In this week’s question, Sam asks us about “boxes” that people are in, and either what keeps us or others in these boxes. In this scenario, I guess the word boxes refers to tendencies or comfort zones that we have and that we stick to. People often times stay within these zones. They tend to dictate people’s actions. But the bigger question here is why? Why do we stay in these zones?
One of the biggest reasons I think is fear. They are called comfort zones for a reason: they’re comfortable for us. People find comfort in being comfortable. To them, it’s safe. People are often afraid of others and other cultures because they’re different and unfamiliar to us. Some people see this as a learning opportunity. Others see it as something to be afraid of.
People can be afraid for many reasons. Many people (myself included) are afraid to talk to other people for a few reasons, one of them being that we’re afraid of rejection. We’re afraid to leave our comfort zones and talk to other people that we don’t know because we’re afraid other people won’t want to talk to us/me.
Other people (again, myself included) are afraid of other cultures because they fear the unknown. We like to stick with what’s familiar to us. Foreign people and foreign cultures can be seen as scary because we don’t know them or understand them. This can also sometimes relate to your current culture or the media. Sometimes other races are portrayed or seen as scary, and that shapes people’s views on them.
Another form of fear can sometimes also be hate. This can be from personal experience, or again from media or cultural opinions, but sometimes hate stems from a lack of understanding (or a misunderstanding) of something or from fear.
I obviously cannot speak for everyone here. But I think one of the biggest reasons that people avoid trying new things, talking to people they do not know, or learning cultures they are unfamiliar with, is because of fear. I do not know what causes the fear for everyone individually, but I think fear overall tends to keep people in their boxes and prevent them from “breaking out of their shell.” Whether its fear of being rejected, fear of the unknown, or hate stemmed from fear, I think fear is one of the ultimate motivators behind this. In my persuasion and propaganda class, we talked about motivators for behaviors. Fear is one of the strongest motivators for people’s behaviors in their everyday lives. I think that holds true in this case too. When people learn to no longer be afraid of others, I think we will see more and more people breaking out of their shells and learning about other people and other cultures.

In class the other day, Sam asked to us to answer a question with our clickers about killing people. He asked if we would be able to kill someone. About half of the class agreed that they could, while the other half said that they could not. I was one of the people who said that they probably could not kill someone. I’m a pretty peaceful and non-violent person. I’ve never been in a fight, and in hostile situations, whether between two people or myself and someone else, I tend to be a mediator. I try to avoid fights and violence. When asked the question, I thought that maybe I could kill someone if they were threatening me or someone close to me/I care about, but other than that I’m not sure. The question also didn’t specify how the person was being killed. Sam noted that it’s much easier to stand 100 feet away from someone and pull the trigger on a gun than it is to stab them with a knife.
But this question asks if we think we could kill someone for a reason other than being threatened, or having a family member/etc. be in danger. If we think that we could, then what reason would it be for. This question is a very difficult one. I’m really not sure what would bring me to kill someone though. I haven’t really thought about it before. Maybe if someone was threatening to take my freedom I could be brought to harm them. Since many of us as Americans are born with many freedoms, we take them for granted. But many other people around the world are not born with such privileges. People who are not born with such privileges and such freedoms are many times willing to kill or die for such freedoms, or in order to have the life/opportunities many Americans have. Within the past few years we saw people rioting and being killed in Egypt over their ability to use the internet to freely express themselves. Many of us get annoyed when our internet connection goes down for five minutes. We take a lot of things for granted. Maybe if someone was trying to steal my freedom and privileges, I might be brought to harm or kill someone. It’s difficult for me to say though. As I’m sure with many other people, it would be difficult for us to say unless we were actually put in that situation.
It would take me a lot for me to kill someone. Even if I did kill someone for a legitimate reason, I probably would not be okay with it. I hope that I never have to kill someone for any reason.

