Overall, I would say that my views on different races have not changed very much. I would like to think that going into this semester, I had a pretty good idea of how different races are globally perceived and treated. For example, I can remember being on a plane ride in about 2005. On this plane ride, there were a few men of middle eastern decent. I don't recall being particularly alarmed, but you could just sense all of the people on the plane were worried. It was like there was an elephant in the room that nobody wanted to discuss. Obviously, there is the stereotype that these men were terrorists, along with all other middle eastern people that travel. In Soc. 119, I believed that we talked about these types of stereotypes, so I think that I knew about this going into the class.
I think one of the most important things I learned about in Soc 119 is that people of different races have pretty ridiculous reasons for hating other races. Things such as "My God is better than yours" or "Your skin is too dark" have caused war, hate and pain for too long. As I said before, I've known for years that people fought each other for dumb reasons. But some examples that we learned about in class were embarrassing.
This next point relates more to what I learned about gender than race, but I still think it can apply here. In Soc 119, I really began to question the reason that women wear some of the clothes they were. For example, why the hell would girls wear short skirts and heels on icy, winter nights when they go out? As ludicrous as it seems, nobody really seems to question it. The reason is because there is a certain style that women feel like they have to follow. This style includes being thin, having large breasts, perfect faces, and a ton of other "attractive" attributes. Now I find a lot of girls attractive, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I have a ton of respect for them. I just read a tweet from a girl that said " Girls dont like boys. Girls like drugs and alcohol". To me, the girls that feel that way are being heavily influenced by advertising that emphasizes how women are supposed to be.
One other thing that I learned about race relations is how people in power influence how others think and act. Sam talked about it the other day; those that are on top have more leverage to influence others and get what they want. Sometimes, what these people want is war. Often times, the reason they influence anything is to benefit them, most times financially.

I have learned many things because of what has happened here in State College. Perhaps the biggest lesson I learned is that people hear only what they want to hear. The way I see it, the school, the media, and most of the people in the world have been looking at this the wrong way. I understand that people are angry over the alleged crimes and supposed cover up. Jerry Sandusky, if he committed these crimes, is a demon of a human being. With that being said, there is so much information that needs to come out before we can make any decisions about these people. People are so quick to rush to judgement about things. This is an ongoing investigation, which prevents people from giving their side of the story. With that being said, I learned that people hear only what they want to hear. If people have their mind made up already that sandusky is guilty, and that Joe Paterno covered it up, then that's exactly what they are going to think they hear. It ties back to what Sam said about people being around people that aren't different than them.
I have also learned that if these allegations are true, then it proves that being a coach is a perfect way for pedophiles to prey on children. Think about it: a pedophile would be around kids all the time. Most kids look up to their coach as a role model. Some of them even consider their coach as a father figure. When you have kids that respect you that much, it is probably easy to prey on them. This is also the same reason why so many priests are convicted of child molestation. These priests are around so many children on a daily basis, which is exactly the kind of situation a pedophile would want to be in.
Perhaps the biggest lesson I learned is that the media cannot be trusted. People should be more informed of the case, the suspects, and the victims and their families should be treated with respect. However, the focus has shifted off of the alleged rapist to a football coach. I have a family member who is going through a similar situation with a court case, and the media is doing the same thing. They try to get their day in the sun, but at the same time they ignore what the story should really be about.
Also, It makes me angry to see how terribly the university has handled the situation. I learned that the people running the university were not mentally equipped to preside over this scandal. In addition, I learned that the students of this university are some of the best students in the country. They care about the victims, yet they seem to figure out that many of the things the university did in response were premature.

Penn State has traditionally been a staple of integrity among highly competitive sports schools. The university has no major NCAA violations to its name and as a sports program and a university Penn State has always maintained a high level of integrity. For many outside observers, Penn State had up to this point provided a refreshing cleanliness in the world of bribes, money, and scandals that seems to have dominated the NCAA in the past years. After the Jerry Sandusky, not only the integrity of many individuals that have been a figurehead to Penn State's superior status have come into the question, but the general sentiment about the University has also come under some criticism.

Now, it ought to be maintained that Penn State is much more than a football program, Jerry Sandusky, and even ex coach Joe Paterno. Penn State is still considered by many to give an Ivy League education at a state level of education, it is still the number one chosen school among corporate recruiters and it still harbors some of the strongest programs, best developmental research and strongest minds of any university in the country. However, this fact may only be exceedingly apparent to those who have some familiarity with Penn State either as a student or alumnus or someone who has been exposed to the tenants that Penn State is all about.

