Maziar expressing his prayers for the people in Boston affected by the bombings was extremely nice and thoughtful. Like someone else had said, it is nice to hear someone from our own country give their condolences, but it is even more comforting to know that people half way around the world are praying for our country, and the families and friends of the victims affected by the tragedy. I think it is even more extraordinary to think about the fact that Maziar is living in a country that is occupied by our troops. In Iran, they experience tragedies like this often. Everyday, innocent civilians are killed in bombings, and it is just a part of being at war in their country. On the other hand, when it happens in our own country, we consider it an act of terrorism. I am honestly surprised that although the media has come forward saying that some of the potential suspects were Arab, that Maziar is still so supporting and sharing his condolences. It really shows just how good of a person he is. When there is a bombing in Iran or any of the countries that our troops are still occupying, there are rarely condolences sent from Americans to the countries affected. As far as the accusations of this bombing being the work of Arabs, I think that it is very unfair to assume this. These kinds of assumptions are what have created the culture of hatred towards Arabs. If white people were being blamed for an incident like this, they would make it like it was just one white person, who must be mentally ill. But when the Arabs are blamed, people use it as an excuse to categorize them all together as “extremists” or “terrorists.” I completely agree with what ceego_24 said in his post. Americans have no idea what goes on in Iran and other parts of the world, and since we are ignorant to what is happened, we send hatred often times to the “terrorists” who hate America. In all reality, the people of those countries are extremely compassionate, nice people who legitimately care about the tragedies going on in our country. People in America are too concerned what is going on in our country. Although it is important to follow what is going on, and be supportive of the events happening in our own country, we have to be attentive to the tragedies that strike all over the world, and how the people of those countries are being affected. If American’s could show the compassion for people of other countries like Maziar showed to us when skyping with him in class, I think the world would be a much better place.

I agree with what a few people have said, which is that often in college, men really only approach women while intoxicated. Since the majority of social situations revolve around alcohol, it is fitting that men would mainly be approaching women, of any race, at a party or event while intoxicated. This being said, I do agree that in general, white men do tend to talk to women of different races more so when they are intoxicated. It is to my understanding that many white men find women of different races attractive, so it is hard to understand why they would have to be drunk to approach them. I don’t believe that white men are racist, but more so just afraid of judgment from the rest of society, whether it is strangers, friends or family. I have witnessed a real world example of this. This past summer, I set a white male friend of mine up with a light skinned black girl. He thought she was very attractive and a cool girl, but he was extremely hesitant to ask her out on a date. When I asked what the problem was, he said that he didn’t know where to take her. I was confused by what he meant, so offered a few restaurant suggestions. He responded by saying he didn’t know where he could take her where he wouldn’t run into anyone that his parents knew. It then struck me that he thought his parents would judge him for going on a date with a black girl. I was confused, since he is not racist. This is why I think that white men mainly approach women of minorities while drunk. They aren’t racist, and they definitely find them attractive. Being intoxicated gives them the lack of concern for what others think about them. I think that this is more noticeable in college, because once a man is graduated and in the working world, his parents have less control over his life. Also, he is likely to be further away from where his parents live, making it less likely for him to run into his parents or one of their friends. I’m sure that his isn’t true for all men. I see plenty of white men around campus that have girlfriends of a different race who appear to be perfectly comfortable with it. A large part of it might be the family and the area in which they were brought up. My friend for example, who was brought up in a very white area suburban area, where you did not see many interracial couples walking down the street everyday. On the other hand, someone brought up in a diverse area might have had more exposure to interracial couples and feel completely comfortable about being in one themselves.

I definitely empathize with what Jasiri X was saying in his raps and understand that black people are getting the short end of the stick in society. I do think that Jasiri X was a bit overboard in his arguments though and that he was a bit angry towards white people in general.

One of the arguments Jasiri X had was that the government and the police protect white people more so than they protect black people. I think that the government more so protects people of higher socioeconomic standing. For example, people are shot in bad inner city neighborhoods everyday and you don’t really hear much about these shootings, and they often go unsolved. On the other hand, if a person were to be shot in a middle class suburban area, there would be a huge deal made and police would be hassled to the point of no end to find the shooter. I think that it is seen as a racial issue, since many of the victims of shootings in inner cities happen to be black, but really it would be the same if a poor white person got shot in a bad neighborhood. I empathize with him regardless though, because whether white people or rich people are being protected more, any victim deserves the same thoroughness of a police investigation, as well as the same punishments for the shooters. Wealth doesn’t determine the value of a life.

