The first thing I learned from the Sandusky Scandal was that we have to be able to judge people as a whole – to see their entire lifetime and all of their accomplishments. A person’s life should not just be concentrated on a single bad thing that happened. A life can’t be viewed with blinders on, the whole picture has to be seen and understood. Unfortunately, with all of today’s technological advances, it is so easy to cover a news item immediately and dig up every little thing that may or may not have had anything to do with the initial problem. Joe Paterno had done many great things for the Penn
State community. He funded the library, supported students in their liberal arts studies, mentored countless men while they played on the team and for many years even when they were off the roster. Many of these facts were omitted during the articles and obituaries that were aired and written. There would be few short sentences about the first 84 years of his life and a few paragraphs about his last 5 months of life. It is as if people put their hands in a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle box, pulled out a single piece and put together the whole story from that.
In the heart of evil, also known as 9/11, where a deplorable act made whole communities across the country come together to support each other, innocent people who obviously had nothing to do with the terrorist acts were automatically ostracized due only to their names and physical appearances. This was based on the naïve and uneducated belief systems that the majority of the American public place their beliefs on. This type of uneducated, jumping to conclusions situation is like what happened in Pennsylvania recently. Wanting to convict someone without evidence to back it up is the same stupid mentality that has been seen many times before. No one wants to give the accused a minute to explain their side of the story. Everyone is only interested in getting the dirt out and ignoring what is of no interest to them and perhaps even the truth. If it doesn’t make the entertainment news headlines, that information seems to get lost and only the few people who take the extra step to look further are the ones who are rewarded with the whole story.
During the times of scandals, it also brings awareness to situations that have previously been swept under the rug. These types of situations have happened to others and the people shouldn’t be terrified to bring it out in the open. The Sandusky Scandal has allowed people from all across the country to share their stories with others, to let them realize that they are not alone in their private battles anymore. Sadly when a child is sexually abused, it is done by someone who the child knows and trusts, perhaps a family member, teacher or clergy member. They are told repeated not to tell anyone, and ultimately there is no safe outlet for the child to take advantage of.

“The American Dream,” I can’t imagine that people have no heard of this term, it’s everywhere; it’s inundated into all of the media, like in the movies or on television. I grew up hearing all about it, it was just taught to me by everyday things and experiences. But when I hear about it now I picture the 1950’s, the husband coming back from the war, to his wife, in their little cookie cutter house in suburbia with a white picket fence. I don’t see that as what is now, I just don’t think it is what everyone wants anymore. The story and belief back then was that everyone wanted it, the worked hard for it, so that the mother could stay home and raise the 2.4 children. She would knit their baby booties and cook homemade dinners that were ready exactly when her husband came home.
But not everyone wants that dream; some people want something else. I think everyone these days has their own version of this dream. People may not have the same dream in mind these days but they still have some hope for a specific outcome later in their lives. I have my own version of that dream, like I’m sure you do as well. My dream starts off like the quintessential dream - I want to marry my boyfriend of almost two years and make a home with him. But I want to make sure I have a job, a career of my own to help Chris and not have to rely on him solely for everything I want or need. We’d have a dog, something hypoallergenic and a pet pig, a teacup pig to be exact. Eventually, I’d like to have children, two or three. I know this sounds like the American Dream I was referring to earlier, but those small changes I made to it, they make all the difference to me.
I get it, things these days are different from the world that was America in the 1950’s, things aren’t like “Leave it to Beaver,” today things are fast paced, intense, and often spontaneous. Instead of the sock hops of yesteryear there are clubs and lounges. People aren’t doing the twist when they dance, most of the time they’re grinding up against people, basically having sex with clothes on.
But I digress, things have changed – yet others have stayed the same. No matter what else occurs children still wish upon a star, girls still dream about their weddings ever since they were able to imagine. The dream still lives, the dream endures, the dream will always live on – it just depends on what you consider to be that dream. As I’ve said, everyone has their own picture of the future – but that means that everyone has their own American Dream.

thanksss!! the other ideas on the page, like the rainbow ones are insane too!

