When I think about the statement that schools now are more segregated than they were in the 1970’s, I try to consider what this truly means. It does not make sense to me when I think about this on a small scale. Individually, I do not feel as though schools are more segregated than they were. In the 1970’s, schools themselves were segregated. There were black bathroom and white bathrooms, etc. However, I feel like on a larger scale, nowadays the school system could be potentially more segregated. When you consider the population of whites and minorities in certain areas, it makes sense that some schools are predominately white while other schools are predominant minorities, contributing to this imbalance and segregation.
As we talked about earlier in the semester, there are usually greater populations of minorities in city areas. As a result, it would make sense that schools closer to the city would be made up of predominantly minority students. As a result, the schools would reflect the population of the people who live in a specific area. Therefore, it might appear that schools now are more “segregated”, but truthfully, towns are “segregated”. Not by law, but simply by choice. People of the same ethnicity tend to live in the same proximity and as a result, attend the same schools.
I am not naïve enough to suggest that racism and prejudice does not exist. I believe that racism and prejudice exist, just not in terms of where children are able to attend schools. We watched a video earlier in the school year about a black woman who tried to take her students to a better school that was out of her district, and we had to decide if this was considered racism. While it is not fair that these black children do not receive the same resources as the white children, it is do to the local property taxes. I do not feel this is right. I believe that the government should provide more funding for the schools that really need it, but I do not think that can be classified as racism. As far as I know, if a black or Hispanic family is living in a predominately white area, they are still free to attend that school and receive the same services as the white students.
I attended a school in suburbia that was fairly diverse. With a total of 3,500 students, we had a decent number of all minorities. However, our school district was enormous and it covered a wide variety of neighborhoods. Smaller school districts that only cover a small area (in which people of similar ethnicities tend to live in closer proximity) are likely to have little diversity. I believe that the fact that our schools are more segregated than they used to be are more a result of the tendency of people of the same race to settle together, and less a result of racism and prejudice.

The “Christian Invaders” lecture was very interesting for me and got me thinking about a lot of things that I had never really considered before. I would have to say that throughout the entire lecture, the “Jihad” video was what stuck with me the most. I remember after watching that feeling angry toward these Middle-Eastern people. Then I took a step back and questioned my feelings. I came to the realization that this was exactly the point of the video. It was so one-sided and jam packed with propaganda that it is hard, as a human being, to recognize the lack of validity to something so powerful. Once Sam placed us in the character of a Muslim living in Iraq, I felt it very easy to understand their beliefs about Americans when seeing similar videos about us. My feelings were so instinctual and natural, that it is something we likely don’t even think about.
Although I do not believe that I truly understand what it is like to be a Muslim living in Iraq, I think I came to a place where I am able to empathize more so than ever before. When Sam told us that people living in Iraq believe that everyone in America is Christian, similar to the way we believe everyone is Muslim, that was something that really clicked for me. I, personally, do not identify with any particular faith. It makes me upset, angry, and disappointed when I see people use their faith as an excuse to justify actions such as taking the life of someone else. I feel that coming the this realization helped me to realize that not all Muslims are in favor of the actions of the Islamic extremists, similar to the way that I do not favor war “in the name of God”.
The most difficult video of the lecture for me to stomach was the one where the U.S Marines destroy a man’s car. I have 2 cousins currently serving in the U.S Marine Corps and my best friend is in the U.S Army and just returned home from Iraq. Due to my love and loyalty to my friends and family, it is very difficult for me to accept that things like this occur. However, it makes me realize that I am, once again, doing the same thing that an Iraqi Muslim might do if they were sent this video. While I automatically assume that because my cousins or best friend might not behave this way, that all U.S soldiers would never behave this way, an Iraqi Muslim might believe that because a few U.S soldiers would do this, all of them would. The truth is that one can never truly understand what another person is going through until they are in that person’s shoes. I think this lecture took me in a step in the right direction and helped me to grow as a person. However, I feel it would be naïve to say that I truly understand what the life of an Iraqi Muslim is like.

