When I got accepted to Penn State, I knew I would get an amazing reaction from people when they found out where I was going for school. I would get smiles and enthusiasm. Now, when I say I go to Penn State, they give me this face. Like, “Oh, you go to Penn State?” as though it was some little college on the intersection of “nobody” and “cares”. I’ve never gotten that reaction before. I went to a great middle school and followed that with a great high school. Both have very good academic reputations. It was continued when I got to Penn State but now I feel as though society, the media and people that never attended Penn State are trying to discredit my university and in turn discredit me and my fellow classmates. I refuse to let them take that away from me on behalf of one man’s disgraceful decisions. Because of him, I feel as though our university’s integrity is being torn apart. Parents don’t want to send their kids here. Companies are pulling their donations from THON. Students are embarrassed to show up for job interviews with Penn State on their resumes. The students are being called monsters because we riot for the firing of JoePa. Yes he could have done more in that situation but he has dedicated his entire life to the University, to the students and to our football program. He should have not been fired in that manner. Of course the students are mad. We feel as though the BOT ripped a part of our identities away from us. People believe that it was JoePa who was abusing these boys because whenever they see “Penn State Child Sexual Abuse Scandal”, who’s face is posted right next to it? JoePa. That is not fair and he doesn’t deserve that. What is more maddening is that the school “supports unconditionally” Curley and Schultz. That doesn’t make any sense so the students are going to a riot. It was in bad taste, yes, it just gave the media what they wanted, but I understand where my fellow classmates were coming from. On the embarrassment part of it, I will never be embarrassed of my school. I am so proud that I go to school here. We are best of the best. Our programs are number one in the nation. One man does not define this school. The students do. Our will to gain an education does. Our school pride does. The culture here is amazing and I wouldn’t trade my decision to attend this school if I had to do it over again. In class, a poll was taken to see how many students were thinking about not coming back to the school next year or if they were seniors in high school they wouldn’t choose Penn State. A surprising 20% said they wouldn’t come here. What I say to them is go ahead and leave. If this embarrasses you, then get out. There are so many other kids dying to come to Penn State and support it no matter what. I’m ecstatic that my alma mater will soon be Penn State. We are…

You ask why only sixteen percent of White kids think they will do better than their parents and why is it higher for Blacks and Latinos? One would think the answer is obvious. A majority of the wealthy people in the United States is more than likely White, and Blacks and Latinos are usually the ones struggling to get by. I’m aware that I can’t speak for all minorities when I say we have struggled to come up in a decent household and schooling, but I know where I’m from if you don’t get out while you have the chance, you get stuck. You become trapped in the cycle of the people around you, that look like you and only show you that there is one way to live life. The ones that leave that life are usually the ones that refuse to settle, refuse to be another stereotype, refuse to be another number.

A lot of White people come from a better SES and have more opportunities open and available to them. On top of that there are many more doors open to White people. I don’t know if anyone knows about the man on the mountain game. The white man is on top of this mountain and will never allow anyone other than his people get to the top.

With all that being said, if you’re already at the top, how much higher can you get? I know plenty of kids that just want to be AS successful as their parents. Whereas minorities are held down at the bottom so we have plenty to climb. I know for me my mother was a teenage mom and she had my brother and I while she was in high school and had to drop out. After we were old enough for us to be in daycare my mother went back to school and got her GED and then went to college where she got her associates degree in data processing. I would say we’re lower middle class. With that being said, although I am proud of my mom, I want to do better. She set me on the pathway to do better. I’m the first in my family to go to an actual University and in the spring I’ll be graduating. In that sense alone I am already “better” than my mother and I plan on only going up from there. It’s not the same for white people.

Also, I know many white people whose parents put so much pressure on their children to do better than then and the pressure does nothing but make them falter. They can never live up to their parents expectation and maybe the stress from the pressure does not allow them to advance. I know for me personally, anything that I did my mother was proud of me where as the white people I know have told me that their parents always told them, “You can do better”. Maybe it has no relevance but it’s food for thought.

Personally, I think how women dress to go out is ridiculous. If I know I am going to be dancing and/or drinking, I can be sure that I will not be wearing a short skirt. You will have to keep pulling it down all night and it’s sad to say but I do not trust the majority of guys around me with a skirt on while dancing. I go out most of the time with a cute top, some skinny jeans and some ankle (flat) boots. Majority of the time, all my girlfriends will have either heels and/or skirts on and I don’t feel any type of way. Females want attention and we compete with each other because we want to look better but that’s the difference between me and other females. I don’t need a skirt and heels to make me feel like I look better than every other female. I can wear what I wear and still feel like I look better but that’s just me. I think many girls have that low self esteem and it’s sad that they think they have to dress in that way to look better than other girls and to get the attention of guys. Yes, I have gone out to a club or party in heels but I can count those instances on one hand. With heels, the reason I don’t wear them is because by the end of the night, they will be off. Sadly I am guilty of walking down College Ave with heels in my hands and it will be the last time ever that I do so. While I am dancing and having fun, I feel like my feet are bleeding. Why do I want to continue to do that to myself? For the attention of men? Because I already get that. Now if I will be sitting down most of the night, then sure I’ll throw on a skirt and some heels but that doesn’t happen often. I will only put on a nice dress and heels if the same dress code is mandatory for the guys, such as formal dinners and dances on campus. Guys have it easy and most girls are jealous but not me. I, in my opinion, have it easy also. Women don’t have to dress like that but most of them aren’t comfortable within their own skin. What gets me a little confused is when a female is in the club, shaking their behinds while their skirts keep rising, but they get upset when a guy tries to hit on them. You can wear that, I believe, and carry it in a different light as to not get that reaction. You can’t be upset if you’re dancing like a fool and a man approaches you like one. Save the fancy attire for need be events.

