To me I think the answer to this is pretty black and white. I don’t see much room for debate here but maybe that is just me. I definitely do not think that the questioner or anyone who was thoughts like that is racist. Or at lease those particular thoughts are not racist. If the question you are asking yourself is “Do I have a better chance to impact the world in a positive?” then I do not see how that is racist. To me that seems like simply asking who is in a better position, not who is a better person. Of course the person from a developed country like the United States will have a better opportunity to change the world from someone in a developing country. The one person will have the financial ability and education to try to often make his wishes come true and use his natural talent. On the other hand the person from a 3rd world country will often not have the same opportunities. It seems like an honest assessment of the world and the differences we see. It is unfortunate that it is the case but it is certainly not racist to call it how it is. Personally, I think it is beneficial that we do recognize the discrepancies we see so that we can rectify them. If we keep our thoughts contained to ourselves for fear of retribution then we will not get anywhere.
If the kid asking the question had looked at these other people and thought “Sadly, I am a little better than these people” then that could be deemed as bigoted. But to me it seems that he was looking more at the positions of the individuals, not the individuals themselves. He was not saying that he was better than another person; rather he was saying that his upbringing happened to give him more opportunities to alter our world. This ties in what Sam has been harping on all year, particularly when he talks about the “king of the hill”. People such as me have been fortunate enough to be put into a situation where I can thrive and prosper. It doesn’t mean that I have earned or not earned it. I just happened to take advantage of the situation that I was given. While not everyone could have achieved what I have with my opportunity there are a multitude of people who could have done what I did or even raised the bar a little. They also do not need to be people like me, white Americans. It could have been a Hispanic kid from Brooklyn or a child from Mozambique. I just happened to be the one with the opportunity. I think as long as you look at it with that perspective and do not try to compare the actual individuals then you are really just calling it as it is, rather than being racist.

To me this seems like a great idea. It’s time American public schools realize the value of learning a language such as Chinese or Spanish or Arabic. If you are going to drop languages, get rid of the traditional languages that do not have too much power outside of their respective countries like Italian, French, German, etc. Our public school system is slowly failing and this is a good way to turn this around, to catch up with what other countries are doing and to catch up with the economical and social phenomena of the last quarter century. It is no secret that in the near future the Chinese economy and perhaps later the India economy will rival that of the United States. Chinese corporations will be all over the globe and some of the leading employers out there. And while English continues to look like it will be universal language of the future, the Chinese language may rival it. It is also thought that in say a hundred years ago, there will be a universal ubiquitous language which will be mostly a combination of English and Chinese, as weird as that sounds. As American schools get farther and farther behind other advanced countries in the areas of math and science we should make sure that we do not fall behind here. Our children should be provided with the tools to compete in a global marketplace. At first when I was told this in high school I did not see the value of it. But after years of interviewing for jobs and getting very positive responses from Spanish minor I see the value companies place on these language skills. I know numerous students who are majoring in Security & Risk Analysis within the College of Information Sciences & Technology and many of them have taken Arabic as a minor to make them much more desirable to agencies like the FBI, CIA or NSA. For some of the positions they are applying to it is almost necessary to have this skill. One of the issues with teaching languages in high school and even college is that it seems that the students do not get to the level you would expect them to or struggle to remain there. I can personally say that I have this issue. After four years of Spanish in college I do not feel totally comfortable using Spanish in real-world situations. I think you have to immerse yourself in a community where Spanish or Chinese or whatever is the first language to truly learn it. However, I think having these classes in high school gets kids into it and can show them the value of it at a young age. This can be the base for an education later in life.

