en-us https://www.intensedebate.com/users/1115677 Comments by itsthatguy10 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/06/week-8-lesson-14-affirmative-action__trashed/#IDComment85426887 7/7/10 Education is without a doubt the solution. Betting getting to that solution is the problem. I went to a highschool that was probably mid way between the two schools seen in the video, but for me personally it was also not even a question whether I would go to college or not. So the problem is getting those kids a better education. The reason their school does not have the resources of the other highschool is because of taxes. The funds for public schools come directly from the taxes paid from the school area. If the people in the poor area only pay a small amount of taxes, their schools will not have much money, then they can’t provide a quality education to the students. Then many of the students don’t graduate or do not go to college, they don’t get good jobs and then can’t pay for better schools through their taxes. It is a vicious cycle that can only be over come if we change the way schools are funded because they way it is currently is extremely unfair. You shouldn’t feel bad about your advantage but by recognizing the problem you should support changes to make things fairer. Thu, 8 Jul 2010 02:27:40 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/06/week-8-lesson-14-affirmative-action__trashed/#IDComment85426887 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/06/week-8-lesson-14-affirmative-action__trashed/#IDComment85425533 7/7/10 I agree with Richards that nepotism and affirmative action are pretty much the same thing. With both of them you inherently being unfair and giving an advantage to certain people. I see how Richards was making the point that people who say affirmative action is bad but are likely to not say anything about nepotism can be hypocritical. This happens because people think better of themselves then they do of other people, as we saw from the many statistics like the 10 commandment poll. While they both are inherently unfair because they give specific people an advantage it is important to realize how affirmative action is important to have for the world we live in and why nepotism is natural. Some people can argue that affirmative action is reverse racism, but really it is just helping those who are at a disadvantage to come closer to even. Also people tend to overstate the effect these laws have and believe they are having a bigger impact then they really are, so in many cases they are still not actually even. I really have no problem with affirmative action. As a white man if I lost a job opportunity because of affirmative action supposedly I would probably be mad or upset at first but I think I would get over it and I definitely would not hold it against the minority in question. After this lecture it would probably be easy to rail against nepotism but I do not think that would be the right way to look at it. Like affirmative action, nepotism is inherently unfair to people as a whole. While affirmative action is a calculated attempt at changing things I see nepotism as natural human behavior. Humans are social creatures and we are driven to make social connections to many people. Like Richards pointed out, people are more likely to say yes to you if they are speaking face to face. So it is natural that a person would want to hire someone that they know personally or has been vouched for by someone they know. As I said before I agree it is hypocritical to see a problem with affirmative action and not nepotism, I don’t think there is much that can be done about nepotism. People are naturally inclined to take part in nepotism and I don’t see how we could possibly make a law to curtail nepotism. I do not see how it would be possible to make a law stopping someone from hiring a relative just because they are related. Nepotism may make things even more unfair then they already are since it benefits the rich the most but there is nothing we can do about it so we just have to deal with it. Thu, 8 Jul 2010 02:17:20 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/06/week-8-lesson-14-affirmative-action__trashed/#IDComment85425533 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/06/week-7-lesson-13-immigration__trashed/#IDComment84804936 07/04/10 I agree completely that the ranting guy is an idiot, but there is no solace in recognizing that another person is an idiot. The best you can do is to understand why they think the way they do. As we have seen in class anti-immigration sentiment pops up whenever there is a bad turn in the economy and which ever group of people are immigrating at the time are the ones that are blamed. It is a part of the human condition where we need to assign blame to someone whenever something bad happens. People are uncomfortable with accepting the fact that life is random and chaotic so they force themselves to create patterns and reasoning to explain their problems. So when they lose their job and at the same time notice there are more immigrants in their neighborhood it is very easy for someone to draw the conclusion that they are related. Once you are able to understand where a person is coming from to make such stupid statements then you can move beyond the inanity of their comments. Mon, 5 Jul 2010 01:05:18 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/06/week-7-lesson-13-immigration__trashed/#IDComment84804936 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/06/week-7-lesson-13-immigration__trashed/#IDComment84803894 7/4/10 Topics like these cause a