Before class, I hadn’t really considered how I really felt about illegal immigration. It’s always portrayed in the media as being a bad thing, but I had never really sat down with the facts and formed my own opinion. I found it really interesting to hear Sam’s lecture and get a more balanced view of what immigration was all about, and started to think about the idea that technically, a lot of us are the descendants of illegal immigrants. I started to think about Native Americans and consider how they must have felt when all of these white people started coming to their land. I would guess that it’s just about the same way people feel today about immigrants from Mexico and Latin America. The cartoons that Sam showed us really helped to get my mind around the fact that no one is ever happy when foreigners come in and start taking their jobs and their land, but that it is just the natural cycle of society.

People are always going to be immigrating, and I’ve often questioned why some people can immigrate to the United States legally, while others have to run over borders and climb in to trees. Once Sam started to explain that it was because of the money the immigrants had, it all started to make sense. I can see why the government would be pickier, if the people that are crossing their borders are poor and not as educated. It can be argued that because immigrants are rich and have a college degree, they will contribute more to their new society. However, once Sam showed the example of the pear packing company that had no workers because of California policies, I would argue that illegal immigrants, the poor but hardworking, have a larger impact then the educated rich.

I don’t know that my ideas of illegal immigration have changed completely, but they have definitely shifted after Tuesday’s lecture. In an ideal world, we would all be happy and successful in our native country, and would be able to stay there to provide for our families and have the best life possible. Since that isn’t the case, I believe that illegal immigration must happen so that people who don’t have opportunities can provide a better chance for their children. My roommate’s parents immigrated to the United States when they were teenagers and now she is the first person in her family to go to college. Because her parents came to the United States, she has had more opportunities then she ever would have had in their poor Mexican village. Seeing her success and the other examples that were shown in class makes me believe that illegal immigration does have an overall positive effect on our society.

I think that it would be really easy to say that the next time a circumstance arose and I suspected that I was actively practicing nepotism, I would step away from the situation. However, after Sam’s lecture, I realized that nepotism isn’t always in your face and that I’ve benefited from it numerous times in the past. I mean who doesn’t ask their parents if they know of any friends that are looking to hire for the summer? Who hasn’t name-dropped in an interview in hopes of getting the job?
As I reflected on my past experiences with getting work, I realized that most of what I have done has been because someone else helped me get there. Most of my jobs were because I knew somebody that knew somebody. Before this class, I never would have entertained the thought that nepotism had gotten me to that place.
I have always viewed nepotism as something that is incredibly unfair and have even had thoughts that people that are a part of it must be evil. It wasn’t until I realized how basic it really is did I understand that it isn’t as extreme as I had originally thought. I also thought that Sam’s comparison to nepotism and affirmative action was really interesting. When you break them down to their most rudimentary levels, they are practically the same thing with different names.
The next time I am faced with something that I think might be laced with nepotism, I really don’t think it will be easy to turn down. Everyone is trying to do better for him or herself and it is very difficult to turn down opportunities. No matter how they are presented to you, everyone wants to have experiences that make them better, whether it is personally or professionally.
I don’t think that we can expect to see the use of this form of nepotism fade out any time soon. It is so engrained in our society that it would be even stranger if you were not trying to network and get to know people so that you could advance. I think that it is one of those things that people will just have to learn to deal with. In an ideal world, we would all have the same opportunities and know all the right people. Since that can’t be the case, we will all have to suffer. While we benefit from nepotism, we also lose out on it opportunities where others have benefited from it.
I truly believe that our world will never be a completely fair one, but we should never stop striving to reach that balance. Nepotism will always be around, but we can only do our best to try and ignore it.

