en-us https://www.intensedebate.com/users/2397666 Comments by sincerelysparky http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/21/for-what-purpose/#IDComment145265053 To find purpose in life is a challenge for everyone, but it is easier for us because we have millions of things to participate in that can give our lives meaning. We have sports, families, relationships, classes, jobs, movies, cars, and well almost anything we could possibly want. M. is right though, it is not the responsibility of the prison to give inmates' lives meaning just like it is not the world's job to give our lives meaning. It is always interesting for me to read these letters, because the lifers speak about so many things we as those on the "outside" take for granted. We discover who we are each day by making mistakes, some bigger than others. And we grow because we are not only forgiven but given the chance to try again. This chance was forfeited by the lifers when they made perhaps life's biggest mistake. So now, they must not only spend the rest of their mortal lives behind bars, they must find a new way to grow and find purpose. I never thought about what my purpose in life is, but the difference between M. and me is that I have my entire life to figure it out; he has his entire life to wonder what his could have been. That its not to say that a lifer's life has not purpose, it is to point out that it will just be a very different journey to find out what it is. I believe what Ecclesiastes says about purpose. "To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under the sun." There is hope in that, because whatever purpose M. finds in life, that is the time for it. If he finds that his purpose is to help new lifers stay out of trouble, than it is time for that. And for each of us, there is a time and a reason for everything we find ourselves doing whether it be to learn, to teach, to entertain, to be entertained, or to change in some way. We each have a purpose, and I think M.'s letter makes us all think about what that purpose might be and when we will figure it out. Sat, 23 Apr 2011 01:39:35 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/21/for-what-purpose/#IDComment145265053 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/21/were-you-surprised-by-any-of-basums-responses-or-his-appearance-and-why-119-blog/#IDComment145259058 Having not really followed or been interested in the war before recently, talking to Bossum was really enlightening for me. There were a couple of things that he said that I didn't expect to hear. I got the opportunity to listen to Bossum speak in the SOC 001 class as well, and he was just as open and honest with us then as he was in 119. He talked about how may Iraqi's felt that the United States was at fault for the war and that the U.S. brought the terrorists to Iraq. For the longest time, I thought we were at war with Iraq, not Al Queda. For such a long time, they seemed to be one and the same. Bossum clarified that for me. I was surprised to hear him say that there were not terrorists in Iraq before the war, but at the same time the Iraqi people were thankful for it in the beginning because at first it was worth having Americans there because they got rid of Saddam. The difference between what Bossum said about the war and what American media has fed us for the past 10 years is quite shocking. Another thing that he said that was surprising was that many Iraqi's don't have electricity, and that there has been almost no progress for the Iraqi people since the war started. The Iraqi people recognize that they should be getting billions of dollars for all of the oil that is being mined from their land but instead that money is going to pay government salaries. It was shocking to hear that between 2003 and 2011 $291 billion dollars worth of oil was mined from Iraqi soil yet the Iraqi people had not seen a cent of that money. Bossum said that no roads, dams, bridges, or hospitals have been built. The promise of progress that the Iraqi people were given has not been met or even addressed since oil drilling began over 50 years ago. To me, that is shocking. As far as appearance, Bossum's surprised me a little bit. I suppose I expected him to be wearing some sort of traditional Muslim clothing, but I suppose that's because that is the image of Iraqis we are presented with in the United States. But when Bossum started speaking, I realized that he isn't really any different from an average American. He worries about his children getting home safe at night, he wants peace and freedom for his country and his family, and he went to school to get a degree and a job that would support his family. Bossum is your uncle, your father, your brother, and your friend. Bossum is all of us, because he represents an average person anywhere in the world. I think that is the most important lesson I learned from listening to Bossum to speak; we are all people who want the same things no matter where we're from or what religion we practice. Sat, 23 Apr 2011 01:04:13 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/21/were-you-surprised-by-any-of-basums-responses-or-his-appearance-and-why-119-blog/#IDComment145259058 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/11/lifer/#IDComment143270210 This reminds me of the idea that just because someone has committed a crime doesnt mean you should treat them like a criminal. As we move through life, we pick up all sorts of labels. When you go to college, you obtain the label of partier whether you drink or not. When you play a sport you are an athlete in addition to all of the negative stereotypes that come with that such as not being intelligent or