Discussed in class I believe, white people made up race to essentially justify the enslaving of African Americans. They look very different in comparison to white people so they made up race and whoever was of this race was beneath them. The one drop rule only works one way because then the majority of people will become a part of the elite group, which are the white people. Having the one drop rule the way it is makes the majority of people at the bottom of society, which in turn gives the white people more black people to have as slaves. If someone was half white and half black, the assumption is that they would hold on to the white side more strongly. White people had better lives so if they got to consider themselves white, I don’t think they would even try to remember their black side. But say if the assumption was wrong and they held on more to their black side, it would be possible that they would bring some black people into their home. They would be more lenient with them. They wouldn’t whip them for trying to escape. Maybe they would even help them do it. They would fight for them because they were considered white now. They could do so because they had the freedom that black people didn’t have. To avoid all of this commotion and unnecessary drama for themselves, the whites, they simply said if you have even one drop of black blood in you, you are considered black. The elite group is considered elite because there are not many of them. People aspire to be like the elite in order to do whatever they wanted to do. No one would want to be a part of that group if everyone was already in it, hence why the one drop rule was made. Another reason was maybe to not “contaminate” the white race. White men had sex with black women. That’s a known fact. Now say the child that was produced from that sex is considered white now, not black. That child will eventually grow up and have the likely chance of procreating. If they were to do that with another white person, there child will have black in them now, so on and so forth. If they were to have sex with a black person, there child would come out having some white blood so they would be considered white. Now we have two people with black blood who identify themselves as white. So to keep the white blood pure in a sense, they just pushed away all people with any amount of black in them.

Before I even have children, I would hope that they are born straight and continue to be straight. I wouldn’t want my child to go through anymore hardship and discrimination than they already have to. It would be an easier life since being straight is the norm in society. Another reason is that I would love to have biological grandchildren. I don’t mind adopted grandchildren but I don’t hope for that. I want my blood line to continue. That would be an ideal situation for me. Now, if I was to have a child and they are gay, I’m going to have a little bit of struggle with it. It’s not because I don’t like or support gay people, it’s just not the norm. All in all, I’ll learn to accept it. They are the same person to me. They came from me and I’m not going to disown them because they have a sexual attraction to the same sex. As they grow up, I feel as though I am going to be faced with another issue. Dating. My sister is bisexual and we are very close. But I still get weird feelings when she talks about the gay things she does or says. She calls that part of her, “Orlando”, which is her “gay half”. “He” can’t come out around me. It’s not that I don’t accept it but since it’s so close to home, I’m still not used to it. So with my child, it’s going to feel really weird when they bring their partners home to meet me for the first time. I’m fine with the hugging and hand holding but as soon as it goes into kissing, I would rather just not see it. I’m not comfortable when it’s that close to me. I should be okay with it though if I support gay/lesbian rights 100%. I can see a gay couple kiss on the street and I won’t feel weird. I guess it’s because they are strangers or I don’t have to deal with their relationship on an everyday basis. I really don’t know. I just hope that my child doesn’t see that as not accepting them in some sort of way because that’s not the case. Now that I am thinking about it, I think I would accept a gay son faster than a lesbian daughter. I am a straight woman so I know what it feels like to be attracted to a man. That’s what is “normal”. My daughter being with another girl is hard to accept because I don’t know what that feels like I guess. With my son, we would both be attracted to men, so it would make us closer I think. It’s an issue with a lot of what ifs attached. In general though, if I were to have a child that is gay, so be it. I will love them regardless.