Many reporters are expressing worry about the way in which the current scandal plaguing the football team will affect future recruits in football but I believe the effect to be more widespread. Penn State's integrity is currently in question and whether or not they have the best programs or not, parents and future applicants as well as general observers around the country are simply turned off by this scandal that has occurred. As Penn State students we also felt this sense of security through the years watching other schools lose coaches and administrators to scandals, and other schools doing all sorts of things to get around the systems in place.

To outside observers who do not share in the same emotion as Penn State students, they see the dirt stains of Penn State's latest dragging through the mud. They do not share the same familiarity and thus the things they see and hear from the media which has been in many ways highly critical of Penn State and stated a believed culpability in the Sandusky scandal seem very reasonable and despite the fact that there has been no bulk of information released about the case since the Grand Jury indictment they will follow the rumors. In the end it should be known to all those outsiders to Penn State that Penn State is still alive and well in the students and teachers that occupy its classrooms and in the halls of every building. Now is the time to prove to the rest of the world that Penn State is exactly what we are.

The Colbert Report clip revealed much about immigration to me that I did not know. According to Stephen Colbert, the United States Government is very tolerant of illegal immigration as of late. The reason for this, according to him, is because the United States needs illegal immigrants to do some of the migrant working in order to keep this country afloat. Their theory is that businesses hire illegal immigrants because it is cheap labor. American citizens do not want to do such a hard job, much less for cheap wages.
The question presented by this student is a very interesting topic to me, probably because I'm a white male. In my opinion, I don't believe I would want to do a job like that. Maybe someday I will not feel the same way, but today I feel that I can go to school for a few years and get a very leisurely, well paying job. The past few summers I have been cutting grass for various friends and family. To me, it is a very enjoyable job doing this kind of manual labor. It also helps that I get paid a reasonable amount to do this work. With that being said, it is not something I can see myself doing for the rest of my life.
Someone in my discussion group said something interesting today. In his opinion, illegal immigrants that are looking for work in the United States are usually trying to support their family in another country. Anything that this person scraps together usually end up getting sent back to the family. These illegal immigrants are likely to take any job they can, which can end up being manual labor jobs. Therefore, the illegal immigrants are much more content with working a low paying, tiring job than Americans are.
It seems like American citizens don't really understand how easy they have it. They do not have to worry about unemployment or poverty. In my experiences, Americans take for granted the lifestyle they live. I learned a lot of illegal immigrants the past few days. Previously my opinion was "send them all back to their own country". Now my opinion is not the same. After listening to Eric's story, I realized it is just people trying to survive. If I were in their shoes, there's a good possibility that I would try to do the same thing. When it all boils down, it comes down to doing whatever it takes to protect your family. Even if this means risking getting deported, maybe its worth the shot for a better life. And that is the reason why most of these migrant jobs are taken by illegal immigrants: they are willing to do some manual labor in order to provide to their family, while
Americans have more opportunities to chase after jobs they think are better.

This is a very interesting question to answer, especially as a white man. For the past 20 years of my life, I have known that there were certain advantages to being white. In fact, for the past few thousand years white people have had certain advantages. I know that in the case of my life, I could never put my finger on an exact situation where I know I was being treated favorably. However, looking at my life and the opportunities that I have had, I know that it helped that I had white skin and was a male.
When I heard Sam talk about this in class, it made me really think. One of my friends was the kid that Sam asked in the audience, and he said something around the lines of "I wouldn't really think too much of it, but it would be different". If I were asked on the spot, I probably would have said the exact same thing. I would like to think that it would not make a difference to me that I wasn't in the majority anymore, but I really don't know for sure. The very fact that white males have spent so much time at the top makes me wonder how we would respond as a whole. Like I said, I would like to say I wouldn't think twice about it, but I know how sociology can work. If the rest of the white male population were to be pissed off by this, maybe I would be drawn into this crowd.
The one thing I wonder about this situation is how will America be different when white people are not in the majority. In my opinion, I think it will be very much the same. Instead of white people "getting all of the breaks", it will be another group. But I don't think there will be any changes to the system or structure of society just because another racial group would be the majority. It's interesting to me to think about white people forming something like the NAACP. Will it ever get that far? Well, since white people have been at the top for so long, I would assume that it would take quite a long time for their "reign" to end. Therefore, I don't see white people and black people switching places any time soon, maybe not even in the next 70 or 80 years.
In conclusion, it is very interesting for me to imagine a scenario where white people do not have the advantages that they have now. Sam says that they will be in the minority in about 50 years. I would like to think that I will be ok with that, but I can't say for sure. I guess only time will tell.