only being in school to play a sport. If you are an artist or a musician, people see you as part of some eccentric subculture. If you skateboard to class, people may automatically assume that you listen to punk rock music, wear tight jeans and shoes that are too big, and talk in some kind of unique language that your parents will never understand. I guess the lesson about criminals should apply to all of us. Just because you do something doesnt mean that that is who you are. I work at a dining hall, but my friends dont treat me like Im the kid serving them food at fourth meal on thirsty Thursday. Sat, 16 Apr 2011 01:24:15 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/11/lifer/#IDComment143270210 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/11/lifer/#IDComment143269055 This reminds me of the idea that just because someone has committed a crime doesn’t mean you should treat them like a criminal. As we move through life, we pick up all sorts of labels. When you go to college, you obtain the label of “partier” whether you drink or not. When you play a sport you are an “athlete” in addition to all of the negative stereotypes that come with that such as not being intelligent or only being in school to play a sport. If you are an “artist” or a “musician”, people see you as part of some eccentric subculture. If you skateboard to class, people may automatically assume that you listen to punk rock music, wear tight jeans and shoes that are too big, and talk in some kind of unique language that your parents will never understand. I guess the lesson about criminals should apply to all of us. Just because you do something doesn’t mean that that is who you are. I work at a dining hall, but my friends don’t treat me like I’m the kid serving them food at fourth meal on thirsty Thursday. When I started working at Redifer, one of the most shocking things for me was the reactions I got when I started telling other people. Some would say that it was great and others wouldn’t. The most striking response I got was from a freshman that had just joined a leadership organization I was a part of. He was talking about how he needed a job but couldn’t find one. I happily told him that the dining halls were hiring and conveniently located on campus. He looked at me and said, “I don’t want to work in a dining hall,” When I asked why, his response was something along the lines of, “I don’t know I wouldn’t want my friends to see me serving food.” I was completely shocked. Here was a kid who wanted a job, but decided that he was above serving food. As a newly employed food server, I was not only shocked but very offended. By alluding to the fact that he was too good to work at a dining hall, he implied without even realizing it that he thought he was better than me. Perhaps that is a stretch, but you get the point. This kid was the picture perfect example of someone who immediately thought about how others would see him if he worked at a dining hall. He was a willing victim of the looking glass self. I think J.V.G’s lesson here is that we are all people trying to move through life in one way or another and instead of labeling each other and ourselves; we should simply be and let others be as well. Sat, 16 Apr 2011 01:17:35 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/11/lifer/#IDComment143269055 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/14/what-does-it-say-about-our-society-if-schools-are-more-segregated-now-than-in-the-1970s-119-blog/#IDComment143268692 The Denzel Washington film Terrell was referring to was “Remember the Titans.” On the surface, a movie about a football team; but underneath not only a true story but a commentary on race relations in the United States, “Remember the Titans” taught more than one valuable lesson to moviegoers. To say that schools are more segregated now than they were in the early 1970s doesn’t really surprise me when I stop and think about it. Schools were segregated then, because it was the law. They’re segregated now, because society changed to make it so. I didn’t want to believe that when Terrell said it, but when I realized that I grew up in an area and in a school system where most of the kids were white, I realized he was right. I don’t really know what to do with this knowledge though. Should we be trying harder to integrate schools, or should we simply let things exist as they are? Is there even a way to fix it? Do people want to fix it? Are schools segregated because of where they are located; are there no schools in places where there is an equal number of black and white students? I don’t know. What I do know is that by integrating schools in the 70s black students learned about white culture and white students learned about black culture. If there is any truth to the story of the Titans, there must be some reason why integration succeeds at certain times in history but fails at others. Now, the concern of the United States is not really on integration, equality of opportunity, and race. At this moment in history, our leaders are focused on the war in Iraq, sustainable energy, and how to renew resources that are simply not renewable. We are concerned with religious differences instead of race differences. Perhaps that is an explanation for why integration in schools seems to have fallen off of the list of things that need to be done in our country. We’re simply preoccupied with more pressing matters. We’re worried about the housing market and the failing economy instead of our citizens and their day to day lives. A football team changed a city, what is it going to take now to change the present? Integration was the most important political social and political