Today’s lecture was extremely powerful. Even though Sam wasn’t actually in class and able to give the lecture in person, the recorded version was just as powerful, and got the point across very well. In the lecture, Sam talked about Arab Muslims and their views on US soldiers: are they patriotic heroes or Christian invaders? To us, they seem like patriotic heroes, but they may not appear this way to everyone.
Sam tried to create empathy, as he usually does, between us, American students, and Arab Muslims. He told us to look at things from their point of view by setting us a scenario. He explained to us everything that has occurred in the past ten or twenty years between the United States and Arab Muslims in the Middle East, but from the perspective of an Arab Muslim. Then, he set up the same type of scenario, except with something we could relate to. He explained the exact same scenario, but we were supposed to imagine it as Americans being invaded by the Chinese, who were stealing our coal. Many of us in this situation would be very angry, since the coal belongs to us and we use it to meet our needs.
After this, Sam took us back to the perspective of Arab Muslims. He showed us videos of Americans saying that we need to destroy all Muslims and videos of small children being raised as “Christian soldiers,” who were to convert or kill people of different religions. To Arab Muslims, these videos would be terrifying. We know this because when we are terrified when we see videos of Arab Muslims saying things such as “Death to America,” or release videos of little children with guns and copies of the Quran. It’s essentially the same scenario, so this really helped us understand how others might feel. To Arab Muslims, US soldiers look like Christian invaders, regardless of whether this is the true intention of the soldiers or not.
This lecture really opened my eyes to a lot of ideas, as I’m sure it did with other students. I don’t agree with or support what Arab Muslim insurgents are doing, but after Sam’s explanation, we as students can understand why they’re doing the things that they do. As Sam said, being a sociologist does not mean you’re supposed to agree or disagree with certain things. You just want to study them so you can understand them. When Sam asked if we would rebel if China came to take our coal, many students said yes or maybe. That’s because we would be infuriated by the actions of the Chinese. We would stand up for ourselves. Looking at it from the perspective of an Arab Muslim, it’s essentially the same situation. They feel that we have come to steal their oil, and they’re angry. They want to stand up for themselves. Sam’s lecture got a lot of people to understand that.

As discussed in class, a lot of people in the world seem to think that being gay is a choice. Many people out there feel that someone who is gay chooses to be gay. One of the main reasons I think that this belief exists is that people have not been exposed to homosexuals enough. Someone who has never been around homosexuals or gotten to know one or had a conversation with one might think that it is a choice because they might feel that it is unnatural. Or they may have a list of a number of other reasons as to why they feel this way. But either way, I think one of the main reasons people might feel this way is a lack of exposure. Sam has discussed this in class with no only homosexuality, but a number of other topics too: not being exposed enough to something can lead to misconceptions and misunderstandings about the topic.
Talking about the topic of choosing one’s sexuality reminded me of a video I saw a year or two ago. The video is on Youtube and is about three minutes long. In the video, a man goes around public and interviews people about whether or not they think homosexuality is a choice. Some of the people feel that someone is born gay, while others feel that it’s a choice. To the people that said that homosexuality is a choice, the interviewer asked these people when they chose to be straight. Most of the people are dumbfounded by the question and don’t have an answer. Many respond with, “Well, I guess I never really chose to be straight.” The interviewer asks them if they think it’s the same for gay people, and many respond with, “You know what, I guess it is.” These people weren’t necessarily exposed to gay people, but they were exposed to the idea of choosing one’s sexuality, and were asked to look within themselves for part of the discussion. When made aware of certain topics, their opinions on the topic changed.
I think that some people may find comfort in believing that homosexuality is a choice for a few different reasons. Some people follow religions that believe that homosexuality is a sin. Since these people feel that it is wrong and they haven’t been exposed to it, they believe that it must therefore be a choice, since it’s against their beliefs. It helps them feel more strongly about their own beliefs, since being homosexual goes against their beliefs. Many don’t understand/think that someone could be naturally born to do something that they believe is wrong. They believe that it must be a choice, because to them it’s wrong and unnatural. That’s one of the main reasons I think that people find comfort in believing that homosexuality is a choice.

