The thing that struck me most about the lecture today were the photographs we viewed during the video. I remember looking at them and thinking, "mental note: google the trail of tears." So, right before writing this post, I decided to do some of my own research. The pictures I came across struck me in a very deep way...it's difficult to explain. I found photographs of beautiful women, roughly my age, who had to go through more than I can even imagine. There were pictures of multiracial Cherokee girls, all dressed up in traditional, restricting American clothing of the time period. Seeing these pictures made everything seem more real to me, I think that in a way I am able to see myself in some of these people, or at least try to picture myself in their shoes.
I've never really thought about how wrong the Native Americans have been treated. Looking at it the way Sam showed us, however, I found myself feeling guilty. Especially the title line in the song "don't drink the water, there's blood in the water, don't drink the water." It sent eerie chills down my spine, forcing me to realize that we owe a serious debt to the Natives.
We took everything from them: their land, their homes, their families, their pride, their culture, their lives. I know Sam says that feeling guilty is not the right answer, but I can't help it. I don't know how the Native Americans of today aren't rising up, rebelling, and demanding reparations...I sure would be. I've never met anyone of Native ancestry, but I would love to get their view point and see how they really feel. I wonder if they resent American culture? Or if they feel like they deserve to be the ones ruling the nation. The lecture left me with a lot of questions, not only for others but for myself as well.
I appreciate Sam giving me the wake up call, and I'm sure the rest of the class did as well.

I wasn't expecting much from the needy penis lecture, to be honest. I figured we would sit and listen to the same 'girl power' speeches that I've been hearing since middle school. Either that or Sam would give us a (somewhat creepy) look into his own personal sex life with his wife. What I got out of it was a little bit of both, but one thing that meant the most to me caused a light bulb to go off in my head about just how male-dominated our world is. When they explained that the actual penis was not needy (at least, not in negative terms) and that simply the word 'needy' was only negative when attributed towards women, I finally got it.
I realized that as a woman, if I were needy or too clingy, etc, society would most likely predict that I will never marry or not be able to 'get a man' unless I change my behavior. It is perfectly acceptable, however, for a man to have the needy attribute and still be looked at as normal or a good catch.
This made me feel very uncomfortable; almost not an equal to men. I know that woman's rights have come a long way and all that jazz, but in so many ways we are still subordinate, especially when it comes to sexual matters. We are looked at, oftentimes, as sex objects. We see this in the media in adverting, film, and television.
I felt uncomfortable that I could be so naive to think that I was just as equal as a man, but here, really, in a lot of ways I'm not.
It was just unsettling for a few moments to take that in, and now that I have, I feel like it's up to me to maybe point this out to boys (aka my boyfriend and his friends) and see what they think. Maybe they will be uncomfortable with the realization also, but I highly doubt that. And the reason for that is because it doesn't negatively affect them...unless the women in their lives finally start to do something about it and stand up.

Whenever I see an interracial couple I think about how strong each of them has to be. I am not naive enough to think that everyone is OK with interracial relationships; I know that the majority of the country looks down upon them and they are still considered a taboo. I've seen a white man be with a black woman walking down the street, and sometimes it isn't always paradise. Black men will belittle the white man, and make cat-calls at the girl. I know it's not easy for them to be together, but they do it anyway, and that's why I admire them.
Personally, I have no problem with interracial couples. I was raised to be accepting of others, no matter what. Even my grandmother (Italian, right off the boat) was approving and accepting, which was rare to find in her generation. My mother always used to tell me stories about how my grandmother would let anyone in her home and treat them to same way--whether they were gay, black, Asian, white; it didn't matter. I think my mother passed on her ideals to my sister and I. Who am I to tell someone they can't love someone because their skin color is different?
In fact, my first kiss, when I was in 5th grade, went to a boy who was mixed. His mother was white, his father was black. His dad was never around, I believe his parents were divorced or never married. I never saw him. There was no drama over the fact that Will was mixed, nobody cared and it never even crossed my mind. Perhaps this was because he was very light skinned and lived with his white Mother, which made him seem like just another white kid to us.
Either way, I think that although interracial relationships can be difficult and face judgment by society, they are a part of life that will never go away. As cheesy as it sounds, you can't help who you fall in love with. Skin color shouldn't matter as much as it does, but that clearly hasn't stopped people from being together, and never will.

