This is an interesting question, and one which we discussed briefly in my discussion group as well. At the start of the semester, most of the things I learned in Soc 119 were new and interesting. Especially in the first few classes, it seemed that most of the material was going for the “shock factor”. Even the quiz we took at the start seemed to be made up of questions that very few people in the US would know the answers to. When we went over the answer, nearly every one was surprising until we all started expecting the most shocking answer to be the true one.
Since that time, the material has changed a lot. It is all very informative, of course. I never knew a single thing about the stages of race identification and acceptance, and I doubt I would ever had learned them had I not taken the class. Despite the informative nature of all of the new information, nothing is particularly shocking enough to be “mind changing”.
I came into Soc 119 as a pretty open-minded person. As a white girl with mainly white friends, I knew my race relations knowledge was somewhat limited, but I was also really interested in improving and changing it. That is, after all, why I chose to take the class in the first place.
There is nothing I can sit here and say has absolutely changed my opinion or my mind throughout the semester. I do think, however, that this class has given me a lot of more to think about. And, to answer the second part of this question, I do think a lot of it has made a difference and met something to me.
A few weeks ago when the sun finally came back to State College and everybody over 21 flocked to Café 210 to drink outside in the warm weather, I was waiting in a particularly long line to get inside to meet some friends. Some girls behind me, who were white and quite stereotypically the Penn State “sorority girl” type, were chatting away quite loudly about nothing. They looked at an outside table of black students and one girl loudly declared, “What a waste of a table. Like, that would be the perfect table. And it’s wasted on them.”
There’s never been a point in my life or racial identity that I could have ever imagined making such a statement myself. Just hearing it made me want to turn around and ask if the girl was kidding. I didn’t involve myself in her drunken conversation, however, because I realized that there are so many people in the world who need a class like Soc 119. Even though this class has not really changed my mind, it has absolutely opened it. I see things a bit clearer now, and I wish that others were able to have the opportunity to open their minds as well.

This video was one of a few we have watched in class which really stuck with me afterwards. I had heard of the results of studies with race dolls before, but never seen a study actually occurring. The results are difficult to fully interpret. There is a lot more going on behind this choice than we first realize, and I do not know if all of it is necessarily bad or as “disturbing” as it seems at first.
We discussed this video in my discussion group and somebody brought up the fact that in America, the majority of citizens are white. For this reason, white has become somewhat of a standard of beauty. Should the same study be conducted in China, the chosen doll would look completely differently. Maybe even a white child would choose an Asian doll as the most beautiful.
In trying to explore this idea I came across numerous articles and re-creations of the Clark doll experiment. All of them seemed to produce about the same results. I found an article in the American Journal of Sociology which even described various versions of the “doll experiment” conducted across the country. As I read through it, I was surprised to find that our predictions about standards of beauty did not hold true. Children in various countries, including South Africa and England, still chose the Caucasian doll as the most beautiful.
Of course this information does not really prove or disprove the theory above, but it is something interesting to think about. Is it the media which is so greatly affecting the views of children? As a volunteer in a suburban Philadelphia daycare, I am always surrounded by many white children. They have many white dolls. Recently, however, many of the girls have been selecting toys and dolls related to Disney’s new princess. The surprising part? She’s black.
Kids are a lot smarter than we give them credit for, and they pick up on the feelings and things going on around them. They are far more intuitive than adults realize. For a child, choosing a doll might be based on the color of her hair, the style of her dress, how tall she is, or the color of her skin. It is really hard to tell what makes the choice simple and understandable versus ridden in racism and self-hate. Maybe there needs to be a change in the media, or maybe a change in the way parents teach their children about race and identity. I am clearly not in a position to say. My research into the subject did not really give me the extra insight I was hoping for, but it definitely made the video stick in my mind even longer than it already had.

