en-us https://www.intensedebate.com/users/763060 Comments by jrg5229 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/south-park-off-the-hook__trashed/#IDComment69951710 . Of course, they did bleep out the panda bears name and no longer called it Mohammed but I really think the damage was already done and doing that only made the situation worse. People don’t understand that when dealing with these extreme radicals they aren’t afraid to take it to the next level. I mean, they put a death threat on a couple of guys over a cartoon, so to think that they aren’t dangerous is an understatement. I think that the show should have been cancelled and not been aired again and they especially should not have aired the second episode about Mohammed. What they are doing is throwing fuel on the fire, so to speak. Fri, 23 Apr 2010 16:46:32 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/south-park-off-the-hook__trashed/#IDComment69951710 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/south-park-off-the-hook__trashed/#IDComment69951703 The religion, like any other, has some extremists and radicals who take that kind of thing very very seriously and I do not know why they would mess with it and especially make fun of it and do something so stupid. I do think that the people who got offended are taking it a bit far by putting out death threats on the creators of the show because that’s a little unnecessary. Obviously the show is just immature like that and I don’t think that they understand that because they aren’t from here and probably haven’t seen any other episodes. I also don’t really understand why, if when the episode aired it caused so much controversy, why the creators and the supervisors of the network Comedy Central would allow the second episode (which was a second part of the first offensive episode) to air and continue all of the mayhem. Fri, 23 Apr 2010 16:46:27 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/south-park-off-the-hook__trashed/#IDComment69951703 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/south-park-off-the-hook__trashed/#IDComment69951686 in 3 parts I have never really been much of a fan of the show South Park on Comedy Central. It started airing when I was a little too young to understand it and then by the time I did understand it, I just thought it was immature and stupid and only boys seem to like it. I don’t really get the humor of it and I think it’s really juvenile and I disagree with most of the topics that they have on the show such as making fun of mentally challenged people, people of other races, and specific celebrities and people of stature. That being said, I think that it was wrong of them to poke fun at Mohammad and the Islamic religion because I think that’s just not right to do in general. I would have felt the same way if it would have been Jesus depicted in the episode as the panda bear or whatever the circumstance was in the episode (obviously I didn’t watch it). I actually heard about it first on the news and was not surprised at all by it. Fri, 23 Apr 2010 16:46:18 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/south-park-off-the-hook__trashed/#IDComment69951686 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/creating-terrorists__trashed/#IDComment69951603 . It seems absurd to me that you can just give someone a couple of farm animals such as sheep and they feel consoled and better about the fact that you just murdered their family members in cold blood.. It’s kind of ironic, actually that they are so extreme. When they find out you killed their loved one, they want to be a suicide bomber, but if you offer them something as miniscule as a sheep, they feel like you are offering everything you have to beg for forgiveness. This is just something we will never ever understand as Americans. We need to just accept it and try to stop the heart of it which is killing civilians. Fri, 23 Apr 2010 16:45:33 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/creating-terrorists__trashed/#IDComment69951603 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/creating-terrorists__trashed/#IDComment69951593 To them, committing a crime such as a suicide bombing something that you do when you lose someone and you want to avenge that person’s death. You may not get to kill the specific person who killed your love one but the point is to make an impact and show people that you are doing it because you lost someone. We sometimes think that it is all about hurting Americans. Yeah, sometimes that is the reason for crazy suicide bombers and terrorists but on the other hand, like the 80 year old man mentioned in the article, he was simply an old man who lost not one, but four of his loved ones. He’s juts an old man who was affected by this war in a very negative way. Was it fair for the American soldiers to come into his town and kill the innocent people in his family, 2 being women and one of them being pregnant? We didn’t enter this war to kill all Middle Eastern people and that’s really what it seems to be coming to. Fri, 23 Apr 2010 16:45:26 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/creating-terrorists__trashed/#IDComment69951593 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/creating-terrorists__trashed/#IDComment69951578 in 3 pieces I think this blog entry has a lot to do with the difference of two cultures. We as Americans will never really understand what it is like to be a Muslim (or a Christian) in the Middle East at this time in the world and because of that, I don’t think we will ever completely understand why some people do what they do. The video clip from the Australian news show was a very disturbing image that just goes to show how different we are in our beliefs and cultures. Here in the United States, Christianity is the predominant religion and within that religion we learn that committing suicide isn’t ever right, no matter what the reason is. Apart from religion, we just think as a society that suicide is something that you do when you are extremely depressed and unhappy with the life that you are living and that suicide is the last possible