I think Sam and Laurie made a really great point when they brought up the idea that women will go out on the weekend, freezing their asses off in short skirts and heels with no coat whatsoever, while guys will go out dressed in jeans, tshirts and sneakers. I was always one to say that I dressed like this because I wanted to, because I liked to dress up and look nice. It wasn’t until Laurie made the comparison to the young girls choosing he white baby doll over the black baby doll that it really sunk in that I want to because I think I am supposed to. When I think about it, I really hate having to dress like that to go out. I hate freezing my ass off. I hate wearing heels. They kill your feet. So why is it that when I get ready to go out on a Friday or Saturday night, I don’t even question these standards, I just follow them?
As Sam and Laurie explained in their “needy penis” lecture, we are living in a male-centered world. Women are learning that our job is to please the males. Women feel the need to wear short skirts and heels in order to impress the guys and out-do the other women. However, I can say from experience, I believe that women are brain-washed to think that these things matter more to guys than they really do. For example, I went to a pajama party one time at one of my friend’s houses. I didn’t want to wear full pajama attire because I knew I was going to be going out to other places afterwards, but I wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to be as comfortable as possible. I ended up wearing yoga pants, a tshirt, Ugg boots, and a North Face around for the entire night. I was comfortable as can be and can honestly say that I received as much attention from guys that night as I do any other normal weekend dressed up.
While I realize that in this situation, I was not dressing down by personal choice, I feel that a woman’s ability to dress down and be comfortable says a lot about her. It says that she is confident and comfortable with herself, and she doesn’t need to compete with other girls to show what she has to offer. Whether or not she receives male attention is not the top of her list of priorities. In a female-centered world, the sole purpose of a woman would not be to please the eye of the male. It would be to be comfortable, confident, and to feel empowered.

I, personally, have no problem with interracial relationships. They, to me, are like same sex relationships, which I also completely support. I believe in love. I also believe that you can’t help who you fall in love with. You shouldn’t HAVE to help who you fall in love with. So many of us are attracted to people for many different reasons. Some people are attracted to eyes, smile, humor, honesty; however, I can honestly say that in all the times I have ever explained to someone what it is I look for in a guy, I never once considered race. It just isn’t anything I have ever considered to be a factor. Not that I don’t notice race. I do. In fact, I can say that I have, in fact, found that I am often attracted to Asian men. But that is something I can say after thinking hard about it, not something that I ever really consciously noticed before.
Though I have been attracted to men outside my own white race, I have never actually dated one. Whether this is due to the fact that I really haven’t had many relationships in general or to some other subconscious contributing factor that I am unaware of, I can not say. I can say that my family, however, is very white. There is not a single interracial couple in my entire family up to and including my grandparents. I can say, with confidence, that my parents and sisters would not have a problem with my dating outside of my race. My grandparents, few of my uncles, and a few cousins would be a different story. Whether or not they would express their feelings to me or not, I can not be sure. However, I do not think they would be very happy with the idea. As far as my grandparents are concerned, interracial relationships are not something that happened during “their time” and, as a result, they have strong negative feelings regarding them. The uncles and cousins who I believe might have a problem with me dating interracially, were raised by my grandparents and had a lot of ideas regarding certain racial stereotypes put into their head. I was, however, not raised by my grandparents and did not see them all that often as a child: holidays and birthdays mostly. I like to think that my parents are both very accepting people and, therefore, I have a lot of acceptance for things.
I believe that everyone is entitled to live life however they see fit. We all have one life to live, so live it the way you want. Why not make a beautiful life with whoever it is that you fall in love with and enjoy the time you have together, no matter what your races may be. I believe interracial marriages are something that need to be acknowledged by the media more and acceptance should be promoted. I mean, let’s face it, pretty soon we’re all going to be racially mixed, if we aren’t already. I personally think that interracial couples make the most beautiful babies in the world.

