Yet another controversial and racy topic was discussed in soc 119 this week. This class discussion was about lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgender lifestyles. The class started with a benchmarking base clicker question of, “what do you think about homosexuals in the United States.” There was a huge discrepancy in the distribution of answers. Most students said they were completely ok with gays and lesbians, with just about everybody else saying they were uncomfortable with it for either personal or religious reasons. Although I am religious myself, I was one of the people that was completely comfortable with homosexuality. I have always been comfortable with allowing others to make their own choices and live their lives that they would like to. With that being said, my religion has sometimes pressured me or put me in tough situations when it came to gay and lesbian lifestyles in America. This however changed after class because of the main point Sam was making. In the same verse of the bible that it says a man should not lay with another man, it also says not to fornicate, adult, have envy or lust, steal, and many other sins. At no point did it say that any of these sins are better or worse than the others. When asked, the class admitted that just about everybody had done one or more of these activities. So why do Americans, and more specifically religious Americans, look down upon homosexuality? According to Sam, the reason most religious people feel that lesbians and gays are wrong is because it is the one thing that many people don’t relate to. Although just about everybody knows a gay person, most of us don’t have gay tendencies ourselves. For this reason, it is easier to pick that out as the worst of all the sins. During the class, we got to hear the experience and adversities that the out of the closet gays had in our class. This offered a new perspective and some more insight to the controversial topic, which also helped me open my eyes more. Although I was already comfortable and accepting of the lesbian, bisexual, gay, and transgender lifestyles, this made it even easier to accept it within my religion. Another part of the discussion in class was if being gay was something a person is born or if it is developed over a person’s lifetime. This is something that many people argue about and I personally never really knew the answer to. Although it varies person to person, most people are born gay or lesbian. So not only did this class help me become a little more comfortable with other peoples’ sexuality and sexual preferences, but it also cleared the air about some common lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgender questions.

The Trayvon Martin story has attracted more attention and controversy that any story in recent years. In summary, Trayvon Martin was a 17 year old black male who was shot while walking out of a convenience store by George Zimmerman, a middle aged Hispanic man who referred to himself as the “neighborhood watchman.” George Zimmerman was questioned about the case but then released because it was considered self defense as to the reason why he shot Trayvon. However Trayvon Martin was found with only a bag of skittles and no proof of any intention of harming George Zimmerman. Many people think that George Zimmerman was released because he wasn’t black, and that if he was black he would not have been released. I think this is a major assumption backed by absolutely no facts. People always look for reasons to deem something “racism” or to claim someone is a racist. In this case, there is no proof that there was any racism involved. In the 911 call tape, race is not mentioned except for when the police dispatch asks George Zimmerman what race the young male was. There was nothing else that would imply any racist intentions or anything along those lines. Another major thing to think about is that George Zimmerman is a minority himself. He has Hispanic roots and you can see it in his darker skin and his accent. The shooting occurred in Miami Florida, where African Americans are not the predominant minority. In fact, Hispanics are, so if the police had any racist tendencies, it would be against Hispanics and Latinos, not African Americans. For this reason, you would think if the police were being racist, they would not let him go free but instead prosecute them unfairly. So that is why I don’t think there was any racial wrong doings. Another thing that bothers me about the entire thing is how quick people are at Penn State to trust everything the media says and reports. In November the entire world looked down upon Penn State as a scandal ripped through the university. All of the students knew that a lot of the media reports were over exaggerated or in some cases just plain made up lies. Many people thought that the media was making things worse than they needed to be and we all quickly turned on them by boycotting news networks and in more extreme cases, rioted and flipped over news vans. But now when it doesn’t involve us people go back to believing everything they hear in the news. Media reports in a way that will boost their ratings and help them out, whether it’s the full truth or not. This was seen when NBC only played selective clips of the 911 tapes to make it seem more racially motivated. So the fact that even though we hated the media 5 months ago, we once again believe everything they say even though there is no proof in any of it.