issue in the early 70s, of course levels of integration would be higher. Right now, one of the most important political and social issues is how we are going to get oil from the Middle East, so of course we’re going to be invading other countries more now than we were in the 70s. I think it works kind of like that. The time in history is an important factor in what society thinks our leaders should be doing. I don’t think forgetting about integration is a good thing or a bad thing; it’s just not what society is concerned with right now. I suppose the question here is: should it be? Sat, 16 Apr 2011 01:15:29 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/14/what-does-it-say-about-our-society-if-schools-are-more-segregated-now-than-in-the-1970s-119-blog/#IDComment143268692 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/11/lifer/#IDComment143265085 This reminds me of the idea that just because someone has committed a crime doesn’t mean you should treat them like a criminal. As we move through life, we pick up all sorts of labels. When you go to college, you obtain the label of “partier” whether you drink or not. When you play a sport you are an “athlete” in addition to all of the negative stereotypes that come with that such as not being intelligent or only being in school to play a sport. If you are an “artist” or a “musician”, people see you as part of some eccentric subculture. If you skateboard to class, people may automatically assume that you listen to punk rock music, wear tight jeans and shoes that are too big, and talk in some kind of unique language that your parents will never understand. I guess the lesson about criminals should apply to all of us. Just because you do something doesn’t mean that that is who you are. I work at a dining hall, but my friends don’t treat me like I’m the kid serving them food at fourth meal on thirsty Thursday. When I started working at Redifer, one of the most shocking things for me was the reactions I got when I started telling other people. Some would say that it was great and others wouldn’t. The most striking response I got was from a freshman that had just joined a leadership organization I was a part of. He was talking about how he needed a job but couldn’t find one. I happily told him that the dining halls were hiring and conveniently located on campus. He looked at me and said, “I don’t want to work in a dining hall,” When I asked why, his response was something along the lines of, “I don’t know I wouldn’t want my friends to see me serving food.” I was completely shocked. Here was a kid who wanted a job, but decided that he was above serving food. As a newly employed food server, I was not only shocked but very offended. By alluding to the fact that he was too good to work at a dining hall, he implied without even realizing it that he thought he was better than me. Perhaps that is a stretch, but you get the point. This kid was the picture perfect example of someone who immediately thought about how others would see him if he worked at a dining hall. He was a willing victim of the looking glass self. I think J.V.G’s lesson here is that we are all people trying to move through life in one way or another and instead of labeling each other and ourselves; we should simply be and let others be as well. Sat, 16 Apr 2011 00:56:17 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/11/lifer/#IDComment143265085 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/11/lifer/#IDComment143264338 This reminds me of the idea that just because someone has committed a crime doesn’t mean you should treat them like a criminal. As we move through life, we pick up all sorts of labels. When you go to college, you obtain the label of “partier” whether you drink or not. When you play a sport you are an “athlete” in addition to all of the negative stereotypes that come with that such as not being intelligent or only being in school to play a sport. If you are an “artist” or a “musician”, people see you as part of some eccentric subculture. If you skateboard to class, people may automatically assume that you listen to punk rock music, wear tight jeans and shoes that are too big, and talk in some kind of unique language that your parents will never understand. I guess the lesson about criminals should apply to all of us. Just because you do something doesn’t mean that that is who you are. I work at a dining hall, but my friends don’t treat me like I’m the kid serving them food at fourth meal on thirsty Thursday. When I started working at Redifer, one of the most shocking things for me was the reactions I got when I started telling other people. Some would say that it was great and others wouldn’t. The most striking response I got was from a freshman that had just joined a leadership organization I was a part of. He was talking about how he needed a job but couldn’t find one. I happily told him that the dining halls were hiring and conveniently located on campus. He looked at me and said, “I don’t want to work in a dining hall,” When I asked why, his response was something along the lines of, “I don’t know I wouldn’t want my friends to see me serving food.” I was completely shocked. Here was a kid who wanted a job, but decided that he was above serving food. As a newly employed food server, I was not only shocked but very offended. By alluding to the fact that he was too good to work at a dining hall, he implied without even realizing it that he thought he was better than me. Perhaps that is a stretch, but you get the point. This kid was the picture perfect example of someone who immediately thought about how others would see him if he worked at a dining hall. He was a