I would first like to start off by saying that I use racial signifiers all the time in my every day conversations. I really never realized the irrelevancies of such signifiers until this was brought to my attention by Sam in class. I had never really thought about it before until now. I believe that the use of irrelevant racial signifiers in our speech not only affect racial stereotypes, but are the manifestation of latent prejudice. We, as human beings, do not necessarily realize such prejudices exist. However, the use of racial signifiers in conversation suggests differently. I believe we use such signifiers in order to suggest something about a person or a group of person without expressing outright prejudice.
I have my own personal example of a time when I can recall using an irrelevant racial signifier. Similar to the story Sam told us in class, I was driving on the highway with my sister during rush hour. It was raining. I was running out of gas and traffic was going nowhere. All of the sudden traffic begins to move, and we pass an entrance ramp. Unable to move over due to the amount of traffic, this person merges right in front of me practically pushing me into the next lane of traffic. Immediately I begin yelling and she stares at me, cell phone in hand, and begins yelling back as though I had done something wrong. Now every time I tell that story to anyone I find myself saying “this crazy black woman”. Most of my family lives in the city of Philadelphia. My aunts, uncles, and grandparents are constantly having their cars hit, doors dinged, and side mirrors ripped off by “crazy black drivers” as they often put it. Somewhere along the way I have picked up this stereotype of black drivers without even realizing it. When recreating the incident in speaking to someone else, I find myself exhibiting this prejudice without even realizing that I am doing it.
I feel that referencing these racial signifiers as “irrelevant” ignores the relevance of their use in conversation. I don’t believe these signifiers are irrelevant as much as simply unnecessary. To signify whether the person to which you are referring was a man, a woman, black, white, Hispanic, asian, whatever is often (in most cases) completely unnecessary and often, if necessary, pretty obvious. These signifiers are often irrelevant to the meaning of the STORY but very relevant to the image and stereotype you are trying to create, whether you realize it or not.
All in all, to answer your question plain and simple, I believe that irrelevant racial signifiers used in conversation are the manifestation of suppressed racial prejudices.

In my opinion, affirmative action is successful in some ways and unsuccessful in others. While I believe the intentions behind it are good, I do not exactly feel as though it accomplishes all the goals that it is intended to. Affirmative action is intended to equalize the opportunities of minorities in situations such as jobs and entrance to universities. While I am not denying that minorities face many disadvantages up against the white advantage, I believe that affirmative action can take the solution to a bit of an extreme. Having a type of “quota” regarding the percentage of minorities that need to be hired to accepted negates the idea that hard work results in success.
However, I can not deny that as a white person, I experience advantages that many people of minority do not experience. In an ideal world, race would not matter at all. Affirmative action is supposed to be a way to prevent racism, only, I believe it is simply a way of trying to take action against the racism that does exist. After reading the blog posts of many other students, I have mixed opinions on this issue. When it comes to certain things like scholarships that are intended for students of a certain race, I am very much in favor of this. After all, certain races experience disadvantages and this is simply a way to level the playing field.
Regardless of all of this, I do not believe that affirmative action necessarily “takes anything away” from whites. As Sam makes very clear in lecture, whites have many advantages over minorities in many aspects of life. Affirmative action is merely a way of making sure that minorities have a chance at equal opportunity. The only argument I can make is that perhaps affirmative action takes the opportunity away from the “best possible candidate for the position”, white or otherwise. Perhaps if a university must accept a certain number of Asians, this would take the opportunity of being accepted from an African American. I feel that even with affirmative action, whites still have the advantage overall. I do not feel that this policy takes anything whatsoever from whites.
Look at a prime example. Penn State likely participates in affirmative action. I assume that there is a certain percentage of students that need to be accepted from any given minority. My friend, who is half Japanese, made sure to put that she was Japanese on all of her college applications in order to become more “appealing” to colleges looking for diversity. She believes that this worked to her advantage. Whether these students are the most qualified or not, the percentage of students at Penn State that are white vastly outnumber those of any other minority. Therefore, I do stand by my statement that affirmative action in no way takes away from whites.