lot of confusion for me. It’s not that I do not understand the topic, like immigration in America, it’s that I cannot understand at all how some people reach the conclusions that they have reached. Richards mentioned some of the common arguments people make against immigration, like how immigrants are not looking to assimilate and they refuse to learn English. As Richards pointed out pretty much every group of immigrants from the Irish to Mexicans acts the same way and are treated the same way. No group has stepped onto American soil and instantly dropped their culture and identity and instantly become “American”. Where do people get the idea that their Irish Catholic ancestors came to America and assimilated right into America and were accepted by the people who were already living here? Where does this assumption come from or can it be fully attributed to people re-writing history to make themselves look and feel better? I can understand why people would want to tweak their memory slightly so as to comfort themselves about something that happened in the past, but some people take it so far it is hard to comprehend how they pull it off. For example the lady with the sign that said “Hispanics keep out” I wonder how someone could be so ignorant. I wonder if she is willfully ignorant of the hypocrisy of that sign or whether she is just plain ignorant. It does not take a college class like Soc 119 to realize that all of the land she claims is “her land” once belonged to Native Americans. Maybe she really is stuck in stage one and is unable to make the connection, I personally just find it dumbfounding. But it is not like she is alone in this; we all participate in the re-writing of history. Every year we celebrate thanksgiving and act like everything was nice and peaceful between the Europeans and the Native Americans. Every year children in elementary school are taught about thanksgiving but the horrible things America has done to the Native Americans are left out. Most people learn at least parts of our true history but we still participate in things like thanksgiving. In this way we are participating in the re-writing of history. Obviously we cannot change what has happened in the past but there are still things we can do short of every non Native American packing up and leaving. By spreading knowledge to other people and not acting willfully ignorant you can spread our real history and not continue pretending that a lie is true. It may be much but it is at least something and can give the people that you know a greater perspective that can be applied to many more aspects of their lives. Mon, 5 Jul 2010 00:54:47 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/06/week-7-lesson-13-immigration__trashed/#IDComment84803894 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/06/week-7-lesson-12-multiculturalism-lgbt__trashed/#IDComment83614601 06/30/10 What you said about not feeling uncomfortable around different cultures and the rap video go together. Sure the people in the rap video were emulating American rap music but reason they do this is because the thoughts and feelings they have about life in Germany or Lithuania are largely the same as in America and this is readily expressed through rap music. We really are not that different compared to other people around the world as we believe. Also about the College graduate vs. High school graduate really is not that surprising. Going to college, even if it is largely white like PSU, gives you a wider view of the world because of classes like Soc119. So I do not find it surprising that the vote broke down that way. Thu, 1 Jul 2010 01:42:22 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/06/week-7-lesson-12-multiculturalism-lgbt__trashed/#IDComment83614601 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/06/week-7-lesson-12-multiculturalism-lgbt__trashed/#IDComment83611439 06/30/10 In the lecture Richards made five points for multiculturalism and why MC will continue. I have some thoughts about the second point, globalization. I am not against globalization but I think it is worth arguing that globalization has a negative effect on MC. With globalization we are exposed to more and more cultures from around the world, but along with this comes a mash up of cultures. With the United States of America being a rich nation we see our culture bleeding into other societies and cultures. Capitalism is the important factor that drives globalization and a perfect example of this is McDonalds. McDonalds can be found in 125 countries around the world and there are over 31,000 restaurants around the world. This is just one example but with globalization our own western culture has spread around the world and overtaken parts of other cultures. Whether you see this is a good, bad, or neutral event is unimportant, what is important is to see how globalization does not necessarily promote MC. It can of course spread MC because we are given the opportunity to experience other cultures more and business does well to not be xenophobic but globalization can also cause a loss of culture by mashing multiple cultures together. I guess this goes with the fifth point about amalgamation and how the dominant group ultimately demands assimilation. While the example used for the fifth point was the “melting pot” of the USA I am talking about cultures found in countries other than our own. The data on people who would like to live in a diverse area should be surprising to no one. There is a reason there was only two or three black republicans in the hundreds of students in the class. I do not like much about