My opinions of illegal immigrants have absolutely changed since the lectures. The thing that hit me the most was the idea that they contribute in a big way to our economy, and that they are people just like me with wants and dreams. It was interesting to hear what a major impact the LACK of illegal immigrants can make for businesses in places like California. I can’t imagine not being able to hire legal residents simply because they didn’t want a damn job picking fruit! People shouldn’t complain about unemployment when they won’t work a job that they think is undesirable! That’s just ridiculous. At the same time, I doubt that those businesses pay illegal immigrants minimum wage. They probably pay much less. So who is really at fault here? The people who don’t want the jobs who are legal, or the business owners who probably don’t pay living wages anyway? The lectures have taught me that there is much more to the topic than I previously thought. There was many advantages and disadvantages to illegal immigration. Why the hell doesn’t the U.S. government simply make it easier to immigrate? There is no doubt that illegal immigration can be dangerous. Who knows, our Mexican border probably makes it easy for terrorists to enter the country. But at the same time, it also makes it easier for hard workers to enter. Why not just make it cheap to immigrate legally!

Another big thing that hit me was the there were illegal immigrants or family members of illegal immigrants in our class. I don’t think I’ve personally met any illegal immigrants, but it was comforting seeing people that wouldn’t be here without immigrating illegally. And those people are just like me! They go to Penn State, they dress similarly, and they all have hopes and dreams for their future. So where do we draw the line for who shouldn’t be coming into the country? I think that the U.S. needs to make it more simple to enter the country.

Another interesting thing I just realized, if big business runs the U.S., why doesn’t it have enough sway to make LEGAL immigration easier? This would allow for plenty of workers to still enter the country to run their companies and provide consumers with cheap products. Speaking of cheap products, I wonder how many people take the cheap products we get from illegal workers for granted. If I’m eating cheap food, I’m happy. But for those who complain that illegal immigrants take “our” jobs, do they want more expensive food or products?! I doubt it! It seems that illegal immigration is a much larger benefit to our way of life that I previously thought. At the same time, I wish U.S. citizens, especially in the West, could be more tolerant and respectful of immigrants. They are people too!

I’m really glad that Sam and his wife did this lecture. I thought that it was indeed a “life changing” lecture, and I think it equally benefits both men and women and boys and girls that were present at the lecture. I was pretty hesitant about what the lecture would be about, because of the controversial sounding title, The Needy Penis, but overall it was an incredible lecture!
I would absolutely say I loved learning about the opposite sex the most (the females). I’m a male, and although I can say I’ve discussed some of these issues before with female friends, I loved learning about women’s side of the “issue”. It also great hearing about the male perspective, which helps me understand myself better and why I act how I act sometimes.
I enjoyed learning that women’s bodies and minds function very differently from men’s bodies, especially when it comes to sex. It was very interesting to hear that the “objective” for women isn’t necessarily penetration and that most women (two thirds!) cannot orgasm from penetration. That alone fascinated me! As a guy, penetration is definitely a major goal and something men think about a lot. It was interesting to hear Lorrie say that she had wondered why she was having those strange feeling when she was younger, and then ended up realizing nothing was wrong with her, but with societal expectations! Incredible! I was just blown away at the fact that women can be so deeply affected by how our culture and society has been socialized in thinking like men think. It’s a pretty sad truth, and I honestly hope more can be done to educate men and women alike on the issue. Maybe that’s something that will create better equality among men and women, simply having each side understand the other much better.
This lecture has motivated me to try to discuss these issues more with women that I’m close to. I’d love to hear more about the female perspective about sex or sex-related issues. I think it’s definitely an important thing for men and women to understand each other, especially when it comes to sex.
One of the interesting ideas that the lecture brought up was the idea of, “What if sex was seen mainly through the eyes of women” rather than men? I think the world would be very, very different, but in a good way. I think sexual relationships would most likely be much more enjoyable and fun (for both men and women). It’s a difficult thing to imagine, but I hope that someday the world will be able to come closer to worldwide appreciation and acceptance of female points of view when it comes to sex.