I think that it depends on the person’s situation whether you can consider them selfish to have more kids with such a low income. For example, I think it is somewhat selfish to bring a child into the world that you do not have the means to care for and support basic needs for. However, there are certain people who go through certain experiences in their life that happen after they have children, or perhaps when they are pregnant with, say, their sixth child. They may go from a family that is well able to support their children to a family that is barely able to put food on the table. We are not aware of the situations of all these people and, therefore, I feel that it is not fair to judge these people without really understanding the situation first.
There are many unplanned pregnancies in the world today and while I do not feel like this is an excusable action, given all of the information and contraception made available, there are circumstances in which this occurs and there are many reasons people may have regarding why they decide to bring the child into this world of poverty they are living in. While I respect a woman’s decision not to have an abortion, it is hard for me to understand those that choose to keep the child they are unable to care for rather than put the child up for adoption. That, to me, is selfishness. Having the child may be one thing. There may be circumstances that were unavoidable, for example rape, but preventing a child from a life that you are unable to provide for him or her is completely selfish in my opinion.
I believe that given the level of poverty one is living in, I have mixed feelings regarding the selfishness of people’s actions. Children of this generation often have a warped view of what poverty really is. Utter poverty is not, not being able to purchase the designer handbag you’ve been eyeing up for months. Some people that live below the poverty line in this country are still able to provide basic needs for themselves and their family. All people, just as rich and middle-class people, are entitled to have the right to have children if they choose to. However, I feel that if you can not provide the basic needs for a child, it is self to bring them into this world to live a life of struggle.
In the video, Tammy said that she grew up with twenty brothers and sisters. Very few people in this world have the means to care for twenty-one children. In this case, it no longer becomes a “right to have children”, given that her parents stressed that right pretty excessively. But I believe that it was selfish of her parents to continue to bring children into this world that they could not successfully support.

I believe that the inflated rate of arrests for African Americans and Hispanics for drug-related crimes is due to a combination of racism and a larger police force in urban areas. Just like anyone else, police can be racist. As Sam talks about “white privilege” it is hard to ignore that these disproportionate numbers could be a result of racist police force. However, I believe it goes a bit deeper than this. In our world today, racism seems to be less prominent as in years past and I do not feel as though racism can be the sole responsible factor in this outrageous difference in numbers.
Urban areas tend to me more populated with people of different ethnicities. Therefore, with a larger police force, it seems likely that when catching people for drug-related offenses, they are more likely to be Black or Hispanic than in rural or suburban areas. Crimes, specifically drug-related crimes seem to have more prominence in urban areas, likely due to the increase in population from rural and suburban areas. More people plus more police equals more opportunities for getting busted. This is all not to say that drug use and distribution does not occur in rural and suburban areas, just simply that they are getting caught less.
As a man stated in the video we watched in class on Tuesday, he would rather sell drugs and make a quick $4,000 in two weeks than work at McDonalds for minimum wage. It is possible that due to factors out of his control, determinism, this man is unable to get a full-time, well-paying job. I don’t necessarily think it is out of character for many Americans to do anything to get to the top of the economic totem pole. So, maybe white privilege and determinism sets us up to often not have to face the choice of selling drugs to make a living or working at McDonalds for minimum wage.
I believe that more likely than not, the reason for the disproportionate number of Blacks and Hispanics in jail for drug-related offenses has to do with their influx in population in urban areas as well as a greater police force. However, Sam brought up the point in lecture that statistically, a black juvenile charged with the same offense as a white juvenile will often be sentenced more harshly just proves to me that there is some inherent racism in our criminal justice system. It is impossible to say that the reason for this occurrence could be anything other than racism at it’s finest. As in the rest of the world, our police forces and our criminal justice system are not immune to racism. As much and I, and most others I feel, would like it to be.

