Sacraficing State Pattys Day this year would be a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation. First off I will not even be in State College this spring semester because of my Co-op job, so nothing I say really matters on this topic. If we do not do State Pattys Day, nobody “notices” and we get no publicity but the student population is agitated and annoyed that they had to give this up. Or we do State Pattys Day and the whole nation could possibly look at us as a bunch of disrespecting idiots. I think the larger question in all of this is why does anyone care. What do we as the students here at this university have anything to do with this, besides the fact that this happened where we go to school. Sure some of the students reacted to what happened and that may have given all of us a bad image. But in all seriousness, this has absolutely nothing to do with us. I am so sick and tired of people telling me to be caring and compassionate and care about the victims. I do not want to walk past the hub and get asked to sign a petition to show that I am against child abuse. Who supports child abuse? These “victims” have even gone out and stated that they do not want to be involved. If anyone can tell me a way that I can actually support or show that I care about these victims then please let me know. Otherwise please just stop harassing and showing Penn State in a bad light.

I have no doubt in my mind that State Pattys Day is happening. There is no way that this holiday is going to be stopped. The only way is for the entire Pennsylvania police department to come here and anyone wearing green has “reasonable suspicion” and they get breathalized on the spot. This would curb all of the underage drinking associated with the holiday. But would also develop bad publicity for them because I am not altogether sure that that would even be legal. So we celebrate State Pattys Day and the nation looks at us badly. Lets back up for a second. Did any of these students have anything to do with helping or supporting Sandusky? No? Then why does it matter if they enjoy their lives. Let the students enjoy their lives as college students and have fun instead of being associated with a pedophile for the next few years.

I have kind of just rambled on about this topic. Like I said earlier this is a damned if we do damned if we don’t situation. I just wish everyone could leave us alone, but no they have to worry about everyone else.

This entire situation has affected the way people view us in a completely negative way. I was at the doctors yesterday and the nurse is taking my blood pressure. She decided to ask me where I went to school, even though I was wearing my Penn State sweatshirt as proud as ever. I told her that I went to Penn State. She told me she felt bad for me because she was catholic and the whole situation with the priests was “comparable”. About 30 seconds later she says, “Huh your blood pressure is high, what are you nervous about”. I stared at her literally dumbfounded thinking to myself “You just brought up an extremely emotional and stressful situation in my life and expect my blood pressure to be normal.” Everywhere I go and people ask me where I go to school their expression is exactly the same, “Oh…..” They do not know what to say to me and if they do have something to say “Oh that’s really a shame, that’s a shame, what do you think about it?” I feel instantly judged by people that a barely know over an issue that has absolutely nothing to do with me whatsoever, expect for the fact that these alleged events took place in a building on the same campus that I go to school at. All of these “adults” are not using their brains and just immediately judging Penn State as a whole.
My experiences with other college students however are quite different. I went to visit my friend at Rutgers this past weekend when I came home from school. All of the students there really tried to understand what we were going through. They understood that they just as easily could be in the same situation as I was. That their school could easily be under the same scrutiny from the entire nation if a similar scandal or event took place at their school. For the most part people that I have explained the situation to are quite understating. But people that have formed judgments on their own are not very considerate of anybody else’s viewpoints besides there own. They came up with conclusions that they will not change.
In America there is a law “innocent until proven guilty”. Most people seem to forget this fact and immediately think whatever they feel their amazing media detective skills have told them.
None of this whatsoever should affect the value of our degrees from Penn State. This is no way has affected the education we are receiving. Our education should be just as valued as it always has been. We are the #1 college for corporate recruiters. We are a top ranked academic university. We Are Penn State.
But I fear that people will not forget this situation lightly. I have a co-op next semester in Texas and I am worried about what people will think of Penn State so far away from most people that attend it.