When Sam started class, talking about China and how they were using our supply of coal, I immediately put myself on the defensive. I started thinking, “Who do they think they are? Coming here and stealing our resources and then using it for their own good!” It took me a couple of minutes to realize the point Sam was making with our relationship with the Middle East. I had never thought about people in the Middle East viewed what the United States is doing to their countries. I started to realize that they must be so frustrated to see these foreigners coming in and essentially stealing their nation’s resources.
I sometimes feel like a bad citizen and an unpatriotic American because I really don’t know about our situation in the Middle East. I know the basics about why we are there, but I never knew that it had anything to do with resources. The more we talked about the point of view of people in the Middle East, the more upset I became with what the United States is doing there. I understand that we are fighting for our protection, but if we are truly fighting for control of resources, then what are we doing there?
The topic that Sam spent the most time on was the issue of “Christian Invaders.” As a Christian, I had a couple of issues with what he was saying, but at one point during the lecture, I realized I had to step back and look at it from a different perspective. If I was living my life here in the United States and all of a sudden armies full of Muslims starting coming to our towns, I would start to resent them. They are just practicing their religion, and the way that people in the Middle East perceive the United States military forces.
I wish that I had thought about how people in the Middle East view the United States, and particularly our Christians, before this point in my life. I feel like with this newfound information and perspective, I will be able to view the way the world works in an entirely different way. We are all living in our own little worlds, and it is tough to look outside of our views and see what somebody else might. I thought that Sam’s lecture this week was incredibly powerful and I hope to have more lectures where I can see the view from other people’s shoes.
This lecture brought up a lot of things that I had never thought about before as well as a lot of frustration. I wanted to defend my religion, but I also wanted to keep an open mind and really get the point.

The night after the lecture, I was getting ready to go out with my friends and my one roommate was complaining about wearing heels. I thought back to class and I asked her why she was going to wear them if they made her so uncomfortable. She responded by saying that she thought she looked better in them, but I was thinking “She really can’t look that good if she’s wincing in pain the whole night!” I have often thought about why women have to always look beautiful and men really don’t have to put in any effort, and listening to this lecture, I realized that my thoughts weren’t that far off base.
Once we left the house and were at the party, I started to notice all of the guys who literally looked like they had rolled out of bed, found the closest pair of jeans and shirt with a collar, and walked out the door. All of my roommates, myself included, had each spent at least an hour doing our hair and makeup, and trying on different outfits until we found the perfect combination. The same roommate that was complaining about her heels tried on six different outfit combinations before scratching her plan entirely and putting on a whole new combo.
I think that a lot of what women do in terms of making themselves “beautiful” is done to impress or show up other women. I feel like when you go to a party, the guys are just looking at the face, the butt, and the boobs, but other girls are checking out the entire picture. I’m not sure if every woman feels like that’s what they’re doing, but to me it makes perfect sense. For example, I’m in a loving relationship and am very happy. So if I was dressing just to impress boys, then I could go out in sweatpants and not think twice. But no, I put on the uncomfortable shoes and the too tight dresses and go out and act like I enjoy it. My boyfriend knows that I’m not out hunting for other guys, but if the theory we talked about in class were completely true, then that would be what I was doing.
Though I don’t agree with the stigma of women having to look good while guys can be comfortable, I guess I can understand it. Women start out dressing to get men, because they know that’s what they want to see. However, it is their individual choice to continue to play the part. I know that I’m the victim of this “game” and I will probably continue the same routine. I feel like this male-centered world is here to say, whether it’s fair or not.

While I have never dated outside of my race, I think that it is a relationship that is really beautiful and I admire people who are committed to an interracial relationship. I think that it takes a lot of courage for people, even in today’s society, to date someone who is of a different race. People can be harsh and I feel as though it would be really hard to hold hands with a person of a different race and not feel as though people are staring at you.
I don’t feel like everyone stares or judges couples that they see who are in a mixed race relationship, but if it was me, I feel like I would be very self-conscious. I suppose that if you were to make the choice and loved a person enough to not care about what society was thinking your mindset would be completely different. I don’t know if I would ever have enough confidence to put what other people think and just go with my heart.
I have a couple of friends who are mixed race and we have talked about their parents’ relationships. Even twenty years ago, it was much harder than it is today to be a part of an interracial relationship. My friends have talked about their own struggles with being mixed race and how their parents not only had to deal with being an interracial couple, but also raising a family that doesn’t fit in to one racial category. They have said that it was really hard living in a small town where there were very few people of color at all and having to deal with all of the “looks.”
I also think that a lot of what makes things “acceptable” by people and communities is what they are used to. If people aren’t used to seeing interracial couples, there is more of a chance that they will not be comfortable. If you see an interracial couple in the middle of a city, it is not something that most people would stare at. However, if an interracial couple is linking arms walking down Main Street in a small, rural town, I feel like a lot more people would stare.
I’m not really sure why this happens, or why people can’t just accept any couple for the way they are. The way I see it, love is love and as long as two people are happy together, they should stay together. In my opinion, it shouldn’t matter if a person is black, white, tall, short, fat, skinny, straight, or gay, they should have the opportunity to love others without judgment. I think that interracial couples need to be accepted by all and hopefully we will see a day when every couple is.

