en-us https://www.intensedebate.com/users/3549129 Comments by mitochondria_10 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/12/02/voices-from-the-classroom-88/#IDComment231937514 Affirmative action is completely necessary to right the wrongs that the United States, as a whole, has inflicted on minority groups. Affirmative action and its definition are widely misunderstood by the population. Affirmative action has benefited almost all groups at one point or another. Like Sam said in class, affirmative action can also refer the inherent leg up white males have over minorities when it comes to getting jobs, and the largest benefactors overall are white women due to their close ties to white men. Affirmative action certainly isn’t the ultimate solution to solving problems related to race and race relations, but it’s something measureable that can be used to address measureable disparity. In a perfect world, the best people, regardless of ethnicity, would receive the job/internship/college acceptance letter. Also, people would know when to disconnect from the inherent desire to provide for their own group—to do what they can to keep people like themselves on top. Unfortunately, making this happen will require a significant evening of the playing field between races and socioeconomic classes. I like how Penn State chooses to implement affirmative action policies by recruiting minorities more heavily. I think it’s a good strategy to broaden the pool, and then have everyone on the same playing field when it comes to admissions, but it’s not perfect. It seems to me that until we can devise another way to address economic disparity between races, affirmative action will remain the best we have in a broken system. I witnessed affirmative action being implemented when I interned with Chevron Corporation. They made a huge point of valuing diversity and hiring many different types of people. One thing I found extremely unique about Chevron’s approach to corporate diversity was that they formed internal networks for women and minority groups. These groups foster the connections and networks that minorities tend to lack when it comes to finding jobs. These networks would then become networking contacts for their families and friends, making minorities very well-represented in the company. I commend them for this effort, and trust that many large companies that have the resources to devote to such affirmative action measures develop similar programs. As a white female in engineering, I have, and will continue to benefit from affirmative action measures. I don’t feel like I’m ever given an unfair advantage because of it. I work hard, and know my perspective as a female is a huge added value to the male-dominated field of engineering. I’ve never found a job or internship through family or friend connections like many of my male classmates, and frankly would not want to work in a culture where entitlement like that persisted. Affirmative action is like flatulence. Everyone likes it when it benefits them. Sat, 3 Dec 2011 02:18:40 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/12/02/voices-from-the-classroom-88/#IDComment231937514 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/11/09/voices-from-the-classroom-69/#IDComment220052561 Between global warming, over-population, and the challenges associated with globalization, and race relations our generation has our work cut out for us. At the same time, we haven’t been left with great examples of how to address these challenges. We’re very aware that they’re real, and we all feel something about them, but I have severe doubts about our ability to respond to them in a productive and positive way. And when I say this, I point to myself as well. I look forward with a mix of optimism and doubt. I know how to think about things and consider all sides of an issue. I am completely ok with sitting in gray areas, but I don’t know if I would always do the right thing when it comes to taking action, and more than that, I don’t know if I could manage to follow through productively. I feel this extends to the majority of my generation as well. As Penn State students, many of us have received our first real test dealing with the disappointment, confusion, embarrassment, and anger that life will throw at us. It’s a collective loss of innocence for a lot of Penn Staters, but it’s also a grand challenge. How we respond, and how we bounce back, hopefully with the assimilation of new knowledge about ourselves and about the world around us, will be a test of how we respond the struggle to come—the aforementioned issues I begin this post with. Humans don’t live in pure black and white. The gray area associated with the Sandusky scandal is immense, and I don’t think that anyone involved, students, the media, the board of trustees has spent nearly enough time exploring it. If they did, I think that all would have responded in different and perhaps more enlightened ways. Sam and Laurie gave a great lecture today which I hope that everyone takes something away from. So, after rambling about the problems we, as a generation, will have to address as the future progresses, relating it to the current situation at Penn State, I don’t think our generation is, as Sam puts I, “screwed”. I am angry about the backwardness of subsequent generations, that in our governments, homes, and Penn State, choose to pursue paths of self-preservation rather than looking forward to improve life for those who followed them. It angers me that much of my generation’s challenge will be cleaning up the messes left behind by those who preceded us. It sucks. But is a challenge nonetheless, and in this challenge these is opportunity. Opportunity to succeed where history has failed, and an opportunity to internalize, and really learn from the mistakes of the past. Thu, 10 Nov 2011 22:15:05 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/11/09/voices-from-the-classroom-69/#IDComment220052561 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/27/voices-from-the-classroom-58/#IDComment213147297 I certainly wouldn’t feel scared