At Penn State, although the University preaches diversity, I don’t feel that we are truly that diverse. Statistically, Penn State is not very diverse, and that is my main reason as to why it isn’t diverse. Another reason I feel that our school isn’t very diverse is because of how various racial groups interact, or the lack of interaction. I find it rather strange to preach diversity, yet allow University organizations to be created that are based on race. For instance, there are organizations like that are for black students or women. I don’t think this promotes diversity. I also think that various racial groups tend to keep to themselves at Penn State. When you walk around campus, you normally see white people hanging with white people, black with blacks, Asians with Asians, etc. It’s kind of disheartening. I like to try to hang out with various groups when I can, but it would be great to see people intermingling more. Then again, that requires people to step outside of their comfort zone, and that isn’t always an easy thing for most people to do.
At the same time, I do LOVE the fact that we have many diverse organizations and have the privilege of having international students study here. Although I said those organizations aren’t totally productive, it is a nice way to raise awareness about those groups. I wouldn’t have thought twice about the needs of black accountants if I’d never known there was such an organization for them. The same thoughts come to mind with organizations like Caribbean Student Association. I would have never known we had so many students at Penn State (relatively), if I had never heard about CSA or never happened to go to one of their meeting (which I did). It is great to see so many different types of people and organizations, but when it comes down to numbers, the majority of our school is white. And ultimately, that’s why I don’t believe our school should be considered “diverse”. Although Penn State “feels” diverse at times, it could absolutely be MUCH more diverse.
I didn’t take the diversity or the lack there of into consideration when I applied to Penn State. In fact, my fear of Penn State’s drinking culture was the top thing on my mind, and race at Penn State never came across as a thought. I am very happy that I chose Penn State because it is exposing me to various cultures and helps me understand the world better. Like I said, I really enjoy getting to see and meet all kinds of different people. I especially like to meet international students who often have a very insightful look into America in comparison with many other countries around the world.

Previous to Sam's class about slavery, I had no idea how widespread slavery was. Nevertheless, I think he could have at least covered slavery in Asia and not just Africa. As far as a response to the question, I do sometimes feel guilty about my current economic position relative to freed slaves. It's pretty sad knowing that even though someone is now “free”, they can't have the same life they used to, and may never have a “normal” life. At the same time, I don't think Sam did a great job elaborating on how (other than perhaps mentally) freed slaves are disadvantages. I would assume they are also disadvantages by the lost time that could have been spent learning and working for money. In that sense, I do feel very priviledged compared to a freed slave. I can't imagine losing the past 10 years of my education or work experience. I would be an ENTIRELY different person, especially if I was enslaved for that period of time. It is a pretty horiffic thought to lose that much life. Even to lose a year or two in retrospect would be devistating.

On one hand, I do feel guilty in that I have much more wealth and priviledges compared to a freed slave, but on the other hand, I know I can't really do much to prevent slavery at this point in my life. It is a tough argument. I guess the mininum effort that I could at least put into the issue would be making others aware of slavery. After all, that is the first step to resolving any worldwide issue, spreading knowledge. Even if I do not have enough money or resources to make an actual change to slavery, maybe others do. Sometimes I don't feel guilty. Who is to say I should feel bad? What good will come from feeling guilty? I do think that self-awareness and worldly awareness is a good thing, but not in all cases. It can get to a point where it is useless to feel too much of an emotion (with exceptions of course).

Overall, I think it is easy to be guilty about the advantages I have over a freed slave, and feel sorry for their disadvantages. But at the same time, if I put in effort to spread awareness and raise funds to combat slavery, or assist freed slaves, I don't think there would be a reason to feel guilt. If I were to make an effort towards the cause, the guilt would be offset in a way. In that case, even if I were still advantaged in comparison to a freed slave, I would still be trying to actively help their cause. It's really a complex issue, and I'm happy to be writing about it because that keeps me thinking about issues that are important in life, and to the world as a whole.

As far as the poor and white population of the U.S. society, I guess I haven’t really put much thought into them before. Traditionally, that part of the population has been seen as being “hicks” or “rednecks”. I guess I’ve always had the mentality that poor white people typically accept their situation and don’t tend to strive to get out of it. But that only applies to poor white people I see in rural areas. If I saw a poor white person in a suburb or an urban area, I’d probably feel more compassion for them than one in a rural area. Before this class, it always seemed to me that poor white people in rural areas were poor by choice, not simply because they couldn’t find work. Now that this class has impacted my thinking a bit, I’m not so sure.

