Yes I agree that posing that question about how would you plan to provide for more equitable opportunities socially was a good way to start off the lecture. When Sam starts a lecture by posing a question it always gets me thinking right away and helps me pay more attention. I really agree with what you say about people never being entirely equal. We want people to be equal so we put policies in action that make things easier for certain people. But these policies do not always make things better and can sometimes make them worse. I do not know how to fix the problem but I feel there must be a better way.

Once again a interesting lecture. One thing I just wanted to mention is that Sam felt it was the best lecture of the course. After he said that I thought about it and realized he has said that about multiple classes. I do not know if he feels that they really are the best or if he just says that, but they all are really good. So getting back to the topic. Affirmative Action. I have heard the term before but I have to admit I did not really know what it meant. Thank you to wikipedia though i was able to easily look it up. What it said was that affirmative action refers to policies that are put in place to take factors such as race, gender, religion, and so on to benefit underrepresented groups. It also said this is usually done to counter of a history of discrimination. After reading this it was a lot easier to understand the lecture. So Sam starts off by talking about who benefits the most out of these affirmative actions. He said that women benefit the most, but not just women white women. I agreed with what he said following that. Most white women marry white males or have white sons or have white fathers. Therefore white males will also benefit from these affirmative actions. So after reading why affirmative actions are use it kind of makes me think that they do not really work if they benefit everyone. Then we watch a video from Opera. I am pretty sure we already watched this video before but it still surprises me. It is sad how some schools do not receive the same benefits. As far as a way to fix that problem I do not know if there really is a way. The state could take all tax money for schools and divide it up evenly but i feel that would cause even more problems. People who pay more money in taxes want that money to fund schools for their children not people on the other side of the state. So that would just cause more problems. I guess as far as affirmative action the government could give schools that fit certain criteria grants and more money. But like Sam said not all people who fit certain criteria experienced the same problems. My personal opinion is that everyone should have equal chances at things and no one should receive benefits just because of their race or gender. Everyone talks about being equal but this does not help it just makes things more less equal. I do not know how to fix this problem of unequality and understand why certain policies are put into place but I just feel a better solution needs to be found. if anyone has a opinion on this please comment and let me know what you think. thanks

I also found this lecture very interesting and also I learned a lot of things about immigration that I did not know. The whole thing about politics and how some did not get reelected because their decisions hurt businesses. It really does show how much power some businesses have. I also found it very interesting our fore fathers and how they regulated immigration. they only let in enough immigrants to run their farms. It shows how much politics is about money. It is sad but true. Also think about how we just stole America in the first place. I want to do more research on this now and see what else I can find out about this subject.

I really found this lecture very interesting but also very disturbing. The lecture was of course about Immigration and to start it off Sam brought up a very good point about our countries history. We founded our country by stealing the land from Native Americans and even stealing some from the Mexicans. I found it very interesting to think that we are fighting so hard to keep Illegal Immigrants from Mexico out of our country when we took much land from Mexico in the first place, and it was not legally taken either. The same goes for Native Americans. Our country is so strict on Immigration right now when we are all Immigrants ourselves. This country was founded by Immigrants who stole land from the Native Americans. We are now scared about people coming here and taking our resources when we stole everything we have from the Natives. I never really thought about it that way before but it really makes you think about things from a different perspective, something Sam is great at getting me to do. I also found the stories about our seventh president Andrew Jackson very interesting and disturbing. He talked about a battle Andrew Jackson is famous for, the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, Alabama. I learned a little bit about this in school, but all I learned was that Andrew Jackson defeated the Indians there. The truth was much more gruesome. President Jackson pretty much just executed these Natives because their land was so valuable. I just could not believe they took it beyond that and scalp them and cut off their noses. They even used their skin and took their clothes. If something like that went on today the whole world would go up in arms. Andrew Jackson did not just make the order for this either he actually participated in scalping Natives. It really is true that we write history how we want it to be because I did not learn any of this while I was in grade school. It is sad but I guess it is part of what made history. Maybe that is why some other countries do not feel too fond of us. To move on from that I did agree with what Sam said about Immigration being about business. Right now we are restricting immigration because it is hurting our economy because they are making money and exporting it and spending it in other countries. If immigrants were helping our economy right now the doors would be thrown open and we would accept anyone. That is what America did in the beginning but once we got all the people we needed we shut the doors and tried to keep everyone out. I feel immigration is a tough subject because people should be allowed to come here but we also can destroy our economy. i would like to hear some other peoples opinion on this. If you would please comment I would appreciate it. Thanks.