about it which seemed to be the reaction Sam was looking for from students in class today. It might be a little disconcerting if it happened over night, but the process of immigration and assimilation obviously doesn’t work like that. The process would be gradual, and people would slowly assimilate to the changes as they happened. Immigrants would continue to face the challenges that immigrants before them encountered. Racism would still exist to some extent, but I like to think that the United States, as an entity, could achieve some sort of corollary to stage 6 on the ladder of race relations. Furthermore, there will still be regional distributions of race, and some areas will remain predominantly white, black, or brown. I don’t think most people would wake up one morning suddenly feeling scared, angry, or prejudiced against if they suddenly found out white people were the minority race. I, for one, think it would be awesome and actually look forward to it. I wish I had grown up and gone to school (both high school and college) with more students were racially and culturally different from me. Many white people who are already the minority in their city or neighborhood based on their geographic location. I think white people becoming the minority race could represent a monumental and largely positive shift in race relations. The concepts of both white privilege and white guilt would still exist, but the amount of minority races entering the middle and upper middle classes would serve as a sort of equalizer. I could see the process of white people becoming the minority as the slow and gradual improvement in race relations through acceptance. One day, I hope to drop my children off at a school with, if not a white minority, but a much greater range and concentration of racially diverse students and the mindset would be that it’s a normal and good thing which everyone can learn and become better people from. I think a United States in which white people are the minority is an exciting prospect, I also can’t think of anything much more quintessentially “American.” After all, all racial groups were at one point in the minority in this country. While I personally look forward to white people entering the minority, I understand how some would be scared by or opposed to it. I also believe it wouldn’t be a seamless transition politically or culturally, but it would represent a success and progress nonetheless in the area of race relations. It is a transition that has great value when it comes to learning about and living with other cultures which brings us closer to a universal human experience that binds us all as people. Thu, 27 Oct 2011 21:32:29 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/27/voices-from-the-classroom-58/#IDComment213147297 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/16/what-is-feminism/#IDComment210221520 “I find that feminism is simply being empathetic to the female perspective in a male-centered world.” I like this perspective on feminism, and I think it fits well with Laurie’s message about understanding the differences in men and women and how we interact with each other, but I also think that feminism needs to be so much more than empathy. There needs to be recognition that these aren’t just women’s issues. They’re “people” issues. Promoting and making more accessible things like birth control and child care benefit both men and women who ideally share the responsibility of raising children. It’s about shifting the male-centered world mentality to more of a middle ground, not solely out of empathy, but mutual benefit to both sexes. Furthermore, feminists respect the choices of women, whatever they may be. Should women choose to focus on academic careers, be stay-at-home moms, or be sex workers, they should be afforded the same rights and respect as men. At the same time, from a sociological perspective, feminists recognize those invisible strings that somewhat deterministically pull and keep women into profession like sex work. So I believe that feminists also strive to understand these factors. There is no question that I consider myself a feminist, and as feminists there are some things about how society conditions and perceives women that anger me. It angers me that the women in the Penn State Speaks video don’t consider themselves feminists or even worse, vehemently denied that they were feminists. My anger isn’t anger toward men per se, but the acceptance of this mindset developed over the course of history that’s predominantly male-centered. I certainly don’t hate men, very much the opposite, but I would certainly take issue with a relationship in which a man couldn’t respect if not already accept my view on feminist issues. Society is conditioned to accept the male-centered view of a sexual relationship as the norm. It angers me that the responsibility of birth control falls largely on women. A question I often ask myself is why women feel the pressure take birth control drugs that often further effect our hormone levels and overall mood, but men would never be expected to do something like this, if they would even agree to at all. Why must we suppress the natural chemistry of our bodies while men aren’t expected to? In fact, I think anything resulting in changes in production of sperm would carry the cultural stigma of making a man less of a man. This perception doesn’t exist for women, but why? These are questions I ask myself as a self-proclaimed feminist, and I believe they are questions we should all consider because they are questions not just for women , but for people. Thu, 20 Oct 2011 20:47:07 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/16/what-is-feminism/#IDComment210221520 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/12/consider-the-issue-of-freedom-vs-determinism/#IDComment207199343 I like this video because it paints a clear-as-day picture of determinism. It doesn’t necessarily help us to see the more subtle aspects of determinism that play in to the inequities we see when we look at race and race relations however. I will continue talking