There are many different skills that people in our Soc 119 class possess that can benefit Haiti, and I have some as well. The first major thing that everybody brings to our class that can make a huge difference to the lives of the Haitians is money. Although this isn’t really a skill per se, it can make a monumental difference in the country. By giving money to the Haitians we can help stimulate their economy. For example, our class is giving money for a lady who owns her own sandal business. By giving her a micro financing loan, not only do we help her create a steady income for herself, but now she also employs others. So with just a little bit of money, we can help out both the entrepreneur who begins and owns the business as well as the people she employs by giving them a job and steady income. The reason this is a skill to us is because anybody sitting in a Penn State class is most likely better off than anybody in Haiti. The average American makes 48,000 dollars every year, and a Penn State student is probably even higher than that. Compare that to Haiti, where the annual income average per person is a little over 1000 dollars per year. So obviously our money and purchasing power as a class can change the lives of thousands of people. Another skill we bring is education. As Penn Stater’s, we get a world class education. Many kids growing up in Haiti do not even make it past middle school before they have to drop out or start working. For this reason, brainpower of us Americans, and more specifically Penn Stater’s, can be an invaluable asset in stimulating the Haitian economy and improving the lives of everybody in the country. A skill that I bring myself is my background in Supply Chain management, international business as well as business law and ethics. All of these aspects of business are useful because they apply to any business, from a large Haitian corporation to a local business, even farmers. By being able to help out with these crucial aspects of business, every company or producer could benefit by redefining their supply chain and making it more efficient. This makes producing goods or services faster, easier, and more cost efficient. International business is very pertinent and useful because it helps increase a company’s range of business and globalization as well as legitimacy. The last thing I could bring is my background in business law and ethics. In today’s society this is an increasingly important knowledge, as nobody is immune to laws and ordinances. A company or producer that can stay within the law will be much better off than a more profitable one that can’t do it legally. So apart from just money and brainpower, my major and minors can come in huge advantage for stimulating the Haitian economy.

The video from FOX created a huge stir and controversy unlike any other we have ever had in the class. Tempers were getting high and the Twitter debate was not much better, with some people even calling others racist. For some context, the video was a FOX Sports report from the University of Southern California and dealt with the addition of University of Colorado and the University of Utah to the PAC-12 conference in sports. However, instead of asking people that looked like football fanatics or people decked-out in USC apparel, they targeted Asian international students. Now of course there are Asians that do follow football and other sports, however FOX Sports targeted ones that looked nerdy and less-athletic. When asked about what they thought of the two new teams joining the conference, many didn’t even understand the question. At first most people in the class were laughing, but eventually it got more and more uncomfortable and the laughs began to fade off. It turned into something that caused a lot of debate, mostly stemming from a white male claiming “it’s not racist, it is called comedy. People in America laugh at accents and things like that.” That comment was what sparked an explosion from the class. Many different people of varying ethnicities had an opinion on the matter, one way or another. The opinions and discussions that stuck with me the most were those made by the Asian international students in the class. Many of them actually thought it was funny, much more so that non Asian students. They understand that it was the accent that we were laughing at, and not the race as a whole. It was mostly the black men and women in that class that were offended. For me personally, I thought the video was pretty funny. It doesn’t matter that they were Asian; I think it would be funny if it was a Russian student, an African student, a European student or anybody else. I got criticized by many then saying, “You can’t say that because you can not relate to them, you are just a white guy.” I am however, an international student. I do know what it is like to have a foreign accent, especially when I moved from the United States to Switzerland. Many people thought my American accent was funny and I was ok with that. So that is why I thought the video was funny. For those who said it was very racist, I think they were just up on their “high horse.” It is very easy to sit back and say that you are tolerant and never laugh at differences in people, but I don’t typically buy into it. So I think the only people that can actually find the video offensive or racist are Asian students that can at least relate.

The question has been posed twice now, “Would you give up your chair to the original owner?” In this case, the chair is a representation of the United States and the original owner was Native Americans. Everybody knows of the first Thanksgiving between the settlers (or Pilgrims) and the Native Americans and think we all just got along, but as we learned in the first couple of weeks in class that wasn’t exactly the case. The settlers essentially stole the land because they were better equipped with guns and other weapons. So the question was asked, would you give the land back to a Native American if it used to be theirs? The majority of the class said no, but a couple of students said yes. Next, we were asked if we are white and inherited the land from our parents, would we give the land back to the children of the Native Americans. This time, even less people said yes because it was the second generation. Last we were asked by Sam if we inherited the land from our grandparents, would you give the land back to the grandchildren of the original Native Americans. As you could probably guess, almost nobody said yes. I fell into the group that said no. My reason behind that was that I had nothing to do with the taking of the land, so why should I have to give it up? So now the “Voices from the Classroom” question is if we feel the same way still. After learning about white supremacy, racism, and other important racial issues, our opinions might have changed. However, if this question was posed as a clicker question, I think my answer would still be the same, no. Although I am now better at putting myself in other peoples and other races shoes, I feel the same way. Because I had nothing to do with the original, and honestly unfair, taking of the Native American’s land I don’t feel as though I should give the land up. This at first sounds unfair, but at the same time it would be hard to give up the land. Anybody who said they would give it up I believe is lying. America is a country that we have all lived in for most of our whole lives if not our whole life, so just to give it up because of a past injustice would be hard. If I were the Native American, I would obviously feel quite differently, but in this scenario I am not Native American so it is hard to say. I think that as the generations keep going and we move further away from the original stealing of the land less and less people will say that they would give up the land. So as hard as it is to say, it is my opinion that the Native American’s will never get back what was once theirs.