I've always thought of the term 'privilege' in terms of opportunity and wealth--for example, Paris Hilton is privileged because all she has to do all day is go tanning and walk her dog, her family has enough millions to provide for her for the rest of her life. I associated being privileged with being well-off in a sense, or at least having the opportunities (coming from a good home, going to a good school, etc) to become well-off.
In my COMM 405 class, we're actually learning about all types of privilege: age, gender, sexual orientation, race, religion. So now, partnered with this class and the idea of feeling guilty for being a certain race, I can look at privilege with fresh eyes and new ideas.
Being white myself, it was pointed out to me that white people don't think about white privilege...and to a certain extent, for me, at least, this is true. I never really thought about my skin color giving me things that others might have to work for. I think the one thing that I can thank white privilege for is making me 'normal' or 'just like everybody else.' I think lots of people have the idea that white people are safe or harmless or ordinary. When Sam talked about the difference between black and white people applying for jobs or looking to rent apartments and the discrimination against blacks for no apparent reason, for example, it really hit me that I take so many things about being white for granted. Perhaps that's the reason me and my four white female friends got our apartment for next year (Campus Towers--very high in demand) within a week after applying.
Learning about white privilege makes me go back and question things. It makes me put myself in the shoes of minorities and how enraged they might feel that they are missing out on things just because of the color of their skin. Sam's examples prove that white privilage dos exist, whether we want to admit it or not. I can't think of a time where I gained something specifically because I was white, but I feel like it has always helped me in life whether it comes to job interviews, and maybe even joining my sorority.
There are barely any black girls (excluding the Divine Nine) who are involved with Greek Life here at PSU. Only a small percentage rush, and an even lesser percentage join. Maybe they feel like they don't belong or don't want to be the 'one black girl' in any given sorority. In my chapter, we have one mixed girl and that's it. We have 90 girls total. I've never heard of any outright racism occurring in the recruitment process, but the girls in each chapter want girls that are similar to them, and whether we notice it or not, the main thing is that they are white.

When the freed slave expressed his anger towards people who consume the chocolate he is forced to create, it really struck a chord with me. I never realized that this much slavery was so prevalent in the everyday products we use in our lives. I felt an immense amount of guilt, even when Sam said that we shouldn't. The first thing I wanted to do upon viewing the video was run and free every single slave; not just the ones farming chocolate but every single slave around the world. I know that that is probably impossible, and that's how I feel guilty in a sense; that I can't do anything to help.
However, they're ARE things we can do, like Sam said. We can eat fair trade chocolate; or supply ourselves with fair trade everything, for that matter. Because when that slave told us we were eating his flesh, I believed him. It is HIS blood sweat and tears that went into the chocolate that we eat without even thinking that it could be possibly made from modern day slaves. We are consuming his hopes and dreams for a better future. Almost every boy interviewed said that they left their home country to make money and get a better life, and look where they are now. They were cheated in the worst way, and now we are benefiting from that. It makes me sick to think that right now some boy could be being beaten over a silly thing like chocolate, and it makes me even more sick to think about how most people have no idea. Everything ounce of work these slaves put into chocolate could have been them working to support their families and make money to give them a happy life.
I understand and agree with the anger the slaves have; they are getting no justice. Until the day that slavery is truly abolished, it is our job as consumers to challenge ourselves everyday and make the world right.

When I was trying to truly think of how my own free will and determinism affected my life and how I got to Penn State, I realized how much of a mixture the two are and that they both come hand in hand. I grew up in Philadelphia, PA in a town called Manayunk. Manayunk is definitely not the nicest part of the city, but it is nowhere near the 'ghettos' of South Philly. Some might even argue that it's one of the better areas to live. So where I was born was not my choice, it happened. My parents sent my sister and I to a Catholic school because the Philadelphia public school system is absolutely horrible. There are no books, the teachers are overwhelmed and pass students who can barely read, and the drop-out rate far exceeds the graduation rate.
We lived there until I was in 5th grade, when my parents made a choice to move to the suburbs of the city. They wanted to move because the school systems were much better, and they could stop paying Catholic school tuition.
Being a child, I had no say in this decision but was excited to move to a new place. My parents wanted my sister and I to get a better middle school/high school education so that I could get into a better college and thus get a better job and make more money to have a successful life. If my parents had been content to live in the city my entire life, I probably would hand ended up in a Catholic high school (even though we are not a Catholic or remotely religious family) that may or may not have been up to my actual high school's education standards.
It's no secret that thousands of kids from PSU live in the Philly suburbs, and now I'm just another one of them. If we didn't move, I wonder what type of college I would have gone to. My guess is perhaps Temple University or something like it. But I'm comfortable in suburban areas now and made the choice to see what all the hype over PSU was, and well, the rest is history.
Every single choice that I or my parents made while I was growing up has affected me. When we were watching the OPRAH video about the two different high schools, I realized that if I had stayed in the city and my parents could not have afforded Catholic school tuition, (to avoid the awful public schools) I would have probably been attending a school similar to the not so nice one. Free will is definitely a part of life; we chose to get out of the city. But we could only do so because my parents came from very good homes, both got their Masters from Penn, and had steady jobs that provided us with the income needed to move to the suburbs. So when it comes down to it, it's gotta be a combination of both.