I also empathize with the fact that it is harder for black people to get ahead in our society. It isn’t their fault that their ancestors were once slaves, which over the years cause a huge wealth gap between whites and blacks, as well as pushed black people into inner cities with few resources to get out. On the other hand, it isn’t my fault that I am white and was born into a society that makes it easier for me to get ahead. While I empathize with black people on this issue, I cannot sympathize. I think that a lot of times, white people are made to look like we just get handed things left and right. I have to work hard to maintain a certain GPA just to even be considered to interview with companies that I want to work for, just as a black person would have to. We were not the ones who oppressed them years ago and forced them into slavery. History cannot be changed, and while there should be something done to narrow the wealth and income gaps between whites and blacks, all black people can really do besides that is continue to work hard, and trying to break the barriers in place due to the history of our country.

I personally view nepotism and affirmative action as separate things.

I am not against affirmative action in its entirety. I think that there is without a doubt a need to have a program that tries to prevent discrimination. I think it is extremely annoying that some people interpret affirmative action in the wrong way, and thus hire less qualified candidates for jobs for the sake of not discriminating due to their race, gender, etc. On the other hand, a lot of times affirmative action does truly pick an equally or more qualified candidate that wouldn’t have been considered due to his/her race, gender, etc. if it wasn’t for affirmative action. I don’t have any clue of a program that could be implemented that would prevent discrimination as well as prevent people from hiring candidates who are less qualified just to shy away from discriminating against them.

Just like a lot of other people have also said, I think that if affirmative action is going to still around in its current form, then it should at least include people of lower socioeconomic status. Like Sam said in class, often times a rich kid goes into an interview with an advantage. He has a designer shirt on, maybe an expensive watch. Sam even mentioned having straight teeth could play a role in how the interviewer sees you. By looking wealthier, the interviewer might feel they have something in common with the person they are interviewing and be more inclined to pick them. I think this is ridiculous. If someone with a generic brand shirt, inexpensive watch and crooked teeth comes in for an interview, he should not have a lesser chance of getting the job because of these aspects. Just because someone might have had to pay for school with loans while another person had their parents pay for their schooling doesn’t mean that their degree isn’t exactly the same.

I think that nepotism is a separate category. It is similar, since someone is getting a job due to something other than solely his or her qualifications, whether they’re under qualified or not. Nonetheless, it doesn’t make a difference what race, gender or nationality you are. Nepotism is just a full exploitation of the phrase, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”

If I were offered a job due to nepotism, I would definitely take it. I might not be the most qualified candidate. I also would be aware that I did not fully earn the job, and that it was just handed to me because I knew someone that worked in the company. Nonetheless, I would still feel comfortable taking it and would just work hard to do a good job to make up for my lack of qualifications that I started off with.

I don’t agree with the idea that women really aren’t free. Women feel perfectly comfortable talking about their period in front of their friends, because their friends experience the same thing and do not get grossed out about it. The reason women don’t want to talk about their period in front of men is because men find it gross, and frankly they don’t care about it either, so why talk about it? Sam asked the boys in the room, “who has masturbated in the last week?” A bunch of boys raised their hand. The fact that men feel comfortable talking about masturbation while women don’t want to talk about their period is not a matter of freedom. Just like men not caring about our periods, we do not care about their masturbation. They just don’t take into regard if women care or not, so that is why men talk about it so freely. I think what really determines freedom is a woman’s ability to do things that men do and not be judged. For example, in class Sam spoke to a girl who was wearing a rugby jacket. He talked about how many people would assume that she is a lesbian automatically because she plays rugby. Assumptions like these are an example of the lack of freedom women have. Why can’t a girl just be a rugby player because it is fun and she enjoys it? A lot of the time, that’s the case, but people have to make assumptions because women “aren’t supposed to play rugby.” The ability for women to advance to positions that men regularly advance to whether politically or professionally, with only their credentials being considered, also determines a woman’s freedom. Although affirmative action is helping women get jobs in a lot of fields that they normally wouldn’t have gotten jobs in 50 years ago, there are still many obstacles challenging us. There are still many glass ceilings in place in companies that make it much harder for women to advance higher within the companies that they work for. A big reason for this is that the people that hold high up executive positions within companies like to look for a successor that is similar to themselves. Since most of these positions are held by men, more men are repeatedly being chosen to take these high positions. If women were truly free, their gender would not play a role in their job advancement, and they would get the job based upon their credentials. Many women are just as or more qualified than the men who take these positions. I think that when we see more women making inroads to becoming executives in large companies, we will be getting a large part of our freedom that has been denied to us.