My perspective of the war has changed greatly over the course of the last decade for a number of reasons. Growing up, I always thought of America as the world’s police force and superhero. I thought that anything the United States did in foreign affairs was always for the right reasons and that we did what was needed. Then the War in Iraq happened. Everybody knows the controversy over the “Weapons of Mass Destruction” and whether they ever existed or not. Oil never crossed my mind as a reason for invading the Middle East when the war was first announced. At first, everything seemed ok, Saddam was over thrown and the government started to shift from tyranny to democracy. If the United States had withdrawn then, everything would be ok. That obviously was not the case. It is 2012 and troops are still being withdrawn, so obviously there was another motivation for invading the Middle East. Oil prices are something that every politician has to deal with on the campaign trail, and Iraq happens to have one of the largest oil reserves of any country in the world. This seems way too connected to be a coincidence at this point. However, both of my parents were in the Air Force. My dad was weeks away from being sent off to the Middle East before they granted him his release, so obviously they both have more personal opinions on the matter. Because both of my parents don’t think oil is the sole reason the United State has troops deployed in the Middle East, I thought this was common opinion among the military. Sam shot that idea down for me in class, when three Iraq war veterans were introduced to the class and hosted a question and answer session. One of the veterans spoke slowly because he had suffered severe brain trauma in an explosion that killed his best friend in Iraq, so what he said carried more meaning than what anybody else could tell me. The fact that he fought in this war and for America, yet still thought that we were fighting a war for oil stuck with me as I walked out of class. As far as the war itself, I’m sure I am not the only person who was amazed by the soldier to civilian death ratio used by the United States when planning missions. According to this, one United States soldier’s life is worth twenty nine Iraqi civilians’ lives. Obviously I support our troops and want them to be safe, but the fact that they are worth so much more is a hard pill to swallow. As an American, I relate to our soldiers more so I think of them as more worthy, but not 29 times more. War has always existed and always will, so it’s something that we should constantly talk about and debate, as it will never go away.

As a white person living in State College, I can never say that I’ve noticed or thought that the city caters to white people. I don’t think that State College is just harboring people that only want to serve white people or sell products that are made for the white community. With that being said however, I do think that State College caters to its demographic, as does any business anywhere. Central Pennsylvania is the whitest place on Earth. Diversity doesn’t run deep in Centre County, and State College is no exception. Penn State as a university does have a little more diversity than the region as a whole, but still is very white. Because of this, storeowners and other businesses are typically owned and operated by other white people, and serve the white community. This still doesn’t mean they cater to white people. In the video, Sam gives the example of getting a haircut. The African American female says that she has to go back home to get her hair cut because all the salons and barbershops here are for white people. She has to go back home to get weaves done, but that doesn’t mean they cater to white people. She can walk in and get a haircut just like anybody else; it’s just that she doesn’t want that. So that’s her personal choice, and not the fault of the barbershop or salon in State College. If a hair salon that did weaves and other stereotypical black hair styles opened in State College, it would most likely go out of business in a week. This again is because the lack of black students at Penn State and in the surrounding area. In class, somebody said that blacks are underrepresented at Penn State and that affirmative action is failing because so few black people go here. However, if students are looking for a school with diversity and are choosing a school based on how much minorities are represented, then they wouldn’t have chose Penn State. Penn State is known for being one of the least diverse schools in the county, so to knowingly still come here voids that argument. If minority students really felt that underrepresented then they would have not come here. So because of this, I don’t feel as though it is State College’s fault for not offering more diverse products and services, because just like every other business, they are just trying to make money, and there is not much money in black products. I think that eventually, as whites become less of a majority, and Penn State shifts towards a more diverse school, these services may begin to be offered, but until then, the region and school will influence what State College offers.

