The topic of illegal immigrants has always been an important one to me. I was born in Romania and when I was adopted I was brought to America. I was issued a green card and therefore was not an illegal immigrant, but I can truly understand the feeling of leaving a poor country in order to come to a wealthier one. My first job in 8th grade was in a restaurant. Restaurants are notorious for hiring illegal immigrants for cheap labor such as washing dishes, maintenance, and ect. On my first day of work I meet the main chef of the restaurant, Juan. He was from Mexico, and had a pharmacy degree. He came to America in pursuit to care for his wife and daughter. His pharmacy degree was worth next to nothing in the United States, and this is how he wound up being a restaurant chef. I felt sad for him that he had to work these long hours in a hot kitchen, while if he was born just a few miles over the board in America he could be working in a pharmacy. I understand that the United States does not have the resources and demand to provide everyone who moves here a job and life. The restricted policies help to maintain our nation’s high standards. It just hurts me to know (just like in my situation being born in Romania) that if you are born in one place over another your whole life is different. Why wouldn’t everyone have a free chance for success, health, and happiness? Just this past summer, Juan was summoned to appear in court for being an undocumented worker and citizen of the United States. They found him guilty and he was ordered to leave this country by a certain date. I haven’t spoken with him since the summer, but I believe he is still here in America but not a citizen. I have always felt sympathy for illegal immigrants who work hard for a greater cause and personal wellbeing. After listening to the lectures about illegal immigrants my mind has come to realize a few things. No matter how hard we try to stop illegal immigration, it won’t happen. American’s are lazy and if nobody is willing to take the low wage blue collar positions, I feel it shouldn’t be a problem to give them to illegal immigrants. They are humans just like you and I, but they were born in a different place. If I was in Romania, I would be working for low wages and a poor lifestyle. I was lucky enough to be brought here, why not give another grateful person the opportunity as well. There are always two sides to a fight, so although I find myself open to controlled illegal immigration, it is only my opinion and I respect anyone who opposes.

I apologize for commenting on this blog topic a week later. I hope that isn’t against policy. I want to explain how passionate I am about this blog topic though. We brough this topic up in discussion last week about how our nation decides on the 29:1 killing innocent people ratio to take out a target… WHAT?! Innocent people we are talking about. I explain to my discussion group that that would be equivalent to the government deciding that if two of our class sizes were in the way of let’s say a terrorist the government was tracking down that they could just murder each one of us for the sole purpose of killing that one guy. This is absolutely un-American, undemocratic and utterly inhuman. Killing innocent bystanders should be the number one precaution the United States Arms Forces takes into consideration!
One girl spoke about the 29:1 situation say as if Hilter was in the room with us, wouldn’t you want the military to take him down and us included. That was a difficult answer but I would think if the military had him cornered they would use all of their resources to trap him, barracked, and literally do everything in there power to catch him without sacrificing innocent lives.
What if the people we kill had the next cure for cancer, the remedy for aids in the world, the answer to social and economical problems this would doesn’t even know yet! If we were to kill a person like this that would mean more than 29 people in the world would come to suffer for our rash decision. I don’t think there is anytime, ever that it is up to another human being on whether a human should live or not. Let God, let nature, and let anything except ourselves decide this fate.
Maybe I am afraid of death. Maybe I can picture myself being one of the 29 people chosen to die for one person. To me It doesn’t add up. The wonderful men and women of the military forces have chosen to volunteer for a life risking job. They know what they are up against and what they may have to sacrifice. IF the 29 people were United States military and they had full warning of the sacrifice they were about to make, then I can understand the trigger being pulled. Other than that though, NOTHING makes sense to kill innocent people. It is not the right of the government, military, or nayone to decide who dies and who gets to live their lives with their family and friends. People are not just expendable objects you can destroy and fix. Life is life, and there is no coming back from death.