As a child, I was definitely in the pre-awakening stage for a really long time. I had friends of all different races, but looking back, I don’t remember feeling like they were different then me. We were all kids and we all just wanted to play together and have fun. The first time I really thought about race was when my younger brother was talking about his “brown friend,” who was actually an African American. Though I had realized that some of my friends looked different than I did, I had never really put them in to different “categories.” My little brother had not done it intentionally, maybe he had heard someone else call a person “brown,” or maybe it was just an observation.
Ever since I realized that there was this classification race and everything that came along with this system of organization, I have felt some sort of guilt for being white. I knew that most of the people around me we were white, so I had always assumed that white was the majority. No one has ever told me that I should be politically correct, or that race is a topic that does not come up in polite conversations. I learned this on my own because of the guilt I knew I would feel if I did bring up the topic.
It really does not make sense why I should feel guilty about being white. I mean from the start it has been out of my control. But I think that all white people do feel some sort of guilt at one point. If you learn about some of the statistics about the disadvantages of people of color, as we have in this class, it starts to become more clear why we should feel guilty. As individuals, I do not think that it is right to feel guilty, but when we look at what society is doing to people of color, we should feel guilty as a group.
As I have gotten older and learned more about race relations, I do not really feel as guilty as I once did. I know that it is not my fault that people are discriminated against. What I do know is that it is my responsibility to make individual choices to make sure that I do not contribute to the problem. I think that if all people took on this responsibility, we would have less reason to feel guilty about our race. As I continue to learn more about what classifies us as people, I will become more comfortable and embrace my prior feelings of guilt. I do not want to feel guilty for the rest of my life because I was born the way I am, just like I’m sure people of other races don’t want to feel guilt.

Like a lot of things in this class, I had never really thought about the effects of affirmative action on the “majority” population. I guess it’s something that’s crossed my mind every once in a while, like when I was applying to college, and now once again as I begin my job search. I ask myself if I am being gypped of a job because a school district is trying to meet a certain quota.
I have never done research on how school district’s hire elementary school teachers, but I have looked at job openings in certain areas. Take for instance The School District of Philadelphia. On their list of vacancies, they don’t say anything about specifically hiring white teachers, but they do have an option for positions were they need African American teachers. I find this interesting because of all that I have learned in Sociology, I see this as a sort of racism. Why doesn’t the job listing just say, “whites need not apply”? I know that is probably a really harsh statement, and not completely true, but it could definitely interpreted that way.
Though I can’t really relate to people considered in the “minority,” I think it’s a little unfair that opportunities might be denied to me because there is a number that needs to be met. I really feel like institutions, whether it is schools, companies, or other groups, should evaluate people based on their qualifications and experiences. I know that there are valid points to both sides of the argument, but in my experience, it is always what you don’t have that seems better.
I do not think there is a way to fix the problems of affirmative action without making one group or another upset. As a white woman, I do think that sometimes affirmative action is taken too far, but I really do not know what I as an individual can do about it. I know I have more of an advantage according to affirmative action because I am a female, but what if I was a black female? What if my parents made less money? I feel as though all of these are factors when making decisions to fulfill affirmative action requirements.
There are so many laws and policies that are in place that would have to be changed so that we can one day have a completely equal and fair system. I still am a bit unclear on how affirmative action works on a more technical level, but I am interested to learn more. I hope that we can talk about it and hear more about the pros and cons of affirmative action in class so that I can shape my opinion and clarify my thoughts on what to believe.

