Sam, thank you so much for sharing this with us. These are words that most of us would never expect to hear from a prison inmate unless, of course, you know one. I have never known a “lifer”, but I do know people who have served time in prison for various offenses. I am not suggesting in any sense that these individuals have the same mentality as those who are sentenced to life, but it has given me the understanding that the majority of those in jail are just like the rest of us. They are people who have made poor choices. Whether intentional or not, this is something we all have been guilty of at some point or another. I’m sure there have been times in my life when I could have accidentally caused an accident while looking at my phone while driving. I could have hit a person. I could have looked down when a bunch of preschoolers were crossing the road and hit a few of them. After thinking about all of the things that could happen I may never look down at my phone again, but seriously, things like this really do happen to people. I bet that if I caused an accident like this I would end up in jail for a long, long time. I don’t consider myself a bad person and I certainly wouldn’t do something like that o purpose, but I would have done a bad thing and the fact that it was an accident wouldn’t really make a difference at all. And I know there are times when I’ve been angry or emotional enough to do something bonkers. What if one time I slipped up and went to far? I think no, that could never happen to me but who is to say that this isn’t the case for some of those sentenced to life in prison? As a person who is in most cases terrified by the idea of breaking the rules, it is usually incredibly difficult for me to understand why someone could land his or herself in a situation where something so drastic could happen. However, if I stop to think about it for another minute, it becomes pretty clear that there are circumstances where something this drastic could happen to almost anyone. I know that there are many individuals in prison who should absolutely be there forever without a prayer of being released, but how many people could that really apply to? Look at someone like Sam’s friend. A man who is remorseful for his actions and wants to help a classroom of college kids learn about his life, someone who has really learned to appreciate the littlest things in life. He is probably more wise than most of us, yet he has spent the majority of his life in a cell. There are those in prison who are just like us, and there may even be some that are much better than us.

If you had told me at the beginning of Thursday’s lecture that I would find an understanding of many of the Iraqis perspective on the American invasion, I probably would have laughed. I understood that there are radicals and they were most likely the people that most Americans fear and that not all of the Iraqi and Afghani people want to destroy America. However, I did not consider the fear that most ordinary Iraqi and Afghani people must have of us. How terrifying it must be for them to have their towns and cities invaded by American troops. I know that if my father saw troops coming into our town that he would immediately do everything that he could to protect my family, even if it meant fighting. I am not sure if I could ever explain that to my father in real life, but I know for a fact that that is exactly what he would do. As far as the videos that we watched of the Christian “missionaries”, who were literally tricking the Iraqi people into joining Christianity even if it meant putting their lives in danger, I cannot fathom a god that would approve of such behavior. I am no longer religious, but I grew up in a very religious and Christian community. I actually remember a Baptist family across the street from me trying to convert me from Catholicism as a 7 year old (I’m talking parents here, not other 7 year olds), so I can definitely see groups of people traveling half way across the world in order to try to switch the Iraqi and Afghani peoples to their way of thinking. The man that they interviewed about missionary work overseas seemed pathetic in his reasoning for saving people in the afterlife as opposed to the “physical pain” that they could suffer here. So, I am left wondering what it is that our country is thinking? Why is it that we think that we can bully smaller countries into taking their natural resources for own use and for our own financial benefit? Of course the people in Iraq and Afghanistan are upset. They must be terrified of the soldiers that are patrolling their streets. They must be confused as to why Americans have come across the globe in order to patrol their streets for that matter. I do not know what it is like to be in their position, but I can only imagine that I would not feel very comfortable with it. It is not right for a country to take the natural resources away from its native lands. Americans and Iraqi and Afghani peoples are dying everyday for the financial benefit of the United States Government. I do not know what there is for us to do about it, but I do know that it is terribly unfair.

What terrifies me about a video game like this is the amount to which it will desensitize society to rape crimes. As games like this become more prevalent in society, persons become less and less concerned with the presence of them. When a company puts out a product that says “it’s okay to assault women in a virtual world”, it’s going to translate into something much worse. Clearly, this is despicable. There is very little need to discuss this aspect of the idea of this game. Some have argued that as a result of playing a game where you can virtually rape a woman, it will decrease the likelihood that the person will attempt to do so in real life. Wrong. I would bet my life that this is one hundred percent incorrect. By allowing people to relish in these thoughts and spend time imagining exactly how the encounter will play out, they are not releasing these thoughts from their minds, but learning how to better plan them. Sigmund Freud used to have a theory that in order to prevent persons from having a huge explosion of anger, they should release small amounts of their anger on a regular basis. Well, that theory was disputed and disproved a very long time ago. In fact, researchers found that those who regularly displayed their anger were more likely to “blow up”. So to those who argue that gaming programs like these could prevent rapists from taking actions outside the virtual world, it seems likely that it could result in the exact opposite. I’m all for free speech and for allowing the public to view whatever kinds of materials that they choose, but there has to be a limit as to what is made readily available to society. I do not think that games such as this should be sitting in an aisle at Walmart, but if there was an adult store that offered such games, it would be fairly similar to many of the products that they already offer. I do not support such trash but I can’t help but think that we already offer are just as bad. Can we really limit society to this and let the others go without passing the same judgments? I bet there are thousands upon thousands of people in American society who would claim to never want to play a game like this but privately wish to test it out. This does not mean that I think it’s a good idea to add something as perverted as this to our already sex-crazed society, but I do not think there is any way to truly and rightfully stop it. This could hurt a lot of people and frighten many of them as well, but its is a small price to pay for the freedoms that we have in this country.