about the twins though because their lives blow my mind. The reality of living as a conjoined twin is one I can't even imagine. I'm pretty good at trying to put myself in others shoes and imagining what their lives are like. I can try with Abby and Brittany, but I know I will never have any idea what it's actually like. I can picture waking up in the morning and dragging another groggy head out of bed with me, making decisions about moving, dressing, washing. I can’t picture what a job, relationship, sex, or parenthood looks like for them. A relationship with one would be a relationship with both. On one hand, it would be good to have a second head weighing in on how you use your body like a system of checks and balances. These girls need to make so many joint decisions constantly. If we imagine all the micro-decisions we make on a day to day basis as separate individuals, the number is staggering. Multiply that by two for Abby and Brittany. My sister and I shared a room growing up, and I’ve had roommates for most of my time in college. I like to think I’m a pretty easy person to live with and get along with, but actually living your life attached to another person is a completely different reality. Total independence isn’t a possibility. Even if it would be possible separate the girls, would they even want that? Living together and making decisions together is their reality, and that reality is based on determinism. As conjoined twins, these girls achieve such a high intimacy with each other. You can choose not to spend time with a friend, significant other, or family member. Even the best of friends don’t achieve the kind of emotional intimacy Abby and Brittany have. Imagine if you had to live your life attached to a boyfriend, girlfriend, or best friend? How would that relationship change if you had no choice, but to always consider that other person when it came to making all choices. No one would want to live that way, and luckily we don’t have to, but it’s an interesting concept to ponder. It would be the ultimate exercise in sensitivity and perception. I’m sure both are ingrained in Abby and Brittany. To disagree or to not facilitate compromise would be absolutely debilitating for both girls. I wish the best for them, and admire them for eschewing the spotlight to live a more normal life. Society as a whole can learn a lot from their reality. Fri, 14 Oct 2011 00:54:28 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/12/consider-the-issue-of-freedom-vs-determinism/#IDComment207199343 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/27/voices-from-the-classroom-25/#IDComment201525154 As a member of Engineers without Borders and a student of Dr. Schuhmann, I’ve put much thought into what successful aid for the developing world looks like. Engineers without Borders, as a national organization, has a systematic set of views and procedures for conducting community development projects. These projects are often aimed at fulfilling a community’s basic needs for water, sanitation, energy, and agriculture. Furthermore, my thesis involves finding a low-cost, sustainable alternative to colloidal silver in ceramic filtration. There are times that I question my altruistic desire to take on these projects, because I feel that, ideally, developing communities should solve their own problems. If we are to attempt to help these people and communities, it can’t be through money or handouts. And when we do implement solutions, they should meet all the qualifications of a sustainable solution: economic, social, and environmental sustainability. The triple bottom line. We need to ensure that, even when we give things, time, and resources to a community, they must take ownership of it to ensure its success. In return, we must strive to meet the need, or better yet, the root causes of their problems. In order for a third world water solution to be successful it must foster a sense of community appreciation and ownership. The same principle applies to the developed world. Instead of further trying to control water resources, westerners must strive to live in harmony with them by using what they need in the most efficient way possible. People must be willing to invest their time and resources for their own benefit, and the benefit of the common good. People in the United States certainly use more than their fair share of water—far above the bare minimum necessary for survival. It is necessary that water solution for the developed world also address the three components of sustainability. This is the time when time and funding should be invested in conservation efforts as well as technological advancement in efficiency. The benefits of wastewater reclamation and desalination must not be overlooked. Aside from efficiency and conservation, more stringent regulations on what enters the water supply must be enacted while the value of a forest for filtering and holding one of the world’s most valuable resources, freshwater, must not be discounted. I’ve done the most work investigating water and sanitation for the developing world. Therefore, I value those types of solutions over any cell-phone based solution for healthcare or economic growth. While a band-aid, the cell phones in the developing world phenomena do not address the roots of poverty and economic instability in the developing world. While we should continue to aid development in these communities, it’s a process that must be addressed very carefully, and at the same time, we mustn’t neglect our own problems here in the U.S. Fri, 30 Sep 2011 23:58:00 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/27/voices-from-the-classroom-25/#IDComment201525154 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/20/everyone-respond-to-this/#IDComment197034580 The ingenuity and creativity of these Haitian entrepreneurs is both encouraging and inspiring. I find it interesting that most of these entrepreneurs operate in cities or larger metropolitan areas especially after discussing Haitian farming so much in class today. The videos painted a much different picture of Haiti than I