After reading Sam’s summation of the video and watching the video itself I have to say I firmly stand on Sam’s side. As he already mentioned, the census people put a lot of time and money into this project. They didn’t just carelessly throw out the term Negro since that is how they reference black people. They understand that thousands of black people in this country still use that term to self-identity and so in the interests of getting an accurate snapshot of our country they include that term on the questionnaire. If you want to get upset with anyone for using that term you should look at those black folk who still use the term making it still socially relevant. I am sure that in ten or fifteen years when that generation has passed the word will be taken off the form. It may even be replaced by a new term that springs up that becomes a common way for African-Americans to self-identify. The whole point of the census is to accurately assess how EVERYONE lives so all people must be included, even those who happen to use an antiquated word.
Having said all that, I thought the best point brought up was when the news anchor mentioned that some people think the census form is flawed as racial and ethnic groups have transformed and commingled so much that it is hard for many to define their race or ethnicity with two multiple choice questions. Even for a white person like me with a fairly uncomplicated racial background I might find it difficult to accurately and completely define my heritage in two questions on a census form. In our age where people move to the U.S. from all over and date and marry outside of their race you get some pretty convoluted stories about ethnic backgrounds. The first guy they interviewed demonstrated this perfectly. He seems like your average African-American when you look at him but then he mentions since he stated on question 8 that he was Hispanic. He did this since even though he was raised in the United States; both his parents are from Honduras. Then on the next question, number 9, he selected that he was an African-American. Even though these two answers might seem contradictory you cannot really blame his logic. He has Hispanic parents but has black skin and was raised in America. I am sure there are thousands and thousands of other Americans who filled out the census form in a similar way, with seemingly contradictory ethnicities or races. As our country moves in this direction it will be interesting to see how the census people react since I am guessing it is only going to get more and more complicated to pin down an individual’s particular race.

After quickly skimming through the blog responses posted ahead of me the one I thought that summed up my feelings best was the one that talks about how if you were a democrat this kind of looks good for you. All this really does is put a bad face on the Republican Party. Even though these people don’t accurately represent how conservatives think and act it may be the first thing that comes to mind when others think of the party. People like this, which do not seem to act reasonably and put their emotions above rational thought, are an embarrassment to others in our country. Instead of attacking the issues logically, they boil down the situation to skin color of the commander and liken him to a man like Adolph Hitler.
Personally, it does not really bother me that they act this way. As people have already said, it falls within their rights to protest the actions of the governments and really, they are doing more damage to themselves and their party, than to me or the country as whole. I am certainly no expert of all the inner workings of the first amendment but it would be my estimation that nothing these people are doing is illegal. I understand what they are saying is quite offensive and parts of it could be construed as racist but illegal, I’m not sure it crosses that line.
Sam did bring up the point of, “The people holding these signs are threatening violence against elected officials. At what point is THAT a crime?” I understand that you cannot make threats against someone’s life, particularly not a high-ranking government official, but it does not seem like there are any specific threats in here. Most of them are just saying that they would prefer Obama or so-and-so dead. I think that they would have to be more precise and seem like the person had seriously contemplated assassinating an official before action could be taken. However, once again, these are just my naïve speculations.
Really, I think the most important thing about this issue is in the title of the article. “Is this just a few bad apples?” And my answer to that is yes. There are only a few people out there I believe that are crazed enough that they would express their political beliefs this way. I am sure there are many many more people who would also disagree with the new health reform bill but they either go about their protests in a logical way or choose other ways of expressing their disapproval. Unfortunately, it is not the calm reasonable folk who get themselves in the paper. It is the often the loud and irrational who become the face of the movement, which is not good news for the Republican Party.
After quickly skimming through the blog responses posted ahead of me the one I thought that summed up my feelings best was the one that talks about how if you were a democrat this kind of looks good for you. All this really does is put a bad face on the Republican Party. Even though these people don’t accurately represent how conservatives think and act it may be the first thing that comes to mind when others think of the party. People like this, which do not seem to act reasonably and put their emotions above rational thought, are an embarrassment to others in our country. Instead of attacking the issues logically, they boil down the situation to skin color of the commander and liken him to a man like Adolph Hitler.
Personally, it does not really bother me that they act this way. As people have already said, it falls within their rights to protest the actions of the governments and really, they are doing more damage to themselves and their party, than to me or the country as whole. I am certainly no expert of all the inner workings of the first amendment but it would be my estimation that nothing these people are doing is illegal. I understand what they are saying is quite offensive and parts of it could be construed as racist but illegal, I’m not sure it crosses that line.
Sam did bring up the point of, “The people holding these signs are threatening violence against elected officials. At what point is THAT a crime?” I understand that you cannot make threats against someone’s life, particularly not a high-ranking government official, but it does not seem like there are any specific threats in here. Most of them are just saying that they would prefer Obama or so-and-so dead. I think that they would have to be more precise and seem like the person had seriously contemplated assassinating an official before action could be taken. However, once again, these are just my naïve speculations.
Really, I think the most important thing about this issue is in the title of the article. “Is this just a few bad apples?” And my answer to that is yes. There are only a few people out there I believe that are crazed enough that they would express their political beliefs this way. I am sure there are many many more people who would also disagree with the new health reform bill but they either go about their protests in a logical way or choose other ways of expressing their disapproval. Unfortunately, it is not the calm reasonable folk who get themselves in the paper. It is the often the loud and irrational who become the face of the movement, which is not good news for the Republican Party.