This is a very interesting question. A black supremacy centered world is something that is outrageous to think about in this day in age. The world has seemingly been controlled by the white male for such a long time that it is difficult to imagine anything different. The way I see it, I don't think the world would be much different. I think all of our perceptions of black people arise from their place in history. I know that sounds a little confusing, so let me clear that up. For example, the "stereotypes" of black people range from the love of watermelon to the appeal to hip hop. Whether or not this is true is not what I'm getting at. What I'm trying to say is that because of the suppression of black people, they have molded their own customs and values. Now, let's say that white people were the ones being suppressed for thousands of years. Do you think it would be possible that all of the "stereotypes" that we associate with black and brown people would then be associated with white people? In my opinion (and maybe I'm completely off) I believe that white people WOULD be a lot like today's black people if we lived in a black supremacy centered world.
As far as the state of the world if blacks and whites switched places, I believe the world would still be pretty similar to what it is today. In essence, I think it is the position that a group moves into that plays a big role in how they act. For example, a person in a Camero would probably drive more reckless than someone driving a minivan. In that same vein, the group in the majority is bound to act differently than the group in the minority. A black centered world would be similar to today's world because whoever is in the majority position is bound to make some predisposed decisions that come with the territory.
As confusing as it is to imagine the black centered world, it would be pretty cool to see white people in the minority position for once. Personally, I can't think of a specific moment where my whiteness was an advantage over a black person. With that being said, I would like to live a day or two in the life of a black person to see what they go through. If you are black in a white centered world, how bad is the racism? Is it over exaggerated or is it played down by the people in charge? Just once I would like to see how a black centered world would play out, but I have a feeling that it would not be too much different. Just the skin color of the majority.

Women are never forced to put on short skirts and high heels and "sacrifice their comfort." Their is a fundamental contradiction in this idea that women are forced into dressing up in ways that sacrifice their comfort by showing too much skin. Prior to the hippy movement in the 1960s, women were shunned into covering up, and sexuality was a thing that happened exclusively within the confines of the marital bedroom. After the sexual revolution, nudity, drug use and sexual openness of the 1960s, women were capable of taking on new roles and expressing their own taboo desires. This new freedom was met with changes in clothing and appearance among the female community.

Women did not always dress the way they do now when going out. The girls of the seventies often wore pants and did not grind on guys in the same way that they do now. In the 1980s there was a shift towards much more expository clothing, big hair, lots of lipstick and general promiscuity. The 1990s in many ways counteracted the way that the 80s had been so over the top in its dress through a shift towards flannel, baggy jeans and more covered up appearances. Now at the turn of the century, girls have shifted towards wearing shorter skirts higher heels and become what they would have called street walkers in the 1950s.

Perhaps these clothing trends can be attributed to the music and cultures of the times. The 70s had disco and early rock and roll which equated to bell bottom jeans and vests and such. The 80s was the age of glam rock and 80s pop and the girls dressed similarly to the fashions found in music videos thanks to the rise of MTV. The 90s was the age of grunge and a glam polished appearance became much less important. Now in the 2000s, hip hop and rap has taken over and the songs you will hear at parties are conducive to grinding and dirtier dancing.

So women dress according to the cultures and trends of the time, however, no man is oppressing them, telling them to wear the shortest skirt possible or have 5 inch heels. Walking down beaver avenue last night, I literally, (unfortunately I might add) saw a girls private areas. Now frankly I wasn't attracted, I didn't make a move seeing her in such attire. In fact, in my experience, many guys tend to be turned off by excessively short skirts and sloppy drunkenness. We appreciate a good looking girl as I am sure girls appreciate a good looking guy but that does not mean we are looking to see up her skirt the same that a girl does not need to see a guy walking around in a muscle shirt in order to be attracted.

In my experience, if I throw on a button down, and freshen up before I go out, I notice the glances of more girls and I feel better about myself. Girls can do the same, but it does not mean wearing high heels and short skirts. It is perfectly understandable if a girl wants to look good and show off her body and it is a healthy way to show herself but she should not try to be pleasing anyone. She should dress in a way that makes her comfortable with herself because at the end of the day a girl that is happy and having a good time is what makes her most open to meeting guys.