All right, I feel incredibly awkward talking about this, but I don’t think I should so I’m going to fight through it and hopefully learn to feel a little more comfortable with the subject. My period is something that I hide from every male figure in my life. I am embarrassed by it and terrified of an unexpected visit or whatever you’d like to call it. My cycle is very sporadic so I never know when it will begin or when it will end and that sucks. The doctors do not know what implications this will have just yet, but it terrifies me because I may not be able to get pregnant. My mother knows this and my girl friends know this, but not one male figure in my life is aware of it. My father, my boyfriend, my guy friends are all blissfully ignorant because I would never consider talking to them about it. The more I think about it, the more I realize that it is wrong for women to feel so ashamed to talk about something so natural. I don’t want to feel awkward about it, but I do. Is this really a result of living in a man’s world? I guess it must be. I think about being a woman every day. Like Laurie, I do not think myself unable to compete with men on any level, but if I’m walking down the street alone at night, I think about being a woman. If I see someone giving me a look that makes me feel uncomfortable, I think about being a woman and if I start bleeding and begin that really painful week of my period, I think about being a woman. On a side note, my female roommate just asked me what I was writing about and when I told her I was blogging about my period, she laughed. She said, “You’re joking right?!”. When I told her that I wasn’t, she told me I was gross. I feel gross talking about it. It’s like writing about shaving my legs or something, except worse and way more personal. So how do we change this? How do we convince both men and women that it is okay to talk about menstruation? Maybe, we should teach children from a young age that it is perfectly normal and that it is something that every woman goes through. Maybe, we should encourage woman to be open about their bodies the way that men are so that they feel less awkward about their cycles. In any case, this is something that needs to change in order to better our society. I’m tired of the secret women’s club where we share secrets about our cycles in private. I’d like to be able to share how I’m feeling with men too. I think I deserve it.

I think issues like this are fairly common, but that certainly does not make them right. I went to private all girls Catholic high school where anything that could make a person look different was prohibited. This included hair dye, make-up, piercings unless it was a single ear hole. What we weren't aware of is that this also included same-sex partners. Of course, this was never said out loud, but it became very clear to us during our senior year that any lesbian activity associated with our school was out of the question. There was a "MySpace raid” which consisted of faculty members searching all 400 students online to see what their personal pages entailed. Many girls got reprimanded for their appearance and after school activities, but one member of our senior class received a significantly larger punishment. She was a lesbian and had pictures with her girlfriend on her personal webpage. There was no drinking, drugs or explicit activity found, but a simple kiss was enough for her to receive an ultimatum. She was no longer to be associated with our school and asked to leave. Her sexual preferences were not allowed. Many students were outraged, but a surprising number of the girls were completely understanding of the school’s decision. This was something that I’ll never forget. I was devastated to see my friend leave and shocked by my school’s intolerance for her sexual orientation. It was a very eye opening experience for me. I feel as though the situation at Itawamba County Agricultural High School is very similar to the one that occurred at my high school. I hope this is a situation that is becoming less frequent with time, but the fact that it occurs at all is horrifying. We are taught to follow our hearts and to treat one another as we would like to be treated, yet the same people who are delivering this message to us are breaking the rules. How incredibly hypocritical of them. I hope that more students will stand up for themselves like Constance is doing. I hope that situations like this will continue to acquire international media attention to remind schools like this one in Mississippi that we will not tolerate such judgmental and restraining behaviors from our “authorities”. They claim that the prom will disrupt their education, but what they are failing to realize is the impact that allowing Constance to attend the prom with her girlfriend could have on their student body. It could teach them that they are free to love whomever they chose and that is worth more than any algebra class could ever teach them. Shame on them for turning such a wonderful opportunity around to imply that this type of love in unacceptable or unnatural.