democrats but if you think republican policy is trying to help the lower or middle class then you are delusional. Of course people will make the argument that the “liberal” percentage is skewed because they want to appear to be not racist but I think this is overblown. People who voted they would to live in all white area probably would like to believe that the people who voted differently did it for bad or hypocritical reasons, but they are just lying to themselves. I like living in a diverse area, like the one I grew up in. I live in a suburb just outside of Philly that is very diverse. Despite being white when I am walking around Penn State it feels weird to me because of the large percentage of white people. I don’t mean it in a bad why like I hate white people or anything, it is just weird to be able to walk down the street and not see a black or brown person. Thu, 1 Jul 2010 01:29:57 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/06/week-7-lesson-12-multiculturalism-lgbt__trashed/#IDComment83611439 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/06/week-6-lesson-9-stages-of-racial-identity-people-of-color-stages-1-4__trashed/#IDComment81837433 You have to remember that the footage is edited. So what may seem as a quick decision or lack of explanation for their choice may not be how it actually happened. But either way it is very disturbing and sad. It shows how black people are at an immediate disadvantage in life. The kids in the video looked like they were in about 1st or 2nd grade. You have to wonder what it does to a child when from such an early age they believe that their skin color makes them inherently “bad”. If you believe people of color exaggerate racial problems in today’s world, just watch that video to sum them up. Thu, 24 Jun 2010 02:54:41 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/06/week-6-lesson-9-stages-of-racial-identity-people-of-color-stages-1-4__trashed/#IDComment81837433 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/06/week-6-lesson-9-stages-of-racial-identity-people-of-color-stages-1-4__trashed/#IDComment81834084 6/23/10 First off this lecture cleared up some confusion with the stages. I had the idea that the six stages were a progression and you move from stage one and up. I thought it was you kept on moving up and maybe you never made it past stage one, sometimes someone would reach the end at stage six and most people end up somewhere in between. But know I see that the stages are not progressive but instead six different ideas that a person can be. At anytime a person could be multiple stages, except for stage one I suppose and it can change at any time. As a white person and knowing this know I feel that I am in the third stage revisioning and somewhat of stage five but not so much. I probably am also in stage six but I’ll wait till we cover that fully to say for sure. Stage three includes anger towards white people. I do get angry at white people, but it is not just them, it is anyone white or black who perpetuates racism. It is not just white people who continue the problems we have as a society; it is anyone who does not work towards better relations between our races. I was surprised by the study of popularity compared to a student’s popularity. I think if you ask pretty much any high school student of any race they will tell you the smarter you are the less likely you are popular. But according to the study for white kids the higher your grade point average the more likely you are to be popular but the opposite is true for black and Hispanic students. I think many people would think the reason black and Hispanics see this negative correlation is because many of their friends will look down upon them and say they are trying to “act white”. This may be a simplistic answer but it seems the most plausible. It is also obviously not true for all black and Hispanic students but for many lower class kids it seems to be. For white people I guess there is a positive correlation because success equals popularity and other people look positively upon it. In the lecture when Richards talked about the rally in the HUB for the Jena 6 I thought it was the second women that was in the immersion stage. I thought this because it seems that she could not understand why white people would be interested in black kids suffering from racism from white people. That is something anyone should be able to get behind. If Richards said which answer was correct I didn’t hear him, so maybe someone can let me know. Thu, 24 Jun 2010 02:40:55 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/06/week-6-lesson-9-stages-of-racial-identity-people-of-color-stages-1-4__trashed/#IDComment81834084 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/06/week-5-lesson-8-stages-of-racial-identity-white-people-stages-3-4__trashed/#IDComment81156729 06/20/10 So last comment I was unsure what step I believed I was at, but know we know about a few more steps. Before this class I would say that I do not feel “white guilt” by the definition I thought it meant. To me guilt means feeling bad for something that was at least partly your fault. In that sense I do not feel guilty for past racism or things like slavery well because I was not even alive. The whole idea seemed silly to me that someone would feel bad, or blame themselves, for something that was completely out of their control. But according to Richards the real definition is a little bit different then that. According to Richards white guilt is “The remorseful awareness of having been racist or having benefited from racism”. I do not believe I am racist so