First, I should tell you that I am a white male from a mostly white area of Pennsylvania. Growing up around an older generation of white people, I would hear a lot of racial stereotypes. Now keep in mind I did have a few friends that were not white (a few black and Filipino males), so I never let anything they said shape my perceptions on people. With that being said, one thing that I used to hear a lot was that black people are somehow scarier than white people, and it is not wise to trust them. This is absolutely ridiculous! Not only is it incredibly racist, but it isn't true. I mentioned that I had a few black friends at home, and they are as nice as any people I have ever met. Even here at Penn State I find that stereotype to be false. For example, just a few weeks ago, my roommates and I let a drunk kid that we didn't even know sleep on our couch. This kid was black, yet none of us had any problem trusting him. In fact, I can think of a lot of white people that would be a much bigger risk to leave in your house. And to be honest, in my hometown of mostly white people, there are plenty of people that I would never trust. So I believe that black people get a bad reputation about that.
The next stereotype that I do not believe to be correct is the correlation between people of Middle Eastern decent and terrorists. After September 11th, it seems like anyone who is of Middle Eastern decent is looked upon as some kind of terrorist. In fact, some people may have replaced their fear of black people with a fear of Muslim people. This also is very troubling to me. The people that bombed us were not your average Muslims: They were zealots fueled by religious fervor. Bill O'Rielly once got into some much deserved hot water when he blamed the Muslims for bombing us. As someone soon pointed out to him, the bombers were radical extremists, not your average Muslim, So it does pain me to see Muslims in America being treated differently.
In addition, the stereotype that Hispanic people are lazy is outrageous. Here at Penn state I have met a large number of Hispanic people who are much harder working than most of the people that I met here. Also, there is the Hispanic stereotype that all of these people in the United States are illegal immigrants. In my opinion, the illegal aliens are making a terrible name for all of the hardworking and legal Hispanic citizens of the United States.

You really don't get a good feel for what is going on in Haiti until someone like Sam shows you videos like this. The main theme out of all of these videos is the fact that the people of Haiti make the most out of everything, which is more than I can say about most Americans that I know. For example, the women that made the purses and shoulder bags is basically using the scraps of old clothes. The part that shocked me was the quality and appearance of these bags; They looked as good or better than most of the stuff you see in stores here in the United States. I think that if these people have better resources, it would definitely boost their business. For example, if Figaro had more ovens and refrigerators, then she could expand her business to reach more people. If the women that works with peanuts had more supplies and workers, then her business could supply many more people (such as schools) with her product. However, this is easier said than done. The economy in Haiti has been notoriously bad (even before the Earthquake of 2010) and the government has been corrupt. Just like the situation in Morocco ( As professor Shulman pointed out), I would not feel safe if I sent money to help these Haitians because their government might steal it. Therefore, helping these people is not as easy. Perhaps volunteers could provide leadership by going to Haiti to help out. The old adage says "give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime". This can help, but it still does not solve the limited resource problem that these Haitian businesses are facing. If we can find a way to send ovens, sewing machines, and other supplies straight to these people without Haitian Government interference, then I believe the Haitian small business market will start to boom.
I feel bad for these poor people because I know that the United States is also making their lives harder. As Sam pointed out in class, Haiti buys cheap rice from the United States, which causes major damage to the rice farming in Haiti. I compare this situation to the effect that Wal-Mart has on small businesses. If the small businesses can't compete with the prices of the Wal-Mart, then their business suffers and often dies. Personally, I feel like we should not be taking advantage of the Haitian people in order to make a buck. Ruining an economy and increasing poverty in another country is simply a sinister and terrible thing to do. If the United States government was truly concerned about these people, we would be helping them bulk their own economy instead of our own.

My only experience with the whole zombie craze is not a very happy one. Last year as a freshman, the nerf gun zombie people would always be running around outside my dorm. Maybe I just have a short fuse, but regardless, they pissed me off so much. Getting back to Sam's question, I can't really figure out why ANYONE would want to be a part of that. To me it is not a question of black, white, brown or yellow. It is a question of pure sanity. However, I will try to do my best to give my opinion of why mostly white people would be involved with Humans vs Zombies.
I have friends that play zombie video games quite frequently. Granted, most of these kids are white males, but that doesn't mean there aren't people of other ages and races playing. I grew up in a town of mostly white people, so I never had a chance to observe many people that weren't white. With that being said, it makes sense that it would be considered a "white people" interest. All I know about zombie video games is what I learned from my white friends. So when I see a bunch of nuts running around campus shooting nerf guns at each other, it kind of reminds me of some of the people that I grew up around.
It makes me curious how people would respond if it were not white people playing this game. Say, for example, that black people were the ones running around, shooting fake nerf guns at each other. How would our society view that? In my opinion, many white people would probably not be very comfortable with this. They would probably consider it an act of outright violence. However, when white people do the same thing they are just copying a video game. Where is the logic there? Yeah, I am a white male but I realize how many of us white people can think, and often times it is illogical and ignorant.
Another reason for this may be that black and brown people are perfectly content with letting this be a "white people" activity. Honestly, I don't blame them. But I have a somewhat unique opinion on this. Some people may think that the white males that play Zombies vs Humans make all white people out to be nerds. To me, it does not cast white people in a bad light: It casts ALL people in a bad light.
In conclusion, the best answer I have as to why white people seem to be the only people playing "Zombies vs Humans" is because I know a lot of white kids that play zombie video games. Therefore, it would make sense, in my world, that this would translate into mostly white people playing the nerf gun based "Zombies vs Humans"