In class yesterday we talked about illegal immigration and how people have different views on the topic; some have negative opinions and want to stop illegal immigration and others support it. In my opinion I believe that people who are here illegal should get their citizenship and they would be allowed to stay in this country. Now if you are here illegally and do not wish to get your citizenship well in my opinion you should be deported back to your country. Through my research on illegal immigration, there are pros and cons to having illegal immigration. We must first get the proper definition of illegal immigration, which Sam did not clarify. The correct terminology for the nearly 20 million persons illegally in the U.S. is illegal aliens. The term undocumented immigrants is purposely incorrect in order to sway the public in favor of special interest groups and only clouds the reality of the situation. The term illegal alien is broader and more accurate because it includes undocumented aliens and nonimmigrant visa overstayers. The term illegal alien, being broader in scope, is the accurate term to use. In that immigrant connotes legality, the term illegal immigrant is really an oxymoron. A pro for giving illegal aliens amnesty is that amnesty won't depress wages because globalization has already done that. Amnesty will not undermine the rule of law. Basically forgiving a crime may be the best way to restore law and order. Amnesty won't necessarily add to the social-services burden. Amnesty would offer millions people a fighting chance at self-sufficiency and upward social mobility. A con to giving amnesty to illegal aliens is that, any penalties imposed, any program that grants individuals who are unlawfully present the legal permission to remain here rewards illegal behavior and is unfair to those who obey the law and go through the regula­tory and administrative requirements to enter the country legally. Those who enter the United States illegally should not be rewarded with permanent legal status or other such benefits, and they should be penalized in any road to citizenship. Those who enter and remain in the country illegally are violating the law, and condoning or encouraging such violations increases the likelihood of further illegal conduct. So if we were to give illegal aliens amnesty, immigrants earns wages in America and they send it back to their families in their native countries. Not for nothing, I would do the same exact thing. Also businesses do not have to pay taxes nor workers compensation on them because they are undocumented. A con for giving amnesty to illegal immigrants is that American schools lose funding to teaching kids of illegal aliens. This will be a never-ending debate for years until we get some type of control on illegal aliens. Once this is solved we will have more of a proper idea on how to fix this.

This was an interesting article to me but I was not surprised about this. This unfortunately happens every day. People are discriminated based of sex, religion, race and now transgender. I bet the average American person feel that transgendered people have rights as well. I also feel like their rights as human beings has been overlooked. To me everyone is equal. So lets take a look at what makes us equal in the United States. The Bills of rights plays a key role in American law and government, and remain a vital symbol of the freedoms and culture of the nation. The first amendment states that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. So with this we already established that we will not discriminate against certain groups because we don’t agree with they might particularly believe in. Let’s observe the quotation of “All men are created equal”. This is arguably the best-known phrase in any political document of the United States of America. Thomas Jefferson first used the phrase in the Declaration of Independence as a rebuttal to the going political theory of the day. Article 1 of the United States of America states that “All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights; among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness.” Not once did he mention anything about you have to be born a man. Not only that I thought this country was based off of everyone is suppose to be equal. So why do some many transgendered people targeted for hate violence. Transgender people are often targeted for hate violence based on their non-conformity with gender norms and/or their perceived sexual orientation. Studies from the national organizers of the Transgender Day of Remembrance and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have shown that indicate that one out of every 1,000 homicides in the U.S. is an anti-transgender hate crime. By this count, they estimate that at least 15 transgender people are killed each year in hate-based attacks, although we believe the number to be higher based on transgender people’s common fear of going to the police and widespread misreporting. In another apparent anti-transgender hate crime, Hugo Cesar “Bibi” Barajas was found dead in 2002 from multiple gunshot wounds near a Houston club that serves gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. Barajas, who was anatomically male, was dressed as a woman at the time of the murder and was found in a halter top, blue jeans, silver high heels with straps and a woman’s wig. According to police, she was also wearing makeup. At the time of this writing, police were investigating the murder as a possible hate crime, but had no suspects, motives or witnesses. Since the murder, the Texas Gender Advocacy & Information Network and other national groups called for the state hate crimes law to be amended to include coverage for gender identity- or gender non-conformity-bias motivated crimes. I’m particularly upset these figures and I hope our society gets a strong grasp on this because the world is changing. I believe that it is changing for the good because more and more people are feeling comfortable with coming out and just being themselves. With that being said, we as a society need to understand who they are instead of conforming back to our norms.