The “needy” penis lecture opened my eyes to a few things about the man-woman relationship. Prior to this lecture I thought I knew most of what needed to be known about women and how men act. I was happily proven wrong. I learned about information on both sexes and I am not quite sure which one was more enlightening.
As far as men go, I am obviously one of them and had an understanding of the Man-centered paradigm. Men have always been the more dominant sex for as long as history stems back. Even in modern times, our strive towards equality falls short. The reason is complex but I believe it starts in the root of our anatomy. The man is the giver and the female is the receiver in heterosexual intercourse. If we take a look at society, when is there ever a time that the receiver is the more dominant group? Never: homeless people beg, bosses pay workers, people on welfare, ect… I hope this analogy made sense, but to clarify, if someone is dependent on the other, they become subordinate. As far as sexes go, men and women need each other for certain things. Men need women to bare their child and women need men to have the child. One without the other won’t work.
So why women can’t dominate over men and have a women-centered world? The answer is similar to how the white race is the king of the mountain. Once one group has control and dominance over the other, especially a global trend like gender, it is nearly impossible to over throw the establishment. America has one of the more “equal” gender trends compared to other nations and religious groups worldwide.
Sorry I went on a tangent, but I had to express my mind on the subject before I answer the question of what was more enlightening, the men or women side of things. I must say after Dr. Richards showed the pictures of how women dress compared to how men do, I was shocked. I guess I never realized how uncomfortable wearing high heels are, or wearing a tight dress or skirt. Not to mention a thong! Like what girl enjoys wearing that?! Rhetorical question, but it emphasizes my expression of how crazy it is to think that women are subconsciously manipulated by men. The manipulation isn’t bad, but it is heavily present in society. I already have begun noticing women and how they dress and act. It is astonishing. The lecture on the “needy” penis offered new information that I would have never noticed on my own. I bet women in the class didn’t even realize what was happening. Society is more complex than it is thought to be.

There are many factors that cause the children to all believe the white baby doll is “good” compared to the black baby doll. These influences come from the media, society, and many of others. Kids at a young age are much like robots. They rarely create thoughts of their own and rather just soak in the world and information around them. It isn’t surprising that they would pick the white doll, because in America, white is the dominate racial group. If this same experiment was to take place in, say, Sub-Saharan Africa where most of the population is of dark skin African descent, the children would most likely believe the white doll is the “bad” on and pick the doll they more commonly see in their lives. This was more of a thought postulate with no empirical evidence, but based on the influential factors in America, it would only make sense that that would be the result.
The Media, I capitalized it because it almost deserves the extra recognition. It influences our daily lives in so many ways. Even ways that we do not notice and that is why it has become and always will be powerful. I choose to describe the media first in my response because the later evidence is influenced by the media as well. The media takes on many forms. It isn’t just the news, or interviews on television and radio that affect our culture. Movies such as Disney have always been dominantly white. For example even Disney classics such as Aladdin, the princess is of light skin although the movie takes place in the desert climate of India heavily populated by dark skin people. Aladdin isn’t the only example and but is well known among my generation. Even Lion king the villain, Mufasa, has a black main! Have you even seen a lion with a black main?! Kids get these images in their minds, associating colors with certain characteristics.
When the kids saw the two dolls, the dark skin could have reconciled many previous memories of “bad” things resembling the color of black. The devil, evil things in each movie and fairytale are given dark colors. How are the happy, safe, holy characters or figures represented? As having light attributes, of in the case of God with a shining white background and white robe. I know now of this has direct connection with the skin color of the dolls, but it certainly affects the children’s’ mind.
At such a young age, they aren’t seeing the society and recognizing that white is the dominant color of skin in most of America. They are using what they see, hear, and relate to in the media. Why would a child relate themselves to the villain? They normally wouldn’t. Children have been embedded with underlying factors that trigger white is “good” and dark is “bad”. It comes from everywhere around them!

