I agree that things are just going to be unfair for now. If we don’t see educational changes in our country we are forever going to be this way. Plus there will always be the people who are unwilling to work for their success regardless of their gender, race, or anything else complaining that life isn’t fair for any number of reasons. I have always been told life isn’t fair and if you think about it that really is just true. I too agree that things will be different when whites are the minority I just hope its different in a good way and not in a vengeful way. Kind of a depressing thing to say but true.

Before listening to this lecture I can honestly say that I really had never learned anything about Affirmative action. Maybe I had heard of it but never really anything more than the name. I will even admit that I had to Wikipedia the term during the lecture…hopefully this doesn’t make me horribly naïve. I guess that is a testament to the fact that it doesn’t have much to do with me anyways. What I got from Wikipedia is that it is equal opportunity employment and from the lecture I got that it is an attempt to even out the gap between men and women, people of color and white people, disabled people and able bodies persons. Learning about it though I didn’t really think that it was an incredibly unfair thing, especially when Sam gave his example of how Penn State worked with him on his hiring. I thought it was completely fair really that they just asked him to verify that there was no one else qualified for the job as well. Maybe there is more to it than what I know and that is why some people are so against it. What I was wondering is if it is the same as when Universities take kids who are not white over white students just to fill their quotas even if the white student technically was more qualified. If so, then I could totally see why people would be so enraged because that is anything but fair and makes me angry to even think about. I even remember wanting to move to an inner city school when I was in high school because those kids have a far greater chance of getting into top universities just because of where they go to school. I don’t really think that should be the case either. I also wanted to comment on the last part of the lecture when the students were sharing their thoughts on the system. I COMPLETELY agree with the student that said he thought that the problems all start with education and can also end with education. Yes, life in America can be a vicious cycle but a huge part of that cycle is our education system. Even kids who don’t want to be in school will at least be forced to stay if their school is a better one and keeps track of absences and what not. I once watched a movie called Waiting for Superman which I highly recommend watching, about inner city schools and charter schools and how difficult it is for kids who get stuck in these bad school systems to get out, especially if their parents really have no means to send them to private school or to move. It also outlines the difficulties in hiring new school superintendents that want to make the changes and make them actually happen because of the teachers unions who are thinking of themselves and not the children’s educations. It was truly horrifying and made the future seem pretty bleak. What I got from that video is that government needs to step in and recognize the enormous problem we have in this country. We are falling behind in the statistics compared to other countries because of our public education systems. We as a country need to stand up and tell government to stop wasting money on their helicopter rides and luxury lifestyles and put public money into the school systems so we can fix the real reason for the continuing gap in equality.

Though I feel almost ashamed to admit this, I too have cleaning ladies that come to my house every month or so. They are the nicest, most hard working people I know. They are two sisters, one who speaks good English with a very heavy accent and one who is very nice but very quite I think because she doesn’t speak much English at all. We treat them as our good friends and talk to them as we would our childhood best friends. One day my mom, ignoring all political correctness, was talking to them about how business was going and how much other work they had. They proceeded to tell her that we were the only family they cleaned for because they could not find anymore work so they were trying to get jobs at hotels. My family is in the hotel business so my mom inquired about their citizenship and found out that only one had a green card. Because of this they were so limited on the level of job they could have. They both had big families they were trying to support and I know they must be struggling. I feel so bad for them and in this case wish that there was some kind of shortcut for people like them who are so kind and hardworking but just skipped a few steps at some point and are kind of stuck in the same spot now.

This lecture on immigration was a great topic to learn about for me because I don’t have much existing knowledge on the issue. I did get a little bit confused from time to time on whether Sam was referring to illegal immigrants or legal immigrants. I suppose it doesn’t really matter? I was just confused about whether or not he meant that business allows illegal immigrants into the country to work or if he meant legal immigrants. Before this lecture I was mostly against immigrants even though I know there is no way our country should ever not allow immigrants. I mean our country is one giant immigration location and was founded upon that. I think that I sometimes don’t want immigrants because I associate them with being poor, uneducated, and dangerous when in reality, as we learned in the slides, they are often times very educated and very wealthy. It makes sense if you think about it really. I also got to thinking that the rest of the people who come here that are not wealthy or educated must be very determined and hard working people to somehow find their way here and to want to work. When I think of it this way, I really don’t have a problem with immigrants. I guess its more the political issue of taxes and voting and what not for most people though. I was also interested to learn that business drives immigration policies in our country even today. How is that not all over the media like every other corruption issue? Of course it makes a lot of sense, why would we let loads more people into our country if there were not going to be any jobs for them but it was just shocking to learn that our government and big businesses are letting this happen. It doesn’t make sense to me that we would have laws about immigration and these people are coming into the country seemingly easily just because business says so? I don’t really like the idea of there not being any kind of REAL and LEGAL organization of this. Why should some people have to go through huge amounts of paperwork and classes and what not to become citizens while these people can just come right in and start working and be successful? It makes more sense to me when I learn about examples such as the one of the Pear farm owner who lost so much money because they couldn’t afford or find enough fruit pickers. That’s something I have never even thought about or heard. I can recognize the need for immigrants but I don’t think that it is right for them to be undocumented and paid less just because of that.