willing victim of the looking glass self. I think J.V.G’s lesson here is that we are all people trying to move through life in one way or another and instead of labeling each other and ourselves; we should simply be and let others be as well. Sat, 16 Apr 2011 00:52:23 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/11/lifer/#IDComment143264338 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/11/lifer/#IDComment143263877 This reminds me of the idea that just because someone has committed a crime doesn’t mean you should treat them like a criminal. As we move through life, we pick up all sorts of labels. When you go to college, you obtain the label of “partier” whether you drink or not. When you play a sport you are an “athlete” in addition to all of the negative stereotypes that come with that such as not being intelligent or only being in school to play a sport. If you are an “artist” or a “musician”, people see you as part of some eccentric subculture. If you skateboard to class, people may automatically assume that you listen to punk rock music, wear tight jeans and shoes that are too big, and talk in some kind of unique language that your parents will never understand. I guess the lesson about criminals should apply to all of us. Just because you do something doesn’t mean that that is who you are. I work at a dining hall, but my friends don’t treat me like I’m the kid serving them food at fourth meal on thirsty Thursday. When I started working at Redifer, one of the most shocking things for me was the reactions I got when I started telling other people. Some would say that it was great and others wouldn’t. The most striking response I got was from a freshman that had just joined a leadership organization I was a part of. He was talking about how he needed a job but couldn’t find one. I happily told him that the dining halls were hiring and conveniently located on campus. He looked at me and said, “I don’t want to work in a dining hall,” When I asked why, his response was something along the lines of, “I don’t know I wouldn’t want my friends to see me serving food.” I was completely shocked. Here was a kid who wanted a job, but decided that he was above serving food. As a newly employed food server, I was not only shocked but very offended. By alluding to the fact that he was too good to work at a dining hall, he implied without even realizing it that he thought he was better than me. Perhaps that is a stretch, but you get the point. This kid was the picture perfect example of someone who immediately thought about how others would see him if he worked at a dining hall. He was a willing victim of the looking glass self. I think J.V.G’s lesson here is that we are all people trying to move through life in one way or another and instead of labeling each other and ourselves; we should simply be and let others be as well. Sat, 16 Apr 2011 00:49:48 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/11/lifer/#IDComment143263877 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/03/what-a-man-is/#IDComment141154676 This is a fascinating letter. C. takes the time to not only hold himself accountable for his own actions but also take the time to speak on behalf of other men. A man just like the one C. described sounds like the perfect man, one that any woman would dream of being with. But the part of this that bothers me is when he says he didn’t realize all of these things until it was too late for him to become this man, until he was already sentenced to spend his life in prison. I wonder who’s fault it is that this type of man isn’t more prominent in our society. As a woman, I cannot even count the number of friends I have who say they just wish they could meet a nice guy or a guy who isn’t an asshole. Okay, but who’s fault is it that men don’t treat women like C. described? We can certainly blame poignant media messages about women and their bodies; we can blame a man’s inherent aggressiveness and sexuality. We can blame music videos made by men. As a woman, I have always been just fine blaming men for the plights of the majority of women, because in a very large way, our society is run by white men. It seems as though women appear to want sex and money, because that’s what many men seem to want and women are fighting for equality in a man’s world and therefore must want the same things men want in order to be seen as equals. But, I never thought about whether women actually had anything to do with the misunderstanding between what men want and what women want. Can we blame women for how messed up our men seem to be? Feminists and many women in general would say no. They would say that we as women do things to please men, because we want a good man. But we don’t take conscious steps to make what we want clear. We wear provocative clothing to attract men, but I have found by befriending many good guys that they don’t want a girl whose ass sticks out of the bottom of her “dress.” When women dress a certain way and spend money on expensive things that they “need” what are men supposed to think of us? Are they supposed to be able to see past superficiality and into our hearts? I know that’s what a lot of women wish for, but it’s not going to happen. I think a joint effort that needs to occur to open lines of communication between men and women so that women begin acting in a way that reflects what they really want and men can then respond to that by behaving the way C. described. I would be interested to hear a female inmate offer her thoughts of what a woman is and ought to be. Sat, 9 Apr 2011 03:19:12 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/03/what-a-man-is/#IDComment141154676 