alternative. What we fail to understand is that in another country and religion, suicide has a completely different meaning to these people than it does here in the United States to us. Fri, 23 Apr 2010 16:45:18 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/creating-terrorists__trashed/#IDComment69951578 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/tent-cities-in-haiti__trashed/#IDComment69951475 It was also a little bit sad and strange im sure to adjust to everyone living together. There are people that were once doctors selling ice and food who are on the same exact level as these people who were already poor before the earthquake. Now these poor people who were already living on the streets have a place where everyone is on the same playing field as them. And as unfair as that is, maybe now everyone will have a better chance at succeeding in the future when everything is redeveloped. Fri, 23 Apr 2010 16:44:28 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/tent-cities-in-haiti__trashed/#IDComment69951475 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/tent-cities-in-haiti__trashed/#IDComment69951457 It amazes me that people can still afford the luxuries of a pedicure or manicure at a time like this, but it is also very cool because like the woman said in the video, if people were always used to having nice things, then the earthquake didn’t change that. I also thought it was very cool and smart to charge people a small amount of money to use the generator and charge their cell phones. Any little bit of production and consumption possible is what will start rebuilding these communities and take them a step forward in the right direction. The reason that this video clip made me feel a little bit sad is because this is just the beginning for this country and these people. Yes, they’ve started off on the right foot and everything is falling into place the best that it can, but like the video said, a lot of these people will be stuck in these houses for many years to come. So not only did they lose everything they had in just one day, they can’t just get it all back and start over.. this is going to be a long process that will take many many years to overcome for this country. Fri, 23 Apr 2010 16:44:22 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/tent-cities-in-haiti__trashed/#IDComment69951457 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/tent-cities-in-haiti__trashed/#IDComment69951443 in pieces.After watching this video on the tent cities, it made me feel two ways: hopeful and sad. It was really amazing to see how people could work together and put these tent cities together so quickly and so efficiently just days after such an awful occurrence. I thought that alone was amazing, but what I thought was even more cool was when they showed all the individual businesses going on within these little tent cities. These people are coming up with great ideas on top of selling the basic necessities that everyone in their community is looking for to buy in order to survive. I thought that it was really inspirational to see the woman with the nail salon go back to where her business once was and retrieve everything possible in order to keep moving on and set up her business in another location to try and make money and help people. Fri, 23 Apr 2010 16:44:12 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/tent-cities-in-haiti__trashed/#IDComment69951443 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/letter-from-an-inmate__trashed/#IDComment69951294 His whole letter being about compassion is far more powerful and motivating than if he would have wrote his letter about his crime and just being in jail. The message that he was giving us was that no matter what roads you take in life and what obstacles you overcome and go through, you still have those inner feelings inside of you for other people no matter who you are, because, I think those things are just things that we are born with and can’t really shut out no matter how dangerous one person may be. Like I said before, I don’t think that every criminal has this mindset, I’m sure it just depends on the individual, but it makes you stop and think, is he really more dangerous to society now than some 18 year old punk who is going out and LOOKING for trouble somewhere? It’s just sad that one circumstance can change your whole life in an instant. Fri, 23 Apr 2010 16:42:55 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/letter-from-an-inmate__trashed/#IDComment69951294 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/letter-from-an-inmate__trashed/#IDComment69951275 When I was reading the letter that this convict had written to the students in our class from jail, it made me feel a certain kind of way. You can tell by the way this man writes and what he has to say that obviously being in jail has changed him. I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s like or what he’s been through or even the specifics to the crime that he had committed in the past, but what I do notice is that he is a wise person who, regardless of what happened many years ago, and regardless of how society has treated and looked at him since he committed his crime, he still seems to see life very clearly and be at peace with himself. I find that extremely intriguing and interesting. Fri, 23 Apr 2010 16:42:47 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/letter-from-an-inmate__trashed/#IDComment69951275 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/letter-from-an-inmate__trashed/#IDComment69951264 sorry its in pieces i can never get it to work. I had never really stopped to think about the feelings of those people who knew that they were going to be in jail for the rest of their life until Sam started talking about it in class. My first immediate thought was, “well good they deserve to be there for the awful crimes and murders that they committed in society.” But after a second when I really thought about it, these people are human beings just like the rest of us, and not all murderers in jail are crazy psychopaths that have no regret for the things that