saw in Mountains Beyond Mountains, a book about Paul Farmers methods and approach to bringing healthcare to rural Haiti. From my limited knowledge of both rural and urban life in Haiti these urban business people seem to be thriving in comparison to Farmer’s rural patients who were mainly subsistence farmers. One thing that stood out to me in all of the videos was the prevalence of cell phones. It seemed that everyone had one. It’s pretty amazing how developing countries have jumped to adopt mobile technology sometimes in the absence of clean water. It boggles my mind how much technology western civilization built upon and grew to rely on in the absence of cell phones. Now the developing world is utilizing the avenue to mobile communication to accelerate everything from economic development to healthcare. Take Dr. Khanjan Mehta’s Mashavu project for example. The mobile health reporting system allows African patients to connect with a receive consultations from precious few doctors remotely. I can see mobile technology applied to Haitian entrepreneurship in similar ways. For example, I know many cell phones allow entrepreneurs to connect themselves with markets, resources, and people that would otherwise be out of reach. Systems have even been set up to wire small amounts of money via cell phone. I don’t know how widespread this is in Haiti, but it is a potential avenue for further economic development. Another advertising avenue I see as useful is the website etsy.com. The site offers products designed and made by small-business people around the world. Websites like Etsy would allow Haitian entrepreneurs access to a global market for their goods—a willing a lucrative market, too considering the rising demand for unique and handmade goods. This is a fascinating project that I’m excited to undertake. I took ENGR 408 last fall with Dr. Schuhmann who spoke in class today. We worked on engineering design challenges for the developing world as part of the class—many focused on very specific or basic needs surrounding food, water, and shelter. Watching these video got me back into that mindset where you have to internalize someone else’s challenges, in this case, the challenges of a Haitian shoemaker or candied-peanut maker, and make them your own. The best way to do this is to actually travel to the place and meet the challenges and the people in real life; however, the videos do a pretty good job. Observing Suze Fleuriza apply the foil seals to the peanut cups, I felt there had to be a faster and better way. Thu, 22 Sep 2011 23:00:08 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/20/everyone-respond-to-this/#IDComment197034580 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/13/voices-from-the-classroom-7/#IDComment193837967 There are certain characteristics that make athletes. I don’t believe they are necessarily universal. Certain body types and different strengths predispose people to excel in particular sports. Shorter torsos and longer legs tend to make for better runners. Living at high altitudes like Kalenjin tribe of Kenya also builds better runners and athletes due to an oxygen efficient environment. Having money for the best training, coaches, and equipment also plays into it. Like Sam was discussing in class with regard to free will versus determinism, a good athlete is not born out of solely deterministic factors or free will. A good athlete, Olympic caliber, we’ll say, has physical characteristics, determined by their biology that contributes to their athletic ability. They’re strong and naturally fit. They probably also possess specific characteristics that make them good a specific sport. In addition, they probably receive world-class training for that particular sport as well as strength training, nutritional guidance, and psychological services. On top of all the aforementioned factors, which are hugely important, I firmly believe that above all, what makes a good athlete is their own personal mental drive. Great athletes put a lot of heart into what they do. This drive may have biological drivers, but it is also a function of choice and free-will. I was a distance runner in high school and continue to identify most with the group of athletes that call themselves runners. Some of the best runners I know lacked the typical gait and body type of traditionally good runners, but they had a lot of heart. They were willing to push themselves to the extremes to win a race, often putting them ahead of those you would look at and expect to win based on their external appearance. I was always complimented for having a typical distance runner body, and I loved the sport. I always struggled to truly excel though. My barrier was entirely mental. I had the biology and coaching to succeed. I second-guessed myself, and when push came to shove, I didn’t have the mental drive to carry me through. So while I had the appearance of being a good runner, I know I lacked the drive and heart to truly be a good athlete. So I believe what makes a good athlete above ability, ideal coaching and socioeconomic experience is an inherent inner drive and passion for what they do. This shows on and off the field. One interesting example I found in the collegian highlighted the story of an athlete who could have been a star baseball player at Penn State, but chose instead to be a walk-on for Penn State football. I think that this is exemplary of a great athlete because it shows true drive and passion for a sport. Thu, 15 Sep 2011 22:00:04 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/13/voices-from-the-classroom-7/#IDComment193837967 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/07/questions-from-the-classroom/#IDComment191503171 Why can’t we all just be human? We certainly all acknowledge this simple fact on some level, but I feel that few people actually internalize what that actually means, and think about how it can be applied when they interact with other humans. All of our bodies function in the same ways. We also have the same basic needs, wants, and desires. Furthermore, surveys like those performed by Dr. Rick