At the end of the lecture yesterday, Sam opened up the floor to questions. Different questions were thrown out, but then one student asked if Sam was voting for Gary Johnson. While Sam said he couldn’t disclose that information, he started discussing different political views on different topics, one of them being rape and abortion. This is a very touchy subject for many people, but I think Sam handled the topic well.
In this class, one of the biggest themes we talk about and keep going back to is empathy. Sam emphasizes the importance of having empathy, and questioning how you would feel if you were in someone else’s shoes. He did the same thing with the question of rape or abortion. Sam asked the class how we would feel if our wife, sister, mother, or even 12 year old daughter got raped. What would we do in that situation? He also said he wants politicians to put themselves in that situation, instead of suggesting ideas like women have natural defense mechanisms against getting pregnant when they get raped.
If I was to put myself in someone else’s shoes, and a woman who was close to me (whether it be my wife, girlfriend, daughter, mother, sister, aunt, etc.), I would want them to do what they wanted. The decision should be left up to them, and it’s a very tough decision to make. But I think the women should have a choice, and they should be able to make it for themselves.
Recently, we’ve seen lots of older male politicians telling women what they think should define rape and what they think women should do with their bodies when things like rape and pregnancy happen. I’m not a woman and was not very concerned with these kinds of things at first, but then I realized that it doesn’t seem very fair that men are making decisions for women about their bodies. It started to bug me that this was happening, because I was able to apply empathy. I realized that if a woman was telling me what I needed to do with my body, I’d be bothered by it. I also think that it’s odd that some people tell others what to do with their bodies. Some people of certain religions tell everyone else what they should be doing with their lives and bodies. I don’t think its right. If you follow a certain religion or have certain beliefs, then you should follow them all you want. But I don’t think you have a right to infringe on other people’s lives and try and say that someone can’t get an abortion because you don’t believe that you should be allowed to get one. It’s a little different with the government. I think the government (federal, state, and local) should be able to set some laws about what is allowed and what isn’t (obviously I think things like murder should be illegal) but more controversial topics like abortion should probably be left up to someone to make for themselves.

At the end of the lecture yesterday, Sam opened up the floor to questions. Different questions were thrown out, but then one student asked if Sam was voting for Gary Johnson. While Sam said he couldn’t disclose that information, he started discussing different political views on different topics, one of them being rape and abortion. This is a very touchy subject for many people, but I think Sam handled the topic well.
In this class, one of the biggest themes we talk about and keep going back to is empathy. Sam emphasizes the importance of having empathy, and questioning how you would feel if you were in someone else’s shoes. He did the same thing with the question of rape or abortion. Sam asked the class how we would feel if our wife, sister, mother, or even 12 year old daughter got raped. What would we do in that situation? He also said he wants politicians to put themselves in that situation, instead of suggesting ideas like women have natural defense mechanisms against getting pregnant when they get raped.
If I was to put myself in someone else’s shoes, and a woman who was close to me (whether it be my wife, girlfriend, daughter, mother, sister, aunt, etc.), I would want them to do what they wanted. The decision should be left up to them, and it’s a very tough decision to make. But I think the women should have a choice, and they should be able to make it for themselves.
Recently, we’ve seen lots of older male politicians telling women what they think should define rape and what they think women should do with their bodies when things like rape and pregnancy happen. I’m not a woman and was not very concerned with these kinds of things at first, but then I realized that it doesn’t seem very fair that men are making decisions for women about their bodies. It started to bug me that this was happening, because I was able to apply empathy. I realized that if a woman was telling me what I needed to do with my body, I’d be bothered by it. I also think that it’s odd that some people tell others what to do with their bodies. Some people of certain religions tell everyone else what they should be doing with their lives and bodies. I don’t think its right. If you follow a certain religion or have certain beliefs, then you should follow them all you want. But I don’t think you have a right to infringe on other people’s lives and try and say that someone can’t get an abortion because you don’t believe that you should be allowed to get one. It’s a little different with the government. I think the government (federal, state, and local) should be able to set some laws about what is allowed and what isn’t (obviously I think things like murder should be illegal) but more controversial topics like abortion should probably be left up to someone to make for themselves.