Listen if we lived in a female centered world every man would know how to satisfy their woman. But unfortunately we don’t. I really don’t have a set of words to give for a female centered world. The only thing I have is to provide advice to my fellow men out there that aren’t really doing it for their women. For those of you, who think that you are doing something, ask yourself this one question; if your girl is still awake after you had intercourse more than likely you are not doing anything. Let’s face it; if she has a wrap it up box waiting for you to press, chances are you need to go back into training. I’m not trying to say that my fellow man does not know what they are doing but they are probably not doing it well enough. If you’re a guy who is reading this and is getting upset, well you’re probably that guy who doesn’t have a clue about women. So let’s bring up some facts; 75% of all women will never reach an orgasm from intercourse alone. This mean you’ll be forced to get creative and you might have to start using a little tongue or toys if it’s your girlfriend. 35% of women will orgasm during intercourse. Also about 10-15% of women never climax. I’ll be honest those 10-15% that never climax wouldn’t be your fault. The reasons for women who don’t climax may include sexual ignorance, sexual anxiety, and fear of letting go. A study was conducted and they reported that 98% of men have an orgasm during intercourse. As you can see that there are no similarities when having an orgasm between men and women. If we lived in a female centered world, the first thing I would have done for them is for men to learn how to pleasure their woman. This is the fundamental aspect that many men seem to forget. I’m not sure why but they do. Also what they should learn is that every girl is completely different from the next. So basically what you did last night probably is not going to work on a new girl. A technique should be developed but the guy has to realize it won’t always work. Women love that foreplay. It seems to me that they just get this type of arousal which turns them on. For example, the kissing and touching you know the idea leading to sex is an instant arousal for them. Now in some cases I could be wrong, but like I said earlier every woman is different. For my final point on if this was a female centered world, is to take care of the women; like this is so important. If every guy treated women the way they should, they would have their girl literally doing anything they ask for. Also being honest is another huge factor for me.

Listen, I love it when I see interracial couples. I don’t know what it is when I see it. All I do is say aaww and I smile. I guess I smile because I finally see some progress in the world in regards to race relations. I truly believe that love has nothing to do with the person skin. I believe that if a person makes you happy and treats you the way you should be treated; there shouldn’t be anything that holds you back from dating that person that you like. I really think that we are making tremendous grounds in changing the way we think as a society. I’ve dated outside my race before and I’m currently in an interracial relationship. I particularly don’t find it hard at all to date outside the race. I could possibly be our attitudes on the issue. We’re like if you got something to say then say it to our faces which you will not anyway. So I never find it hard to deal with. There are several advantages in dating outside your race as well. If you happen to date outside your race you’ll get the opportunity to see different cultures. Also experience different religions and etc. For example if someone you happen to date someone who is Asian decent then you’ll learn about his/her specific values that they share. My parents really don’t have a single problem with me dating outside my race. I guess it’s unfair to say this because my dad is Spanish and my mom is black so of course they would be fine with it. I have noticed that my grandparents have some issue from this. My grandmother once asked me, what girls I am dating. I was pretty shocked to hear a question like that but I simply replied and told her I date all women. Then she began to press the issue more and blatantly said don’t you bring home no white girl. I laughed when I heard this and I asked her why. She told me that they’re no good and I should stay within my race. Well I was kind of shocked that she said this to me but then again I was not surprised that she asked this question. I simply told her that who I decided to date will be a decision based off her personality, spirit, joy, loyalty and honesty. Now whether this person is black, green, white, red, blue or even turquoise, you should be happy for me that I’m happy with someone that likes me as much as I like them. But I wasn’t mad when she asked that question because she is from the old school. So I know that my grandmother will feel some type of way when I tell her that I am dating someone outside my race.

This is a very interesting question, considering the comparison is between a race and a religion. The fact that it is asking who is more discriminated against decides the answer for us. The misconceptions about the Muslim people have exploded in the past decade. What we picture as a Muslim person, does not represent the Muslim people of the world today. What is a Muslim? We see Arab people and assume, that is what Muslim people look like. Muslim and Arab are not interchangeable terms. Not all Arabs are Muslims and not all Muslims are Arab. Muslims make up only 75% of the Arab population and only 15% of the Muslim community is Arab; the vast majority is East Asian and African.
However, the media will portray all Muslims to be Arabs, which is absolutely not the case. American people will constantly see on television, in movies, in the newspaper, etc. the Arab Muslims and believe that they are one and the same. When it comes to cultures different from our own, it is common for Americans to generalize that “they all look the same.” Though the clothing will vary from nation to nation and region to region, we will see it as unfamiliar and say they all wear the same style.
In these same movies, television, and even in real news, Muslims are portrayed as terrorists and excessively violent. In the television series 24, every terrorist has been Muslim. This can be said for a majority of films and television shows. The discussion of terrorism, especially in the Middle East, is common on news shows across the board, from FOX News to CNN. By repeating this through all of these avenues without counter arguments, people will tend to believe these depictions as truth.
This instills fear in the rest of the population, and fear tends to perpetuate discrimination. Americans in majority will get uneasy when they see a Muslim in an airport or on a plane. The rest may make comments like, “what is he going to do?” Though these comments may be in jest, it stems from the fact that in both entertainment and current event reports, we are shown Muslims to be those who make trouble in these environments. In reality, the terrorists use the name of Islam and twist the words of the Quran to get followers and supporters. Both the Quran and all teachings of Islam promote peace and only fighting in self defense.
So to answer the question “whom do I feel, in today’s society, people are more racist against Blacks or Muslims?” I would have to say Muslims. When the terrorist attacks occurred on September 11, 2001 race in this country subsided and the entire country became “American” because those terrorist happened to be Arab Muslim the racism made a small shift shifted and Muslims became the hated of today.