I personally think that most of the people in the class chose socialism because they looked at the graphs and saw the one that they thought would benefit them the best. I personally chose the graph that represented America. Why did I choose that? Well first off I knew that the graph was America before I chose it, but second I looked at it and thought to myself, “Hey it turned out good enough this time why not try it again?” In all seriousness though I think that most people chose Socialism because they looked at it with the thought that they would most likely have the best chance to have money there. People made this choice because they did not want to be lower class. They did not want to be lower than everyone else, and in the socialism where the money was not necessarily divided evenly, but it was the most evenly divided they had the least chance being extremely poor compared to everyone else. While in theory this may make sense and look good, that’s what people said about communism too. It looks good and makes sense in theory but when actually practiced it obviously does not work at all. Nobody wants to be poor, and therefore they chose based on that. America may have its flaws, but that does not make it any less of a nation, in fact America is still the greatest nation in the world. Why then is our economy split the way it is? It is because of capitalism, and while the people that may not have much would think its dumb, stop and look around. If you make more that $35,000 a year then guess what? You are in the top 1%, maybe not in America but in the world! People need to stop dwelling on the small things and look at the big picture of the world. There are people living on less than $5 a week in some parts of the world and people sit here complaining that they don’t have enough opportunity in the world. Guess what you were born in America, live with it, you have opportunity, maybe not as much as someone like Obamas children would, but you were still born into the greatest country in the world, and have more opportunity than most of the rest of the world. These people need to understand that while something like socialism may sound appealing, they did not talk about the scale of the economies and everything that is appealing about Americas economy. People are blinded by statistics that are meant to deceive them in the first place, they need to learn to see what the reality of the situation is by looking at a whole picture and not the small views.

People speaking another language around me do not make me feel uncomfortable except when I am involved in the conversation. People all speak their own language and there is no reason to feel uncomfortable. However if I was recently involved in a conversation with people and then they started speaking a different language that I did not understand I would immediately feel uncomfortable. I would want to know why they are speaking in a language that I clearly don’t understand when I am right next to them and they know I don’t speak it. I would instantly feel like they were talking about me and I would feel uncomfortable because I would not know why they were doing that. I am sure that anyone would feel awkward in that situation. Why would they speak in that other language that they know I didn’t understand? Obviously it is to talk about me, which would make anybody uncomfortable. That is just an awkward, weird, and uncomfortable situation to be in. Besides for that though there is no reason to feel uncomfortable. People have their own experiences and their own cultures in life and should be able to live any way they choose. If that means they want to speak a language that I do not understand that is by every way a right that they have in America. The United States of America was founded based on certain freedoms exactly like that, that people should be able to live any way that they want too. I could imagine though, that people could feel uncomfortable if people in their proximity were talking in a language that they did not understand, but then again everyone is allowed to have their own opinions and do whatever they want. I personally think that everyone should live how he or she wants too. The problem is that people are very judgmental of anybody that is not like them. If people are not similar to you than most people judge them. This could cause people to feel uncomfortable with the situation such as people not speaking a language that you understand. I would only feel uncomfortable if they were obviously speaking about me and I didn’t know it. But then again I would feel the same if someone was obviously texting about me or whispering about me when I am around. There is just that uncomfortable feeling that you know that people are talking about you but there is nothing that you can do about it because they are trying to make sure that you don’t realize it but then you do realize it. Other than that there is no reason that anyone should feel uncomfortable with that fact. Everyone has their own lives that they live and should be able to live them however they want.

Honestly in my opinion it does not matter to me that white people will no longer be the majority. We had a discussion about this in my recitation section and we all had basically the same opinions. White people as a single defined group (if you could define it as such) will be the overall minority to all the other races combined. But as individuals races (again if you could define it like this) white people would still be the majority by a decently large margin. As it is this way, and not all minorities are connected together, white people will still feel like the majority in most if not all ways. This is a reason that I am not bothered by this fact what so ever. Even if white people were not the single majority group I still feel like this world would not change very much. With all of our embedded customs in the United States of America I don’t think that anything could or would change. The way the media is and the way people are being brought up I still think that it would be exactly the same. I doubt that minorities as a whole could get organized into one giant group to try to “dethrone” white people as the majority power in the United States. That alone is a statement that is absurd in grouping all “minorities” of black and brown people together as a unit saying that white people will not be the majority. As a whole yes that is a true statement, but that does not mean anything in terms of how politics or how media will work. The media will function exactly the same still broadcasting exactly how they do now, the politicians will all be the same, and they will all act exactly the same. There might be a slight increase of “minority” involvement in these but that does not mean that they will change. Lets look at this from another angle. The graphs that we are shown in class show that on average white people make more money (aside from Asian families) than all other minorities. What happens when the minorities turn into the majority? Is affirmative action switched over to white people? Oh lets hire some more white people because we don’t have enough? That sounds good too me, along with probably every other white person looking for a job. Lets hire more white people because they are the minority. If we are going to take this stand that white people are going to be the minority then we should also take this stance on affirmative action and everything that is involved with that. I doubt that this will ever happen.