Many poor white people in rural areas seem to embrace and accept their poverty. But what do I know? It’s not like I talk to poor white people regularly and know what’s on their mind as whole. Maybe most poor white people have hopes and dreams just like I do, and just like the people in the video did.
I would help this group of people, and I would not say that I’m more likely to help my own race. Traditionally, I’ve thought that minorities are the ones that deserve more help in comparison to white people. But, after hearing that around 50% of those below the poverty level in the U.S. are white, I think that both groups should get equal amounts of help. In light of that, I wonder if poor white people might be more difficult to help than poor minorities. The way I think of it, there are all kinds of representative organizations and groups focused on minorities, but I don’t know of any off the top of my head that represent poor white people. This could be a contributing factor to the lack of political clout that poor white society has. If they don’t have a voice in society, how can they possibly advance themselves?

I guess it comes down to the fact that there needs to be more recognition about poor white people in America. I bet very few people realize they make up such a large amount of people in poverty. Maybe that’s why so many people in the black and brown communities are very vocal about their issues. Maybe minorities find it easier to band together and have support from wealthier people in their communities. That is definitively not the case with poor white people. They don’t seem to have a great ability to band together, not do they have support of wealthier white people. It is a pretty unfortunate situation for everyone involved, and I’d love to see more support.

I thought that the King of the Mountain example was pretty enlightening. I never really thought about sociology like that before. While Professor Richards was explaining his example, all I could think about was how you can compare it to dictator regimes like the Nazis and Communists. Once each party came to power, they made the rules. They made rules such as outlawing citizen gun ownership. That essentially severely restricted any possibility of citizens getting the dictators off their “Mountain”. I understand that those are somewhat extreme cases, but extreme cases usually make an idea more clear.
What I also liked about Sam’s presentation is how it connected with his idea of how racism and discrimination can be institutionalized. Although the lady who sent her child to another school district violated the “law”, the law itself could be considered discriminatory if the district she came from didn’t have a comparable school. In essence, white legislatures made “rules” to prevent the mother’s children from getting the same benefits as the white students. It is an unfortunate situation, and I think most people don’t recognize how discrimination can be institutionalized, because most people think laws are just.
As far as changing my thinking, I think the King of the Mountain example did change my ideas. A few things stood out to me that changed my thinking. First, we are all human beings, and everyone was created with equal rights. Therefore, there shouldn’t really be a King of the Mountain; we should all be on a level plain. I’m just tired of hearing people categorized into groups, it doesn’t make sense anymore. Second, Sam made me realize that minorities might need to come together against discrimination to help solve their problems. Traditionally, minorities seem to stick together, and create groups like the NAACP. I think groups like this are productive, but minorities should bind together into one strong group that will have much larger sway. This could create one large minority organization, which would be much more formidable than many small minority organizations. Third, people on top need education for themselves. They need to realize what their actions can do to others, and that those others are not others at all, because we are all equal.

Overall, I thought the King of the Mountain presentation was a great use of visual and descriptive cues to show how inequality still exists throughout the world. It’s easy to discuss inequality and discrimination, but sometimes examples like this bring a lot of clarity to the discussion. The presentation gave me a new outlook on how discrimination occurs, and how it is institutionalized and quietly accepted in our society. I hope to be a part of the movement that will reverse this trend, and help people realize that we are all God’s children.

I absolutely think that race can stop being an issue in the future. Although the main reasons for racial discrimination and similar issues stem mainly from lack of education, I think that through education and enlightenment, we can push past our so called differences. Like Professor Sam Richards said, we aren’t really that different at all! We are 99.99% the same as far as genetics!
The main reason I believe that race can stop being an issue in the future is because more and more people are becoming educated and discussing race more often. I think that in just the past 100 years we have made great leaps in reducing racial discrimination and biases. The U.S. in particular has allowed non-white people to vote. That alone was a great milestone.
I also feel that the 21st century has brought about a sense of modernity that requires people to discuss race more often, or at least the topic of equality among people. As previously mentioned, education takes a big role in this process. The future leaders of tomorrow are mainly those who are currently attending college. And colleges like Penn State are the perfect venue for discussing race, or at least getting a taste of what it is like to be in a diverse setting. Although some people would not consider Penn State diverse, it is FAR more diverse than the high school that most people have attended previously. For instance, my high school had extremely few minorities. It was a Catholic high school. I feel that being in an environment like that of Penn State exposes me to simple things like hearing many people speak many languages throughout my school day. This alone is a very cool experience and although it is not a discussion, it is an experience of diversity.
As the U.S. itself becomes more and more diverse with immigrants from places like China, I believe that race will stop being an issue. This could be especially true if marriage and race “mixing” occurs between races. This could lead to great acceptance of interracial marriage, as well as further diluting the racial pools. Ultimately, as Sam mentioned, we will move towards a more light brown skin tone, worldwide. I think that would be awesome! It would show the world that skin color is not a function of equality or hierarchy. It is simply a function of genetics and evolution.
Even though I believe that race will not be an issue in the future, I don’t think I’ll see that issue solved in my lifetime. I think it will take perhaps a couple more lifetimes for the issue to become smaller and smaller, until it is simply gone! In the mean time, I’ll pray for greater education and understanding among races of the world.

