not the central thought, but helping everyone is.
While I believe stages five and six are of importance in terms of accepting everyone no matter their skin color, I think the third stage is what I would call the worst. It was described as a conscious exploration of culture, which is perfectly adequate to me, but what troubled me was that under this read ‘white people become irrelevant.’ The guest lecturer showed a picture of him surrounded by all black friends when describing this stage. I think this is most likely the stage college students of color would find themselves in, from observation. For example, the ‘clique’ of black students that sits together in the front of the classroom. There are no other races that it seems they talk to because they became irrelevant at some point in their college careers. They would like to find more out about people who look and act just like they do, so those are the only people they associate themselves with.
There is a big difference between stage three and stage five. One has everything to do with people of your own race, and the other has little or nothing to do with your own race. The pictures he showed in class represented this pretty well. Like I said, for stage three people of the same race surrounded him, while in stage five he was surrounded by all white people. I think stage six would be considered even better than stage five because race and ethnicity have nothing to do with it. This person has conquered all of the stages and is only concerned with thinking and helping others.
Before this lecture, I never really realized that people of all races go through these stages, but now it makes sense to me. Looking back on people that I know I could probably think of examples of family members and friends who were all in each of these stages at one point in their lifetimes, all of different ages.

When Sam posted the list of the all the sins that send you directly to hell, the class laughed at all of them besides homosexuality. There are many explanations for why this happened. The main reason I would use to explain why homosexuality is more serious than the other sins is because not everyone is gay. Mostly everyone in the class has done a majority of the other sins, including drinking, premarital sex, and bribery, but there are only about 20 or so of the 700 students that answer yes when asked “are you publicly homosexual.” Only two students admitted that they have never sinned out of all the people in the classroom. For most students, sinning is normal on a daily basis. Everyone goes to parties, drinks, and hooks up, but for most, it is a heterosexual experience. Although we do have a LGBTA community here at Penn State, there are still many people who haven’t had any interactions or contact with gay friends or family. So, when these people saw homosexuality as being a sin on the PowerPoint in class, they didn’t laugh because they do not engage in these activities. They consider this the “special” sin because they are not homosexuals. I, however, do not consider homosexuality a “special” sin. I do not believe it should be a sin at all, along with most of the others. I know multiple gay people, and some are even my own family. So naturally, I consider homosexuality as normal as heterosexuality is. But for most, they have never encountered homosexuals so they do not see it as common. Some people are so freaked out about gays they get instantly uncomfortable when they see two people of the same gender even just holding hands on the sidewalk. If this were an inter-gender relationship, they wouldn’t look twice. Not everyone is comfortable with the idea of being gay, yet. Although some have probably had the ‘experimental’ night in college, they still are not comfortable with gay people.
I guess this is the reason most people didn’t laugh when Sam showed homosexual as a sin. Because, it is at least a little bit funny that some people believe we are going to hell for everyday activities, like lying, premarital sex, and deception, which are all daily occurrences for most, but when it comes to judging people based on their sexual orientation that isn’t so funny. There are homosexuals being denied marriage because of who they are in love with, and that is far from funny especially when it means being in love. Even if this homosexual did none of the other sins, even lying, they would still be going to hell just because they are in love with someone of the same sex. I find absolutely no humor in this, and do not consider it a ‘special’ sin.

Initially, when Sam told us that most of America’s donations to third world countries come back to the United States, I felt disappointed that our country is not doing more to help. If America can get mostly all of the money we put into other countries back, why don’t we? The money that we give to third world countries, is put towards resources that America supports, like for instance that country shipping a good to another country, in which the ship is American, is only one of the ways we get back our contributions. I’ve noticed that the US Government likes to brag about their relief efforts for other countries, but after the information Sam showed us in class, there is a big difference between what we are being told, and what is really happening.

Donations are meant to be out of the kindness of your heart, receiving nothing in return. I always thought that America was just donating and helping as much as they could, out of kindness. But after hearing these statistics, I no longer believe this. We could be helping out much more than we are now. If America’s public knew about this I feel as if something would be done to help more people in need, which would be the ultimate goal. Only .07% of our annual GDP is put towards donations. This number is so insignificant compared to everything else America does. I was surprised and shocked at this almost zero number.

On the other hand, I do understand that the United States does not want to give away too much money to these countries, so that they have everything they need just given to them. It is better for these countries to learn how to better sustain themselves and their people, rather then them being dependent on countries like America. It would be more beneficial to invest in programs making these countries know how to rebuild their environment and be able to sustain their economy without help from other countries. This would not bring as much money back into the United States as what we are doing now, but it would better help these third world countries in the long run.