When I first read the title of the video, “Scholarships for White Males Only,” I thought it was absurd. After listening to the interview and the reasoning for this idea, it began to become more clear and in my opinion not as crazy as it sounds. When I began applying to colleges I realized how expensive schools really are. I am not a rich white male, I live in a upper middle class community, but my parents are not nearly rich. Having to pay for three kids to go to college, myself being the last, there is not a lot of money available to pay for school. I decided to look for scholarships and began realizing how many scholarships were specifically restricted to certain minority groups. I think it is kind and all to offer these groups financial aid, but I do not believe anyone should be denied access to applying for a scholarship they are qualified for. Instead it should be solely based on the qualities at hand and the best candidate should be chosen.
Penn State’s Science department offers two large scholarships which are specifically given to women and minority groups. I am a white male and for that reason alone I was unable to apply. The other scholarships though which I am qualified to apply to offer women and minority applicants. How is this fair? The women and minority ethnic/race groups are given more of an opportunity for receiving a scholarship while I am not! I believe any scholarship should be open to all race/ethnic/gender groups.
The white male only scholarship may come off as racist or sexist, but in fact it is just trying to equalize the unfair priority given to minority groups. How is it right that an organization can offer a scholarship to only black men but when a program is started offering only scholarships to white males it becomes a problem. There must be some double standard I am not aware of… If women complain so much about not being treated equally, then programs should stop offering women only scholarships. This only further separates the diversion of equality among gender.
Do I think this white only scholarship was a good idea? No. But I do believe it sets a preliminary solution to an even greater problem. When hearing the interview it becomes evident that the overlooked white male is given unequal opportunity to scholarships. Race aside this is not right and this “white male only” scholarship was just the first step of realizing this subornment problem with scholarships. Demographics show that whites may have higher family incomes but that does not account for every white person. Scholarships should be awarded based on work ethic and volunteerism alone, not racial/ethnic/gender affiliation.

Slavery today is a larger issue then I had ever imagined. The video shown in class Thursday was eye-opening. One of the ex-slaves in the video mention that if you eat chocolate then you are eating their flesh. I understand the analogy, but I do not agree entirely with the statement. Slavery is very real, but most of the world is ignorant to its existence. Truthfully, before Sam mention during the first few lectures that there are slaves in the world today, I had no idea!
I wanted to use the blog to speak my mind about the slavery. When we were asked to eat the second piece of chocolate after being told it was made by slaves, I continued to eat the piece. My friends who sit near me question my action but I had a logical response. The chocolate was already made and the deed was done. If I did not eat the chocolate that slaves worked to create it would be a waste. If a cow is slaughtered to make a cheeseburger it is disrespectful to let it go to waste. The cow would have died for nothing.
Items made by slaves are usually much less expensive and when Dr. Richards asked us if we would still buy a product that is half the price, a good amount of people responded yes and as did I. We are college kids. Although most of our families have incomes in the middle to upper class, I know most of us have to work for our money. If he was to ask the same question to a group of our parents I strongly believe the response would be overwhelmingly, “no they wouldn’t buy half priced goods made by slaves.” Unfortunately so many people do buy items from Wal-Mart and other discount stores and for a few people to decided to stop will be such a small margin to the vast population of consumers.
Among one of the largest factors of why slavery is not being fixed faster than it is now, is because of the diffusion of responsibility. There are millions of people who have the power to make a change but all of them feel as though someone else can deal with it. This goes on until nothing gets accomplish and the problem continues. We are all responsible but one person isn’t going to change slavery in the world.
Back to the question about use eating the flesh of the slave; yes, we are consuming a product that he had to sacrifice his freedom to create, but we are not doing it out of spite or hatred towards the slaves. Most people do it unknowingly while others believe it isn’t their problem. The ones who deny the possibility of helping they are the people who should feel as though they are eating the flesh of the battered slaves. So when the guilt arises about slavery, recognize who you are and continue living.