I actually read an article recently on Huffington Post about the lack of diversity on ABC’s The Bachelor. My mother loves this show so I’ve seen it a few times over the years and I can’t ever remember a non-white contestant appearing on the show. According to the article, the show has had TWO minority contestants throughout the 6 seasons that have aired thus far. TWO?! Come on! I highly doubt that there has been such a lack of minority applicants to this popular TV show over the past 6 years. I mean, that’s practically impossible, unless, that many people are just too smart to embarrass themselves on this particular show. If this is not a coincidence, then what is it? Is this blatant racism appearing on one of the three largest television networks in our country? Can that even happen anymore?
I’m going to perform a quick experiment. Right now, I’m watching CNN Live right now as an African American congressman (Rep. James E. Clyburn, Majority Whip) speaks to an African American reporter (Don Lemon). So, society is okay with showing diversity in a hard news setting. Let’s check out the commercials, which I’ll consider to be of an “entertainment” quality because of the purpose of attracting viewers attention to products. Four commercials. All white. Oh wait, a black guy just got hit over the head with a mallet in the last one and was on screen for about one second. There were actually more squirrels than minorities shown during the commercial break. The number of humans during the commercial break totaled 34. That means that minorities counted for about 3 percent of the persons shown. Minorities make-up about one-third of the population as of 2005 so about 11 non-white persons should have appeared during the break in which we’ve seen a whopping one. Is this yet another coincidence or are we perhaps further behind in diversifying entertainment medias than we’d like to think? Does this mean the United States is still a little racist?
Racism is something that is very difficult for me to understand. For the life of me, I really can’t see why people care so much about someone looking a little different than they do. It reminds me of the school bully, which I guess relates back to the King of the Hill example we’ve discussed in class. The bully always has to pick on the kid that’s a little different to cover up some strange psychological insecurities that he or she is facing on the inside. So are our media representatives still acting like first graders or are they broadcasting what most people are comfortable with seeing? Sadly, I think it is the latter, which determines what airs on most television stations. Somehow, we need to get across the message that we like diversity and that we want to see minorities and white people battling it out for the same guy on TV. We want to buy that product on that commercial from minority spokespeople! We want the next generations to live without having to feel prejudiced against or uncomfortable with different colors! So show us diversity ABC and commercial TV.

I’ve grown up with the LGBT community my entire life. Gay and lesbian members of my family have partners and children and it isn’t something that we think twice about. They are supportive, attentive and wonderful parents and much more efficient than many of the heterosexual parents that I know. I hate that they don’t have the same rights as heterosexual couples. What Sam said in class is absolutely true. This is another step in the Civil Rights movement. It is not okay to take away the parent of a child just because the parents are homosexual. I never considered immigration rights for same-sex couples before this video. I think this issue is much bigger than I could ever have imagined. This is something that needs to be fixed immediately. We cannot allow any more spouses to be left without any financial support or unable to benefit from their partner’s health insurance benefits or getting deported from the country because they fell in love with someone of their own sex. What is even more frightening is that there are many countries where the laws are a million times more severe. Uganda recently passed a law stating that a person caught with homosexual activity will be sentenced to death and if you know someone who is homosexual and you don’t turn them in, you can be sentenced to death as well. What is everyone so afraid of? What about this makes people so outraged that they would actually kill someone else for it? Over Thanksgiving break my cousin came out to me and shortly after to the rest of my family. I was so proud of him for being so brave. But why does someone have to be so brave to talk about how they love? My family was incredibly supportive, but I could tell how shell-shocked my uncles and father were. My dad says he’s just worried about him having to be different and that he doesn’t want others to judge my cousin or to think differently about him because he is gay. I have a very serious question that I want to ask those who cannot come to terms with this. So what? I mean, seriously, why on earth do they care? What business is it of theirs? What effect could this possibly have on them? What difference does it make? When you really think about it, it doesn’t make any difference at all to a straight person, but with the laws that we have in our country and in the world, it makes a huge difference to someone who is LGBT. It means that they cannot have the same rights as straight people. It means that they have to fight immigration laws, adoption laws, insurance laws, and a million other kinds of law. But why?

I once met a guy who was convinced that life had dealt him the worst possible hand. “I’ve got a 2 and a 7,” he’d say. “There ain’t much you can do with that.” I didn’t understand a lot about poker, but I did know that he was using the factors in life beyond his control as an excuse to take himself out of the game. In his eyes, it wasn’t even worth playing. It was true that certain elements of “the cards he was dealt” were incredibly difficult to overcome, but I don’t think that a person’s situation in life should ever stop them from trying their best to be somebody. Maybe, I don’t really know. I’ve been extremely fortunate as far as what I was born into. So, I can’t really say that if I were in another person’s shoes that I would work night and day to make something of myself even when everyone else told me that I couldn’t. What I do know, is that even though I have been born into a great life where I have numerous opportunities at my fingertips, I have experienced some tremendous blocks on my path to “success”. These were situations completely beyond my control and, more often than not, a person who experiences such things will lose their path or lose their minds. I haven’t. I can understand how others like me can no longer function properly, but with strength and determination, it is very possible to save yourself. I am not saying that it always works and I am not saying that it is in any way, shape, or form easy, but it is possible. It may be true that those in less fortunate situations than mine are more likely to experience trauma and the combination may be entirely too much to handle, but I still have hope that anyone can overcome anything if they try hard enough. So, I guess I do believe that both determinism and free will play a part in determining how one’s life will pan out, but, along with that, I think that our free will is stronger. I think that our free will can allow us to overcome obstacles that stand in our way time after time. But, like I said, early, I don’t really know. I can’t judge other people’s lifestyles because I’ve only experienced my own. I hope that I could keep my strength and determination if placed in a less fortunate lifestyle, but to claim that I could easily beat the odds would be a lie. I know that my free will has given me the ability to overcome obstacles that others struggle with and I will hold on to the hope that anyone can do anything that they put their minds to. So, I told my poor hand poker playing friend that it isn’t about the cards your dealt, its whether or not you try to play the game. And he decided to play. Life for him turned out much better than he thought to. He just needed to get in the game.

