part3 - . Back to the question of whether illegal immigration is okay or not, I know I have heard a lot of older people complain about illegal immigration and when it is brought up that we are all pretty much the result of immigration, their response is that “our relatives did it right”. That is true, but that was back when our country was not fully developed and it was completely normal for immigrants to be arriving daily, and it was acceptable. Ellis Island was there specifically for that reason. Now that our country is completely populated, for some reason everyone feels “American”.. they feel that they are more privileged than foreigners in our country. I see both sides of the argument and honestly do not know where I stand. But as for the actual question, would I help an immigrant or turn them away – I know that if I were in the position, with actual human beings in front of me asking for work, I would never be able to turn them away.
part2 - When you see how hard working and desperate they are to just make a living for themselves and their families, your heart goes out to them. Seeing them as actual people rather than reading a story and thinking of them as a problem or statistic makes all the difference. I think it is completely unrealistic to think that there is any way illegal immigration can stopped and I also think its unrealistic to think that someone could help every illegal immigrant get on their feet and become legal. As for helping them versus turning them away, like another student from Arizona said in their blog, if I were in an area where immigrants were present and looking for work, and I had jobs for them to do, I think I would definitely ask them to work for me, just out of sympathy. I know we have talked about guilt in class before, but I think it is impossible to make some decisions - especially ones involving other people less fortunate than you are, without having guilt involved.
part1 - I am very in the middle when it comes to this subject. Like most of the hot topics discussed in Soc 119, I feel like I am not educated enough about the topic to really have an opinion. I guess I have an opinion, because everyone has an opinion on everything whether you realize it or not, I just do not feel comfortable fully arguing about something when I have no real facts or information backing it up. After saying that, I guess my initial reaction to illegal immigration is that it is completely wrong and they should have to leave the country. There is much in the media pointing out all of the bad things that come of it, without knowing any details; I think that would be anyone’s first reaction. After seeing videos like the one in class, where you actually see real people and hear their stories, that makes everything completely different.
pt 1 - I am very in the middle when it comes to this subject. Like most of the hot topics discussed in Soc 119, I feel like I am not educated enough about the topic to really have an opinion. I guess I have an opinion, because everyone has an opinion on everything whether you realize it or not, I just do not feel comfortable fully arguing about something when I have no real facts or information backing it up. After saying that, I guess my initial reaction to illegal immigration is that it is completely wrong and they should have to leave the country. There is much in the media pointing out all of the bad things that come of it, without knowing any details
pt3 - I do not have any thoughts really as to why this is except for the guilt issue that we have discussed in class in the past. I am not sure why white people as a whole feel so much guilt about racial issues, but I think it could be because it still goes on today within certain groups and in certain areas. For me personally, I believe that I, as a white person, would have an issue telling a black or mixed person a story like that, having to use the N word, unless I knew the person. I think that makes a lot of difference too, how well you know the person you have to tell story like that to.
pt2 - I think that had there been more time, and the activity been less rushed, more information may have been able to be passed on and then we may have been able to see more of a difference in the story telling. I am sure that overall, if this activity was done 500 times at schools all over the country, the results would show that there is a difference between the way white and mixed/ black students tell the story or a story similar to it. I think that white people in general feel very uncomfortable discussing racial or discriminatory situations with mixed or black people. I sometimes think they feel guilty for being white. I do not however think that it is the same if the roles are reversed. If a black or mixed person were relaying a story about a situation where a white person were discriminated against, they would not feel uncomfortable or change or sugar coat the story.
pt1 - I did not really notice a difference in the way the story was told between the white and mixed or black students. After hearing the question and thinking back to the activity, I guess I can kind of see what he is saying. I think that if the first girl who told the story had gone into more detail about what the white student, Art, had said, it would have been more interesting to see the white student in our class relay the story to the next black student, but because she left it at “some inappropriate things were said”, that part of the story seemed to become less and less important. I noticed that the white students seemed to go into more detail in general, and were focused on different aspects of the story than the black or mixed students, but at this time I cannot remember exact examples. I do not think that anything was really sugar coated, but now I see that the basis of this question was probably the idea of the activity. At the time I could not figure out exactly what the point of it was, however, it was very entertaining.
I guess in a way, Tuesday’s class and the videos we watched did change my perspective a bit because my thoughts were always “Why do they hate us when we are only over there trying to help them??” But now, unfortunately, I see and understand. The video of the men in the Hum Vee running the pick up truck off of the road disturbed me the most for some reason. Even though the other video of the soldiers completely destroying the cab driver’s car was very upsetting, they at least kind of had a reason, at least one that would validate their actions for themselves. But running the truck off of the road for no reason at all and laughing about it really bothered me. The fact that they video recorded it happening, and all laughed hardily over it was the most disturbing. If we are truly over there to help those people, bullying them is no way to do it. I know it is ignorant, but I prefer to not even think about what is going on overseas because it scares me.
In my freshman English class we watched Al Quida propaganda videos and it was very difficult, almost too hard to watch. To see the lies and images that they put into people’s minds is sickening. I understand the other point of view though. Even though we are there to help them and most soldiers are there for just that, the few that make mistakes by acting rude, violent, and unacceptable to Iraqis are giving all Americans a bad name. But that is the same exact case as Americans not trusting and hating all Muslins, or even people that they assume are Muslim, because of terrorists who happen to be Middle Eastern. It is hard to watch videos of Americans mistreating Iraqis because not only do I not like to see people being abused or harassed at all, but I also cannot stand the thought of what that is doing to their opinion of our entire country.
I have never really been completely pro war, but cannot be completely against it either when I know I do not know hardly anything about it. I do not feel right have such strong feelings about something I am uneducated on and do not fully understand. I know that the war is not against Middle Easterners or Muslims, but on terrorists, which I agree with. The terrorists are the ones who hate us, attacked us, and are turning others against us. After seeing the videos, I can completely understand why people over there feel the way they do about us Americans.
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