I agree with you about the homosexual laws in some places. I find it kind of hard to believe that in some countries it is illegal to be gay. I guess it is just because of the fact that I am so use to seeing people who are gay and we are raised to not think different of them because they are gay that i find this so shocking. i could not imagine arresting people for something that they feel is right like that. It is not like it affects us, what they do in their home is their business. I feel it must be a religious thing.

This Lecture was once again a very interesting lecture. Sam always gets me thinking. I found it very interesting how Sam seemed to almost want us to be stoned for the first part of the lecture. He said we would almost have to be stoned or high to understand what he was talking about. I was not stoned but he was talking about if It matters what language we speak or what flag we wave. I believe he was trying to say that if I were chinese I would speak chinese and I would wave a chinese flag. but because I live in the United States I speak English and I wave an American Flag. I guess he is trying to say that we want everyone to speak english and we are so proud to wave an American flag but if we would have been born in China it would be the other way around. I would be waving a Chinese flag and speaking Chinese and wanted everyone to speak Chinese. I am pretty sure that is what Sam Richards was trying to say. I hope i got this right but I was not high or stoned so I do not know if I can really get it. One thing that same was talking about shortly before this that I did understand was the idea of learning Chinese or Spanish. He said that if you want to go into business or finance you should learn another language such as Chinese or Spanish. I Believe this is a very good point. This is a good point because a lot of business goes over seas and too other countries. Not everyone speaks English so in order to do business with these other countries one would have to speak their language. So if you can speak their language you can do business with them and there fore make money. This kind of goes into the idea of wanted everyone to speak your language. We think business would be a lot easier if everyone spoke English but other people from other countries are thinking business would be a lot easier for them if we all spoke their language. Maybe I do not have to be stoned to understand this because I think I do understand what he was trying to say. A girl in the class talked about how she lived in China for a while. She said everyone who was American lived in their own little bubble over there and did not take in the Chinese culture. The Americans rejected their culture over there. I believe this is why the United States' economy is not as good as it use to be because we as Americans do not want to change. While all of the other countries are willing to change and there fore they are becoming more successful. I feel if we change this we can be much more successful as well. There was a lot more covered in this lecture but this all I have time for. I am interested in looking to see what everyone else has to say.

I agree with you saying that these lectures have really opened me up to different important and interesting topics. All of Sam's lectures really get me thinking. In this last lecture when we watched the video about the black versus white and beauty. I could not believe what that video showed. All of the girls felt that light skin represented beauty. When they did the test with the young black children and they had to chose a doll I was stunned. I could not believe at first that most of them chose the white doll. Then when they asked which one was bad they said the black one because it is black. It really makes me think how we are raising our children. I just found that really interesting.