that leaves feeling remorse for having benefitted from racism, which I am sure I have many times whether I liked it or not. One of the definitions of remorse is compassion which I guess makes more sense for white guilt then its other definition which is “regret of wrongdoing”. If you have not actively done anything wrong then I do not think you should feel regret. But all of us white people should at the least feel compassion for other people because of how racism has hurt them and greatly benefitted us. The reason I think compassion is the one good thing about the definitions of these words is that compassion leads to action and like it says in Richards definition awareness is a part of it. Being aware leads to compassion and compassion will lead you to do things like stand up for a stranger who is being harassed because of their skin color, like the girl in that one 20/20 video. There is no sense in beating yourself up for something that is completely out of your control, but if you have awareness of the world around you and compassion for other human beings then you can have a positive effect. So I feel that I am in line with many of the aspects of revisioning. Seeing racism and inequality and discomfort with inequality are feelings I have regularly and strongly. I have a small problem with the “anger towards white people” part of revisioning. The only white people I feel anger towards are the ones who perpetuate racism and inequality, the ones who refuse to put themselves in the shoes of other people. Blanket anger towards a whole people seems ridiculous. Maybe that is what the slide from the lecture meant but it was paraphrasing. I do not like what the points for the reversal step. They seem like they are backwards ideas and anyone with some intelligence would be able to skip over that step unless they were hurt somehow by people of another race. I could see someone who had an experience like Richards when he was accused of being racist falling into step 4. Mon, 21 Jun 2010 00:56:04 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/06/week-5-lesson-8-stages-of-racial-identity-white-people-stages-3-4__trashed/#IDComment81156729 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/06/week-5-lesson-8-stages-of-racial-identity-white-people-stages-3-4__trashed/#IDComment81156679 06/20/10 Yeah the video with the two girls was really messed up. In Soc001 we watched a more in depth video about the girls and their family. In the video it showed that the girls are not completely comfortable with the ideas of their mother and the way she exploits them. They still seemed racist, but it also seemed that more and more they were being exposed to more “normal” and not racist ideas. Also their grandmother really hates what their mother is doing and has tried to help the girls see the world in a more reasonable light. If you are interested Richards could probably send you the video. About the washcloth thing, I found it pretty funny. I went to a pretty diverse high school (especially compared to penn state) and I have heard the whole wash cloth and wet dog thing before. People didn’t make a huge deal out of, it was just something to have an innocent laugh at. Mon, 21 Jun 2010 00:55:25 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/06/week-5-lesson-8-stages-of-racial-identity-white-people-stages-3-4__trashed/#IDComment81156679 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/06/week-5-lesson-7-race-and-ethnic-inequality__trashed/#IDComment80514349 6/16/10 You say that you think answering “normal” is not a copout but your next couple of sentences say otherwise. You got it right when you say normal is different for every race. But it goes further than that. If you look at just one race there is no such thing as normal for all of them. There is no “normal” for white people, black people, or anyone. Then the only logic thing to take from this is that there is no such thing as “normal” for all human beings. It doesn’t matter what your race, culture or the country you come from there is no standard human being. Thu, 17 Jun 2010 01:58:53 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/06/week-5-lesson-7-race-and-ethnic-inequality__trashed/#IDComment80514349 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/06/week-5-lesson-7-race-and-ethnic-inequality__trashed/#IDComment80513225 6/16/10 This lecture was pretty interesting because the idea of the six stages is an idea I have never heard before. I know I am at least at stage 2. I am not sure if I am at stage three, four, five or six because well I do not really know what each of those stages entail. I assume they will be defined in the next lecture along with the six stages for colored people. I am curious why for white people stage five is pseudo-communitarian and for colored people stage five is just communitarian. I feel like a lot of people I know are still in stage one. They are not hateful racist but they cannot see white culture and how it affects their lives. For example many people I know will talk about how they do not believe in affirmative action because it is reverse racism against white people and that it is just as unfair as racism by white people. There is a complete lack of realization of how being white has benefitted them. It can be frustrating trying to make them see the situation from a different point of view. Sometimes I try to talk it out and when I do the conversation usually goes nowhere and I give up. I think that sometimes that it does not matter how good of an argument I present because they are just not interested in looking at the situation from a different