I’m glad that Brooks wrote this article because the familiar “white hero” tale has been really irking me for quite some time. While I have not seen Avatar, I have seen Pocahontas so apparently I have the storyline down. However, most of the “white hero” cinema that has bothered me over the years is Disney movies. I loved watching Disney princess movies as a child and, much to my poor Mother’s delight, would watch the same one repeatedly. Whether it was Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, or The Little Mermaid, I would dream about growing up to be just like the beautiful and brave princesses that I saw on the TV screen. I always wondered what it must have been like to grow up with these incredibly popular movies and be black or brown. I still can’t understand for the life of me why Disney continually produced movies with white heroes and heroines. Honestly, even as a child, I thought this was pretty messed up and not necessarily because I really understood the meaning of it, but because I had black hair and I thought Snow White was ugly, so it was hard for me to pretend to be the other girls because they had different hair colors than me. However, it made me think that looking completely different from the girl who was always the most brave and the most beautiful must be really hard. It took until the 1990s to get to Aladdin, which featured Arabs (at least I’m assuming based off the song Arabian nights), but one nonwhite cast out of dozens of Disney movies isn’t enough. I remember the first time I saw an advertisement for the most recent Disney film The Princess and the Frog. I was momentarily happy. “Alright,” I thought, “they’re finally doing a film about a black girl that all little girls can look up to.” About 20 seconds later, I realized that they turn her into a frog about five minutes into the movie, but don’t worry not everyone turns into a frog. Her white friend remains human and stays with her throughout the film. You have got to be kidding me. Actually, I’m still pretty mad about it. I’m sure little girls will still idolize the princess from the film, but really Disney? You finally give us a black girl and she’s on the screen for less than a quarter of the movie? I think its time for the people in the movie industry to make things a bit more equal when it comes to casting. I’m absolutely sick of seeing the “white hero” over and over again especially when it comes to films for children. So, now that I’m fairly angry over the issue of inequality in the film industry, I think I won’t be going to see Avatar after all.

I worked on a research project about stereotypes of women in the Middle East for a project last semester. In my research, I found that it is the Western world’s view of these women that bothers them most. It is not their burqas. Western society depicts the women of the Middle East as submissive, docile, and underprivileged, but what do we really know about their feelings towards their way of life? In my very limited knowledge, I know that there are some women who resent that their religion wants them to remain fully covered. These women generally dress more like those we would see on the streets of State College. However, the majority of women in this society use their veils to symbolize their beliefs much like a Catholic woman might wear a crucifix around her neck. I have a hard time understanding why such a diverse country like the United States cannot accept another society being a little different. It’s a piece of cloth not handcuffs. Maybe the West doesn’t have to save these women. Maybe the West just has to be a little more UNDERSTANDING of these women. We are not very often exposed to media that shows us the lives of those in the Middle East. Most of what we hear on the news or see in a movie is about the terrorists, which have caused so many Americans and Westerns to fear the Middle East and to think of it only as a land of terroristic threats waiting to happen, but they are people just like us. While they may not have the exact same interests as we do or the same culture as we do, they most likely have many of the same values and hopes and dreams. As far as the French government debating banning burqas in their country, well, that seems absolutely ridiculous to me. A burqa is not a symbol of oppression or evil or terror. It is simply a religious symbol of piety. This is something that should never be taken away from a person. There is no reason that France or any other country for that matter should strip its citizens of their religions unless they want to recede about 100 years in history. To take their burqas will not transform them into “enlightened French citizens”. Instead, it will build resentment from Middle Eastern women towards the French government. In order to turn them into enlightened French citizens, the French need to welcome these women with open arms, introduce their culture to them, learn about the Middle Eastern culture from them, and bring about an understanding of the way each other views life. That would certainly prove to be much more useful than forcing them to expose themselves when they feel as though it is against their god’s wishes.