I also believe that America should be helping more of those in need in their backyard, namely the Native Americans among other groups. If the money put into other country’s economies helps to stimulate our own economy, wouldn’t helping our own Americans stimulate it even more? I could be completely wrong with this thought process, but it could not hurt anything to put a little bit more of our own economy into our own people, even if it is just .05% of our GDP.

The first thing I noticed after looking at the seven individuals, is that the two females seemed friendly, whereas the five males were trying to act ‘tough’ and barely or not even look at the camera. The next thing I noticed is that a few of these are the TA’s that sit in front of the class every Tuesday and Thursday, so they are obviously bright individuals. My third observation was that the second female was Sam Richard’s wife. All of these people obviously all attend Penn State, so they must be intelligent enough to get into college here. They are also all wearing nice clothes, so are either middle, or high-class individuals. They’re appearances are all cleanly showered and well kept, showing that they care about what they look like to others.
To me, there are two young men that seem more unapproachable, than the others. They would be the second guy with the straw in his mouth, and the guy dressed in all red. They both come off as ‘tough guys’ with angry appearances, and personally I most likely wouldn’t approach either of them if given the chance. The first guy with the long hair and the last guy look more approachable, and looked more pleasant than the first two I mentioned. The reason I say this is because of the way they are standing. They look like they are more relaxed and friendly. The third guy looks the most approachable to me. He is standing the most relaxed out of all the men, and has a more friendly expression on his face.
The two women look very friendly. They both smiled towards the camera, are dressed nicely, and have neat hair. This tells me that they both care about what people think about them. The younger girl looks like she cares deeply about her studies, and is probably involved in a few extracurricular activities. She might even be in a sorority. Sam’s wife is obviously a Penn State professor, but if I was just judging her based on her appearance, I would think she is a very nice woman that cares about those around her. She reminds me of my mother, who is exactly what I described. I feel like she would be a very intelligent person to talk to and she has worked hard to get what she has.
For many, it would be very hard to not judge these people based on their skin color, whether they know it or not. I’m white, and I tried my hardest not to base my beliefs based off of whether they were white or black. It is hard though, because three out of the four black guys are dressed in baggy clothes, wearing flat brims, which can be portrayed as gangster or inner city, which is not an ideally approachable person to me. Even if I tried not to judge these people based on color, it obviously still has an effect on beliefs.

The video we watched in class first made me think what exactly I would do if I was put in that situation. I didn’t exactly have an answer at first, and I’m still not positive I would have done anything to help. First of all, I am a 19-year-old girl so most likely I wouldn’t confront any person with tools trying to steal something. If I in face did intervene, I most likely would call the police once I am out of reach from the thief, no matter what race it was. If it wasn’t just me witnessing the crime, I would stop with a group of people to confront the culprit and I do not think I would hesitate any more with a black man than I would with a white man. These were my original thoughts when we first watched the video.
After watching the video, I had a few more opinions. I thought that the experiment wasn’t very consistent, and neither were the ‘subjects’ trying to steal the bicycle. The witnesses could have been very different when it came to their thoughts on race. The old man that stopped to talk to the black man and continue to harass him until he reported him may have done the same exact thing for the white boy. The subjects were not the same either. The narrator described them as wearing the same type of clothing, and talking in the same way, but I did notice that the black man’s clothes were a bit more baggy than the white man. Also, while they did say the same types of responses to the people walking by, like “is this your bike?” When I heard the black man talk I instantly thought his voice sounded more ‘street’ than the white man.
My next thought was that I was very disgusted at everyone that just walked by the white man stealing a bike, even when he used the electric saw. One man even helped him with it. Its not like they knew what they were doing and there was a black man and a white man standing next to each other and they deliberately chose to call out the black man, they were just acting with their subconscious. If all the people that just walked by the white man knew exactly what they were doing, I think they would have acted knowingly. A lot of the people gave excuses for why they acted the way they did when they were interviewed after being told it was a TV show. When saying why the didn’t want to help the white man, it was because they didn’t want to get involved, and for the black man they definitely didn’t act purely based on race. I think they all said these things to make themselves feel better after realizing that their subconscious is at least a little bit racist.