Schuhmann indicate that we all generally share the same basic value set. The challenge materializes when we attempt to apply these ideas to race relations. People, while also being for the most part inherently good, are also inherently selfish. We will do what we need to do bases on our common values to fulfill our basic needs, wants, and desires. The problem being that we don’t always consider how pursuing these things may prevent others from doing the same. It comes down to having the ability to distance ourselves from our own selfish desires long enough to consider how our words and actions affect those around us. A momentary, millisecond pause to consider how what we do or say could affect other before we say it could make all the difference if everyone entertained the idea. Most commenters on this post have brought up the fact that humans have a natural tendency to categorize and compartmentalize each other into racial (or other) groups based on generalizations and stereotypes. Like I said, it’s a natural tendency and simplifies the vast amount of knowledge and sensory input we deal with on a daily basis. It’s always easier to see things in pure black and white than it is to perceive and understand the multiple shades of gray. It’s one of the reasons we gravitate so strongly to religion. Religion, if blindly followed eliminates the need to see shades of gray because it allows all thoughts and actions to be classified as black or white, right or wrong. Therefore, if people we’re willing to take that millisecond pause to assimilate new information or perceive a shade of gray before they say or do something that affects others, the world could be a much better place. For example, before automatically classifying someone we’ve just met as a particular race or ethnicity, we can pause to reconsider whether the compartmentalization is actually necessary. There may be no easy or black and white answer to how that person would define their race or ethnicity. I guess this is just food for thought more than anything. I definitely don’t pretend to know the answer to solving race relations problems, but the small things like considering that fact that we’re all human and have the same fundamental wants and needs can’t hurt. Fri, 9 Sep 2011 14:42:54 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/07/questions-from-the-classroom/#IDComment191503171 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/01/do-you-still-believe-in-evolution-and-superiority/#IDComment189045544 Also, I think the world 'believe' is misapplied to evolution. Evolution can be accepted or rejected as scientific theory because it has and can be tested. We can't test creationism. It's something that's held as a belief or not based on faith. In light of this, the two ideas really don't have to be quite as much at odds as we make them out to be. Fri, 2 Sep 2011 16:01:32 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/01/do-you-still-believe-in-evolution-and-superiority/#IDComment189045544 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/01/do-you-still-believe-in-evolution-and-superiority/#IDComment189025454 Evolution has always been an endless source of fascination for me. The idea that some microbe containing a certain god-like, double helix molecule came into existence in the primordial soup of early earth, and gave rise to the huge variety of life we see today is just mind-blowing. Yet, I think pure evolutionary theory can discount the divine beauty of life. Pure creationist viewpoints discredit humans’ capacity to actually understand where we come from, and how we got here. It’s just easier to adopt a prefabricated understanding without really thinking about it or considering other options. Religious documents, of all kinds, however divinely inspired they may have been, were ultimately written and produced by humans. Humans then, like humans now, had a limited understanding of the world around them, and did the best they could to describe life as they saw it. Like we evolved from something and are constantly evolving, our understanding of life and the world around is constantly changing as we assimilate new knowledge. I see this is an integral part of understanding and eliminating racism. If people can observe their unique, race-indicative features and say, I understand why I look like this. My ancestors were optimized to thrive in certain part of the world, it’s a step away from saying, I look different and there is a certain way I should look. Also, the fact that humans have created a world in which all people can thrive in any locale in spite of genetic characteristics optimized for a certain places is pretty amazing. Are we evolving toward super-human? Does super-human transcend race and what does it look like? I guess to answer the question, I do appreciate my ‘racial characteristics’ more. It’s interesting to consider how they did hold certain a genetic superiority in a specific terrain and climate condition. Along these lines, Jared Diamond’s book Guns, Germs, and Steel raises some interesting theories about how groups of people came to control others, the very origins of racism itself, and how climate and terrain conditions affected the development and dissemination of technology. The book starts with a simple question from a New Guinean medicine man. Why did white men have so much cargo when New Guineans had so little? Diamond attempts to answer this question over the course of the book by explaining Eurasian progress was a product of opportunity and necessity (i.e. response to things like ice ages) and not some superior ingenuity. It was painfully dull reading in high school as a summer assignment, but I greatly appreciated the greater understanding I gained from it. I bring up Diamond’s theory as a societal-scale example of the ever-evolving and improving understanding of the human condition, race relations, and how we can ultimately improve them through greater understanding. Fri, 2 Sep 2011 14:39:02 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/01/do-you-still-believe-in-evolution-and-superiority/#IDComment189025454