point of view or ever changing their views. So I guess that would fit them into stage two but they took the path of ignoring racial issues. They may recognize the issues of race but they do not want to think about it because of how it will make them look at themselves. In my opinion it is worse to be in stage two and ignore the issues then to be in stage one and simply being ignorant of the issues. It is better to be ignorant than a hypocrite. I am not saying being ignorant is good, but if you are aware of a problem and choose to ignore it or even perpetuate it then that is much worse than simply being ignorant. Robert Byrd is always good for a laugh. A politician will always accidentally say what they really think and then apologize for it once it makes people angry. But that is just him being politically correct which is necessary if he wants to continue being a senator. But the funny part is that his comment shows exactly why his comment is wrong. It takes real comedic genius to pull that off. Things are better but they are so far from ideal. Racism still exists, it still affects how people think and it is still a part of the people who are in power in America. Thu, 17 Jun 2010 01:46:26 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/06/week-5-lesson-7-race-and-ethnic-inequality__trashed/#IDComment80513225 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/06/week-4-lesson-6-race-and-ethnic-inequality__trashed/#IDComment79325409 6/9/10 I share in your confusion over the liberal conservative thing. I share many of the views of Richards like legalizing drugs and gay marriage. But I would never consider myself a conservative. I think the problem comes from the fact that every person in the world has different views and opinions. You can find someone who has similar views but you are going to differ somewhere. So we all have different views but then we create groups like liberal, conservative, republican and democrat, and we try to fit many people with different views under one umbrella. A person like Richards can say he is conservative but a single word cannot describe the complexity of a person’s beliefs. A word is meaningless if it does not have a definition that multiple people can agree on. Wed, 9 Jun 2010 17:23:56 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/06/week-4-lesson-6-race-and-ethnic-inequality__trashed/#IDComment79325409 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/06/week-4-lesson-6-race-and-ethnic-inequality__trashed/#IDComment79324502 6/9/10 The strings that represent the factors and forces that shape us is a pretty interesting idea. Everything that has ever happened to us in our lives affects how we think and act. I can see how some strings are impossible to change, like skin color, or just very hard to change. But for the most part I do not want to accept that most of them cannot be changed. When looking at life and people as a whole I lean towards determinism, but when it comes to me or anyone as a single person I feel that many of the strings can be changed if you are determined enough. Racism or any kind of inequality makes it all the harder to change, but it is not impossible. These strings that influence us are only as strong as the amount of importance we give them. If you have stereotypes that are attributed to your race or ethnicity and you choose to act in the opposite of those stereotypes you are still being influenced by them. The key it seems is to live the way you want and not stress whether you are following a stereotype or the opposite of a stereotype. You have to let go of what other people think and as we saw with the scratching yourself example sometimes this can be easy or very difficult. I believe if you look at the data for drug arrest and other similar things; there is a large amount of racism still to be found in these institutions. Sometime this data can be murky or confusing when the data is presented in certain ways. Many times the data was shown as percentage of population. But when each race has different numbers the data becomes skewed. This is can be fixed by looking at the data as per capita. This more clearly shows the difference between each race and can make racism more apparent if it truly does exist or not. The statistics, and the examples Richards used, that were presented in the lecture give me more reason to lean towards determinism. Racism or inequality of today should not be confused as something it is not. The king of the hill example backs up my ideas well. Someone who buys into freedom over determinism may say, “Racism would make it impossible for a minority to make it to the top of the hill but because it is possible, then racism and inequality are no longer a significant factor in life”. But as Richards pointed out in the example, racism and inequality do not make it impossible to climb to the top of the hill, they just tie you arm behind your back. I believe the distinction is very important for everyone to recognize. Wed, 9 Jun 2010 17:16:02 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/06/week-4-lesson-6-race-and-ethnic-inequality__trashed/#IDComment79324502 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/05/week-3-lesson-5-social-inequality__trashed/#IDComment78820821 6/6/10 No one can solely blame their problems on society, but for many people it is a huge factor. Take the kids in the Oprah video for example. You saw how horrible their school is. Remember the girl who wanted to go to college for business. Despite trying her hardest at school, the curriculum she faced in her math classes paled in comparison to the curriculum of