This is very good question. A couple of years of ago I would say that yes, cops are racist and they just look to arrest black people. Throughout time and research I’ve found that it’s a little of both. Some cops are just that racist and they will abuse their power and throw the book at a black guy. When they see a person of their own race, they’ll give the blind shoulder and give them a warning. Now most of the crimes are committed in urban areas. Also in most urban areas you can also find people of color. So cops tend to migrate to places with the higher criminal activity. Statistics will show that most criminal activity will occur in most rural areas and in suburban areas the crime rate is also high but it’s much harder to detect because everything is much more spread out. This is purely my opinion on the matter but I feel that the criminal justice system is slightly racist and I’ll prove it. If you don’t believe me, think about the incarceration rates between black and whites. African Americans are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites. Hispanics are incarcerated at nearly double the rate of whites. The national incarceration rate for whites is 412 per 100,000 residents, compared to 2,290 for African Americans, and 742 for Hispanics. These figures mean that 2.3% of all African Americans are incarcerated, compared to 0.4% of whites and 0.7% of Hispanics. I don’t know about you but I think these are some staggering numbers. Studies from the United States Sentencing Projects showed the statistics from the Prison and Jail Incarceration Rates. They did the population of incarceration rates per 100,000 on a national level and found that white were incarcerated four hundred and twelve times while blacks were incarcerated two-thousand two hundred and ninety times, and Hispanics were incarcerated seven hundred and two times. Listen the police has nothing to do but target black people. I mean take Sam’s example of the King of the Mountain Game. Don’t you think that white people want to keep themselves on top and in “power”. You would be a fool not to apply that to this situation. The same proportion of white people as to black people smoke marijuana. So why are the incarceration rates for black people higher? Let’s think about something for one second. Don’t these studies sort of remind you of a cast system? The incarceration of black people living in poverty creates some type of cast system in my opinion. It also locks people into a permanent lower class status for life. I don’t like these numbers anymore than the next person. I cannot ignore the fact this is happening and it will continue to happen until we change the institution in which we live in.

The choices in life that I have made impacted the way my life is now. I will say that determinism plays a much bigger part in life rather than free will. I'll explain how free will got me here to Penn State.

When I was younger, give or take twelve thru fifth-teen years old I always wanted the finer things in life. Now let’s getting something straight; my parents weren’t rich. They were a hard working middle-class people. Yes, they provided me with everything that I wanted. When it came a game, clothes, etc I got it. With that being said, I still wanted more. I wanted a Porsche, a ten thousand square foot house, a net worth that was close to a million dollars. My parents didn’t have anything close to what I envisioned. So what I decided to do was to make decisions so I can achieve my goals. The first thing I knew was to get good grades in school. At this time in my life, I didn’t even know what college was. Hey, my parents didn’t go to college. My dad dropped out of high school and eventually went back and got his GED. My mother ended up graduating high school in the top three percent of her class but never went to college because her parents couldn’t afford it. When I was in middle school, I told my mother that I want to go to college. My mother was shocked when she heard this because she never mentioned college to me ever and my dad; well he was a hard working individual who believed in working young so you can have money in your pocket. I understood his philosophy but I knew that would only work in the short run. I wanted the long term effect. My mother told me, she didn’t know how this is going to happen but we’ll figure out a way. See my mother knew what college meant even though she never attended herself. Let’s fast forward to my senior year in high school. I always wanted to be an attorney since the day I could remember. I wanted to be a defense attorney because I thought that would be a very cool thing to do. After doing some research I found out that hey; I might have a case to where I have to represent someone that did a crime and it’ll be completely obvious that he did actually commit the crime. But it’s my job to get him off. In my mind I knew that was wrong, and If I won the case I’ll be receiving blood money. Which that little piece of information, I decided to switch my focus to medicine. I know that’s going from one side to the spectrum to the other but in my mind that’s what I wanted to do. Today I know that there are many different areas of law that I could practice but I didn’t know that at the time. So at this point, I’m talking to my advisor about different things about school and what I want to pursue and life. She wasn’t the best advisor at all. To be very honest, she was garbage. She didn’t advise me on anything. I started to apply to different colleges that my friends in high school were applying to because I didn’t know any colleges. I applied to Drexel, The University of Sciences of Philadelphia and of course the best school in the nation, Penn State. I was denied by both Drexel and USIP. PSU was the only school that accepted me. I’m grateful that PSU gave me the opportunity to bring my talents to State College. Let’s think for a second. Was it determinism that got me to PSU or was it free will? Was it determinism that basically got me denied from two relatively descent schools? One would say yes, it was determinism. Others might say no, it was fait that brought you to PSU. I would like to say that it was a healthy balance of both free will and determinism that brought me to PSU. WE ARE!!!!