I think that there is a similar amount of racism towards both groups, I just think that there are some forms that are more blatant than others. As a white woman, I have never been the victim of racism, so I cannot speak from personal experience. However, I know what I’ve seen going on around me.
I have a good friend who’s black and while she feels as though she has never been discriminated in the classroom or workplace. However, her older brother had trouble finding a job once he graduated college. He was well educated and professional but the job search continued. He was either “overqualified” or the company was “going in a different direction.” It might be hard to say that he had so much trouble because of the color of his skin, but it made me think twice.
I don’t have anyone close to me who is Muslim, so I am not familiar with their experiences, but I have seen how the community acts towards these individuals. We all saw what happened in the aftermath of September 11. People became very leery of anyone who looked like they were from the Middle East. If a person was wearing any sort of religious dress, they were alienated.
I have heard of many stories of individuals being “randomly selected” to further searching when going through security checkpoints. Most of the time, the selecting doesn’t seem to be so random after all. In fact, the people don’t even have to look ethnic, but their name can “sound” Arabic and they are preselected for screening. I wonder if there was a war amongst white people, would they target people with the name John Smith?
I really think that in these times of war in the Middle East, people are nervous about the unknown. They don’t know the cultural aspects of the Islam religion and believe that all Muslims are dangerous. As we heard from the Muslim students in class, they people that are the source of terrorism are extremists. Again, it’s like all people being afraid of Christians because of the Ku Klux Klan.
I hope that one day there will be a world that is free of discrimination, but by looking at what is happening with the Muslim citizens of America, and the world, that day seems like it is very far away.
I believe that lot of this which has more racism question has to do with whose shoes you’re standing in. If you’re a black person in America, your answer might be different then if you are a citizen who practices Islam. Coming from a neutral perspective, I don’t know if I can say who is the target of more racism, it wouldn’t be fair.

I think that it is incredibly difficult to tell if the huge number of arrest made against different races is because of racism or because of the high concentration of police force in urban areas unless you’re a police officer. I can see both sides of the argument and I really have no idea which side is more accurate.
I think this idea of racism in the criminal justice system is definitely plausible, but I do not think that it is the only factor. Not every cop is a bad cop and many are there solely to protect their community. I think that there are some police officers who have the wrong intentions and will specifically target people because of the color of their skin. I think a lot of this depends on the area in which the police force is working. If people do not live in a diverse community, they might be more leery or suspicious of individuals who are of a different race. Having said that, that does not mean that police officers that are from areas with many different cultures cannot be racist.
The second part of the question has to deal with the proportion of people of color in urban areas. I do think that this may be one of the reasons why the percentages are inflated. In many of the urban areas that are heavily patrolled by cops, it seems as though most of the population is people of color. Whether it is because there is more law enforcement on the street or some other factor, I think this has an impact on who is getting arrested.
As far as the courts and judicial system go, I am not really sure where the bias lies. I’m sure that there are judges who have the tendency to be racist, but I don’t think that’s the whole issue. Maybe it goes back to the whole urban area idea. If a judge sees the same crime over and over and over again, I would assume that they might become hardened and just feel like sending the people to prison instead of giving them another chance. On the other hand, in a more rural setting if a judge only sees the same types of crimes every so often, they might be more lenient depending on the severity of the crime.
I honestly think it’s hard to come to a concrete decision as to whether things are based on racism if it is not blatant. I may think that cops, judges, and others in the judicial system are racist, but I really can’t say for sure unless I am one of them. I think that this may be one of those issues that we will never know for sure, and that might very well be a good thing.

When I look at where I am right now, and where I have come from, I can’t help but that think both free-will and determinism have played a part in my path. I suppose I would attribute more of my status as a college student to determinism, but some of the choices I have made have affected me.
Both of my parents are college graduates so to me, it was never really a choice of whether I wanted to continue my education, it was assumed. I suppose that if I had told my parents that I didn’t want to go to college and just get a job, they would have been very hesitant. I think they eventually would have accepted and respected my decision, but the idea is something that is very foreign to them. There are very few members of my family that have not gone to college, and even those people are distant relatives, no one in my immediate or even close extended family. I would love to say that it was my choice whether I went to college or not, but really I think I was always destined to come.
I would then want to say that it was my own free-will that I came to Penn State. I mean I was the one that ultimately made the decision, right? But I am not the one paying for college. I do have loans but my parents are footing a large portion of the bill. If I had come from a home with a different socioeconomic status, my circumstances could have been completely different. I might have only been able to afford the local community college. Or maybe if my family was upper class, I would have had the opportunity to attend an Ivy League school. My grades could have gotten me in, but my family’s wallet couldn’t.
Before this lecture, I had never truly realized how my background really affects the way I live my life. I thought that my choices were what got me to where I am. Now that I evaluate my life further, I realize that a lot of the opportunities and experiences I have had all my life would never have been possible if I didn’t come from the family I have. I had always just assumed that I was control of where I went in life, but now that I think about it, I really don’t think I am. I have started to wonder if the choices I make in the future will truly be mine. Once I have my own children, my circumstances will affect them. The cycle can continue for generations to come. That’s a huge concept to grasp.