Thursday’s class was a very complex class with a lot of issues all relating back to the topic of latent prejudice. One of the things that I thought was done really well was the question series of questions asking about people being prejudice, but when how they would feel about having a child of a different race. It’s questions like this in Sam’s class that really get students thinking. But going into a topic like latent prejudice then brings up a lot of other issues that need to be discussed, such as political, social, and economic implications. These topics are very difficult to come up with answers about though. To start off, everyone is likely prejudice to some degree, even if it’s only a small amount of latent prejudice. In my discussion group, we were talking about children and race, and one student said there was a study that showed that even from infancy, children are aware of race and people of different colored skin. When shown picture of people of different races, the infants tend to spend more time looking at people of the same race/skin color, suggesting that the child prefers these pictures or finds them more enjoyable. This obviously will have some kind of subconscious effect on our lives as we grow. While we may not be racist or have a dislike of other races, somewhere deep down inside of our subconscious, we are aware that people of other races are different than we are. This likely has some kind of change in our behavior towards this person, no matter how small. If this kind of subconscious awareness of race exists somewhere deep down in all people, then this has an impact on the way we treat and look at others. This would then have an impact on certain social issues. If Caucasian is the majority, then this means that their opinions and subconscious latent prejudice will have an effect on the stance of minorities in the country. If a person from a race that is a majority in the country is running for a political office, the white majority may be less likely to vote for this person than the white politician running against him. These things are hard to measure though, because they have to do with our subconscious and very minor actions that people might do, without even being aware of them. An example to the contrary is that Barack Obama won in the last election against John McCain. So obviously, the topic of latent prejudice is not the number one motivator that people have for their actions, but just another one of the many variables that go into shaping our actions and opinions in our everyday lives.

In class, we watched a video clip from the TV show “What Would You Do?” In the video, there were a few staged scenarios, and cameras captured how random people walking by reacted. In all the scenarios, there was a bike in a park that was chained to a sign. In the first scenario, a white man was trying to break the bike chain with saws and bolt cutters. A few people walking by asked if he was stealing the bike, but no one stopped and tried to stop him or call the police. In the second scenario, a black man tried to do the same thing. Almost immediately, a group of people stopped and tried to stop him. When they reset the experiment, the same thing happened again. A few people called the police. In the third scenario, a white woman tried stealing the bike. Not only did no one stop and question her, but a few people even helped her steal the bike.
The random people walking by had no idea they were involved in a TV show experiment. But after they found out, they were interviewed about their experience. Most people claimed to not be racist or have prejudice towards certain races. But the experiment shows that this may not always be the case. The people interviewed after walking past the white man said that they didn’t think he was stealing it. A pair of black women questioned the man, but didn’t try and stop him. They were told that the next experiment would involve a black man trying to steal the bike, and they predicted that many more people would stop, which was true. But the people interviewed after seeing the black man steal the bike said that they weren’t racist. Many of them claimed they would stop anyone stealing a bike, regardless of race. But this didn’t seem to be the case according to the experiment.
I’m not sure if there is really one solid explanation for this. One possible explanation was mentioned by Sam in class. He said that often times, people think more highly of themselves than is actually true. People may think that they’re really good people, when in reality they aren’t. People may say that they’re not racist or aren’t prejudice towards certain races, but when it comes time to really act (and they don’t know anyone else is watching) their true actions come out. Another possible explanation may be that people may actually be slightly prejudice towards certain races, but aren’t willing to admit it on TV. Another possibility could be that people have subconscious prejudices, but aren’t aware of them. When they see a black man trying to break a bike chain, they think that he’s stealing it, according to experiences they may have had in the past. There’s no way to know what the explanations for these behaviors are. This is something that Sam emphasizes in this class all the time: many of his questions and much of the data does not have simple explanations, and some don’t seem to have any answers at all.