I would love to be optimistic in this question and say to you that yea race will not be a factor in the future. Unfortunately this is not the case. I will say this though; there is only one solution for race not to be a factor in the future. If people stopped teaching their children that one other particular race is bad. For example, some white parents tend to tell their kids that you can’t bring anybody here that isn’t white. Or some black parents might say, “don’t you bring no white girl or no white boy here. Why does that need to be a factor? What made parents tell their kids that you can’t date someone because I said so. Honestly, the parents won’t be dating their child’s boyfriend or girlfriend. Let’s face it, racism is taught. It’s not something that people are born with. This is where racism starts, with the parents. We need to have ignorant parents to stop teaching their kids racism. It’s a completely different time. Many of the problems that baby boomers had to face don’t exist today. Unfortunately the parents are taking their hate for a race and teaching it to their children. I’ve lived in several different places where some white people were pretty damn nasty to black people. That’s not my problem though, what my problem is that the people who have a particular issue with a single race never even seen that race in person. I’m saying to myself like wow. How can someone have a problem with somebody but they never had a quarrel with them. What’s even more shocking to me is that, people generalized an entire race rather than to judge the individual person. I’ve heard stories from my friends that some of their country friends who are racist never seen the race that they don’t like nor had a conversation with an individual. So my question remains, why do parents teach their kids racism? Hell, why do they still have hate groups? Why do people hate each other in the first place? As I continue to think about this issue, it dawns on me that this racism issue is only in the United States. If I was to go to France, they wouldn’t say to me that oh he’s a Hispanic or a black person. They would address me as “oh he’s an American”. They don’t care if I’m not white, their biggest problem is probably because I’m an American and they don’t favor Americans too well. Another problem is that there is still so much division within the United States it’s sickening. I feel like as if we only come together if there is an attack on this country. That’s when the racism is thrown out the window and the patriotism is at an all time high. It’s like people are being complete hypocrites. Listen, I want to believe that racism probably won’t be a factor in the future but major provisions need to be taken in order for that to happen. I would love to see this in my life time but I don’t think it will happen.

I believe that people hang out with the same race or ethnicity because they feel comfortable with them. Most of them were around their race and that's what they are used to. You really can't put the blame solely them because society forced them into that situation. I also believe that it's also up to the individual to branch out and expose themselves to new people and cultures. Many people would be amazed what they can learn about someone else from a different part of the world. I know a guy that is straight out of the country. Like you can't get no more country than this guy. He once asked me to come out with him and his other friends to play road kill roundup. Now me being from the city and hearing "road kill roundup" sounded like a game that I shouldn't be playing. So i went along with them. Now I didn't partake in picking up road kill and putting it in the back of a pickup-truck but being around them playing this game was absolutely hilarious. I had an awesome time playing this "so called game". I would have never went along with this game if I didn't like the people I was with and wasn't open to the idea of going on the country highway and pick up road kill. Maybe that's me being open to anything. I wish that more caucasian people hung out with minorities more though. They could learn so much from one another. It's a shame to have approximately 35,000 white students and only about 10,000 of them hang out with minorities. Is it the fact that white people haven't been around minorities before and they don't know what to expect from them. This goes for minorities as well. They should also be open to talking to somebody of a different race as well. With all that being said, I get why different races tend to stay around one another. I'm a minority and I tend to interact with other minorities because i am able to relate to them more. We can have conversations and say "yea i had that very same experience or i felt the same way about a particular issue". I myself try to go out and talk to different people a lot but i feel some of them doesn't want to interact at all. Sometimes I feel like damn, is that the entire race as a whole or is it just the individual. I know that it's very narrow minded of me to think that it's the race as a whole but that's how i feel at that giving time sometimes. I really wish for one day, that everyone could feel comfortable talking to anyone regardless of race or ethnicity. That will be sometime before we ever see that, but i hope i'll still be alive to see that happen.

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