I agree that pictures of kids give the wrong idea about foreign aid. This is partly because the pictures most of the time are sending a different picture of what is actually going on in that country. The country usually needs more then just money, but the companies asking for money only think that putting sad, sick looking children on television is the way to fix all the problems. I think a lot of the time the money that people give because of the pictures doesn’t really get to the children. Its probably used for other things besides helping the children, I’d be surprised to see if they got any money at all from the donations. Basically they are using the pictures just for exploitation purposes in order to get more money. People think they are giving money for food, medicine and supplies so the children can have a little better life. It takes a lot more than giving money for a bowl of rice in order to help these children. Nobody seems to want to go the extra step and teach and show these people how to live better for longer then a day. Also instead of usually just asking for help for foreign countries like Haiti and Africa, the commercials could also show the hungry, dirty children in the United States that are living in poverty. I’m sure the United States doesn’t go looking for money for them from other countries. Our country always seems to be the last place to get help, but we always seem to be the first country to give help. Over the last year alone, we have given millions of dollars to Haiti, Indonesia, Japan, and it seems like any other country who has any type of problem. I’m not saying that the United States shouldn’t help these countries at all, but the government has to save some of the money for our own people too. I think we should concentrate on helping our own people before we spend the money on others. Its not really right to exploit innocent children in order to raise the money, especially if they don’t see anything good come from it. Some of the people in these poor countries may want to actually learn how to do things for themselves, not just be shown as some poor, dirty people. They have some pride left and may want to help their own people and learn how to build new houses, plant some food or make new areas for clean water. If people would take the time to actually teach the people who want to learn, it would end up being more helpful than just sending them some food that will be gone in 2 minutes. These groups who try and raise money have to get the adults involved in these countries, the children are too young to do anything by themselves.

I am white, actually I am probably paler skinned then the average white person, sometimes in my pictures it looks like I glow, not cool. Would someone as pallid as myself go out with a black man? Absolutely. I am not sure I would have been so assured in my statement, which I was in high school. But now, coming to Penn State I have come to learn that a person can have a beautiful soul no matter their appearance. The old saying of ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ is true. Some beautiful people have horrible insides, they may look amazing but their personality leaves much to be desired for.
Even though attraction is only part of the equation in my mind when it comes to dating someone, it is still there and still a significant part of a connection two people share. But being white it is not like I only find white men attractive, if I see a hot guy, of any race or ethnicity my mind still registers that person as attractive and makes me intrigued to find out more about them. Coming to a school like Penn State also made me realize that I do not have a specific type of guy that I am more attracted to then the next. It does not matter to me what you wear or how expensive the clothes you wear are, that does not make a man, a man is who they are on the inside.
The main thing that would make an impression on me and would intrigue me enough to try and see if a relationship is viable is your personality, how you make me feel. If you try and use me for sex or treat me as an object, I do not care who you are but you would never have a chance to be with me. Having been used in the past I know I should be seen for me, who I am on the inside which is also what led me to look at men this way too.
My group of friends are racially diverse too and has been since I was young. This has also taught me not to judge people by the color of their skin. In preschool I was one of the only white children in my class and at that age I was naive to the fact that because my friends looked differently then I did that there would tension about that as I grew up. I would like to think going to that preschool made me so open to looking into someone’s heart and not just their skin color. So, yes, I would date a man who is black, why not?