One additional portion of the article I find to be completely ridiculous is the sense of outrage over a female wanting to wear a tuxedo to prom. If only this newly imposed “dress code” could reach a lot further than just forcing students to fit into our gender-based societal norms. What about the revealing, offensive, ridiculous, or otherwise disturbing so-called prom attire that many students choose to wear to the event? Is it only same-sex couples which make others apparently “uncomfortable”? I highly doubt there is as much attention given to the other absurdities at prom.
There is not a lot left to say about the need for acceptance in our society. Hasn’t it all been harped over a million times by now? Stories and events like these just set us back in our progress to finally get over all these lines which divide us. Prom might be an outdated tradition, but it is only because of rules and restrictions like those imposed by this high school.

What is a high school’s job if not to educate, prepare, and encourage students? Prom is meant to be a celebration of an upcoming graduation and giant step in a teenager’s life. It is meant to be a festivity in honor of the four years of hard work the school and student have both put in to developing and bettering their lives. How contradictory is it for a high school to cancel this occasion based on the disapproval of an innate characteristic of one of their students? Accepting one another as we are is one of the simplest yet most powerful tools our society has. If we could all just support the good people, regardless of their sex, race, or sexual orientation, then our world could be in such a better shape than it currently is.

What an interesting story this is - one which seems so unfortunately out of place with the progress and acceptance slowly developing in our world today. There are a million reasons why prom is an outdated, overly emphasized, ridiculous tradition. My good friend was a senior at a private Catholic high school on Long Island when her prom was canceled. The school’s reasoning? The extraordinary amounts students were spending on prom attire, transportation, and weekend plans. Though the prom experience has in many places escalated into an expensive and unnecessary fiasco, it still seems ridiculous for a school board to control what and where their students choose to spend their time and money. It seemed ridiculous to me since I heard about it a few years ago. After reading this article, I cannot believe I have found a more controlling and offensive reason for a school board to get so involved with students personal lives.

I do not see a large difference between male and female couples adopting children. Though I do think it is important for children to have both male and female role models in their lives, these models do not necessarily have to be only their parents. A family should be a support system which spans far beyond just parents and children. There are a lot of issues surrounding gay adoption, but the bottom line is that children need positive family systems, a trait which is not dependent on parental sexuality.

Today there are plenty of children who are raised by only one parent. How is this more acceptable than being raised by two loving parents who were both obviously interested in adoption? As Sam said in class, gay couples never have kids by accident. Adoption is a long process, where potential parents are thoroughly screened and approved by many different social workers and adoption agents. If all parents were required to go through this screening before having children, we would likely have far fewer dysfunctional families and childhoods in our society.
I know that lesbian couple adoption happen more frequently, perhaps because of women’s internal motherly instinct. I do not think, however, that gay male adoption is a problem. Having two positive role models in one’s life is more than what many children with straight parents can say. If we focused more on finding parents who want to raise children and provide them with the best opportunities, support systems, and love possible, the question of sexuality would become a far smaller issue.

Furthermore, I agree with an above point that having homosexual parents does put an added strain of a child. There are a lot of factors, however, which put strain on a child. In my opinion, if somebody is raised with loving parents who explain to them that it is okay to be whoever or whatever you are, then that person would have the power to ignore any ridiculous comments about their parents. Having gay parents is no different than having straight parents. It is not about your parents’ sexualities which makes your childhood good or bad. It is about how they treat you, and how they prepare you for the world and the cruelties you will face no matter what your home situation may be.

It is hard for me to understand why people are so against gay adoption. If gays are interested in having children and willing to go through the difficult process to adopt them, then I am confident they will make good parents. Let’s worry more about the teenage girls, single parents, and dysfunctional families with children, and less about those who are fully prepared and highly interested in having a child.

The most insulting part of Governor Bauer’s statements, it seems, is not just that he likens welfare recipients to animals. It is that he likens these recipients to animals and therefore suggests not “feeding them” so that they cannot “breed”. Does providing welfare encourage more welfare recipients? I do not know if this is the case, but I do know that the statement was horribly inappropriate.

