After watching this video, I really admire the Haiti people’s optimistic spirits. The earthquake that happened in Haiti was considered one of the most disastrous natural disasters in history. With that being said, it is surprising how fast the Haiti people were able to rebuild their society only a while after this disaster. Although this new society might not be like before because it’s now tent-cities, I still admire their spirit of not being defeated by something outside of their control. I admire that they were able to get back on their feet only a few months after the earthquake. In some more developed countries whenever a natural disaster occurs, usually the government and charitable organizations will immediately send help over to the area. They help out by sending economic aids and emotional supports to the victims to help them go through the difficult times. After watching this video, I think in this country, some of us take these aids from the government and charitable organizations for granted, like in Haiti, the victims did not seem to expect anything from the government. I think we are fortunate to live in this country where we know if anything were to happen there will be the government and charities supporting us and helping us through. In this video, these Haiti citizens built their own society with tents and rely on each other for support both economically and emotionally. In the lecture today, I learned that after the earthquake, a lot of buildings including churches and schools collapsed, and a lot of people were killed or buried in those collapsed buildings. I can’t imagine being in a situation where everything have or close to you like your house, your business and even your family members and friends have been destroyed or buried and now there’s nothing left but a pile of rocks and you have to start over from scratch with whatever you have left. The pictures from today’s lecture give me an image that like something came and wiped the entire part of Haiti and now everyone has to start over. I can’t imagine continuing to live on after what happened. I think it takes a lot of courage to start over again when you are so used to having what you used to have. From the video I see that the Haiti people thye interviewed are all optimistic about the future, they show no signs of feeling defeated. They are still trying really hard to continue to live on normally in their tent-cities. Instead of feeling defeated and just give up on life, they decided to become entrepreneurs and start their own business. I especially like the man who used the generator as a cell phone charger and TV entertainment for the kids. I would’ve never thought to do that! The optimistic spirits of the Haiti people in this video helped me see that there’s always a bright side to everything. It makes me sad to hear at the end of the video that they might have to go on living in these tents for the next few years!

I am surprised that this video game was able to be produced without anyone thinking it’s wrong and trying to stop it. It is true what the lady in the video said that Japan has been known for making pornography type games, because I have many friends who are Japanese and live in Japan and they agree to it. However I think this rape game is going a little too far. I don’t like to play video games in general, I don’t really know that much about video games but from my perception, I think some of these video games’ objectives are bad. For example, in many video games the objectives are to kill other beings, and the person who kills the most wins. However in these games, it is set up so that usually you are the good guy and you are trying to kill all the bad guys. There are also some other games with less violent objectives, like racing games or games where the player has to solve problems to move to the next level, I think these games are competitive and make the players think, but their objectives are not as violent. This rape game that came out in Japan is more than just having violent objectives. I think it is also against women’s rights. Like in the video, there was a party where they asked the women’s rights group what they thought about this game and the women’s rights group was infuriated. I think this game makes rape look like a normal and ok thing to do. Some people think these games gives rapist a way of escape like instead of raping a real person they can play these games to relieve their need to rape. However I don’t agree with this statement, I think maybe at first a rapist will play these games to relieve stress but after a while, they will get used to this game and lose the thrill of the fun and would want to increase the thrill by actually raping someone. By this point, they won’t feel bad at all for raping a person because they’ve already been doing it for so long on the computer that they don’t feel it’s morally wrong. I am not familiar with this video game, but from the description from this video, I think the game is the player follows a mom and her daughter around the subway station and then rape them however many times they want. For me, I don’t see a point in a game like this so I don’t understand why anyone would buy it but obviously people do that’s why they made it. I know it’s wrong for video game producers to make such a game but I don’t think it’s entirely their fault. They can make the game but if no one buys it then they will stop making the game. They will supply as much as it is demanded. It is the players who keep buying or downloading these games that motivates these game producers to produce more and different variety of these games. I think this is like the modern slavery we read in that book Disposable People if there was little or no demand for slave made goods then the slaves would not be profitable and therefore the slave owners would not feel the need to enslave these people to make goods. So I think it is both ways, it’s both the producers and consumers fault.