they’ve done, like Sam said. I’m sure many of them had the same background as most of us when they were growing up and were just regular people who either got in with the wrong crowd, or just was in a wrong situation at the wrong time. After discussing this in class it made me really look at it differently and have sympathy for these people who I never in a million years thought that I would feel any compassion for because of that snap judgment I made about them. Fri, 23 Apr 2010 16:42:38 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/letter-from-an-inmate__trashed/#IDComment69951264 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/christian-invaders-the-turnaround__trashed/#IDComment68455622 Another thing that made me realize how scary we sound to them is watching all of the clips that they probably get sent to them from friends on youtube of our American politicians saying that our country is willing to do anything to get what we want and exterminate them and this and that. I would be really intimidated if I watched that and I know when CNN shows terrorist clips made by Al-Qaeda I always get chills so I can understand their fear. I will always support my country but after today’s class I feel like I understand a lot more about the issue and about the other side. Sat, 17 Apr 2010 01:26:56 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/christian-invaders-the-turnaround__trashed/#IDComment68455622 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/christian-invaders-the-turnaround__trashed/#IDComment68455610 It was scary to think of people just like me in Iraq that go to a big school like Penn State that just have soldiers walking around with guns and tanks 24/7. I couldn’t imagine not being scared or ever being used to living like that.. and to think of any of my friends or family innocently dying just to catch one bad guy makes me sick. I thought that it was really sad that on average 29 civilians have to die in order to catch one bad guy. I wish that there was a way to inform them all that we aren’t all like that just like we all need to learn here in America that not all of them send their children off to anti America schools to teach them to kill soldiers and Americans. There are extremists everywhere but it is us who is in their country, not the other way around. Sat, 17 Apr 2010 01:26:48 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/christian-invaders-the-turnaround__trashed/#IDComment68455610 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/christian-invaders-the-turnaround__trashed/#IDComment68455583 sorry it's in pieces. I thought that today’s lecture was extremely interesting and definitely the most eye opening lesson of the whole year. I had never thought of it in that aspect or view and by looking at it like that, it really made me think about my own opinions on the war and just terrorism in general. The pictures shown before the war had begun really surprised me and made me question just how much good the war has done. I’m against the war as it is but to see what a normal place it was before then compare to the chaos that most of the country has become nowadays is really sad. A few of the things that I thought were the most powerful in Sam’s lecture today were when he told us to imagine ourselves as Arab Muslims in the Middle East while all of this war is going on. To think what they must think about us as civilians and especially what they must think about our political figures is really crazy and they probably think we’re nuts.. I never thought about it like that and just thought wow they are just as afraid of us as we are of them. Sat, 17 Apr 2010 01:26:33 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/christian-invaders-the-turnaround__trashed/#IDComment68455583 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/this-is-totally-off-the-hook__trashed/#IDComment66829147 When I first saw this article I was so completely astonished that I even made my roommate watch it. This absolutely baffled me and made me wonder what the *** is wrong with people? Not only do these video games degrade women in more ways than one, they show and teach younger children that behavior like this is acceptable in society and it obviously is not. If a video game creator in the United State were to make something like that and try to sell it in ANY stores, not only would they fail but they would probably be arrested for something. It blows my mind that the Japanese government would allow these explicit video games to be put and sold on the market without so much as a warning to the buyers of their content, but I guess it just goes to show how different things are in other countries. I don’t really know what this says about Japanese culture, but the only thing that these kinds of video games could do is bring really bad things to our culture. The world today is bad enough and has enough freaks in it without things like these that support that kind of freaky behavior. It is just sad that these things can be found on the internet by ANYONE and downloaded in a matter of seconds. I have no idea how the British woman who was interviewed could say that she wasn’t offended by this game as a woman because I don’t consider myself a feminist by any means but this game deeply disturbed and offended me on many different levels. For people to say that this game is a way to offer rapists an outlet so that they don’t have to go out and do the real thing is just crazy to me. And even if there was scientific evidence that proved that this game somehow did help, it should be kept locked up by psychiatrists and doctors who would be using it for their patients for medical purposes only; I can’t believe that this would ever be offered to the public. As for the question at the end of the blog when Sam asked if any guys responding to this post would ever play a game like this, it sort of makes me sick because I guarantee even if some people say that they wouldn’t, they definitely would just because they would think that it was funny or just stupid. But the reality of games like this is that they do have long term effects on younger children