There are so many events, both of free will and determinism, which led up to my decision of being a Penn State student. Starting in high school, I worked really hard to keep my grades up so that I would get into a good college. At the time, I had no idea what or where I wanted to go, but I knew I had to go. It was always sort of expected from my parents to go to college, not that they would have a huge problem if I didn’t, but I guess this can be considered determinism. The free will I put into my schooling was choosing to take AP classes, and always challenging myself to learn bigger and better things. I chose how much time I would study, and I chose how many extra curricular activities I did. In my senior year of high school, I had to make the decision of where to apply. I only applied to three colleges, and two of those were just fallbacks. The only school I really wanted to go to was Penn State University Park. A branch campus was never an option, I did not even write one down on my application. Choosing Penn State was partially free will, but mostly determinism. My mother, oldest brother, and sister all attended University Park, so I have always lived the nittany lion life. I grew up visiting State College four or five times a year and fell in love with it here. If none of my relatives were alumni of Penn State, I probably would have only considered choosing to attend school here, and gone with my second choice Villanova. I would never have known how astounding a football weekend was here, or how it felt to walk around downtown State College.
My second brother also strived to get into Main Campus, but he did not put the work into high school as much as I did and only got accepted to a branch campus. He chose to attend a different school instead of PSU, and this shows that free will is a huge part of why I attend Penn State. Although I believe this to be true, I also think I would not be here if it weren’t for determinism. If I would not have grown up wearing Penn State cheerleading uniforms and coming to see concerts at the BJC, I would most likely not be living here in State College today. Determinism shaped my life, but was driven by my own free will. The only reason I do live in State College today is because I worked hard in high school and graduated third in my class.

There could be many explanations for why Asians and whites have much higher incomes than Hispanics and blacks. In class, most students said that only the rich Asians can afford to come to America, and I agree with this statement. The only way you can afford to come to the US is if you have money. A lot of Asians come here for schooling, mostly to earn a graduate degree. In my personal experience, I agree with this 100%. All international students that I’ve met are basically loaded. In class we also said that numerous Asians would most likely live in a house together, increasing their household income.
As for the white population making the second most income, my original thought was that there are more whites in America than any other race. I actually did some research to see if I was on the right track for my explanation, and whites are in fact the highest population in America, making up 78% of the population, with blacks right behind with 13%. It is much easier to make up the highest income if you have the most people. There are many super rich whites, as well as many super poor whites, but since there are so many white people in America, their average income would easily be high.
Hispanics and blacks are a little harder to explain. Hispanics are third in household income, and I would say that they are so low because they migrate to America for better opportunities, unlike Asians who come here to continue their schooling. Even though Hispanics, for the most part, have good work ethic, they have less opportunities and resources then those who have been citizens forever, so in general they make less money then the average white or Asian. I would explain blacks being the lowest income, because a lot of black people come from bad neighborhoods with no opportunity to do well in their lives. There are many blacks that are very rich and succeed in life, but averaging that out with the poor blacks, their income is much lower then everyone else’s.
It is hard to distinguish why blacks’ incomes are so much lower than Hispanics. I was very shocked to see that there was such a huge difference in their incomes, and am still having some trouble explaining the big difference. I was also surprised to see that Asians have a higher income than whites. Although I understand why, I was still surprised that the difference is so high.

After hearing the story of Balpreet Kaur, I was truly amazed that she could ignore all of the strange looks and ridicule, just to post a picture of herself online to tell everyone her side of the story. First of all, it shocks me that someone could post a picture making fun of a girl, which most would call bullying. But above that, it shocks me that after Balpreet told the world her story of her religion and how Sikhs are against changing the temple they call their body, that there are people in this world that would further hate on this culture. Some of the comments I read make me sick, and show how close-minded some people are these days.
One of the comments I read said that what Balpreet is doing goes against our “country’s norm.” This disgusts me, that some think our country has a norm. Who came up with these social norms, and who’s to say what is right in this country? USA is so diverse that there is no norm in this country. There are so many religions that exist, along with so many cultures. Some religions are against pre-marital sex—who’s to say that is any different than not shaving your bodily hair? Some of the comments these people are making on the NY Daily News are saying things just like this. Most of the people commenting on these blogs about Balpreet have don’t even have a clue of anything that involves the Sikh religion. I know I don’t.
I applaud Balpreet for staying strong throughout this. It would have been so easy for her to lash back at the person who originally posted the picture, but she didn’t; she just told her side of the story, which is what makes it so touching. Also, that just because her religion says what she should do, I’m sure she isn’t walking around Ohio State judging every person she sees, unlike most Americans would. I hope in the future, this whole experience can be a lesson to everyone, to look past appearances and see the person behind the beard.