I think one of the big reasons for this is that we are kind of set into this mold where it is just assumed that most racist or rude comments come from white people and are directing at minorities and not vice versa. I think this is a good point that Sam often mentions is that it’s possible for minorities to be racist or make rude comments in some way and it should be viewed the same way as if a white person said. Equality works in multiple ways. This may be because black people were asked to do this after the white crowd went so in some ways what they did was a response to what white people did so it was kind of like the white people fired the first punch and they were just responding to it. White people kind of set the standard with the over the top comments so maybe it wasn’t so shocking when it happened the second time around. This is just part of it. I think the biggest part is that white people are scared to say something that is politically incorrect because of the backlash that we saw in class. For whatever reason, minorities can get away with disparaging remarks a little easier. I think most of this is because of how important it is for people to be politically correct nowadays. I don’t really agree with this for the same reasons that Sam mentioned in class, that if we don’t really say something and go around the issue with our language then we won’t really get anywhere. There is just so much media coverage out there now and its so over encompassing that anything you say will be over analyzed and if it sounds even a hair racist then you will be hammered for it. I think we still saw these comments from people mostly cause its anonymous but it is why we didn’t see much uproar, as the questioner said, when black people posted something inappropriate. People didn’t want to say something in response that could be taken the wrong way so they instead remained quiet. This can be a problem since this way inequalities or racism are not threatened and brought into the light. If people are scared to bring these issues out then you really aren’t going to get anywhere. Perhaps another reason for this is that racism bothers black people more than white people. White people really aren’t discriminated against so it doesn’t bother them as much. When they get made fun for being non-athletic or bad dancers they don’t really care and can brush it off because a) they are just dumb little stereotypes and b) they can look at all the positives that come with being white which easily outweighs the negatives.

To be honest, I had not thought about this phenomenon until I saw the video blog. I would have to agree it is a bit strange. I am in any way an active follower of the show but through commercials and what not I also cannot remember seeing anyone outside of the Caucasian race on the show, much less being the bachelor or bachelorette. I am sure that there have been a few show participants who are not Caucasian but the number is definitely quite low, particularly when you look at other reality shows. It’s also interesting that this lacks minorities as one of the original reality shows (Real World) makes sure that every season they have at least one person to represent a particular demographic including blacks, Hispanics, LGBT and others. The Bachelor however seems to do the opposite of this. Perhaps this is because as some previous posters mentioned shows like the Real World, A Shot at Love and others air on stations like MTV and VH1, which traditionally cater to a younger audience who you would expect to be a little less ethnocentric than the previous generation. In my opinion I don’t think this issue is a big deal at all as I can’t imagine black people or anyone truly being upset that they can’t get on a dating show. And particularly one that rarely ends up with people really falling in love and especially during a time when they have real racial concerns in our country. Having said that, I am curious which people get the blame if minorities did see this as some sort of wrongdoing and bigotry. Would they be upset with the network, the producers of the show or with the bachelor candidates? I’m interested in how the twenty or so dating contestants are selected. Do producers of the show simply accept the twenty or so “best” people who apply or does the bachelor candidate make clear what kind of women he is into and then the producers search for applicants who fit his interests? If this is the case than the network and producers really are not to blame at all since it is simply a case of personal preference by the bachelors and bachelorettes. I can see people getting upset over this if they view this is a microcosm of the racial divide seen in our country but as this is one such a small level I don’t really think it indicates much. It would be interesting if the candidate for whatever reason was a white man for instance and was infatuated with Hispanic or Black women so the producers searched for a cast simply of that race or if for once they had a cast of mixed demographics. I think then you could really start looking for discriminatory patterns if you saw all the Hispanics voted off first for instance or some other weird patter, but for the most part I just think, that if this indicates anything (which it very well may not) its that people are attracted to those who look like them.