who see these kinds of things. When they see things like this sold in other countries and found on the internet, they assume that this is acceptable behavior and it is not. These things need to be pulled from the shelves and forgotten about. Fri, 9 Apr 2010 16:36:53 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/this-is-totally-off-the-hook__trashed/#IDComment66829147 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/03/what-about-multiracial-people__trashed/#IDComment65582356 I thought that this little post regarding multi racial people was very interesting because to me, the majority of students do in fact come from many different races, not just black, brown, or white. When you identify with more than one ethnicity, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you don’t identify with one more than the other. Like the guy in the video was saying, his mother is a Puerto Rican woman and his father is a white man. Obviously he would relate to one more than the other, and in my personal experiences and from what I have seen, children USUALLY identify with whatever their mother identifies with. For example, I am also mixed half Hispanic and half white, but in my case, my mother is white and my father is Mexican, so although I do relate and categorize myself with my Mexican heritage, I grew up in a predominantly white community being one of the only Hispanic people around. People make such snap decisions based on what they see on the outside and have no idea what that person relates to just by looking at them. A person’s race does not identify them. The guy in the video identifies with being Hispanic but people would never call him a “brown man” and even worse, it is really hard for biracial people who have white skin to identify and be accepted by their brown or black community. I guess it depends just how outgoing you are, and where you grew up, and how much you really relate with it, but I know a lot of people who are very confused by the fact that neither the white nor the brown/black society will really accept them. I feel like it sucks to be mixed and not know both or however many ethnicities you are very well and get to relate to them because I think that it is really important to know everything about your family’s culture and heritage in order to completely understand yourself. People think that race and ethnicity go hand in hand, but in reality these two things can be very different and very confusing because just because you have white or black skin doesn’t mean you identify and relate with that ethnicity, and people need to understand that and not make such rash first impressions. I guess that it is no one’s fault because we all just sort of do it and we do not realize it but I think that it is one of those things that can really effect a person that you do it to, like the guy in the video, but not something that you really think of on a day to day basis. Fri, 2 Apr 2010 17:52:58 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/03/what-about-multiracial-people__trashed/#IDComment65582356 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/03/if-men-could-menstruate__trashed/#IDComment64275101 . Also, if men had period every month tampons still would not be free just for the simple reason that nothing in this world is free, regardless of if men and women both need it. I for one, think that it is just plain unfair that women have to do all of the dirty work such as go through something as terrible as a menstruation cycle every 28 days for 30-40 years of their lives on top of also having to be the ones to bear children. What do men have to do that even comes close to something like that? Sat, 27 Mar 2010 00:34:22 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/03/if-men-could-menstruate__trashed/#IDComment64275101 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/03/if-men-could-menstruate__trashed/#IDComment64275067 . I think that the reason guys are so grossed out and reluctant to talk about this subject is because we as women have been told to pretty much hide it ever since it began and that it is gross and all of this nonsense, which really isn’t fair to women because, why should we hide something that happens to us so regularly in our life and that effects us so much just because it “grosses YOU out.” Well hey sometimes it grosses me out too but it doesn’t mean I can make it just stop forever if I don’t talk about it for a while. On the other hand I do think that things that happen to a women’s body are personal to some extent. I think a man has a right to know what happens in the health aspect of things but I really don’t think that I would go as far as saying, “do you want to come look at this?” because I think that is taking it a little too far and I see why guys might not want to actually witness something like that. Sat, 27 Mar 2010 00:34:06 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/03/if-men-could-menstruate__trashed/#IDComment64275067 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/03/if-men-could-menstruate__trashed/#IDComment64275034 sorry this just has to be in pieces again... I think what this girl was saying was pretty on point for the most part. Men do need to be more educated in this topic regarding a womans menstruation cycles because I feel like a lot of men have no idea about one thing regarding a womans monthly cycles. I guarantee if you did a survey and asked 100 guys on the street 5 basic questions about a woman’s period he would answer most of them wrong. I vividly remember “the movie” in 5th grade when the teacher separated the classroom from boys to girls and boys would watch a movie about their own body parts, and so would the girls. Not that I think boys should learn about this kind of stuff in 5th grade, but I think once they hit a proper and mature age, it is necessary to educate them. Perhaps if they were more educated about how menstrual cycles really work there wouldn’t be as many young pregnancies as there are. Sat, 27 Mar 2010 00:33:44 +0000 https://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/03/if-men-could-menstruate__trashed/#IDComment64275034