the richer school. Because of the poor education and low income from their parents it makes it that much harder to go to college. It is not impossible but the key is that their socio-economic decrease their chances of making it to college. Because many of them will not go to college they will also end up not getting a good job. Without a good job, they will have little money. Because they have such a low income their local school cannot pull in resources through taxes (which a majority of their money comes from). Without money the schools cannot give the students a good education and the cycle continues. No one is saying it is impossible for these kids to be successful but you have to recognize that the inequality created from their socio-economic problems only creates more inequality in a vicious cycle of poverty. Sun, 6 Jun 2010 18:51:24 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/05/week-3-lesson-5-social-inequality__trashed/#IDComment78820821 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/05/week-3-lesson-5-social-inequality__trashed/#IDComment78820039 6/6/10 I agree fully with Richards that taking the middle road between freedom and determinism is the way to go but I lean towards socio-structural reasoning for inequality. We always have a choice but the forces and factors in our lives that are out of our control can make it harder to make the right decision. The socio-psycho cognitive says inequality comes from people making poor decisions, like being lazy for example. But inequality begets more inequality. It is a cycle that perpetuates itself by keeping people in their socio-economic place. The education problem shown in the Oprah video very clearly expresses this problem. You have a group of poor people living in the same area (like a city) because it is cheap enough to live there. Because they are poor their local school has no funds because the school cannot draw a significant amount of money from taxes. So the kids grow up in a horrible school system that will fail the large majority of the students. Without a good education or real prospects for college they cannot get a good job. Without a job they continue to be poor and are unable to fund their local schools through taxes and the cycle continues. The idea of “Everyone can earn an A if they try” is a flawed, unrealistic idea. In class we have a bell curve that says even if every single student does very well, the relatively average student still gets a C. A few kids from the poor school example will be able to rise above by making the right decisions and move up economically, but a majority will stay poor because their chances were nearly nonexistent. Our world consist of limited resources and people who have wealth want more. Because we do not live in a perfect world poverty is doomed to be always exist. If you took the entire wealth of every person on Earth and then spread it evenly between all of the six billion people in the world, overall people would be better off. But because of our freedom to make choices, people would still make poor decisions and end up poor. But of course this is completely impractical and it must be acknowledged that it is impossible for there to be no poor people. This means that for a majority of people, their poverty is caused by social or economic forces outside of their control. A small percentage of individual people will be able to move up the ladder economically but most cannot. While I agree it is best to stay in the middle of freedom and determinism I feel it makes sense to lean towards determinism because of the fact that the world we live in is not perfect. Sun, 6 Jun 2010 18:41:46 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/05/week-3-lesson-5-social-inequality__trashed/#IDComment78820039 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/05/week-3-lesson-4-ethnocentrism__trashed/#IDComment78110063 6/1/2010 The point is that people do not think about why we are at war. If in 2001 one George Bush had said to congress and the American people we are going to war because we need oil, it would not have happened. But when America was attacked by an extremely small minority of Muslim extremist it gave us something to focus on. It accomplishes more to say “they hate our freedom” then to say “we need oil”. And about Obama, he clearly said during the election that he was going to expand the war in Afghanistan and end the Iraq war. Obviously we are still in Iraq but you should not think he was lying because we are still in Afghanistan. Wed, 2 Jun 2010 00:18:30 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/05/week-3-lesson-4-ethnocentrism__trashed/#IDComment78110063 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/05/week-3-lesson-4-ethnocentrism__trashed/#IDComment78106889 6/1/2010 The first lecture ended with the question, Why don’t English speakers name their child after Jesus or God? I think it’s a can be simply answered as it is just a difference in our culture. If you look at it deeper then you get into the religiosity of people. My guess is we do not name our kids Jesus is because it does not seem right to us. In Islam they have no qualms with naming their children after the prophet Muhammad. Christianity has no problem with showing images of Jesus but in Islam it is not acceptable to show images of Muhammad. But it was not always this way. In the 16th century it was common for Muslims to create art depicting Muhammad, but now it has become a tradition or an unwritten rule that it is not ok. This all has to do with moral relativism. What is moral and acceptable at one point in time can become completely