In regards to your comment about the rap and the unknown universal community, I think that it is not the only one. I think that there are many of these communities across the world we just don’t realize it. Globalization is here and people are embracing it. One of my interests is global fashion and trends and I currently work in retail. Most American trends originate now days from Europe and other parts of the world but it is just not noticed. We follow the other countries leads and in the fashion world it is seen as more high fashion and high society if you are not from America, as it is becoming the same for example in Professional Tennis. Ask most Americans who their favorite male tennis player is, I guarantee most of them will not be Americans. I think that while we are vastly stuck in our American ways, there are those communities we just have not yet learned to embrace them.

Interesting lecture. I mostly have comments on the first lecture. My last blog post I commented a lot about LGBT so I will comment on other things for this post. I thought that the second lecture was a little bit easier for me to listen to when Professor Richards was not including religion and his own spin on things. I just decided that I will just have my views on matters while still listening to what he has to say and taking it for what it is.
Starting from the beginning of the first lecture, my first notes were on Sam’s statement regarding people who go to church and not wanting to diversify and just be with people who think and act the same way they do. I don’t necessarily think that church’s and people’s religions are based on diversity. I know that personally I honestly do not pick where I go to church and which church I go to every week based on the other people that are there. In fact I rarely ever socialize with anyone else at all. I guess it is better if I just speak for myself because I do not know how other people think but I just go to church to celebrate my own faith and it is really more of a personal time so it has nothing to do with whom else is there. I think maybe it may have more to do with communities and what races are in those communities and what their religious heritage is and what not.
I also wanted to comment on the slide that Sam showed that said by 2050 whites will be the minority. Being white I will admit that fact did scare me a little as I am sure, whether of not many people wanted to admit it, it scared many others too. I feel that it id because a lot of times when I personally think of immigrants and people who are really foreign, I think of poverty and struggles and crime and other things that I really don’t want to have for myself and my family. I know this isn’t the case all of the time but I think this is a big reason for the fear many people have of immigrants and diverse neighborhoods. However, I will say that some of the hardest working people I have ever met and have the greatest respect for are Hispanic immigrants, some of whom I know do not even have a green card or any type of legal documents to be here but are just doing what they can to support themselves and their families instead of sitting on the street begging for money. When I think of these people who want to come to the United States and work hard and be successful, I am not afraid, I really am just proud that they would choose my country to come and be a part of. I will say that though I believe in globalization and that the future is in it, I will not agree with waking up one day and wrapping myself in a Chinese flag? Call that what you want, I do not really care to be honest. I personally don’t see anything wrong with my refusal to take any other country than the US as my own. I think especially being white and American, meaning that I am really a cultural mix, having the title of American (mut) is a whole new race almost. It is what I can most identify with. You wouldn’t ask a Mexican person if it was a big deal for them to just wake up one day and be black and I feel that at some level that is how I feel about asking me as an American if I think its okay to wake up one day and decide that I would love to just be a Chinese citizen and give up all of my American pride. This pride I have is not a bad thing and I refuse to ever be told that it is. Americans have this pride and confidence about them and it is what built us and keeps us as the strongest country. The skin colors of Americans may change but I don’t think that the same is happening in China and there must be a good reason for that.

I too thought that this part of the video was incredibly sad. I think it is easier as a white person to sympathize and understand the struggles that people of color have just because of history when I see things like this. My thoughts were similar to yours in that I was almost in disbelief. Of course I do believe it but how does this happen? This is a good example of a very serious race problem that does not seem to be the fault of anyone but of course would be something that would make me resent white people if I were black. I want to learn more about why such little children so widely believe that the white doll is better so I can start thinking of ways this can be changed.

