In class, we talked a lot about affirmative action and nepotism and we tried to come to a conclusion as to whether it was good or bad for society in the long run. I believe that it is definitely not good for society but at the same time, I do not think that an end to this will ever happen. There will always be the white men controlling the big companies and chances are, they will continue to hire white men to follow in their footsteps. Nepotism is present in almost every aspect of life, from place of employment to getting into college. I know Penn State has nepotism all over the place. To get into this school, one major thing that Penn State looks at is race. Im not sure if they have a certain number of how many minority students the school wants, but they definitely take a minority student over a white student who has the same credentials. I personally feel like a school should take the most students that meet the academic cut off, but they all feel like they need to take a certain amount of minority students to make this campus more diverse. This campus is very diverse. Although this school is 70 some percent white, there are many African American, Asian, and many other nationalities of students at Penn State. This school is all about who you know, not about what you know.

Before the Christian Invaders class, I never really had a problem with Muslim people or those from the Middle East, but I still would not want to be sitting next to one on an airplane or anything. After this class though, my eyes were opened tremendously. Sam put the entire class in the eyes of civilians in the Middle East and it really was a powerful class. I never really realized how people in the Middle East though of Americans until Sam brought it up in class. We go over to their homeland, steal their resources, kill their people, and try and force them to convert to Christianity. It is not our place at all to do this but the government knows that if we do not take their oil, that our economy will suffer greatly. We only have enough oil in the United States to last us a little over a month and to be perfectly honest, our country could potentially fall apart without it. That is not a liable excuse to do what we do to those Middle Eastern people. I feel like we are bigger terrorists than countries like Iraq and Afghanistan. They aren’t over here every day killing our civilians or taking our resources.

I personally feel that every nation has good people and bad people. Just from looking at the slide show in class, its clear to me now that there are actually lots of really good people that live in the Middle East. The pictures showed many families that looked just like normal American families. As for the United States’ military, it also has its good and bad people. Most of the soldiers over seas are good hearted people, but there are certainly a fair share of poor hearted people in the military. The one video Sam showed was very shocking. United State soldiers were driving a humvee and ran an innocent car full of Middle Eastern civilians off the road. It just goes to show that both sides of this war can potentially be at the wrong.

The United States would absolutely do the same things that the terrorists do if they were in our land and exploiting our resources like we are doing to them. It’s unfair that we are using our strength and power to take advantage of these people that other than 9/11, have done nothing wrong.

Who knows, Iraqi culture may forever be perceived as it is today, as being radical terrorists who just kill to get what they want, but maybe in the future this view on Middle Eastern nations will change to a more positive reputation. I don’t think that this nation can afford to stop what we are doing over in Iraq and Afghanistan, but something needs to change soon before they try and get revenge in a radical way again like they have in the past.

Lately in class we have been talking a lot about interracial dating and how in society, people look at interracial couple differently compared to those couples of the same race. No one can explain why this is but it happens all the time. I personally feel the reason for that is the latent racism that exists in almost every person. I am not against interracial dating or people that do it. I was actually with a Puerto Rican girl for a while and I am about as white as they get. I didn’t feel like people looked at me weird or anything like that. Although I’m not against it at all, I don’t know if I would ever date another girl of color. It is not racism at all, but I just personally find white girls the most attractive. I work at a restaurant with one of my good friends and he came up to me and told me there was a really hott girl in one of the groups I was waiting on. I went in to try and find her but I didn’t see who he was talking about. He pointed out on the seating chart which chair she was sitting in and I went back in for another look. When I saw it was a teenage black girl, I was a little shocked. I want to say again that I am not a racist, it’s just a personal preference. I just have never really been attracted to many girls of color. But when I told my friend that I didn’t think she was hott, he began calling me a racist. I told him that I just don’t really like black girls and he continued to call me a racist. Am I? Was that my latent racism showing there? It is hard to judge but I do not consider that a form of racism whatsoever. Also tied with being of a certain race comes their culture as well and that may be part of the reason that I’m not attracted to girls of color. I would not want to date a person of another religion just because I feel like there would be a conflict of beliefs, and I would not want my children or family dating outside of Christianity either. It is not that I have anything against other religions, but it just what I personally believe in. Back to race though, I feel like it would be better for society to get over this latent racism in us all and date out of our race. I just think society as a whole would be better if race were just eliminated completely. After all, they do call the United States the melting pot of cultures.

