I still remember that morning of September 11th, 2011 when one of the older kids in my school told me what was happening in New York City. I wasn’t really aware of the severity of the situation or how it would change the rest of my life and the lives of an entire nation (or even the entire world). Considering I am from Venezuela, and I was living there at the moment, naturally, the environment around me wasn’t as tense or as terrifying as anywhere in the United States at the moment it happened and the months that followed, so I did not comprehend how grave it all was. I was eight years old, and therefore did not watch any news at the time, so everything I knew about these attacks I was told by my family, teachers and friends, but my attention was focused elsewhere. However, on the following years as I grew up, I started to understand more or less what had happened and how horrifying it is that there are people so full of hatred inside that would be willing to sacrifice their own lives to inflict so much pain and terror to the entire world. Thus, throughout the years I grew to understand everything that happened that day and the implications it had on mankind. I knew later on that from that day on, the treatment I would receive as a foreigner in this country would never be the same. However, it is clearly not the same to grow into understanding something you lived through in the past, than experiencing and understanding it first hand. When the Boston bombings occurred, I was in Venezuela and flying back the next day to The United States. The presidential elections had just occurred in Venezuela so obviously that was the main topic of conversation. Nevertheless, as soon as I landed in the US you could sense the change of atmosphere. Every screen on the airport was displaying the news and everybody was talking about the horrific incidents that just happened in Boston. As soon as I got home, I read and heard with more detail about the attacks and immediately felt the shock that many people must have felt that day 12 years ago. I can now understand why people reacted that way back then, and what a national tragedy is like. My head was immediately filled with the sadness and anger that it was not filled with when I was 8, because I could not comprehend completely what was going on back then. Bottom line is, it was definitely a more emotional reaction and a greater understanding once I was old enough to comprehend the consequences of such events of terrorism than when I was a young innocent child.

I believe that there are several things that keeps us from telling the truth when we have intercourse with someone. And it is probably different both for men and for women. For women for instance, the reason is probably that they do not want their sexual partner to feel as if he has failed the task of satisfying her, and therefore in order to make him feel satisfied with his own performance, they tend to lie about having an orgasm or being sexually fulfilled during sex. For men on the other hand, it is probably because of fear of hearing the truth as opposed to what they want to hear. For example, they might prefer to think that they fully satisfied their partner even if they’re not 100% sure they did, thus avoid asking her if she was fully satisfied or not. In my opinion, this should not be the case. When you have intercourse with someone I think it is only fair for both people to be satisfied. When women pretend to be fulfilled completely after sex, they are simply preventing their male partner to do so. However, if they let him know that they are not yet satisfied, there are plenty of ways her partner can do so even if he already had an orgasm. On the other hand, when men fail to ask their partner if they were completely satisfied or not, the same consequences occur. Maybe if his partner would tell him the truth about not being fulfilled, he could actually do something about it and both parties would be happy. I believe this, again, arrives to the point Sam made in class about our society being a male oriented one, in the sense that men are the priority when talking about sex, and that women should satisfy men regardless if they satisfy them back or not. If things were more balanced, I believe we wouldn’t have this problem of not telling the truth when it comes to being satisfied after sex and both parties could work together to make fulfill each other’s needs. This is not a simple problem to solve at this point in time, though. We have had a long history of female discrimination that has led us to this point, in which men have more privileges than women, most ads are directed at men featuring attractive and semi-naked women, etc. However, we must start somewhere and sometime if we want to fix this problem, and people like Sam and his wife who promote more sexual balance when it comes to sex certainly help to advocate this cause. I am the perfect example of why that works. I had never actually thought of this problem before that lecture, and it certainly broadened my perspective in the matter.

These question reminds me a lot of a previous question I blogged about a few weeks ago, in which a student was asking why white men are more attracted to white women than to women of another race. My response to this question is very similar to that of the previous one. I don’t really think that there is a racist thought or reason behind the fact that white men don’t tend to approach minority women. On the other hand, I believe it is our human nature to be more comfortable and more attracted to what resembles us than what differs us. That doesn’t mean that white men can’t find women of another race attractive, or vice versa. It simply means that people tend to be more attracted to people of their own race because that’s just their human nature. However, there are many people that are more attracted to people of other races than their own, but this is not the general trend.
Now, as to the other part of the question regarding alcohol, I do not believe that race difference plays a relevant role in this behavior. Why then, do white men tend to approach minority women more often when inebriated? I honestly think that men approach women in general more often when drunk, not only women of another race. When people are very drunk, they are attracted more easily to other people than when sober. That is one of the reasons why many regret the next day spending the night with someone they were really attracted to the night before but not necessarily the next morning. I think it is extremely important to not confuse this with racism though, because the same tendency occurs with every other race for the same reason. Now let’s look at this from another angle. What if you are one of those people that are more attracted to people of another race, and you still avoid interaction or approaching women of another race when sober. This may be for the same reason one may not approach an extremely attractive model, standing by the bar even if you are extremely attracted to her: fear of rejection. It is not absurd to believe that a woman of another race will be attracted to people of her own race, because as I said before, this tends to be the way it goes; therefore, one might believe that the other person is only looking for people of her own race and thus will not be interested in you. Sometimes, alcohol lowers this insecurity or fear of rejection, and, as morally incorrect as it my sound, that may be the boost needed to gain the courage necessary to approach that person.