The power of free will and determinism are strong forces. Where one goes in life and how they spend the rest of their lives are a result of it. The way my life has panned out is highly effected by both forces. I’ll start at the beginning. I was born in Romania in January of 1991. Two years earlier, Romania over throw one of the worst dictator’s the world has ever seen. The country was in terrible shape and abandoned children were being placed in orphanages without care or health treatment. Determinism factor # 1: I was adopted only six days after my birth and was brought to the United States to live in New Jersey with a loving, middle class family. Free Will factor #1: I always had a determined personality and during my education I chose to work hard and achieve high grades. I was always fascinated in science and especially physics. I applied to mostly engineering schools. Determinism factor #2: I suddenly became very interested in the universe and outer space. I decided to change my major to astrophysics after I applied to engineering schools. Only three schools on my list of eight colleges offered a variation of this major. Determinism factor #3: I chose to go to Penn State because of its cost of tuition was significantly lower than one of the two schools and Penn State had a better social atmosphere. Penn State was originally number seven on my list of eight schools and here I am! This year I actually changed my major to solely physics and if I made this (free will) decision back when I was applying to colleges I could be practically at any school on my list of eight.
My Grandma always says “everything happens for a reason.” I was born in Romania and somehow made it to central Pennsylvania getting an education beyond any I would have been given if I still lived in Romania. Where I was born though is out of my control and so was the entire adoption process, but what was in my power is my drive to succeed and become something in life. I could never waste such a blessing that I am in America. When my friends back in grade school would complain about being there, I would just be thankful that I had this opportunity that so many people took for granted. Looking to the future, I feel like I am making my own path in life. I am reaching the end of the road my parents paved for me, and need to start building my own for whoever follows me. Determinism is an my opinion on of the largest factors, there comes a time when life is at your disposal and it is your free will that will lead you into the future.

The video at the end of class about “We are all just a Bunch of Monkeys” was eye opening. I was an astronomy major as of a few months ago, and have studied the universe. It is a BIG place, with zillions of stars! Each star has the potential of having an earth like planet. In other words, we are not the only developed species. We think we are special but in a world as big as our own, we are just another creature in the universe. I like how the video showed the true nature of our being. We act like we are superior to everything! We once evolved from our closest DNA species… the chimpanzee. Now we have exhibits at the zoo with captive chimpanzees. Who are we to control them? They were once our great-great-great-….. great grandparents. We tend to forget that we are animals! We need the same essential ingredients to survive as any other species on this planet.
Now I am not a zoologist but I don’t believe other species classify themselves as extensively as we do. Sure the gorillas have superior silver-backs, or wolves declare an alpha male of their pack, but humans go far and beyond. We believe that other groups of humans are not as worth as another. Hitler believed the Jews were a disgrace to our species. Europeans thought Native Americans (the most natural form humans in my opinion) should be murder, diseased, and ejected from their land. Who would have ever believed a species would enslave another member of their species? The reason we can’t all get along is because we somewhere in the distant past lost sight that we are all alike. We may look slightly different, but we are the same species --- just monkeys!
One thing that can be said for humans is we have evolved at an accelerated rate. Both our minds and bodies have advanced. We no longer require large quantities of hair on our body for warmth, or feet that can be used like another hand. Our brains have grown tremendously, and we have analytically broken down everything on earth into primary elements. Monkeys don’t need to know these things to survive, but humans went over and above. Using our natural senses and ingenuity we created an advance civilization.
If the essence of life is happiness, was this advancement justified? Animals do what they need to survive to the next day and that is a great accomplishment. For humans, building skyscrapers or particle accelerators is a great accomplishment. What does just living become? Although it is a rhetorical question with an open-ended answer, it makes a valid point that “just living” might not be good enough to remain happy. Humans are left trying to find artificial happiness elsewhere, whether it be drugs, alcohol, or rather any addiction. No other animal on earth, abuses their body, mind, or home except humans. We may think we are better off than every other species, but if they objectively looked upon the human species they would be mortified at how we could attempt to alter our true being. We are just a bunch of monkeys.

