He asked us if we felt compassion towards Tammy’s situation and I said I did. I respect the fact that she refuses welfare despite how severe her situation is. That being said, I would not judge her if she were on welfare considering that she is working and it is an inconvenience for her but she still does it nonetheless. I do not know if I want to address how I feel about poor white society as much as I want to address how I feel about poor society in general. I believe that there are people in poverty that put themselves there. whether it be due to bad decisions or anything else, some people did it to themselves. On the other hand I am aware that the majority of the cases are not like that. It could have been due to job loss, physical or mental disability, or simply because that is just what they have been dealt throughout their lives. Touching upon that last reason, I do not think its okay for them to just roll over and die because that’s what their parents did but sometimes they can be stuck in a certain spot regardless of how hard they try to get out. All of these things go for every race though. That is why I did not just talk about poor white society. Every race has people like the ones I have mentioned.
I think it depends on what kind of help you are talking about when asking whether I would help my own race or people of a different race more. If we are talking about someone dropping their books and me helping them pick them up, I would help every race equally and that’s the truth. If we’re talking about like traveling specifically to make a difference somewhere I guess I would say I would be more likely to help people of a different race. I say this because in two days I am leaving for Tijuana, Mexico on a mission trip through Catholic campus ministry to volunteer in an orphanage and I am currently looking into a trip to volunteer in Haiti. Was I influenced by the fact that the majority of the people in these places are not the same race as me? No. It just seems as though right now at this time they are the ones that need the most help. Like I said, I would help any race equally, depending on their needs. I do not base my service on the race of people I will be effecting. I base it upon who needs it and where the opportunities are.

I’m going to answer these questions out of order. The second part of the question is what brought about my decisions in the first part of the question. I would first like to say that I do not believe that determinism or the “cards someone is dealt throughout their life” determines how they are going to end up. Obviously some people have it a lot easier than others, but you are never stuck in one spot. I will argue that to the death. I do not care if your parents were drug addicts you grew up in the ghetto and lives in a chicken coupe made out of plywood. You can get out. It may take a very long time and you will have to work your ass off but it is possible. Saying otherwise is just an excuse. I have been very fortunate throughout my life. My family does not have money problems. My parents are happily married. Growing up I had everything I wanted and more. This being said, my parents were not laid back or lax about anything. They wanted to know where I was and whom I was with at all times. I had curfews. I had rules. I got grounded. I even received a backhand or two. Other than that last part about the backhands, looking back now I am very grateful for that. I am not saying that I never got in trouble, but it was nothing serious. And I am not saying that I hung out with all angels, but I did not let them drag me into anything stupid. I was not sent to a private all boys school where we had to wear a sport coat every day. I attended a Catholic school in Philadelphia. There was probably more drugs and violence there than at my suburban public school, but because of my upbringing up to that point in my life, I knew what to stay away from and what to get involved in. The cards that I have been dealt have been great, but it was up to me whether or not I took advantage of that (in the good way). I have relatives with basically the same life as me, but they took advantage of it in the wrong way and they’re now screwed for the rest of their life. For instance, I moved away to college right after high school and took with me all the morals and values I learned when I was living at home and I am doing great. When my cousin moved away to school he fucked up almost instantly. I hate when people try to tell me that I have it easy just because I have money and my parents are together. I do not care what you THINK happens, but people do not find that out and just hand me shit. I have to work hard too. Do not treat me different because your life is not as good as mine. That is not my fault and if I could help you, I would. I will not apologize that my family is successful. It is not a fault, it’s an achievement so kiss my ass.

Even though it may not have to do with DNA, there are other things that make certain ethnicities good at certain sports. This could depend on anything from geographic location, weather in their area, historic factors, amongst other things. Also, culturally some ethnicities are more prone to play certain sports. I have no idea why but for some reason the majority of basketball players are black and the majority of hockey players are white. I do not believe this is an issue though. I do not see racism in that. I just see cultural differences. Sam mentioned something about white people mainly playing hockey because it is an expensive sport to play because of equipment prices and stuff. I think that is horse shit. When hockey was being invented it cost the same amount of money for everyone to get involved and that was almost nothing because they probably used trashcans and sticks. For some reason people of a certain color got into a sport, then they got their friends, who are also the same color, into that sport and it went on from there. I do believe that someday people just will not care about a person’s race when it comes to jobs or such things, but I also believe we have a long way to go before that time. If you have a severe racist as your father there’s a great chance that you are going to be a racist too and it just goes down the line until one day someone says all right, that’s enough of that, they are not as different as we thought, we can be friends. The same thing goes for people of other sexual orientations. I know my grandparents almost get sick over the mentioning of a gay couple. My parents are not as bad as that but still do not think it is right. I, on the other hand, think it’s no big deal and whatever makes someone happy then so be it. The same thing, the same kind of acceptance will eventually happen with race, we just need some people to stop being stupid and more people should take this class.

I believe that for a lot of us that is just what we were brought up doing. For instance where I grew up and went to school it was majority white students and neighbors and such. I attended a high school in Philly, but it was a Catholic Archdiocese school and for some reason the vast majority of my fellow students were exactly like me. I personally like surrounding myself with people who are different, now more than ever, because I never really had the chance to. When I came to Penn State I befriended my first Jewish person. To me this was such a cool experience. I love asking him questions about his beliefs and religions and holidays. I even like to take part in them sometimes. That guy is now my roommate and before it was like COOL A JEWISH PERSON, but now he’s just one of the guys. That is how it should always be. It is not a fault or bad that we associate with people like us, that is just where we are most comfortable and accepted. As for the international students, they just left their home on another continent to attend school here. Who would you surround yourself with if you were them? There are so many people in the same situation as they are that they find each other and are more comfortable. They understand each other, not only literally when it comes to communicating but also they probably have some of the same feelings and traditions. On occasion I will surround myself with people from Philadelphia to watch a sporting event or something because they are the ones who will care about it and we will have a common interest. Sometimes I do not feel like hearing my roommates say “philly sucks, go Pittsburgh.” I just want to enjoy the game. This all makes sense in my mind, hopefully it makes sense for you too.

It was really ironic that all this went down that day because before class started I was checking out this girl and was like wow she’s really pretty, definitely has to be part black. Then I looked to my friend and I was like look how pretty that girl is. Interracial people are so attractive. Now that we went through this exercise I am thinking about it and now am confused because she was probably Irish and German and I was over there spitting stereotypes for interracial people like it was my job. The end.

This exercise just goes to show you how wrong we probably are most of the time. For instance, I was at a party and one of the guys there was making jokes and using derogatory terms for Hispanic people and immigrants and the guy sitting next to him, who I would have thought was Irish if I had been asked, stated that he was Argentinean and was in fact born in Argentina. The room got really quiet after that. As I was sitting in class my first thought was “shit I have to watch what I say in front of people I do not know.” Looking back on that now I am thinking “it sucks that what worried me was that I may get caught talking shit.” Like instead of feeling bad and thinking it is a shame that people go through that, I worried about me getting caught doing it myself. Towards the end I came to the conclusion that I am so boring. I am a white guy with brown hair and brown eyes with eastern European ancestry. I want to be half black or Hispanic and be awesome. This leads to another point- why does being white with brown hair and brown eyes have to be my view of normal? All of this has just made me feel like a big jerk.

I thought the exercise was interesting because if we did that in any other setting other than this class we would be considered ignorant ass holes. This class brings up and addresses so many every day problems that we encounter. We all judge people especially physically and racially, which is pretty sad but I will not deny that I do it just as much as the next person.