As Sam mentioned in class, there really is no solution to political correctness. While perhaps it’s not necessary to be “politically correct”, I do believe that it is necessary to the sensitivity of others. This is especially true when it comes to race. I think that political correctness is simply something that spawned out of politics itself. Most politicians do not want to offend people, nor make themselves look like a poor candidate. This is probably where political correctness spawned from: a simple need to speak “properly” about race. The issue in this, as Sam demonstrated, is that races are pointless to categorize and therefore someone ends up being offended anyway.
When it comes to being sensitive to others, I believe speaking about someone’s race should be taken carefully. But on the other hand, I’d rather not label someone by a race in the first place. I am what most would consider being a “white dude”. I honestly do not like the term white. Instead of “white dude”, I would much rather prefer to simply be called a “dude”. When people use the term white, I feel like it recalls the “white man’s” crimes of slavery in the United States. I also feel that by simply bringing up my race, this furthers the issues of separating people by race. I don’t want to be separated! I just want it to be “dudes” and “chicks”, not “white dudes” or “black chicks”. I guess that could be considered a whole other dimension of political correctness. Although the term generally refers to attempting to be polite in a political setting, it could also insult a person like me. That is, it could insult people who don’t want to be labeled by race in the first place.
Overall, I don’t think that the idea or practice of political correctness will go away any time soon. It is important in some circumstances because people should at least be sensitive to the fact that it is not appropriate to use derogatory racial terms, such as the “N” word. So for now, until people can start coping with the idea that categorizing people by race is pointless and stupid, I think political correctness is necessary. I understand that this does conflict with my previous belief that people shouldn’t be labeled at all, but I think it is more important to not call people offensive terms. I hope that one day, we will not have to use labels when referring to other human beings’ skin color. Although some people may take pride in being a certain skin color, I think that is normally tied to culture and should be expressed in a way that is not tied to memories of slavery and hatred.

Tuesday's exercise was incredibly eye opening for me. At first, I was surprised that Sam was having two students organize a bunch of other students into racial groups. It seemed like something we do in our mind but not in public. I was also a bit confused because I didn’t understand where Sam was going with the whole activity. As I sat in my seat watching the activity, I was also trying to figure out what racial groups each student might fit into. I realized that many students looked like they could possibly fit into more than one group. I spent most of the time thinking about how awkward (yet funny) it must have been for all of the students participating in the activity. That also made me realizes that Sam’s class is the perfect environment for exercises like that! It was just a very strange thing to be doing. After all of the groups were arranged, Sam started talking to each student. This is where it got interesting! Some of the students were “correctly” categorized, but many of them were complete surprises. I don’t remember any of the ethnicities, but many students were multi-ethnic. Although some of the students they may have appeared to be part of one racial group, they actually belonged in another. That is why that exercise was so eye opening for me. It made me think about how many people at Penn State and around the world must be the same way, multi-ethnic! This means that the people I see every day as an Asian, black person, or Indian may not be that at all! This gives me a new perspective. The fact that there are so many people who are multi-ethnic means that racial lines are blurred a lot more than I thought. This further reinforces the idea that racial categorization is ridiculous and useless. And I love that! I’m tired of being thought of hearing the terms “white” and “black” and “brown” or whatever. I just want “black dudes and white dudes” to simply be referred to as “dudes” like they should be! This exercise also makes me want to learn more about the background of those around me. I live near a student whose parents are black and white. If I had never seen his parents, how would I have known he had a white father? I mean, maybe it doesn’t totally matter, but it’s fascinating and humbling to learn about one another’s backgrounds. Tuesday’s lecture and exercise really got me excited in general about this class. I am eager to hear more of Sam’s ideas and lectures. Overall, although the exercise seemed strange and unconventional at first, it turned out to be very eye opening and inspiring.

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