Affirmative action is a topic that has come up in a few of my classes before. Being a business student, the topic has been discussed in many of my classes. For the most part, many students I’ve talked to seem to be against affirmative action. Though I didn’t have a really decisive opinion on it, I did not totally agree with it. I felt that people should be judged based on their abilities and accomplishments, and not be picked to fill a specific quota set by someone. But the lecture in last class really made me thing about affirmative action. A few classes ago, we talked about the median household worth for families of different races. Hispanic and Black families were on the bottom, with a household worth on average of roughly $4-$8 thousand. This is incredibly low compared to the white $110,000 average. But at this time I wasn’t thinking about affirmative action. I started thinking about affirmative action when it was mentioned in last class. Sam didn’t state his opinion on it right away, but rather brought up the idea and asked other students to think about it. He then brought up common arguments, such as “Well slavery ended 150 years ago so why should black people still get extra help?” This is a common argument. But Sam was smart in bringing this up, because he countered it quickly and strongly. He said that slavery may have ended that long ago, but black people have been held down for a while since. He brought up the example of post WW2, where soldiers were given low rate loans for tuition or for buying houses. He said this was finally an opportunity for many black people to reach the middle class and to move their way up. As they had families, their families would now be in this new class as well, and so on and so forth. But many black veterans did not receive these loans and did not get the help they were entitled to.
But even with these arguments, there are still no answers. Sam told us that he’s actually a registered libertarian. He said he’s one of the most conservative people in the room. But because of his political stance, he feels that everyone should be given a free chance, regardless of race or any other factor. Sam seemed in favor of helping minorities out because of the struggles they’ve had to go through, but being a libertarian, he thinks we should get rid of affirmative action. I see his argument in that. He’s saying that the only fair chance they’ll have is if everyone is given the same chance. But it’s a difficult call. There are no right answers to any of these questions in class, so it’s difficult to come up with opinions.

I think that the visual activities for the race salary lesson were extremely helpful in further grasping the concept. Sam used two main activities: the King of the Hill demonstration, and the staircase demonstration. There’s not much I would really add to either of them. One thing that I might suggest adding to the staircase activity is making it so that the students actually had to walk up the stairs so we could really see how unfair it would be to get to the top. Maybe once the first person got to the top, everyone else would stop where they were. Sam mentioned that when some of the lower classes move up in the “standings,” everyone else moves up too, so that they can never really catch up. Having everyone walk up the stairs at the same time and stop where they were when one person reached the top would better get that point across. I don’t think that actually acting out the King of the Hill demonstration would exactly work though. It might be too violent for class, and even though Asians are supposed to be on top, the girl representing the Asian class was the smallest out of everyone, so would be the most physically disadvantaged out of everyone and might not get the point across.
I also have another suggestion for the activity/demonstration. We did the original “King of the Mountain” activity on Tuesday’s class, but then on Thursday’s class we talked about the rest of the world. We discussed where America stands in comparison to the rest of the world. I don’t remember the exact statistic, but it was basically saying that even the poorest of American’s are richer than 90+% of the rest of the world. After showing where different classes in America stand in comparison to each other, you could show where the rest of the world stands. If you did that, almost all Americans would be basically at the top of the staircase in the classroom. If it were to scale, Asians and whites would basically be on the same step. There would probably be a one step difference separating them and Hispanics and blacks, who would probably be on the same step as well. Then, since Haiti is the poorest country in the world, you could have a Haitian stand all the way at the bottom of the staircase. Visuals like this really help get the point across and help us put things in perspective, which is what the original staircase exercise did. The same day, Sam showed a picture of Beaver Stadium to represent the amount of people/children that die in 3.5 days from malnutrition. We hear statistics like that all the time, but it’s not until we see visuals that we know and understand to really grasp the gravity of the situation. Visuals really help get points across.