As someone who can only trace their ancestry in the United States back a few generations I can sympathize with Vincent when he asks “Why should I have to take blame for what happened to Native Americans on this land?” It is a hard question to answer. I agree with him in that individually we should not each be held accountable, but as a group I think maybe we should be in a way. It seems somewhat hypocritical to me that while at some times we boast about ourselves as a nation and what we did a long time ago but then cannot take at least some responsibility for what happened to Native Americans when Europeans arrived here. I cannot personally take credit for turning this country into what it is today (at least not very much credit) and can’t talk about how mighty our military has been in past wars when I had not done much but it seems easier to say that I had nothing to do with the race issues that have occurred in our country over time. I don’t think our generation should be held personally responsible but I think for every time we take pride in making up part of this country we have to take responsibility for both the good and the bad. So if you are constantly crying out how great our country is and being prideful of what we have accomplished than you should also, at the very least, reflect on some of the things we have done wrong. So while I may not personally be able to do anything about what happened hundreds of years ago I cannot at least educate myself on the topic and try to make sure that nothing like that ever occurs again. I also think it is interesting that people who are born here are like me, very fortunate, in the opportunities that we have been provided (healthcare, vacations, college education). These are things, that as Sam likes to mention in class, have been given to us without us really doing much work. I know there are some people who have had to sacrifice more than me to achieve these things but the majority of us I believe have gotten these things without little effort. So if we are going to say that because something happened in the past by our forefathers then it means we it doesn’t affect us we should also look at all the positive things that we have because of their hard work and at times exploitation. So in summary, while I believe that our generation should not be held personally accountable for what happened we as a nation (which we are a part of) should take some responsibility and at the very least educate the youth as to what happened.

My believe as to why lesbians are accepted as homosexuals by society more than gay men is not something that I can really back up. It is mostly based on my belief and guess that the majority of prejudice and hatred towards homosexuals in the United States comes from males, or at the very least they are the most vocal about it for whatever reason. It is also important I think to understand that most people act at least in some ways hypocritically, and I do not mean this only about men. As much as we may not like to admit we have hypocritical tendencies that pop up as we try to justify things that we like and dislike but we cannot explain why. I believe it is this hypocrisy by the more vocal and upset male population that does not support gay rights in this country that has led us to this question. This particular group has for whatever reason been able to justify lesbian couples in their minds. I think this is for three reasons. The first being in that in our society and culture it is looked down upon for a man to attack a woman, both physically and verbally. It is not looked at as classy or gentlemanly so males try to stay away from this issue as they do not want to appear as if they are picking a fight with someone who traditional society would say can’t defend themselves. The second reason is that certain men, for whatever reason, are sexually turned on by two women who are together. It seems exotic and taboo as it is something new in this culture. It would seemingly go against masculinity and heterosexuality to have two girls doing whatever it might be together and not see it as attractive (could be as simple as 2 girls are more than one). I feel like some guys would be looked down upon by others for speaking out against something that to some is an exciting exotic turn-on. The third and final reason is that men who are against homosexuality, particularly those, who could be labeled as ‘homophobes’, have nothing to ‘fear’ from lesbians. They do not have to worry about lesbians coming on to them at a bar for example the same way they may fear the same actions from a gay man (even if this is not a real threat to them). I think it would be interesting to see how men’s views towards lesbians and gay males differ from women’s views towards gay males and lesbians. For some reason I think the different sexes would view things differently and for whatever reason I feel as though women are a little more supportive of different lifestyles or at least are less vocal in their disagreement with it.