Discrimination based on race is a topic that is brought up all the time in the political world, but seems to be an issue that people avoid in social conversation or avoid even thinking about. Affirmative action is a highly controversial subject that many people strongly feel one way or another about, but many people don’t know how it actually affects them. In class, we saw Sam pick out a black girl and a white girl with very stereotypical names. The white girl was named Kaitlin and the black girl was named Tamika, two names that are very rare to see in the other race. We were given a scenario in which both girls were applying for the same job, and each were equally qualified. The job application process included a test, and each girl did just as well as the other. However, Tamika was given an additional 5 points on her test just because she was African American. When Kaitlin was asked how she felt about that, she said upset. Although both girls are just as qualified and intelligent, Tamika gets 5 points just because of the color of her skin. This is an example of affirmative action. Many people only think of college admission when they hear affirmative action, but it also applies to job interviews. So after we determined that is was unfair to discriminate based on race, Sam told us that although Tamika got the 5 extra points, Kaitlin was still more likely to get picked because she was white. In fact, whites have a 50% better chance of getting selected than an equally qualified African American. After hearing this, Kaitlin wasn’t mad about discrimination based on race. Once it benefited her, she was ok with it, but now Tamika was mad. Unless she changes her name to something more commonly white, she will still be discriminated against. As a white person, I feel as though this is unfair, but I’m not going to complain about it because it helps me. It sounds bad, but if I’m given an advantage when it comes to getting a job just because I’m white, I’ll take it! This is another example of white supremacy, but because I’m white it isn’t that big of a deal for me. That is why I feel like many people don’t like to discuss race and discrimination, because we don’t like to admit that we benefit from it, even if we don’t deserve it. So although I feel as though discrimination based on race is unfair, I’m not going to try and change it when it helps me in so many ways. Possibly in the future society will shift away from discrimination based on race, but that is yet to be seen. In my opinion, it will take many generations until there is no discriminating based on race and skin color.

In my personal opinion, religion is something that most people are either for or against. There is very little common ground. One side has the creationists whose faith guides them in an unwavering practice of religion, whereas atheists spend their time trying to disprove religion. To make a general statement like “creationists don’t bother to learn the facts of the other side” can be said about atheists too in my opinion. Many atheists don’t bother learning the aspects of religion that people become entrenched in. They also typically leave out the power and idea of faith. With that being said however, I am a creationist and I don’t find time to research the other side of the story. I’m not the type of person who will ignore any other point of view or zone out the non-believers, but I don’t go out of my way to research and learn. Sam made the argument that I can’t actually be locked into my faith if I haven’t challenged my faith and learned everything about the other side, but I disagree. First of all, it is near impossible to learn everything about a given subject, such as atheism or reasons creationism can’t be true. There is so much information from so many various sources that it would take hundreds of years for me to read and then process all that information. Also, it is human nature to find flaws in arguments once you already have your mind made up about an issue. Because I grew up with my faith and ideals, it’s hard for me to change that without concrete proof. So unless somebody presents a flawless argument against creationism, it’s hard to accept it as credible and therefore I tend to ignore it. As I said before, religion has no middle ground. There are people like Sam who think they take everything into consideration when making up their mind, but you will never be able to fully grasp both sides of the story and obtain all the possible knowledge. Because nobody can ever fully understand a concept like creationism versus evolution, we are forced to put our faith on either side, but not both. This is where societal influence comes into play. I am a catholic because my parents are catholic because their parents are catholic. It wasn’t something that I ever thought about because it’s just what I grew up with. Some people grow up as atheists and will also never change throughout their lives and pass it on to their children. Because of this, I feel as though learning all points of view isn’t crucial like Sam says, because people become so entrenched in their original views that they get confrontational and it accomplishes nothing.

I do think that white people shy away from race in today’s society. I believe the reason white people shy away from talking about race is because of the history of race in the United States. Everybody knows about slavery in the beginning history of the United States, the Civil War stemming from race, and the Civil Rights movement in the twentieth century. All of these things involved white people thinking they were superior to black people and because of that, suppressed their rights and treated them as second class citizens. Now in today’s society, white people and black people are still not equal, but we have come a long way since the sixties. Because white people have a history of suppression, I think we feel guilty for it now. Even though I was not involved in the suppression myself, nor were my parents, somewhere in my family history I’m sure there was some racism. Because of this, I believe most white people feel an association to racism, and therefore don’t like to talk about it. People never feel comfortable talking about something that they did wrong in the past, and race is no exception. I think in the future, race will slowly become a less taboo subject, or at least with white people and black people. It may move to different races, but white people and black people have come a long way, and as racism becomes more of a thing of the past, talking race will be more ok. I think for white people to be comfortable to talk about race, they need to know that black people are comfortable with it too. Sam demonstrated this in class when he asked a white girl to pick out who she thought was “the blackest person in the room,” or who had the darkest skin. After getting over her embarrassment and fear of hurting someone’s feelings, she picked out a girl from Nigeria. When asked why she was embarrassed to pick out the darkest skinned person in the class, she said she feared getting beat up after class by the black students. Although the class burst out in laughter at the idea, I think most white people would feel the same if they had to do the same task. By saying things like this, white people are essentially saying that they assume black people are ashamed of the color of their skin. If she had thought that black people embraced their deep skin color and were proud of their ethnicity, she would have had no problem picking out the person with the darkest skin tone. Once white people can accept the idea that black people are comfortable talking about race, maybe then white people can be too. Until then, we’ll need a focus group like Sociology recitation to feel comfortable talking about race.