Who do rednecks look down upon….? Great question. In 7th grade there was this new student who moved to my area. I am from Atlantic City, NJ which is rarely invaded by southerners, and this new kid was straight from the back country of Kentucky. My best friend at the time and I befriend him. His name was Scott, but we decided to just strictly call him Kentucky. His name caught on and soon after, everyone knew him by that name. Kentucky had the thickest southern accent, loved mud-riding, had trucker hats (torn at the brim of course), and talking about anything country. I eventually noticed how indecent his attitude towards other people, especially minorities. He would put down every class of humans possibly. When the whole Iraq situation and terrorist was popular, he would make fun of every Arab looking person… the guy who worked in the 7-11, or the gas station attendant as examples. Any person he though looked un-white and un-American, he would discriminate against. After the big issue over Mexicans hoping the border into the United States, he would call every Latino a “spick or wetback.” It was terrible and I did not participate in this stereotyping. The most ethnic group he targeted the most was by far the Jews. He would call everyone a Jew regardless of whether they were actually Jewish. It was absurd to the degree of how racist he was. When anyone would comment about him being a “redneck” he would take extreme offense to this and retaliate with some racial slur.
At the time I just thought he was being an ignorant white-supremacist “bastard.” Although this was the case, I know shed some sympathy for how and why he was acting like this. Rednecks are the scum of white society; they are equivalent to the Gypsies of Europe, and the hood in a ghetto urban community. They do have one thing that they pride themselves on though: They are White. They are a part of the elite racial class of the world and that is good enough for them to discriminate upon all other race/ethnic groups. I believe it is our own faults for why they are so racist. We are the ones who put down them, as if we cornered them up against a wall. They only way for them to feel good about themselves is if they put down some other class of humans. It is a cynical cycle, but it is evident with other racial groups as well. Kentucky never meant to be that rude, but rather we made him that way. The rednecks are a part of our race, and furthermore a part of the human species. In other words… we are targeting ourselves and we are the only ones to blame.

I was flabbergasted by the demonstration Dr. Richard’s presented with having the two 4.0 students categorize their peers. I always thought of race and being so blunt about the topic was taboo. He really got our minds thinking and focused on the minute physical details each race seems to possess. The surprising thing about it though was how difficult it was to categorize people by race, while “we” (as in the world) are convinced all people in a certain race look similar. Example: Asian people. When he showed us the clip of all the different Asians based on their country of origin it was clear that all people, regardless of race have individual unique physical characteristics. I never imagined I would be present in a class that categorized people by race, rather than just use picture examples. Dr. Richard’s must have used such an extreme example to break that awkward racial barrier, we all are guilty of possessing.
I thought it was interesting to see how difficult it was to place each student in a certain race category. Most students were multiracial, and even the guy from Mexico demonstrated some unexpected characteristics, that influenced the 4.0 students to believe they were Indian race. I am not sure if I would have been able to straight up tell, “Hey you…you look Asian. Stand here.” I am sure plenty of people feel the way I do about this and I blame society and the media. We are too scared that by classifying people we are offending them, and I am not sure that we are not. Dr. Richards seems comfortable enough with doing this, and that is something I wish to take from this class. I would like to no longer be nervous to say you are Asian, black, Indian, etc. We have been doing it for centuries and as long as your tone is not derogatory I think it is alright to do.
As the demonstration revealed, most people are multiracial. This proves a few things: number one, you cannot always trust exactly what your eye sees. A person could one race or another, but certain traits that are dominant will saturate the physical characteristics of an individual. Number two, in a long enough timeline back into history, we all started from the same race. Therefore when someone is racist, they should take a good look at themselves before saying anything. Number three, a racial stereotypes and prejudice die down more and more interracial relationships are occurring. This sheds some light on humanity that we are beginning slowly to accept each other for being different, and are comfortable enough to participate in an in-class demonstration like the one Dr. Richards presented.