I believe that one of the primary reasons that talks about race always seem to center around the “Blacks vs. Whites” debate is that for almost the entire duration of American history there has been an ongoing struggle by blacks to gain freedom, respect and equality. The same cannot be said for Latinos, Asians, and various other ethnic groups. I think we feel that until we have settled this dispute than no other ethnic dispute can be solved. It is the one ongoing movement that sets a standard for all others. Also, due to the embarrassing history of treatment by whites to blacks in our country (from slavery to segregation to Jim Crow laws, etc.) we finally are beginning to understand what he have done to an entire population demographic. I think in some ways white are trying to prove to themselves that their actions and reliefs reflect what the American spirit and American constitution is supposed to be about, a land of freedom and justice for all. And until we resolve this dispute between whites and blacks we cannot begin to look at other issues in our country brought on by ethnic differences. I think what is interesting about this is that if you look at how various ethnic and racial groups in our country are treated you could argue that some are treated worse than blacks and some are treated better so it would appear that this issue is at the top of the list for us for some reasons other than being the most pressing. As I stated before due to the duration of the ongoing struggle by blacks in this country to obtain true freedom and equality whites feel like it naturally has to be fixed first, almost to make a point. I feel like it would seem hypocritical for whites even speak with those of other races about equality when we have yet to settle an issue that has been ongoing for hundreds of years. How could you take a conversation like that seriously when a group of people have been held back for hundreds of years based on the color of their skin? I think another reason that must be mentioned is that for a long time blacks have made up the largest minority group in our country, though Hispanics are beginning to match them in that respect. Due to the sheer volume of people as well as black leaders of influence over time and today such as Malcolm X, MLK, Jesse Jackson and so on they have been able to make their plight known and as much we may not like to admit it have forced us to listen to their dilemmas and compelled us to work with them. It is no secret that certain individuals who wield power in our government and society have been slow to react and embrace change over the years and have not exactly done it proactively. Often it is only when we feel threatened; whether by the possibility of losing votes from a racial group or pressure from constituents do we act. By having a foundation built on hundreds of years of oppression blacks have been able to gain a foothold in our society and have been able to slowly achieve the equality they strive for, which they deserve much credit for.

Despite the fact that I am a Jewish American, albeit not the most religious of ones, I am not surprised at all to hear of the situation that occurred on board that flight. In class we have talked about just how many ethnicities, races, cultures and subcultures exist in our world. The number in the United States is staggering as well. While the religious customs practiced by this young man on the plane that day are not foreign to a Jewish individual like myself, nor are they likely foreign to the people who live in neighborhoods like Williamsburg or Crown Heights they are likely quite foreign to the majority of Americans. To this flight attendant, his adorning of the tefillin was something she had never seen and likely could not relate it to anything she had seen in her place of worship. If she could have seen a likeness to the way she practiced she likely would not have acted in the manner she did, particularly after the boy informed her that he was simply praying in his free time. The way she acted may not make sense to those of us who are familiar with the customs or those of us with a diverse group of friends but to her she was simply doing her job. Particularly in the times we live in now where everything is scrutinized on the airport and on the plane what she did probably makes a lot of sense to other flight attendants who read the article. Though she may have embarrassed herself in some way, erring on the side of caution was much safe for both the passengers on board and for her career.

Also, I would imagine that if you flip the scenario and the orthodox Jewish young man was the flight attendant and another individual began his or her prayer routine it very well may have been foreign to him. Just as many of the white Christian American community may not be in tune with the inner workings of other smaller religious sects I would bet the same could be said in reverse leading to many of the issues we see today in our culture regarding race and religion. Perhaps I am giving the woman the benefit of the doubt but I would guess that what was going through her head at the time wasn’t “there is a passenger on board engaging in a dangerous religious practice that may be a symbol of what he may do next”. In all likelihood she was simply confused by what she saw and conditioned by the countless stories that she has heard since 9/11 that make her think that anything out of the ordinary on the name could mean disaster for all those aboard. To me, this story is simply an example of how many cultural and religious differences there are even within our country and how difficult it is to familiarize yourself with all that is going on.