As much as it pains me to think about it, I have to honestly answer this question and say that race will always be an issue in American society. I was shocked when Sam said that it was a mere .1% that separated the difference in humans, and it made me realize that race and ethnicity really shouldn't matter. When it comes down to it, we're basically all the same. However, our society is one that relies on obvious impressions, like someone's skin color. You can't be 'colorblind,' it's the first thing you see when you look at a person. Whether or not you judge them negatively is up to you. Personally, the majority of my friends are white, but my BEST friend is half black/half Puerto Rican. She's gorgeous and loves both of her cultures, and when I look at her I do see her color but it doesn't mean I'm racist. She is what she is, just like I am.
I think there will always be people who think their skin color and culture make them better than everyone else. I think there will always be people who believe in, and fuel, stereotypes. It's no secret that the U.S. has made huge strides within the past few decades in the area of race. The civil rights movement, for example, paved the way for African Americans (or brown people) to have equality. But at the same time, other genocides around the world, like in Darfur, continue to exist.
I know it's impossible to predict the future, but something tells me that it is impossible to think 100% freely, without race in mind. You can't ignore a difference so significant, no matter how small the biological difference. Maybe someday they will notice, but it won't matter as much. Maybe that's something to hope for, that difference will be considered normal and people will celebrate it. I think classes like this should be readily available for anyone to take, because learning how similar we are can stop racism. How can you hate something that's so close to you? Hating another person's color is something people hide behind to cover their own weakness and insecurities. Maybe one day, like I said before, the hate can be turned into normalcy and acceptance. But until then, race remains an issue.

Perhaps it's the urban neighborhood I grew up in or that my parents are both liberals, but I always view the Confederate Flag in a very negative light. To me, it symbolizes the South in a time when slavery and racism ruled. It represents the Southern lifestyle during the Civil War; it represents the type of people who want slavery and think they are better than African Americans. At the same time, and I'm not sure why, I also think about 'rednecks.' The first thing that comes to mind when I picture the Confederate Flag is a group of rednecks riding around on dirt bikes, hurling their hunting rifles in the air with the flag waving on the back of the vehicle.
Maybe this means I look down on people who like the Confederate Flag, or maybe it means I'm too ignorant to realize that it could mean something very different to the people who fly it. For me, I don't understand why you would want to show something that used to represent one of the biggest cruelties the United States has ever seen. I do understand that people from the South want to show their pride, but can't they use another symbol? I just feel like so many people view this flag negatively, and for good reason.
I'm from Philadelphia, which is very different from the South. There are zero Confederate flags, and if there were, controversy would erupt. The flag symbolizes a dead way of life; slavery does not exist just because racism does. By waving the Confederate flag people are pronouncing their racist ideals (at least this is what I pick up). It's very possible someone could not be racist and simply want to show their Southern pride, but the flag they are using may not be the right symbol to use.

When Dr. Richards first announced that the two 4.0 students would have to organize the other students into racial groups based on looks alone, I was a little nervous. I was wary that the students would feel judged or embarrassed. I definitely would not want someone looking at me and critiquing my features and deciding where I must be from or what my history is. However, I think that the classroom environment is very positive, which helped the students to realize that this little 'experiment' is meant to benefit us and open our minds. I sat towards the back so it was somewhat difficult for me to see the faces up close, but once they came back to their seats I could see why the two girls had trouble grouping them.
There are so many factors to consider when you're just looking at someones face; hair, eyes, nose, lips, skin color, bone structure. Sometimes these things can blend within cultures or even when someone is mixed. For example, many of the students were placed into the wrong groups. It was difficult to typify them solely based on their faces. I think this exercise re-taught the class something pretty basic: never judge a book by it's cover. With so many different faces and cultures, it's almost impossible to put people into groups without getting overly detailed. Everyone's history is different.
The exercise also opened up the class to positivity and broke down some taboo racial barriers. In any other setting, putting people into groups by race would be seen as highly inappropriate and something you simply don't do, because we are taught not to talk about race. Society say's were supposed to be accepting of others, but how are we supposed to fully accept and engage those whom we know nothing about simply because so many of us are ethnocentric? Once we stop comparing people based solely on their culture or background, we can get to fully understand them as fellow individuals. Dr. Richards showed us that it doesn't really matter what we think someone's race is when we look at them, because, most of the time, we're wrong. He also showed us that there's nothing bad about being wrong, it's just another opportunity to learn.

Soc 119