This is a topic that I can really relate to with my own experience back in my country. I am from Venezuela, an extremely wealthy country, with hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue every day coming from oil alone, and millions of people struggling daily to have their next meal. How can this be? What is the point of a government if not to help your own people, the people that elected you in the first place to lead and protect them? Venezuela’s government gives away extremely large amounts of free oil to other countries around South America for the sole purpose of having political support in the International Organizations such as the US or the OAS. Foreign aid is great, and I believe it should be encouraged on wealthy countries to help the others in need, however, it is not so great when the same country giving foreign aid is in desperate need of aid itself. How can it be reasonable to build a hospital worth tens of millions of dollars in Uruguay when there is a lack of medical centers and doctors all around the country? How can it be reasonable to pay off countries for political support with millions of dollars when there are millions of people living in great poverty and horrible conditions in your own country? Isn’t it beyond obvious that a government that does such things must get its priorities straight? The protection and wellbeing of your own people is first, and everything else is second, period. It is as simple as that. When you helped the ones in need in your own country, it is then, and only then, that you can start thinking about helping the others. Now, I am not saying that the US government should stop foreign aid, nor am I saying it should stop financing their wars, because I am not familiar enough with these topics to have an informed and objective opinion about it, however, what I am saying is that if they are able to spend billions of dollars every year in such things, maybe it is reasonable to expect from them a little more involvement and help in communities that don’t have even the slightest hint of light at the end of the tunnel. Communities such as the Native American communities that have the highest suicide rates, the lowest income per capita and incredibly low life expectancy numbers. I am not saying either, that they should be simply carried to wellbeing or wealth by just giving them everything out of nowhere, however I do believe that sometimes a little push and a little help is necessary for someone to stand up, dust off and start making some progress. It is really important for governments around the world to understand what their role is, what they were elected for and what their priorities should be in order to make great strides of progress worldwide.

In class we compared and discussed a few similarities between nepotism and affirmative action, and whether one was more socially acceptable than the other. Since the question is if nepotism is more socially acceptable than affirmative action, I will try not to wander of to the question whether they are right or wrong, and talk simply about their social perception. First of all, let’s define the differences between these two and clarify their meaning. Some may say that nepotism is a part of affirmative action, and I agree with that argument. Affirmative action is a much broader meaning than nepotism, and nepotism may fall into the definition of affirmative action; even though it benefits the more fortunate people rather than the less fortunate ones. There are many types of affirmative action, some benefit individuals based on their gender, some based on their class, some on their race, etc. The difference between nepotism and these types of affirmative action is that in the former, the individual benefiting from it and being helped is one that is close or known to whoever is helping him. Therefore you could argue that the reason this person is aiding the individual is not necessarily because they are the more qualified in the market or because they deserve it the most, but because it gives him or her satisfaction or happiness to help someone related to them or related to a good friend. For example, if I have a business and I am hiring people, and coincidentally my son, or my best friend’s son is in need of a job and has good qualities and skills to do the job right (though not necessarily the best), I much rather hire him because it brings me satisfaction and happiness to help someone I care for; and as long as he can do the job correctly, in an economic point of view I am maximizing my utility (not monetary, but total utility) by hiring him. This may not sound fair, but then again, why does your father, or uncle, or your buddy’s dad buy you lunch or invites you to dinner when there are people who are hungrier than you and that need the food more than you? I am not trying to compare hunger with having the qualities to do a job; I am simply trying to make the point that people tend to obtain satisfaction from helping the people they know and the people close to them. On the other hand, the other types of affirmative action previously mentioned aid people based on a social characteristic that separates them from other people in society only because they possess that characteristic. Therefore, someone may obtain a job or receive benefits simply because he or she is of race X, or gender Y or has Z amount of money and he or she is not necessarily the best for the job. And unless you are trying to help someone you care for, usually when you hire people you seek the best person qualified candidate for the job. For this reason these types of affirmative action may have a little more social rejection than nepotism even though they both tend to be socially rejected.