I just wanted to start by saying I really like the whole idea of "The Tale of the Two Legged Amphibians". I think these analogies are great ways to explain the topics of race and culture in different situations. The same goes with the White Fish and how it represents white people and how they only know white. Same as a fish only knows water until it is introduced into air which would be different races for white people. The Tale of the Two Legged Amphibians is kinda of the same idea. An Amphibian is born in water but goes onto land and then can also return to the water. I just think is a great way to represent some one of one race who can understand different races and cultures. I do not know who comes up with these analogies but I really think they are clever and I would like to meet this person. So anyways to get back on topic in these lectures Sam talked about the four stages of racial identity again only this time we talked about people who are not white going through these stages. Sam pretty much covered everyone as well. He covered everyone from black, chinese, puerto rican, adopted people, and even people who are gay or bisexual. First off sam covered the Pre-awakening stage. This stage is very similar to white people. You do not know much about your race or others. The difference is according to Sam is that white people can stay in this stage of Pre-awakening white people of color are throw out of this stage very early. Sam gave an example of a little girl at the age of four years old when she realized she was different because a friend of her told her she was dirty. I never personally had an experience like this because i am white and I grew up in a white community so I can not relate but I can imagine. If some one said something like that to me I feel it would stick with me forever. After that sam really got into talking about asians. We watched a video of a asian comedian who was doing a skit. The skit was pretty much just talking about how asians are under appreciated or at least that is what i got out of it. I feel some people do under rate asians in this society. The one student told a story about his roommates who were being racist against asians in the United States just because the did not speak English. I feel some day they will see past their racism. That is all I have time to talk about today but I will cover more on my next blog. Thank you for reading this and I hope you will leave a comment so I can see how you feel.

I also have suffered from white guilt and I feel all white Americans do as well. We feel bad because of the advantages we have and the disadvantages others have because of something our ancestors did a very long time ago. I do not have anything against guilt though. i feel guilt is a good thing and with out the feeling of guilt the world would be a much worse place. I use my guilt to make me want to help others. You can do your best to not be a good person and equal to different races but if you are white you will always be stereotyped as racist. There is not anything you can do.

This lecture continues on from the last lecture where we covered stages one and two of racial identity. In this lecture we covered the next two stages of racial identity. Stage three is the revisioning stage. In this stage is when a white person like myself would begin to see the racial inequalities and see the advantages of being white and also begin to realize racism. After getting this far in the course I feel I do now see these things. I now see the inequalities and understand the advantage I have because I am white. The fourth stage of racial identity is the reversal stage. This is when a white person would feel discomfort because they do not fit in so they fall back into old habits and or bring out anger towards people of color. For this lecture we talked a lot about guilt. On the power point guilt was defined as the remorseful awareness of having done something wrong. That really got me thinking cause I always feel guilt but it is for no reason. The whole example of seeing a dead animal on the side of the road. Every time I am driving with my girlfriend and we pass a dead animal on the side of the road she says awe. I always ask what? because I do not usually see the dead animal. She always answers saying there was a dead squirrel or a dead Bambi and she feels bad about it. Like Sam said in class, she did not hit the animal or have anything to do with its death but she still feels guilt. I do not know why she feels guilt over dead animals because that is just how life works but I have an example I can relate to. Whenever someone says the do not feel good or are sick I always say I am sorry. They almost always respond with "it is not your fault" and I say back "I know but still". Ironically while I am typing this I was also text messaging and that just happened. I guess this would be considered guilt. Even though I had nothing to do with someone being sick I still feel bad about it and want them to feel better. I feel guilt is a huge part of our lives or mine at least. I do a lot of things because of guilt or in fear of feeling guilty. If I saw someone drop money I would go give it back to them just because I would feel guilty for not doing it. Because of this I believe guilt is a good thing and everyone should use it. If no one felt guilt the world would be a much different place. Something else I wanted to talk about was the whole wash cloth thing. If that is true I think it is so weird. I am white and I do not use a wash cloth but I assume some one in my family does because we have so many of them. I wonder if there is any secret reasoning behind all of that or if it is just a cultural thing. I am very interested to ask different people if they use wash cloths or not now. I just hope they do not call me racist or anything for it. I also wanted to make one last comment on that website we looked at called black people love us. I found that pretty funny. I just did not know a lot of those things were said about white people. I did know certain things but the whole wet dog thing? I guess I thought I just smell normal but to other people I guess not. Once again I really enjoyed the lecture and am looking forward to the next one.