I remember before Sam showed this video, he said this would be one of the most disturbing videos we will be watching this semester and I thought he was joking because he always says that but I have to agree with him, it was a really sad video. It is hard to see how children at a young age have already developed the knowledge about what the society view as beautiful and nice. I remember when I was younger I used to watch Rugrats, and at first all the characters were white but later they added a black girl and an Asian girl. I think the children’s media is getting a little better now because there are more multiracial cartoons. For example, recently they made an African American Disney princess, and a while ago, they made Mulan, an Asian Disney character. When I was little, all my barbies and all my friends’ barbies were white, skinny, and blonde. I didn’t even question why all my barbies were white I remember just playing with them and thinking they were pretty. I think the media really has an effect on us the moment we begin to learn, it is everywhere around us. I wonder if there will ever be a day where the media won’t influence us anymore, but I think that’s really hard. I think the most they can do is try to show all different types of people and try to let people know that everyone’s pretty and nice in their own ways. I think the racial part is getting better now, I see many posters on the street and advertisements with people of different race in them. Like when Sam showed us the Penn State pamphlets, Penn State tried really hard to show that our campus is multiracial even though it’s really not. I think it is really sad that kids at that young age thinks that the black doll is the bad one and she looks like the black doll therefore she is bad. Sometimes I think when people will behave the way others view them, so if they think that they are the bad doll even though they’re completely innocent, they will start acting bad to meet others’ expectations. I think this might explain why some kids are harder to deal with than others, and if the grown-ups don’t try to fix this, they might grow up to be bad citizens or even criminals. After watching this video in class, I felt like the room went silent for a couple of minutes and it took some times to get people back to reality again. I think in this short clip, it really touches everyone so much that we don’t know what to say and how to respond.

I think this is a really interesting question because I am an Asian and I know it is hard for non-Asians to distinguish between Asian Americans and Asians because a lot of people think all Asians look the same. Honestly, I am really bad with learning faces so I think all Asians look the same, all black people look the same, all white people look the same…etc. However I can tell the difference between Asian and Asian Americans not by their faces but by the way they talk, walk, and how they act. In my opinion, I think Asian Americans are Asians who have been living in the US for a long time and hold citizenship and know its culture and their way of life. I think Asians people from Asia who are in the US temporarily like students who come from Asian to study in the US or families from Asia who are here because of their jobs. I don’t think my definition is correct but I can’t think of a better one. At the beginning of the semester, Sam said that there were differences between Asians and Asian Americans and I did not know how to categorize myself. I came to the US from Asia when I was ten. I am now 19 so I have lived almost half of my life in Asia and the other half in the US, I’ve learned how to live among other white Americans and most of my close friends are white, but I also feel a connection to my Asian cultures. I am in a confusing state because I don’t know if I am Asian or Asian American. For now, I’d like to stay in the US for my career since I got most of my education in the US but I have heard many stories about Asians or people who are not white doing the exact same work but are getting paid less than a person who is white. I believe discrimination still exists and it is hard to stop people from discriminating so if I feel discriminated against I might just go back to Asia. My point is it is hard to know where I will be in the future so I can’t categorize myself. The more obvious ones I can distinguish, like I can distinguish between an international student from Asian and an Asian student who went to high school and or middle school in the US. I think most of the international students from Asia, not all prefer to hang out with other Asian students and speak an Asian language, I think they feel more comfortable like that. Also a lot of them are only here for college or grad school, after that they know they’ll be going back to their countries. In general, for Asians who went had most of their education in the US will hang out with people other than Asians, or they might also hangout with Asians but they will speak in English. I also feel Asians who went to school in the US for a longer period of time will most likely get involved with student organizations like THON and other clubs. Although I can’t distinguish between Asians and Asian Americans by faces I can tell by their living styles and they way they act.

I find it hard to believe that a school board in today’s world would cancel prom because a girl wants to bring her girlfriend. My high school didn’t have junior prom, we only had senior prom so most people look forward to prom since freshman year to finally be able to go. I think prom is a big event for many high schools and canceling prom for any reason would upset the students. In my high school, prom was more like seniors hanging out together for the last time so we were not required to go with a date, we were allowed to go with friends or just go alone. So at first I was confused how the school found out she was planning to go with her girlfriend but I realized reading some comments that some schools require students to have dates. For my prom, a lot of my female friends who did not have dates went with other girls who did not have dates and this was a normal thing because they are all friends. This makes me wonder if Constance McMillen went to my school she would not have a problem. I think it is unfair that we are all in the same country but there are such differences between states. I also think it is dumb to cancel prom just because a student chooses to go with her girlfriend, especially in today’s society. Most people now are more open minded and in some states same sex marriage is now legal so I don’t know why that school in Mississippi would even think about banning prom. I have heard of a Catholic high school that didn’t allow a student to bring his boyfriend to prom, but prom was not cancelled they just did not allow the boy and his boyfriend to go. When situations like this happens it makes me sad because it is already hard for lesbian and gay students in high school to come out and when the school does this they are in a way telling the students that it is wrong to be gay. I know a lot of people who don’t come out until they are in college and usually are away from home. I think that is because in high school there are other students who might judge them and you see these people everyday so it makes it harder. I think schools should help students accept gay people and not help discriminate against them. I think Constance McMillen and her family are really strong and still fought for their rights after the school made their decision. I think this school is now going to have a hard time explaining its actions and facing the community