I believe it is extremely important that the United States continues to give foreign aid to developing countries around the world for several reasons. First and foremost, it is necessary to understand that only around 1% of the federal budget is dedicated to foreign aid, and there is more than one component of the budget that is less important than foreign assistance if you think a budget cut is necessary. As Sam said in class, many believe that countries like the United States have a moral obligation to continue giving foreign aid to many countries primarily because they are part of the reason these countries are in that position in the first place. However, that is not the point I am trying to make here anyway. Unfortunately, foreign aid has both potential to be extremely helpful if done correctly and unhelpful when done carelessly. Clearly every country has different needs, and to donate large amount of unneeded resources is both a waste of time and money. Therefore, it is extremely important when giving assistance to other countries that a full study is done to determine where are the areas that these countries need more help with. For example, as we saw in class, all the rice given to Haiti by the United States has both good and bad consequences; some experts say the country actually ends up worst off because it causes their economy to stagnate. But maybe what Haiti needs is not rice, maybe not corn, or free food, maybe what would help Haiti more than anything else is investing in new roads, schools, houses for the people living there or who knows if something else. This would not only generate many construction jobs but it will help develop the infrastructure of the country, improve the commercial and social connections between cities and towns, and help Haitians by providing them means to earn a living rather than a below average meal for five days. I have also read several times of the abundance of useless aid or donations that countries like Haiti receive daily; like used high heel or out of date toiletries just to name a few. The fact that these countries sometimes receive the incorrect form of aid from developed countries, by no means signifies that they do not need aid at all. The United States is one of the most powerful and generous countries in the plane Earth, but good intentions do not necessarily mean good results. So as I stated before, for a country with the economic power like the United States, 1% of their federal budget is certainly a “sacrifice” that does not harm their economy at all, but has the potential to save hundreds of thousands of lives and create a future for millions of people around the globe.

There may be several reasons for why people put whitening cream on their skin. However, even though one of them might be due to racial reasons, like wanting to be (or look like) part of the “white race” more than another race, I think the more prominent one has to do with our society’s history and how we got to define “beauty”. If you think about it, why is it that being skinny is considered the desired or attractive attribute rather than having a little more weight? It is probably because of an arbitrary social rule made once by some people that indicated so. The same may apply in this case. Considering our society’s extremely racist and prejudicial past, where other races different from the white race were considered to be “inferior”, we can observe how models, actresses, had all very similar attributes: skinny figure, tall body, and of course… white skin. This may (or may not have) influenced a perception of popular beauty, causing many people to believe that this is a popular and desired trait among people, which of course, is absolutely false. This led to a lot of people desiring to look “whiter” than they actually are. This is a very unreasonable way of thinking however, because even though our likes and desires have been extremely influenced by our environment, that is, by what people say we should like or not like, everybody has a different taste in everything and that is one of the things that makes us unique among everybody else. Another reason people might use this kind of product to look whiter is the first one mentioned: the racial reason. This is a very concerning way of thinking. The one thing we as a society have tried to accomplish throughout the past decades is the abolition of racial discrimination and the promotion race equality. Of course, we have made it very far, but this way of thinking previously mentioned is a clear example that we still have a long way to go. The fact that someone tries to look more like part of another race is an indication that there are still inequalities among them and that being in a specific race may have more advantages than being part of another, and the only way we can actually stop this issue of people aspiring to be of another race is to actually reach equality among them. And, as I said before, we still have a long way to go and a lot more to accomplish.

I am a Catholic person, and believe in God and every other aspect of my religion. However, as I was taught in my Catholic school, many of the things the Bible dictates are there for our comprehension of bigger concepts. For example, the story of creationism is not necessarily telling us that the story of Adam and Eve actually happened; it is explaining to us, the human kind, that there is a larger “being”, if you can call it that, out there that created us and created the world around us. I believe in evolution, in science, and in many of the discoveries made throughout the years supporting this theory; however, I do not believe that religion and science should be separate. The theory of creationism is simply telling us that God created mankind and everything around it, whether it was done by means of the flick of a wand, a huge explosion that created planets or by evolution is not the point this theory is making. Therefore I believe that there is a God, a God responsible for all we are and all we see, and that created all of it with a method yet unknown to us at the time being but we define it as evolution.
Evolution is a very interesting and important topic. After the class in which we discussed the origin of different races and the mobilization of our ancestors, I didn’t really change the way I treat people of different races or ethnicities (the same way I treat people of my own race and ethnicity). However, I did feel different towards them. I definitely felt a lot more related to them than I used to in the past and it made me realize that we all come from the same place. I think it is somewhat ironic how throughout the years human beings of different races have treated each other almost as if they were from different species, but at the end of the day, we all come from the same place and are more alike than we think. As Sam said in class, our DNA is around 99.9% the same as every other human being on this planet, and that 0.1% that is different is what determines our physical attributes. I find this to be astonishing and a very useful fact when explaining to others that we are all the same. Getting back to the question, the fact that we all originated from the same place and then moved around the planet is not only scientifically valuable but also socially. This may be a crucial fact for educating future generations in our new “equal society” to treat everybody as equal and to eradicate all thoughts if hatred and separation towards other races. To conclude, evolution and creationism are both very complex and important subjects that surround us constantly, and people tend to approach them as opposing sides, however I do not believe it is that way and we should try to avoid this so common mistake.