I truly believe that the majority of the blame for imprinting the country’s minds’ with the notion that dark skin is bad and white skin is good is the media. I am not saying that the entire fault is today’s media, but also those of the past. Since children so young have shown discriminatory views of good and bad it cannot all be due to the media. Yes, the media enforces the concepts but they did not input into the children’s minds in the first place what they do however is to emphasize that white is the majority and the preferred choice through different outlets. As mentioned in class it was only very recently that Disney had their first African American princess. All of the ones from past, aside from the Middle Eastern Jasmine have been white. In addition to the movies children watch, the television they watch as well also tends to favor white main characters. Until the past ten years when shows like ‘Dora the Explorer’ and ‘Handy Manny’ that have Hispanic main characters, the majority were still light skinned. When I was young the shows I watched were not exclusively white, shows like ‘Rugrats’ or ‘Hey Arnold!’ had characters such as Suzie or Gerald who are African American but they were only supporting characters. But, as I mentioned previously, they are only reinforcing the concept that is already in the young children’s minds. It is not just the media but even typical sayings and concepts unrelated to the color of skin that talk about and compare the colors white and black. Traditionally the color white is viewed as pure and innocent which is why a bride wears a white gown on her wedding day and black can be seen as evil, tarnished, or sad which is why mourners wear black to funerals. This can also be seen in the saying “out of the darkness and into the light,” referring to finding one’s way and making it through the difficulty (darkness) and into calmness (light.) These issues, along with the media the parents grew up watching, may have, somewhere deep in their unconscious mind, implanted the idea or belief that their darker skin tone is less desirable and have put a negative connotation with that. If you were to ask the adult if they currently felt that way I think they would vehemently deny anything of the sort. However, even as they have grown, matured, and gained knowledge about the world through life experiences, that initial imprint is still hidden somewhere in their thoughts. I am sure the parents do not realize when they do it, but somehow that unconscious notion is passed down to their child. Sadly, my hypothesis is this happens generation after generation; a parent’s unidentified subconscious thought is passed down to a child which is then enforced by media stereotypes.

Affirmative action is a very tricky subject to look at and be able to judge whether or not it is fair because in different aspects it can be and in others it is not, also, each person individually has their own opinion on what parts of affirmative action are appropriate and which has gone too far or not far enough. In my opinion, affirmative action goes back to the concept of white guilt, but, the issue with that connection is that many people effected by this do not feel the guilt or feel that what is being done should not apply to them because the original actions being repaid for were not caused by them. Many people believe the purpose of affirmative action is to give others an advantage that they did not have in years past because of racism but this ends up, in a way, almost doing the same thing that was originally done, giving minorities special treatment different from what white men currently have. Essentially, the purpose of affirmative action just spins what was done to those of color in the past by giving them more chances to do things like, attend college, currently. There are a few main issues that I see with this way of handling the past by trying to change current policies. One of the key points that I find odd about affirmative action is that a large portion of what was done in the civil rights movement was to try and accomplish equality of person and opportunity between every one of difference races and affirmative action undermines that. With chances that are only given to one race and not the other, in this case opportunities that are only given to black Americans such as scholarships that are given based on race or ethnicity, we are in a very similar to position to that of the one we were trying to correct but with another race being favored this time. Also, what is the point of giving this generation of minorities advantages as well as making it harder for this generation of white children? Those who are making gains from affirmative action are not those who were wronged just the same as those who are paying are not the ones who were wrong in the first place. What ancestors did years ago should not have to be paid for by their great grand children because no act can undo the past and wronging a different generation today is not the answer either. If the civil rights movement has lead to anything in our world today it should be for equal rights to all, no one should have a way to get ahead because of their skin color whether they are black, brown, blue, or white.

As in every situation that occurs there is never a single cause that leads to one effect, most often these are intertwined in a web and it is nearly impossible to find the start. Whether or not someone has a child or many also may have different reasons and although being selfish may be one of them, I do not believe that it is the main cause of why those who are poorer sometimes end up with large amounts of children. A main reason that some people end up having more children then they want or any at all is because of lack of education and information about birth control options. In the case of the video on poor whites in American Tammy mentioned she was one of twenty-two children, this would lead to the assumption that her family growing up was probably poorer then she is now, and if that is the case, then the children, including Tammy, probably did not have the proper amount of schooling. With more education, obviously, comes more wisdom, but more importantly it also opens to doors to better employment opportunities. These jobs they have access to also provide them with more income then those who have less education. And, as with everything in the world, money gives you power, in this case, the power of knowledge. Those who have better jobs and in turn more money have opportunity to more information, especially about health and wellness. The more you can know about your body the better you understand it and how it works, an important topic that people would have more information about is reproductive health, specifically about different types and options of what birth control methods are available. If someone does not have all of the information readily available to them about how they can prevent having more children they are much more likely to have pregnancies that they do not want and in that case, they do not know about what options are available to them about that pregnancy. The cycle of being brought up poor leads to less opportunities for furthering education, this leads to jobs with a lower income, and this lack of money as an adult means that they are uninformed about what they can do to prevent unwanted pregnancies or what other options are available for the pregnancies they do have other then just keeping a child they cannot afford. So, do I think that the reason that people of extremely low socioeconomic statuses have a child and in many case multiple children is not because they are greedy or selfish but rather because they are uninformed on or cannot afford ways they can prevent pregnancies to begin with.