If we started off as all being Americans, like Americans were of one race, it would eliminate racial discrimination but we would have discrimination based on skin color regardless. To be of one race, such as American, it seems so boring. Minus the discrimination, what makes America beautiful in a sense is that there are so many people from different parts of the world here. It gives us a chance to learn from each other and how different people do things. If I were to say, I am just American, I feel like I am giving up a piece of myself, a piece of my culture and history. Just because I would call myself American does not mean that but that is how I feel. I have pride in being Hispanic so I do not think I could ever let that label go. If I were to live in Puerto Rico after I have lived in the United States, I do not think I would like it as much. To wake up every day and see people just like me is unappealing. We would have different skin tones but we share the same culture and the same history. Now if I was born there, I would not know of the different cultures so it would not affect me anyhow but there would still be issues there because of skin tone. The problem here is that since other people are not like us, they must be lower or higher than us on the racial supremacy scale. We should all be on the same level though because we are all so different. You cannot put apples and oranges together and ask which one is better. We can learn from each other instead of pushing each other away because we look different. That is such a stupid reason. We did not start the race issue but we are definitely keeping it alive. It is hard to get rid of it because we have been brainwashed into it for so long but it has to start somewhere. I am Hispanic but I love Greek mythology, I love how the Chinese spend their New Years and I cannot get enough of Italian food. I feel like I am more American than Puerto Rican only because I do not speak Spanish and I have never been to Puerto Rico, but I would never give that part of me up. We are scared of what we do not know, but instead of pushing it away, we should learn about it. America will never be a melting pot but it is a salad bowl. Yes, we do not mix together and make one thing but together we add different flavors to life, different cultures and different viewpoints. I do not think I would want America to be full of just Americans.

When I heard the connection made between the double helix and God, it was a lot to take in at first. I couldn’t wrap my mind around what I just heard. When Sam asked us what representation of God the shaman from the village drew, the first thing I thought of was a burning bush because that is how He spoke to Moses in the Bible. That’s the only representation of God that I knew of since I was young. Just because I thought of this image, wouldn’t make me religious though. I was raised Christian but I wouldn’t consider myself one now. I’m open to the beliefs of others because who am I to say that what I believe in is right and what they believe in is wrong? I believe that there is a God but I think that is as far as it goes. I don’t take religion too seriously anymore. Just because I don’t follow every rule in the Bible doesn’t make me a bad person. I think that it’s wrong for me to ask forgiveness of a sin every day when I know for a fact that I’m just going to do it again tomorrow. I can deal with God, it’s just his fan club that needs some work.
Hearing of the double helix is one of the few things that make sense in this world to me about religion and God. In the first book of the Bible, it says that God created man in his image. People often tend to think of race and/or the human body when they read this. Since white is the “master” race, God must have been white, or since the first humans were discovered to be from Africa, God must have been black. Since we all basically have the same anatomical structure, God must have this same structure. God created man first, so God must be a man. Nobody really knew for sure what this scripture meant, so they manipulate it to fit their viewpoints. I strongly believe that the double helix knocks out all the other assumptions. God is a double helix and He made us, humans, in his image, which is a double helix. To me, that is mind blowing. Everybody can just be quiet about all of this race junk (for lack of a better word), because God truly made us all the same, in his image. We are all on the same playing field now. I didn’t necessarily believe in evolution or creationism one hundred percent, but hearing this story in class, pushes me toward the creationist point of view. I won’t ever believe it whole heartedly because no one will ever truly know, but it helps to answer one of the many questions that I have concerning God and the Bible.

Before I explain, I think it would be better to understand where I am coming from. I am a Puerto Rican female who was born and raised in Philadelphia. After my grandmother died when I was seven, I feel like that is when I started to lose a sense of my culture. We lost the authentic Puerto Rican food. My mother was busy going to school to ever learn how to cook the traditional way. Since my grandmother only knew Spanish, I had to know two languages. I lost that second language when she died because I never really used it anymore. My mother’s first language was English so that’s what she spoke to me. She moved me and my brother out of the Puerto Rican neighborhood as fast as she could because she didn’t believe it was safe. I grew up in a predominately white neighborhood from the age of seven, which slowly turned into predominately black. She kept us inside the house the majority of the time anyway. Before the end of the semester, I would like to know and possibly understand why groups of ethnicities seem to gather around each other. For example, there are not many Hispanic students at this campus. We come from everywhere, just like Caucasian students do, black students, etc., but we still tend to flock together because we are Hispanic. We come from many different backgrounds and lifestyles but that doesn’t seem to matter. We are connected somehow just by being of the same ethnicity. It’s less threatening to be around people “like you”, even if they do hold more differences from you than say, a Caucasian student. I want to know why. Why am I more comfortable around Spanish speaking people, when I can’t even speak Spanish myself? Why am I more comfortable with people who have these traditions from their “homeland” when I’ve never even been to mine? I want to understand why I feel connected to these people that I believe have more differences between us than similarities.
I also want to understand how and why there is racism within races. Like in the Hispanic community, it’s known that Puerto Ricans and Dominicans don’t get along or Puerto Ricans and Mexicans. I have both Dominican and Mexican friends. There’s an issue with Puerto Ricans within the Hispanic community because we, Puerto Ricans, believe that we are on top of the Hispanic hierarchy. If we are unified by being Hispanic somehow, why are we trying to tear each other down because we are from different places? Even skin tone plays a role. To be Hispanic you have to have this caramel looking skin color. Too light or too dark and you’re not considered the right kind of Hispanic.