While I would like to say that free will and the choices that I've made in life have gotten me where I am today, I think it would be ignorant of me not to acknowledge that determinism has played an extremely large role. I grew up in a nice, fairly wealthy neighborhood. My mom was a stay-at-home mom and my dad was a lawyer. I have two sisters, so you could say that my dad's job paid pretty well. When I was seven, however, my parents got divorced. While this might be a stress factor that results in the downfall of a lot of children, it has done nothing but enhance my well-being. I have been very lucky in life. I have two completely loving families, two very nice households, and two very supportive parents who push me to be the best that I can be.
Going to college, was never not an option for me. While my mother never went to college, following the divorce, she got back into the workforce and worked her way up from the bottom. She is now very successful at her job. However, the one regret she always told me she had in life was that she never went to college. Yes, I made the choice to come to college. But it was determinism, my family, my socioeconomic status, my upbringing that ultimately landed me at the school of my dreams. Sure, I worked hard in high school to get the grades needed to get into college. But getting bad grades was never an option. I don’t know when it was instilled in me to always work hard and keep up with me school work, but somewhere along the way I seemed to have learned it, and learned it well.
Free will factors into the equation when it comes to more minor life experiences. For example, having a job while in college. Having a job in college was a choice that I made (though somewhat pressured by my parents). Of course, if I chose not to get a job my parents would continue to support me as they did freshman year. I chose to get a job because I do not like the feeling of having to rely on my parents for things. I chose to get a job because I wanted to have the money to buy certain things just because I wanted them. It makes things stressful and sometimes it makes classes difficult, but, in my opinion, the benefits outweigh the negatives.
Throughout life, we all make choices. We have the free will to do whatever it is we want. But our choices are molded by our upbringing, where we are from, and the conditions we live in. I have been lucky to have two wonderful, supportive parents. They are the reason I am at Penn State. I chose to come here, sure, but without them that might never have occurred.

I do not really think that in the future, race is going to be an issue that goes away, unfortunately. When it comes to differences, like whether one person is good at sports or not, it seems that people are going to focus on the differences between some people. It seems almost inherent that black people are better at sprinting track and field than black people. We need to do away with things such as political correctness in order to get past the point of race. If all people are constantly worried around what the “right” thing to call other is than they aren’t focusing on the real problem.
The real problem is acceptance of all people. Whether a person be black, white, Native American, Asian, anything. People should be accepted for who they are and it should not matter their status at all. We are all biologically the same. According to Sam we are 99.99% the same. The only way that we are different is by our physical characteristics. Here at Penn State a lot of people in my section were saying that Penn State is not diverse. I would have to disagree with that statement. In my opinion, Penn State is extremely diverse. The problem is that while we are diverse, we are not exactly open minded. I attended the biggest High School in Pennsylvania, however, I still can not say I know every person that graduated from North Penn. With 3,500 people in my high school, I feel that Penn State is extremely diverse. I’ve learned that a place can be diverse without being very accepting of difference people. There are many different people that attend Penn State but aren’t really that many people that are represented.
As one student expressed in my section, all of the Asian kids hang out with the Asian kids. All of the Black kids hang out with the Black kids. It doesn’t seem right that people of different race do not, to this day, seem comfortable enough with the situation. But that is the reality of it, people are still not comfortable around people of a different race. I feel as though it is a problem that most people ignore. They assume that just because they acknowledge a person means that they are accepting of them. This is not the case, however. A person can be accepting of another person and not truly acknowledge what that person bring to the world. There is a difference between acknowledgment and acceptance. Unless race becomes an issue that is completely overlooked (which doesn’t seem liable to happen as long as we are discussing it) then it is going to be an issue in the future. I am not really sure how it could not be.