When I toured this campus as a senior in high school, I immediately fell in love with it. I wasn’t sure why but I knew that this was the place for me. I knew I wanted to come to a big school but I again, I wasn’t exactly sure why. After being at this campus for a semester and a half, I am starting to realize why I really do love it here so much. Something that I didn’t really have at my high school was a diverse population of students. I only graduated with 150 other kids, and in my graduating class there were about 135 white kids, and the other 15 were black, Asian, or Hispanic. With that being said, I just felt like I was so sheltered in my life before I got to Penn State. Although it may not be the most diverse school in the nation (about 75% white), its size alone helps create the diversity. I have made so many friends here, some white, some black, some Hispanic, and some Asian. This didn’t really occur to me until I took Soc 119 and it was then that I started to notice how diverse this school really is.

All of my close friends from high school were white, and this was not do to the fact that I’m a racist or anything like that, it was just who there was to be friends with. Up here in the Happy Valley, I’m always excited to meet new people and there is plenty of new people still to meet. I have never based my friends on their skin color. I feel like I can honestly say that I can for the most part look past one’s skin color. It has never made a decision whether I talk to a person or be friends with a person. Quite frankly, there are a lot of white people that annoy the piss out of me, and a lot of black or brown people that are really cool people. I even was talking to a Puerto-Rican girl for a while!

I just feel like now that we are all here at Penn State, it’s time to start getting rid of the racial stereotypes that have been around for so long, because you truthfully do not know a person until have met them, and I am a firm believer of that. Sam has really helped to open my eyes to this and I think that it’s starting to show, just by the discussions with my peers in my discussion groups. So if you are still in the early stages of the racial awareness that Sam was discussing in class, I highly encourage you to break out of your shell, meet new people, and embrace the diverse population of people around you.

Part 3:
As for giving out loans, people of color who have the same credentials as their white counterpart are not getting equal interest rates, if they are even accepted for the loan at all! Lastly, this latent prejudice is present in our employment system. The experiment I talked about early shows just that. CEO’s of companies tend to be white and therefore are more likely to hire white employees in their business. No one can really explain why people do this but it is just how things have always been. So basically until latent prejudice is eliminated from our population, then affirmative action has not gone too far.

Part 2:
People are more likely to want to be around people of their own race and culture, but when asked why no one could tell you. When walking around Penn State, I tend to notice that people of the same race flock together. All of the Asians are together, all of the black people are together. This isn’t true for every situation, but it definitely is enough to catch my eye. This also is present in the three things that I’ve mentioned before. People of the same culture tend to live in the same area, so that also transpires into their children’s education. City schools certainly do not receive the same funding that more suburban schools do, which isn’t really fair. In the one video we watched, two schools just down the road from each other seemed like night and day. The suburban school had an Olympic sized pool and three basketball court gym, while the other school hasn’t had their pool filled in years. I just feel like it’s not fair that suburban schools, which usually tends to have majority of the student body that is white, get better funding than the city schools.

Part 1:
Sam described an experiment that was done to show that affirmative action needs to be present. Random resumes were sent into employers and everything was controlled except for the name. They sent half of the resumes with names that sounded like those of the white population, and half of the resumes had names that sounded like they belonged to some minority, whether it be black, Hispanic, Asian, or Native American. After seeing the results, I personally was shocked. Majority of the resumes that got call backs for interviews were those that belonged to the white sounding names. That just goes to show that latent prejudice is still existent in our society today. I personally think that it is safe to say that affirmative action and latent prejudice go hand in hand. Affirmative action is basically attempting to get rid of latent prejudice, but it is sometimes harder than it seems. This is present in our education system, giving out loans, and especially in employment.

The distribution of income in this world is a problem that needs to be addressed. The people who are in the top twenty percent of the world (referring to wealth) control majority of the money in the world, while the lowest twenty percent only control a few percent of the world’s income. In class we watched the video of the slaves in the Ivory Coast that farm cocoa for no money. This really made me realize that there is a problem with what is going on in other countries and majority of Americans do not realize it.

When Ryan was arguing with Sam in class on Thursday about how poor he was just goes to show how selfish Americans are, including myself. Although he may not have any excess money to his name, he has a home and a college education which is richer than he realized. If he wasn’t going to change the products he buys, that’s ok, that is his call, but he has no right to be compared to those slaves we watched in the video.