Hanging out with people of a different race does not make them a poser. If they are hanging out with people of a different race then they are obviously just comfortable with the people of that race. I think that most people probably judge that one white guy that hangs out with all the black kids. Oh that guy is a “wigger” he wants to be black. There are also those black guys that hang out with all white guys and everyone calls him “so white”. That doesn’t mean these people are posers. That is just how they were raised, how they feel comfortable, and where they fit in. That does not mean in any way whatsoever that they are posers. One of my best friends from home is black, and he only really hangs out with white guys but that does not make him a poser. He just grew up with us and is comfortable around all the white people he is friends with. To narrow minded people that only hang out with other people of their own race and cultures, this probably makes them a poser. I could easily see a bunch of racist white kids thinking that another white person that was friends with all black people would be a poser. I also can see those same white people thinking that a black person or any other non white person that only hung out with white people was a poser. This is one of the main lessons of sociology 119, is too not judge people by their looks. Just because someone seems one way on the outside, you have to get to know him or her before you can pass an opinion on someone. We are all the same people; only .01% of our DNA has to do without physical appearance the other 99.9% is exactly the same. There is no reason to judge someone because they are different than you, everyone should be treated the same and everyone should get a fair chance in your eyes before you judge them. You should not automatically stereotype someone based on their appearance, they are their own individual person and although their culture may be one way, you have no way to know before you get to know them. I grew up in a school that wasn’t completely diverse, but showed me enough diversity to know that someone that hangs out with other races is not a poser. Everyone is comfortable in his or her own individual situations, and that does not make them a poser. There is no reason that someone can’t hang out with people of another race other than their own. Everyone has their own experiences in life and lives it the way they are comfortable.

Being white and growing up the way that I did has definitely given me a certain outlook on life that I do not think others might have. For example I am an extreme proponent of free will over determinism. Yes there is obviously a blend between the two, but it all leans towards the free will side. Take for example the video we watched in class with the family from Ohio that lives in the trailer. The child was born into bad “determined” conditions but he is doing everything he can to get good grades and he made a free choice that he did not want to be like that. This is a strong example of how somebody can make a choice that they want to do something with their life. Sure he was born into bad conditions and most people would just accept it and not try. He is determined and he wants to succeed and he is willing to try as much as it takes to become a higher social class than he was born into. To me this is the epitome of a true American. Someone who no matter what their situation is, is willing to work hard to obtain something that they want and live better than they are. I think that I probably feel this way though, because I am white, and have had everything handed to me in life. My definition of “hard work” is probably not somebody else’s definition of hard work. Anybody else who grew up with less opportunities than I have would probably tell me that I have never had any “hard work” in my entire life. I would probably agree to an extent because I have never really had to try for anything in my life. I did well in high school, got a 790 on the math portion of the SAT, got into some of the top engineering colleges in the nation, have a 3.43 GPA, and I’ve accepted a co-op with NASA for this up coming spring semester. That’s all been handed to me, because of how I have grown up. Yes I have made choices to put in effort to do well in school, but I was blessed with a school and future that would give me the opportunities to thrive. Since I have been blessed with all of this, and I am white, I always have the mind set that anybody can create these opportunities. I always talk about how everybody in America has the opportunity to succeed and if I can do it and I am just a normal guy why cant everybody else? Then I realize, that I am white, and I have had everything handed to me, and I did have extremely successful parents that pushed to me succeed. I feel almost ignorant to the fact that other people might not have the same opportunities as I have, but at the same time I feel blessed that I have had all of these opportunities, but I know that it is because I am white that I have these opportunities.

I personally find this question absolutely hilarious. Girls dress like that because they want to. They have no other reason then they want to look “good” and “impress” other girls and guys on who is better looking. When I go out, sure I wear jeans, but I put on a nice button up shirt, I don’t go out looking like I go all day. Nobody says that the girls have to wear clothes that make their boobs pop out and their asses look big. It’s hilarious that girls dress like that, and then complain that guys hit on them and are creeps. Look at how you are dressed. See a correlation? I do, it hilarious that girls feel the need to dress like that.
However, that is how the media portrays them. The media portrays girls like that, so that is how they are expected to be dressed. Males are portrayed as the comfortable laid back alpha male type, and girls always have to impress them and look incredible. The media brainwashes us into thinking that looking sexy has to do with girls wearing tight, revealing clothing. Regardless of this, women have a choice, there is nothing unsexy about a good looking girl that is covered up, in fact she is leaving more to the imagination which can make a guys mind wonder even more than if she is dressed like a whore.
The problem with this question though, is that it is assuming that all guys do not dress up, and all girls dress up, and that is just not true. There are occasions when I will go out in just a tshirt and not worry about how I look, but there are also occasions when I will wear nice clothes out and worry about looking good. There are also girls that do not dress up every night, and can wear jeans and a nice shirt out instead of the whole revealing dress ordeal. You do not have to dress up or down on any particular night for people to think you are sexy. To me it has to do more with how someone acts and how they hold themselves than if they are dressed like they are prostitute on a street corner. Sure everyone has their own opinions and preferences, but the statement still stands.
While I am not disagreeing with the fact that girls as a whole do dress up more than guys. They are not forced too by any means at all. They choose to conform to society and dress up like that every weekend rather than impress people with who they are rather than what they look like. So these girls have no room to complain about how guys treat them when they choose to go out looking like this.