I believe that some people truly are respectful people and censor themselves because they really don’t want to make another person feel bad, but I think that the majority of people censor themselves just to avoid any conflict, especially when they are speaking with or speaking around someone that they do not know very well. If a group of white kids were hanging out and talking, they would probably have no problem saying something such as “black people.” If they were in public on the other hand, they would maybe say “African Americans” to prevent offending anyone that overhears them. They most likely are not saying “African Americans” because they’re scared of hurting a black person’s feelings, but rather would potentially feel awkward or scared if a black person did not react well to hearing that. I think that generally, people just don’t care much about if they are saying something offensive unless there is someone around that would be offended by it. Not that they don’t care because they are a bad person, but just that it doesn’t cross their mind to censor themselves if it isn’t going to be hurting anybody. If someone asked me if I censor myself out of respect or fear, I would first think that I did it out of respect. But if I thought about it a littler longer, I would realize that I censor myself much more when around people that I would be offending.
I believe that when it comes to people that truly do sensor themselves out of respect, they will censor themselves regardless of what people were around them. They would say “African American” in a group of white people, or in a group of black people.
I also think that censorship is something that is becoming more prevalent as our country has progressed with civil rights and equality. When my grandparents were still alive, they had no problem saying offensive words in front of whoever was around because they were never taught any different. They grew up in a time where political correctness was not stressed as much, so most people did not feel the need to censor themselves.
I agree with what AndIThinkThat wrote about his parents. How your parents censor themselves will probably have a big effect on what words you decide to censor. My parents never said racial slurs growing up, but they never taught me that saying “black” rather than “African American” was offensive, so I feel completely comfortable saying “black’” in front of anyone that I am around. On the other hand, I have friends that were raised to only say the most politically correct version of any word regardless of their audience.

I think that wealth has an extremely large effect on how people act, and how they “walk through the world” as Sam said. I think that being wealthy not only affects your upbringing, but also your view on other people that are not as wealthy.

As far as wealth playing into a person’s upbringing, the differences are very clear between someone brought up in a wealthy home versus someone brought up in a poorer home. I think that one of the main differences that I see is work ethic. Often times, people brought up in wealthy homes are used to getting what they want, and not having to work very hard for it. They feel that they can glide through life with few problems. In poorer homes, people have to work extremely hard to get the things that they want, and even then they might not get it. This difference is evident when looking at people I have met at Penn State. Generally, all of my close friends were brought up in relatively wealthy homes. We all do our work because we know we need a good GPA to please our parents, to be able to get our degree, and eventually get a good job. When I look at the people I have met that are here on scholarships and that did not grow up as privileged, I see a whole different category of work ethic. They want success so badly, and put in ridiculous amounts of time and effort to ensure that they will get to where they want to be. This is just one example of how wealth affects the way people walk through the world.

I think that people who come from money do have the idea that they are “better” than those that do not come from money. It isn’t that they actually go out of their way to think this. I think that since wealth and socioeconomic categorization is such a huge part of our society that it is embedded in peoples’ minds that money has correlation to being better than others. On the other hand, I think that people that do not have as much money see the world differently. Just like the fact that they often work harder to achieve success, they aren’t willing to agree with the generalization that people with more money are better than those with less money. Just because they might have been raised in a poor family, does not mean anything. They couldn’t control the situation they were born into, and that’s why they work so much harder than the already well-off kids to get ahead, and make sure that they don’t have to bring more children into the upbringing that they experienced.

Although racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination due to ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc are present among our generation, I think that compared to the older generations, we have made great strides towards being accepting of much more than our parents and grandparents are/were. They can’t be completely blamed for their lack of open mind. They were brought up in a time when many of these things were not accepted, and it is all that they know. As times change, many people of our parent’s generation have become more accepting people, and thus have passed that on while bringing up our generation. I believe that once our generation is in power, there will be a lot of progress and social change occurring, which can be attributed to our newly open minds.

There has already been a great amount of progress made in terms of civil rights and discrimination due to race in general. Although a lot of our parent’s generation claim to not be racist, I think that they are still consciously racist in their minds, even if it is unintentional. This results from their upbringing, but since our generation’s upbringing did not involve racism being engraved into our minds, I think that the unintentional racism will be gone (for the most part at least) when our generation is in power.