I think the video we watched in class was surprising, I didn’t expect that many people to speak out, and I also didn’t expect people to agree with the cashier. I thought people would just walk away and say nothing. To be honest, I think I would’ve been one of those people that said nothing because I am not brave enough and I don’t have the courage to stand up in a situation like that. I know it’s wrong and that’s why so many problems still exist today because people who witness them don’t say anything, but I really don’t think I would speak up in a situation like that. My family immigrated to the US nine years ago and we settled in New York City, before moving to the US my family lived in a big city too, so most people I see just mind their own business and not care about others. On a daily basis I see people walking by people who obviously look like they need help but no one will stop to help them, some won’t even look at them, they simply walk past them and pretend not to see anything. Sometimes it’s actually encouraged to not get involved in things that are not your business even if you know you will be doing a good deed. I remember a few years ago, my cousin came to visit my family in NYC so he wasn’t familiar with the big city. He went out one night to meet up with his other friends and when he was walking back he saw this woman in a wheel chair and she looked tired and couldn’t roll her own wheelchair anymore, and she was asking people especially men on the street to push her back to her apartment because it was getting dark. No one helped her and some pretended not to see her, so my cousin quickly offered to push her back. When she got back, she would not let my cousin leave, she wanted him to clean her house, cook for her, and grocery shop for her, when my cousin tried to leave, she threatened to call the police, because my cousin wasn’t from the US he doesn’t know the culture so he was really scared. My cousin came back and told us that he would never get involved in another person’s business again. This is just one example, there are many examples I hear from friends and relatives about how it’s actually better to not get involved in other people’s business. Because of all these stories I hear around me, I’ve learned to ignore what’s around me. I realized it’s wrong to do that, and I know I should try to change myself but it’s hard. I totally understand how the Muslim women must’ve felt, I’ve been in similar situation many times because I’m not white and I immigrated here so it’s obvious that I’m not American. Every time when I’m discriminated against in public no one’s ever stood up for me, people just ignore the situation so I am quiet used to it and I don’t expect them to do anything I think it’s my problem and I just have to deal with it. I feel bad for the Muslim women and I agree we should stand up for her but I personally don’t think I can do that because if I say something maybe the cashier will discriminate against me because I’m not white and not American.

I think the reason people don’t seem to take this topic about Native Americans home and seem not to be affected by it is because we are not expose to it enough. I know for me I don’t see a lot of Native Americans related things in my daily routines so the only time I think about the Native Americans is when Sam talks about it. Also I am a business major so really the only class I am expose to the Native Americans is Soc 119 and this is only this semester, last semester I did not have any classes where we talk about them. Before this semester, the last time I learned about Native Americans was freshman year in high school and I am a sophomore now so that is about six years ago. I think this is true not just with the topic of Native Americans but also with a lot of other topics, we would talk about them in class, but as soon as we walk out the door, we remember other things we have to do and we sort of forget what happened in class. For me I know whenever we talk about something intense in class I would feel like I need to do something about the topic but once I walk out the door and my friend texts me to go to dinner or I need to go to a meeting I just forget, even if I do remember for that day, I would forget the next day. I don’t think it’s that people don’t feel upset about this topic or don’t care; it’s just that we are not surrounded by it enough and we are not reminded of it every day to feel a personal connection to it. If it was all around us reminding us every day then maybe it would be different, maybe we will take it more personally and treat it as a problem in our lives. I feel like right now we only think about it when people talk about it but after that we will forget and move on with other problems that are obvious and surround us and remind us every day. Before looking at the statistic in class, I did not know that there was this much discrimination against Native Americans, I never really thought about this problem because in my every-day life, nothing really reminds me of it. In history class in high school, we learned that the Europeans came and started life in America which was then occupied by the Indians so they moved them out west. I knew the Europeans took their land but I didn’t know that discrimination still exists today against the Native Americans. I think it’s hard to fully understand something until you have experienced it first hand or know someone close who has experienced it. I think most people would do what they can to help the situation it’s just that they are not reminded of it enough to take actions.