So I haven’t read through all of the blog posts and am sure somewhere in one of them someone has commented on this as well but I would like to start off my own post by addressing the comments Professor Richards made regarding the Catholic Church and LGBT. Ill try my best to be as concise with this as possible but I really think I could meet the requirements for about six posts with this response. Anyways, I have listened to this lecture a few times so that I could have my facts straight on what he said. I love that Sam teaches openness and loving others even though they may be different. I am pretty tired of the media and those who claim to be free thinkers bashing the Catholic Church and their teachings. Fine if you’re going to do that and that is your opinions but HAVE YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT FIRST, especially when in a position to teach young people. Many people would like to think that the strict reputation that Catholics have is equivalent to being hateful. In fact that is the exact opposite of what Catholic teaching is. Catholics preach LOVE! Don’t see what is so wrong about that that the media and people today love to hate it. Catholics DO NOT HATE GAYS? Yes there are gay priests and nuns and there is nothing wrong with that. I as a Catholic do not think that being gay is a choice and how can you condemn someone for something they are born with? I think this confusion often comes from the teaching we have against gay marriage and gay sex, which is what we often call the gay lifestyle. If you don’t agree with these teachings fine, we can agree to disagree. And regarding Sam’s statement that the Pope “pretty much” said gay people were going to hell? Sorry if this is rude but I just don’t think anyone is in a position to be interpreting something the Pope says especially someone who has not really studied the teachings in depth and taken the time to understand it. No one on this earth knows where people will go when they die and Sam assuming that the Pope said gay people were going to hell is just ridiculous.
Sorry for the rant, just something I feel passionate about. Im sure my feelings regarding my religion are just a taste of what people of color feel when they feel they are being generalized and stereotyped and it really it a bothersome thing especially when there isn’t a great forum like this to express yourself in.
I liked the video in the first part of the lecture about the girls and how they felt that being lighter skinned was more beautiful. At first this reminded me of how a lot of white girls feel that being tan is more beautiful and thought it was the same to an extent. However, I realized it was very different when I saw the part about the little girls and boys choosing the white doll and saying the black one was bad. That was truly so sad to me. No child should ever feel that they are lesser because of their skin color and that is just horrible to imagine. I also wanted to comment that I was really interested in seeing the numbers of the race distribution at Penn State. My city was the most diverse city that was mentioned in the slides and when I first came to PSU I was taken back at how white it was and was glad to see that other people thought so too.

I too have been thinking a lot about white guilt. I think that I had always felt guilty but never really thought about it or recognized it. From the beginning of this class I think I have been thinking about the idea of white guilt and how bad I feel about the way my race has acted. However, lately I have been struggling with the idea of being guilty at all. It is hard to not get annoyed with feeling guilty and feeling blamed all the time when you personally have never done anything wrong at all. Though I recognize that this is not at all what I should be feeling I think this is one of the biggest things that is holding me back from advancing to another stage.

I found this lecture to be interesting but somewhat similar to the last in a few ways. However, I think I probably think it was similar because I am just not grasping the different stages. The concept is interesting to me and I think that I understand the general idea but I definitely do not really understand the exact differences between them all. I have always thought either you were racist or you’re not. So do the different stages mean that in some stages you’re racist and in some you’re not or are all of the stages grouped together as not being racist or vice versa. I can’t really decipher what makes the groups very different and am having great trouble even deciding which I would fall into. So far, I feel as though there are little parts of every group that I fit into. I do agree that there is a timeline in your development in life regarding perception of race but I don’t know if I really feel there can be distinct stages when there is constant possibility of moving forwards or backwards in each stage. I feel that while watching once lecture of this class, one could move between three stages several times.
I really liked the part of the lecture that talked about realizing your whiteness but not always meaning that it will be in an accepting manner. When Professor Richards showed the video of the two white nationalist girls I was amazed. I did not even know there were people out there in America today that thought and acted like that. I guess that would put me in one of the first stages. I do acknowledge that there is racism and that not all people are completely accepting of other races and cultures today but I certainly did not know that there were people who felt as strongly as those girls and their family did. It was most striking to me when they stated that they thought the Holocaust was an exaggeration. If I was a Jewish person today and I heard that I would definitely be pretty angry. I once heard that there were people out there who believed that the Holocaust was made up but I didn’t really believe it. It really just blows my mind. Thinking that is not only disrespectful to everyone of the Jewish faith but it is also disrespectful towards just about anyone who was alive during that time period not to mention all of the families and friends of the people who died in the war to end the crimes that Hitler was committing, many of whom were white just like them. Learning of the concepts of different stages forces me to think about what stage I am in and to think deeper into the different aspects of what puts me into each category.