Nothing about the bike video surprised me at all. Everyone is at least a little bit racist. Lets stop and think for a second, what would you have done if you were there. Being a guy, I know that I would have helped the attractive girl out, as would almost every other guy that walked past. Walking past the white guy, I probably would have stopped and looked, and then been too lazy to actually do anything about it if I even thought he was stealing in the first place. Walking past the black guy, I would have laughed and been like look at that guy stealing that bike. Regardless of that being a complete joke, I would not have given either of them more than a second thought. I am not a confrontational person so I would not have said anything to either of them. I might have called the cops depending on what mood I was in and if I actually thought they were stealing the bike, but I would not have said anything to either of them. The publics reaction does not surprise me at all. All of the men looked at the woman struggling and went to help them. The video was absolutely hilarious. The one woman looks at the girl and is like oh my god she is stealing that bike, and her husband rides his bike right on past and goes to help the attractive young lady, as his wife looks on at them with complete shock. Other women looked at the girl and thought she might be stealing the bike but left her alone, but all of the men stopped to help her and to see if she was ok. This I find hilarious because it is absolutely true. A few people stopped to ask the white guy what he was doing, but most left him alone to do his own thing. But almost every single person that walked past stopped to talk to the black guy and ask what he was doing. This does not surprise me, especially when you stop and look at all of the people passing by. It seemed to be like it was a mostly white neighborhood, so obviously people that are passing by are going to stop and look at the black guy not only because he is black and stealing a bike but because he also stands out compared to the rest of the people that are walking passed. If this situation were changed to a different neighborhood people might have responded differently, but because of the way it was, and the type of people that were there, the response of them does not surprise me at all, nor should it surprise anybody that watched the video. Everything that was portrayed in the video is real life, and people need to accept that that is what happens every day, people just based on outside appearances, and that it wrong but it is not changing any time soon.

Watching the videos on the different entrepreneurs definitely enlightened me. I wanted the videos of Figaro Louis, who makes pastries, Clorene Blaise who makes clothing, and Sonia Joseph who makes insulated lunch bags. I could never imagine having to deal with the conditions that they have too. They struggle to sell their products, they struggle to make their products, and they struggle to get materials for their products. They spend too much time trying to get supplies for their products, because of the traveling system, they are struggling to make ends meet. These people spend so much time making beautiful perfect products, and they sell them for dirt cheap. In America they would sell for so much more than what they sell for in Haiti. Clorene Blaise and Sonia Joseph make their products by hand that seem to be made to perfection, people in America would love to get their hands on these. The problem is they have no way to gain access to that market. Even if they sat down and decided to select a target market, they would have to way to distribute and ship their products. They would not even be able to be a presence in the market because of lack of opportunities. I can only imagine that the natural disasters that happened made all of this even worse. The conditions in Haiti were already bad to begin with and the natural disaster must have made the conditions and the ability to travel even worse. People lost money and belongings, so not only did the entrepreneurs lose product and money, but the people buying their products were also buying less, because they have less money to spend. Looking at the page from Figaro Louis, there is a video of them driving down the street in Haiti. This video really upsets me because the conditions look absolutely terrible. Things are broken and run down, the people look like they are moping around and miserable. I could not even imagine the horrible conditions that they live in there. No part of how they live is sanitary. This makes me even more thankful to have had all of the opportunities that I have in my life. I could not imagine the struggles that they go through every day just to get by. I easily sit here and can spend money on clothes, food, gas, and not even think twice about it. At the end of the money I pay off my credit card bills and continue on with my life. These people are struggling to get by and make everything worth their money and make every cent they spend worth it. The problem is, people in America are so worried about themselves that they do not think about the problems other people have. We need to find a way to make people more aware of the conditions that people are living in around the world.