I find it amazing how we are so technologically advanced now that we can almost create and do anything we want! I find it fascinating how in our life time we have seen so many changes! I remember when I was younger they used to have those really big cell phones with antennas, and they used to have those really big computers and mouse with balls on the bottom instead of laser light. Technology is always advancing and now that they can make an interactive human doll I think looking at the technology side of it, that’s really cool. This makes me wonder if in the future robots will take over the world and humans will be useless just like the movie Wall-E. However, on the purpose side of Douglas Hines’s creation Roxxxy I think it is unnecessary. I think the interactive part where Roxxxy can talk about your day with you and maybe in the future talk about current events bothers me. I think people are getting less social with other people with all the technology today. Instead of meeting up with friends and talk about each other’s lives now people are just texting, emailing, webcam-ing, and twittering. I think it is really convenient with all these communication devices but I also think having human contact is important. I think talking to someone when you are physically with them is different from talking on the phone or on skype. When you are talking to someone you are with, you are less likely to hide your emotions and it makes the conversation more meaningful and real. I am not saying I don’t text, email or webcam, I do think they are convenient but I just don’t think they should be the only forms of communication. Roxxxy is taking this non-physical human contact into another level. At least when you text you are texting to someone real, when you talk to Roxxxy you are talking to a man-made robot whose brain is computerized! Also Roxxxy costs so much $7000 and there are so many people signed up to buy her, I think that is disturbing because it shows how people are willing to spend this much money for a robotic companion when they can try to get real human companions. It isn’t like women are coming to extinction and that we need to replace them with robots, so I don’t think it is necessary to have Roxxxxy. I think we all like people who would agree with us and not argue with us and just listen to us so I guess maybe Roxxxy will be good for that? But sometimes I like it when people disagree with me so I can really think about what I’m trying to proof, and when I have a problem I’d like someone who knows about the situation and can give me advice. I wonder if Roxxxy can do that.

When Avatar first came out around winter-break, I had no intention of going to see it, because I thought it was an animated film. When spring semester started, all of my friends told me how Avatar’s the best movie ever and that I really should go see it, that’s when I decided to go watch it. Before I went to see it, I asked a few friends about the plot of the movie and they all told me that it’s like another version of Pocahontas. So going into the movie, I already knew what to expect so the content did not surprise me. However after reading this article, I think David Brooks has a really interesting interpretation for these types of movies, he calls them the Messiah Complex. I think after reading his reasoning, he makes sense but I always interpreted these kinds of movies differently. Before reading Brook’s interpretation, I always thought movies like Pocahontas and Avatar are movies that teach us to get to know other people’s cultures. I think the directors want to show that sometimes all we need is to know someone else or another culture a little better to appreciate them. I think a lot of times we judge a person or a culture too quickly, before we even get to know them. We make these judgments from what we hear about them or our past experiences with them. I think in every city, states, countries, and culture, there are always good people and bad people so we should not judge a group of people based on a only a few people. In Pocahontas at first John Smith’s plans were like all the others, they all wanted to take over Pocahontas’s land. However after John Smith meets Pocahontas and she starts to show him her world he understands her people and starts to appreciate them and what they do. This is the same in Avatar. Maybe if all the other military people in Avatar put down their gun and get to know the natives, they would too appreciate the natives’ traditions. I think if we all get to know each other’s cultures and way of living there would be less violence and wars. We will find out that we are all similar; we are all trying to live our lives and protect people close to us. I think that is true with religions, people are always trying to convert each other but I think all religions promote similar things so there isn’t a correct or better religion it’s just what works best for the person, and if a person does not need religion I think that is fine too. I think the reason people like Avatar is because of all the special effects.

After reading this blog, I have to disagree with the French government about banning “niqab” or “abeyya” or “hijab”. I do not think the French government is turning the Muslim women into enlightened French citizens by not allowing them to wear their outfits. It was even more shocking to see that they would fine these women $1000 for wearing their burqas. Banning the burqas is a way of going against the Muslim religion; it can be viewed as telling the Jewish people not to wear their Yamakas. What the French government might view as normal or enlightened might not be the same for everyone else. Maybe some of the Muslim women think wearing a T-shirt and jeans is not the correct way to dress, instead everyone should wear burqas. It is the rights of these women to decide if they want to wear burqas. Even in the video, some of the women who wear their burqas said that no one forced them to do it; some of the women even said they are going against their husband’s wishes when they wear it. These women do it is because they believe wearing burqas is the correct way for Muslim women to behave in their religion. In the video, the women they interviewed were all very strong in their beliefs and they would not stop wearing their burqas even if the French government decides to ban it. I think it is wrong that the French government should set a dress code for its citizens, especially a dress code that is targeted directly at a subculture. Maybe the French government wants its citizens to show their faces for identity purposes, but in the video, one of the Muslim women mentioned that she would not mind taking off her burqas for identification, but she will continue to wear it because it’s a religious symbol. If women are willin to take off their burqas for identification purposes, then I do not see a problem in them wearing it. The burqas are not offensive and people have been wearing them for a long time now for religious purposes. I think the French government should focus their attention on other issues that are more important and urgent than worrying about how a subculture should dress especially when they are not contributing any problems or harm to the society. Sometimes I think people get bored dealing with similar issues everyday so maybe that is why the French government decides to bring up the issue of dress code. After reading this article, I was also wondering if the French government decides to ban the burqas then will they also ban those winter face masks that people wear when it is really cold.