White privilege, until class the other day I had never heard that term before. I live in suburbia and my city, which is pretty large, has grown more diverse over the years. Yet, even though my town, which also borders some more urban cities, we never talked of privilege or advantage. But I want to know if what was white privilege in other generations has lead whites to overcompensate and give more opportunities to those of other races. It sounds crazy in my head to say that just because someone is black that they get more chances then I, a white girl would have had, but in some cases I think it is true. An example that comes to mind to explain my point of view is the concept of quotas and the over awareness of political correctness. What I mean by quotas is that, in some situations where people may have been discriminated against in the past, there is a shift to the opposite view that they should have more of a chance now, almost as if that would make up for that same opportunity not being available years ago. A situation where this can be seen is college admissions. For many schools the people in the admissions office may have been told about allowing one person in over another, that there is a set amount of each characteristic that could should be in each class. At times it seems like a person may get in because the school is trying to fill as many of those characteristics with one person. I think that there may be times that two people may have identical qualifications, grades, and extracurricular activities but because of their last name or the box they checked for race and ethnicity, they get accepted over the other person. In the past it was white people getting chosen over all others, but in many situations today it can be quite the opposite. Even if an institution does not have a quota system, if the person in charge of admissions is white, they still may select the minority because of a different issue, white guilt. Though the person admitting or even working for the institution had nothing to do with the injustices of the past, subconsciously, they still know that over time, people that looked like them have had more opportunities and they know that inequality is wrong and they use that in the judgment of their current decision. The tides have changed now, people are more open to the fact that people have been wronged in the past, and that I do not doubt, nor do I doubt that things may be easier to accomplish if you are white, what I am asking if there has been too much correction for the past, and if that is causing what it was trying to prevent, more inequality.

Words I never said is worse then all the violence. It is not only a profound statement that strikes you right in the gut, but, because it is true, and such a small majority of the population understands this and its importance.
My interpretation of this lyric is that feelings that you hold in and don’t express in one form or another, leads to an emotional change in that person for all of their bottled up stress and feelings.
My greatest fear has already become a reality many times over. When people, of any age, race, gender, ethnicity, or the color of their skin or their height, all have feelings. We all feel the same feelings. Some people, unfortunately, just don’t express their emotion and instead suppressing it. Which can build up over time and cause horrific consequences.
For instance, everyone knows about the Columbine High School shooting, which was the first one in a very long time, so it got a lot of media attention. The two boys that planned this massacre had issues with anger, and they told know one about that, so instead of trying to get help, they decided to bring guns and homemade bombs to school to get the people on “the list”. This list’s majority were the bullies who had tormented throughout the years and up until they couldn’t take it any more, so they decided to take action into their own, by killing those who had been tormenting for years, they also shot at anyone that got in the way of where they were trying to get, trying to kill. They had an artillery of guns and extra bullets, they even attempted to build bombs to hurt as many people as possible.
Silence can hurt in other ways to, and the effect of that is not physical. Emotional bullying is also an extremely painful and difficult experience to deal with, one that most people have encountered as either the bully or the victim throughout their life. The type of bullying that most people don’t realize is painful is actually ignoring or ostracizing the victim. These people often become and outcast and people don’t talk or interact with them. Their life becomes silence. The aftermath of this can be horrific, sometimes these people end up being violent against others, but more often then not they harm or kill themselves. The silence in their lives was too loud to handle and as a result they take drastic measures to end the pain.
That’s why I think silence is actually worse then the violence, because when you leave something bottled up and don’t express it, the aftermath unleashes violence much worse then would have ever occurred in the first place.