Also, our grandparents, as well as a pretty good portion of our parents were brought up with women being stay-at-home-moms. Our generation is completely used to the fact that women now lead successful careers, so I think that sexism is not something that is much of a problem within our generation. It is recognized through the growing participation of women in the work-force-population, as well as the growing participation of women getting degrees.

As far as sexual orientation goes, I think that it is much more accepted now than it was during our parent’s generation. I’m not sure if this is true for all college aged students, but at least within the network of people I speak to, it is very widely accepted. I think that when our generation is in power, same sex marriage will be legal in all states, not just the ones where it is currently legal. I also think that people will just be generally more tolerant and discriminate less against hiring gays as well.

Overall, I think that the progresses that have been made of many social issues will only continue to progress once our generation is in power. The small portion of extremely closed minded people of our parents/grandparents generation that are holding back the open minded portion from making fair decisions will be eradicated, and equality will be present for all groups.

There are clearly two ways a compliment can be perceived, regardless of if it’s a man complimenting another man, a woman complimenting a man, or vice versa. Just as many other people have been posting, it all depends on how the compliment is interpreted. They could be someone genuinely telling another person that they like their hair, clothes, whatever it may be. The other way a compliment can be perceived is obviously that the person giving the compliment is coming onto whoever they are complimenting.
As far as girls receiving compliments goes, I think that girls are generally accepting of whatever compliments that they are receiving since girls love to be told that they look good. Girls clearly like getting compliments from guys. Girls love getting compliments from their other girlfriends because it makes them feel good about themselves. I’m not sure how all girls react, but as far as from what my friends are like, they also are very flattered when lesbians give them compliments because it essentially the same thing. Just because that lesbian is complimenting a girl, doesn’t mean they’re going to force themselves upon them. There is clearly a reason to feel uncomfortable in that situation, but a compliment is completely harmless. Just as the person above me said, I think that women are generally more tolerant of homosexuals so that is why they often feel less awkward in situations where they are being complimented by gay girls.
When it comes to guys, there is a huge difference when it comes to same sex complimenting. Guys love to receive compliments from girls. A big difference between girls and guys is that guys would not compliment their best friend if he were a male as a girl would to her female best friend. I think that the lack of complimenting going on from one guy to another, even if they are just friends, makes the idea of being complimented by a gay guy more shocking to straight guys. Although it is understandable that it is more shocking for a guy when he receives a compliment from another guy, I do not understand why there is not only shock, but also an uncomfortable feeling. Unless the gay guy is coming onto you strongly, maybe touching you or making sexual comments, why is a simple “you’re hot,” such a big deal?
I agree with the person above me that said that girls also tend to be more affectionate people in general. Girls understand that other girls want to be complimented, just as they do. So compliments are just a very natural part of female to female interaction. This could be why girls are so accepting of compliments regardless of who is giving the compliment.

I’m not totally clear on the question being asked, but I believe this kid is asking if it matters more what your actual race is, or what race you act like you are.

I think that it matters what race you actually are, but this depends in what situation someone is in. If the person is meeting someone for the first time and the person doesn’t know him or her very well, they might judge them off of their skin color, so his actual race would matter at that point in time. The root of racial problems is that people just look at someone’s skin color and if they don’t like people of that race that the person belongs to, they will treat that person differently because of whatever skin color they have. So for example, there might be a black kid who acts extremely “white.” Regardless of how he acts, if he comes in contact with someone who doesn’t like black people because of the color of their skin, then the person is still going to not like him because he is black, no matter how white he is acting. But if there was a black kid who acts extremely white, and he is just hanging out with his friends, then I suppose it just matters how he acts rather than what his actual skin color is. His friends have already accepted him, and clearly they must have things in common to make them friends. So here, it would not matter what his actual race was versus how he acted.

When Sam asked in class if there were any Korean people in the room that identified as white rather than Korean or Asian American, no one really raised their hand. I found this interesting because he clearly was expecting there to be multiple people in the room that agreed that they classify themselves as white even though they are Korean. I know many Asians that had been adopted into white families. Because of this, they essentially act as a white person would (not that Asian Americans act that differently than whites in the first place). But regardless of how much those Asians acted like their white family members, I cannot see how anyone would classify himself or herself with white if they clearly look Asian. You do not classify your race as how you act. Your race is your race and there is nothing that can change that. My viewpoint on this is in agreement with arsyadazrai. Your looks define your race. If you are from Korea, and have Korean parents, and look Korean, you are not simply white since you were brought up in a place with a lot of white people.