I do agree that something needs to be done to restructure the welfare system. I do not claim to know an exceptional amount about the system, but from the statistics and stories I have heard about the system, it does not work quite in the way it intends to. It all goes back to an old proverb about teaching man to fish. If you give somebody money they will be able to purchase their groceries/necessities for the day, but if you assist them in finding a job and setting up a better life, then they will be able to provide for themselves for a much longer time.

Welfare is a system set up for a reason, and to insinuate that those who are benefiting, in whatever small way they do benefit, from the system are “animals” is a horrible stereotype. There are people on welfare who should not be. There are people who need to find a better way to provide for their families, or who are capable of finding a job and just choose not to. I do not doubt this. However, there are people on welfare for all the right reasons. These are the reasons the system was set up in the first place.

If the people on welfare have become “animals” who should not be “fed,” then that is the fault of the government and those who are running the system, not of those who are following the rules which are set up for them.

Stereotyping an entire section of the population as “animals,” has a horrible, and somewhat racist connotation. The masses on welfare are not uncivilized, untrained, inhumane. They are those who have had trouble in their lives, and are experiencing financial difficulties. If the government could set up a better system which provides jobs and training/educational opportunities for those who need it, then welfare would not be quite as necessary. But as the system exists currently, those on welfare have very little chances of ever getting off welfare.

It is true that if you feed an animal once, they are likely to continue coming back again and again. I understand the idea of likening this to welfare recipients in that fact, but to actually insinuate that the recipients are animals is just offensive. It is a mistake and a racist/rude comment that nobody should make, particularly not a politician.

This article is one of the most interesting recent 'airplane mixups' (and there seem to be quite a few these days) that I have heard! It is funny to think that a simple prayer is what forced an airplane to land. Imagine how many prayers are said each and every single time an airplane takes off. I must admit I have been guilty of such a disturbance, as I clench the arm rests during a flight takeoff.

I am not surprised that this incident caused such a great misunderstanding among those on the flight. In fact, I would even go so far to say that I think the misunderstanding was handled FAIRLY well, for what knowledge the flight crew had available. Of course, landing a plane for no real reason is a complete waste of time and utilities. On the other hand, seeing something you do not understand and feel nervous about and then reporting it to the pilot is exactly what Americans have been encouraged to do on flights.

You cannot expect everybody in the world (or even the United States, for that matter) to know every bit about the cultures of others. For the most part, people do not even know every bit of their own culture. I am part Jewish and had never seen Tefillin before, though I have heard the term maybe once or twice in the past. Regardless of this, I wonder if this act is bordering on disrespect towards a culture different than the norm.

It is most interesting to me that we live in a society today where people do not even expect cultural understanding of others. As great as it is that this boy and his family were so calm and collected about the matter (both during and after), it almost seems unfair that they must live their lives with the expectation of ignorance from their peers. It is incomprehensible that a simple and innocent act like prayer can be so misunderstood as to cause a disturbance on an airplane.

Just because the act was not an attempt at disrespect does not mean that it is not disrespect. It makes me sad that we have so little appreciation for one another as to not understand cultural and religious variances. On the other hand, I can completely see and understand why such an unusual and confusing sight would make somebody nervous, and how easily this misunderstanding can come about. It is especially easy to comprehend when I think about how there is so much fear and doubt connected to flying these days. I do not think there is somebody to be faulted in this case, but I do think it is a case we can all learn from. Perhaps a little more education and understanding of the differences of our peers would go a very long way.

hello!

All of this is merely a rationalization for something too hard to comprehend. In the end, maybe the earthquake (and any horrific event we have witnessed or will witness in our lifetimes) is just a random earthquake. Maybe there is no purpose, no point, no good intended. Just because there are no intentions associated with it, however, does not mean that we cannot pull some good out of it. Giving back, realizing what we have, lending a helping hand – these things make us more complete human beings. I do not know if an earthquake can truly be compared to an ultimate sacrifice, but I do know that we need some way to comprehend what has happened. If my choice of comprehension leads us to better lives, than I think that choice was the correct one for me as an individual, regardless of religious affiliations.