I think that is safe to say that every person in America has it better than those living in third world countries. No matter how you may stack up against other people you live amongst, once compared to people living in countries such as Haiti, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, and other countries in poverty, there really is no comparison. Living in the U.S., people will go out of their way to make sure everyone has food, water, and a roof over their head. In those countries I mentioned before, people are basically to fend for themselves. Another difference is that in this country, we are not forced to do anything that we don’t want to do, while in most other countries, it’s much different. In the video about the slaves from the Ivory Coast, the slave master would beat the slaves if they disobeyed their orders or tried to run away. Sometimes even the government of those countries restricts the freedom from the people living there.

I feel like there really isn’t a way for this to be stopped due to basic sociology of Americans. Most wealthy people are not going to just give up their fortune to even out the distribution of income, which I feel is the only way that this kind of thing is going to stop. Americans are too greedy to do this and the sad part is that no one even realizes it. Watching the video in class on Thursday was the first time I ever heard of things like that happening in other countries and it was very shocking. I mean, I’m not going to completely stop buying slave made goods, but I think everyone needs to see what is going on and someone needs to find a solution to this problem.

In class we have been discussing the debate whether or not people end up in the places they are because of the decisions they have made, or because they were “destined” to be there. Free-will vs. determinism is something that Sam has brought up that has really got me thinking about how I personally have made it to where I am today. After much thought, I have come to the conclusion that it is certainly a mix of the two. Let’s take a closer look.

Free-will has definitely been a huge part of my life. Although my parents did have a lot of say in the decisions I have made, it really came down to what I decided. Both of my parents stopped their education after they received their high school diplomas so it was up to me to take my life to the next step. I worked hard in high school because I have always been one to not settle for anything but my best. It was my own decision to work as hard as I did. I was the one who wanted to be treasurer or my class, join the basketball team, and most importantly, do what it takes to make it to Penn State. As an athlete, I know that it takes a lot of hard work to be successful. When my basketball team made it to state playoffs, it was not because we were given every game. I had to show up to every game and practice, and leave everything I had out on the floor. No other team was going to hand us a win. The decisions that I have made are the reason that I am where I’m at today, but this is only half of it.

Although free-will has certainly been a huge part of my life so far, determinism has also played a big role. Things could have been much different if I were raised under different circumstances. I was born into a family where I was always pushed to do my best and my parents instilled in me morals that I will carry with me for a lifetime. I was sent to a high school where I definitely had lots of opportunities to succeed, with teachers, friends, and coaches that have helped push me to do so.

So now I am here, in the Happiest of Valleys and I can now look back and see my journey here. I have faced challenges, made friends, lost friends, succeeded, failed, and it all has made me the person I am today. Trying to decide whether it was free-will or determinism that has gotten me here is finally clear. It was a balance of the two.

We talked in class about how every person is biologically 99.99% the same as every other person. This just goes to show that people are not as different as it may seem. This means Africans, Asians, Europeans, and Americans all are basically the exact same in terms of biology. With that being said, why are people so quick to judge each other based solely on how they look?

I personally think that in the future, the concept of race will be eliminated. With interracial marriage becoming more popular by the years, our culture will eventually get to the point that there will be so many different mixed races out there, and therefore it will not be possible to classify a race anymore.

I also think the professional athlete topic is a very interesting one. Some people believe you must be born with the “right” body to play a pro (semi-contact as well) sport, and some people believe that anyone can make it to the professional level no matter what your body type is if the person works hard enough for it. I believe that it is a mix of the two but it’s a lot more to the hard work side of it. Although some of the best players in the NBA are black and 6’7, they very frequently overshadow the guards that are sometimes scrawny little white guys. A good example of this is Steve Nash, point guard from the Phoenix Suns. He is a 6’3 white guy that is one of the best players in the NBA and has led the league in assists in the past few years. He finds ways to score even when he is driving into the lane against the 6’10 forwards of the enemy team. Another good example of this is the Staal family in the NHL. There are currently 4 brothers actively playing in the league and their father was also in the NHL back in the day. That means that this family is certainly doing something right if every son in the family can makes his way into the pros. These sons are not freakishly big or born with hockey player DNA, they just work their tails off and know what it takes to make it big.

With all of these factors, it just shows that there really should be no race in our society today. An Asian person is almost completely the same, DNA speaking, as a White person, and a black person is almost the same as a Native American or an Asian person. I’m just confused as to how we can split people into different races knowing this fact. I don’t think anything will change any time soon, but I certainly think that in the future, race will be a word of the past.