immoral years later. It can just be summed up as culture and moral relativism. I find it hard to deal with the fact that we are never going to be not at war for the rest of our history. We covered this a little more in Soc.001 but pretty much as long as we need resources there will be war. As long as we need oil we are going to have soldiers in areas that have oil resources. And it does not help that the majority of people are completely unable to look at the situation from another culture or countries point of view. When most people hear our president, Bush or Obama, use Christian language or imagery most people do not comprehend at all how Muslims in the Middle East can take it as a threat to themselves and their culture. When Bush said “This is a crusade” there were probably people who liked it, people who didn’t and those who didn’t care. Even with the people who thought it was a stupid thing to say may not comprehend exactly how threatening that is. As long as we need resources and can’t or won’t look at the world from the perspective of other cultures, we will always be at war. I don’t see the meat industry changing either. Our economy thrives on efficiency and mass production. It is only natural that this would be applied to the meat production industry. I’m sure if people were given the choice they would choose naturally grown live stock over factory farmed but there is a problem with that, cost. It cost more to buy organic or naturally grown food. People may like to have natural food but their budget unfortunately outweighs the comfort of animals. Also, if everyone who ate meat in America hunted, then there would be no animals left because their population would not be able to keep up. Wed, 2 Jun 2010 00:05:33 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/05/week-3-lesson-4-ethnocentrism__trashed/#IDComment78106889 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/05/week-two-lesson-2-intro-to-race__trashed/#IDComment77225329 If you think about it, Carolus Linmeaus’s definitions are not that surprising. With racism comes the idea of racial superiority. If he was able to make a completely objective statement about the characteristics of white people, then he wouldn’t be racist because he would realize that skin color does not affect your actions. For many white racist the idea that without them nothing would get done has been around for a long. A racist slave owner probably believed that without their organization that blacks would never do any work. I find the Japanese train pushers crazy too. We mostly likely think this because it is something we would never see in our culture. To them it is normal because it is something that has always been done. But would it be so bad to wait for the next train? Wed, 26 May 2010 18:31:31 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/05/week-two-lesson-2-intro-to-race__trashed/#IDComment77225329 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/05/week-two-lesson-2-intro-to-race__trashed/#IDComment77224161 In my first blog comment for the first lecture I talked about how despite having the knowledge that some of the things that the students own were made by slaves they wouldn’t do anything about it. I am also guilty of this seeing as how I haven’t done anything about it but I’m glad that Richards mentioned it in the beginning of the second lecture. The camera did not show the whole crowd but I could not see a single person raise their hand when Richards asked if anyone got rid of their cell phones. It would be interesting if there was a way to check different brands of products, like electronics or clothing, and see if it was made with current day slavery. This probably does exist, I just have never thought to check. I was struck by two comments from the lecture about our notions of our own past. The first was about Italian Americans being lynched. I never knew until yesterday that Italians were lynched in America. The second one was the picture of the little girl with white skin who was a slave. I doubt more than a few people would look at her and think she could possibly be a slave. Both of these show how different our countries history is different then we imagine in our minds. I always spent some time thinking about Richards comment about race being something that was created and that it came into existence when Europeans started to try to define people. People say that time does not exist and it is just an idea, something people created. But for race and time, did they really not always exist until we decided to define them? I think it depends on how far you want to take the definition and implications of race. Obviously there are physical differences in people as mentioned in the lecture like skin color, hair, and body structure. But if you look at it from a genetic standpoint, we are all almost the same with just the slightest variation in DNA that accounts for our differences. So I would not flatly say that race did not exist until we chose to define it. It really just depends on how you interpret it. This is unrelated to race but I want to say something about the cursing. Why the hell is the video, for the most part, censored? We are all adults here I think we will be ok if we hear some “bad” words. As Richards pointed out curse words are completely arbitrary. It’s not like Richards is going out of his way to be crude, he is just talking how normal people talk. I find it insulting that the video “has to” be censored. Wed, 26 May 2010 18:20:15 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/05/week-two-lesson-2-intro-to-race__trashed/#IDComment77224161