In class on Thursday we had a conversation with an Iranian student called Maziar via Skype. I really enjoyed the conversation; he was a funny, charismatic and friendly person that would break any perception or stereotype that many Americans hold about Muslims and specially Iranians. Before the conversation, Sam showed a video of teenagers living in Iran, and it really made me think a lot about my previous perception about this country too.

At first, as a Venezuelan student myself, I felt really identified with Maziar and other Iranians regarding the perceptions that sometimes Americans hold about other countries. I remember once in New York City when I was fifteen years old that a person (a grown “educated” adult) asked me if I went to school on canoe after I told him I was from Venezuela. I thought the whole thing was hilarious and cleared his doubts about my country with a chuckle; nevertheless, when I told a few friends about it, some of them were somewhat upset about the perception some Americans have about other countries. Another example is when I first arrived to Penn State. I was talking to a very nice lady that was cleaning the commons on East Halls and she asked my where I was from. When I told her I was Venezuelan, she immediately told me how weird that was since “I don’t look African.”

Stories like these made me realize how little many people know about other countries, and how most make stereotypes of other places based on what they see on the news or hear politicians say. This is why I enjoyed this video so much and why it shocked me to some extent, because it made me realize that I, too, was one of those making assumptions and building stereotypes about places I know nothing about.

The teenagers on the video looked like they were having a very good time in their city, and Iran definitely looked like a place I would like to visit some day. After the video, we talked to Maziar. When Sam starting asking several questions about what Iranians think about America and how Iran is like, you could tell that many people were surprised with some of his answers. He explained that nobody carries guns there, for example, so he is not afraid of getting shot on the street for no reason by any crazy citizen with the right to buy a fire weapon for no reason.

He then said that people there were scared of America because they were scared of wars. This is very ironic in my opinion because the perception that the media creates about Iran and similar countries is that they want to “dominate the world” or want to go into war and it is erroneous. I believe a frequent mistake we make, is relating citizens with the views and morals of their governments, and this should definitely change, because I certainly do not want to be related to mine.

If I knew my child was going to be gay before he was born, I wouldn’t tell him. I would like my child to discover his sexuality by himself. The most important thing, however, is that I would absolutely help him or guide him throughout their childhood and make sure that he does not have the rough time that many homosexual kids have when growing up. After reading about all the statistics of gay kids committing suicide because of the tough times they go through in their childhood and teenage years and all the other tragedies that occur with kids having issues accepting themselves in this society, if I was able to know my child was gay I would seek all the help I could find for him so that he understands that there is nothing wrong with them and that we accept him how he is. However, as I mentioned before, I would not directly tell him that he is gay, I would let him find out for himself even though I would make it absolutely clear to him before he discovers it that we accept him no matter what. By letting him find out by himself, I am giving him the opportunity to explore his options, explore his feelings and get to know himself better. This is such an important part of the formation of a human being that I think no one has the right to interrupt or intervene in it. If he wants to give it a shot with girls first, and see what happens, see what he feels and decide what he prefers he would have a much bigger understanding of what he feels and who he is. And if he is absolutely sure that he does not want to give it a shot with girls it is fine too; but the important thing is that he explores this by himself and goes through this personal journey accompanied by his loved ones but making his own decisions and finding his own conclusions. My parents and probably most parents don’t tell their kids when they are young “Hey son, you are straight.” And neither should we. The other reason I wouldn’t tell him or her that he or she is gay, is that I would be in some sense predetermining his or her choice or constraining him. He or she could feel that they are supposed to be gay therefore they might seek someone of their same sex because that is how it’s meant to be. If this happens then his or her decision would not be completely personal, because I would have had an impact on it. Maybe, deep inside, I would not tell my child because I’d prefer he or she would be straight, nevertheless that doesn’t mean that my feelings towards him or her would change because of their sexual orientation.