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/05/after-this-class-do-you-still-blame-terrorism-119-blog/#IDComment141151757 To me, “terrorism” has almost become a pop culture term in the United States over the past ten years. We’re in a war against “terrorism,” looking for Al Queda “terrorists” in Iraq, and fighting to preserve the freedom that we as Americans are all so lucky to have. But what is terrorism, really? To me, terrorism is senseless spreading of fear among a group of people. A terrorist as Michael Cane said in the most recent Batman movie said is, “Someone who just wants to watch the world burn.” These people are you killers who will kill anyone for any reason or no reason at all, who enjoy killing simply because it makes people afraid. To me, this isn’t ever person in Iraq, or every Muslim man I see. Forgive me if I am being “um-American,” but one could argue that the men who attacked the United States were not intending to spread terror without motivation. In Iraq and Afghanistan, Americans are probably seen as terrorists with their machine guns, marching patterns, and Humvees, but we would all cringe at the thought be being called terrorists ourselves. This question about terrorism brings to mind a lecture I heard last semester about suicide bombing. I talked about this in my discussion group, but I think it’s worth mentioning here too. We look at the conflict in Iraq, the September 11th attacks from the perspective of Americans. But what does that mean? That means we look at war from the perspective of a country with the largest organized military in the world. We look at war from our television sets and listen to it on our radios. We gladly pay taxes so that our military can have a budget that allows them to find more “humane” ways of killing that don’t include suicide bombing. We look at 9/11 with shock, anger, fear, and confusion. We look at the men who fly planes into buildings as terrorists. We look at young men strapping bombs to their backs and immediately think terrorist, but we look at young American strapping machine guns to their bodies and call them heroes. Did it ever occur to you that perhaps the Iraqis have no way to protect their homeland other than by producing IED’s and encouraging suicide bombers? Other countries can’t afford the luxury of a military unit because their economies have fallen and their people are destitute and impoverished. We condemn the military tactics of a nation who has no other way to fight for their cause when we are simply doing the same thing. If we look at it from an unbiased perspective, blaming the war on “terrorism” really isn’t a convincing explanation. So when we point a finger and shout terrorist at a woman in a hijab or an Arab in the airport, perhaps we should look in the mirror and wonder if we are terrorists too. One could argue that the United States has a noble cause for invading Iraq, after all people who associate with the Middle Eastern region attacked us first. But no matter what the reasoning is, being around people with lethal weapons is not a pleasant experience no matter what the circumstance. I was in London at Heathrow Airport two weeks before the bombings there. When I went to Paris, we had to pass armed men to get to the Eiffel Tower because they feared “terrorists” attacking the symbol of their nation. But what they didn’t know is that they were spreading terror among all visitors simply with their intimidating presence. Perhaps we should consider that the next time we hear of an American military unit invading a new city. Sat, 9 Apr 2011 03:03:22 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/05/after-this-class-do-you-still-blame-terrorism-119-blog/#IDComment141151757 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/27/family/#IDComment139261108 C. talks about his family like a lot college students talk about their families here. Growing up, I never understood why kids complained about their families; my parents were always my best friends. Like C., my family has always been incredibly important to me. Even when times have been really difficult, my family has always there for me no matter what. I didn’t realize how rare that was until I started talking to other people about their families. Even when I was younger, most of my friends had parents who were divorced or who worked all the time and were never home. My parents are still alive and together, which in and of itself is a miracle these days. My sister and I are both healthy and happy and in college growing into our own lives, and we are both showered with the love most people only dream of being exposed to. I never understood most of this until I left home. Even though I had moved 800 miles away from home, my parents still called or texted me every day, my dad sent me cards and checked to see how I was doing. I got care packages with my favorite foods and we counted the days until we would see each other again. And when I needed support the most, both my parents and my big sister spent hours on the phone with me telling me that I could do it (whatever “it” was) and that everything would be okay. I guess leaving home to go to college could be loosely compared to leaving home to go to prison. In a way, both circumstances can lead to a weakening relationship among family members. When I came to Penn State, I did not find a new family or close friends like C. described right away. It took me a long time to get used to being in a new place with new authority figures and suddenly having the responsibility of taking care of myself 100% of the time. I am by no means saying that my life at Penn State has been like that of a prisoner at Rockview, but being able to tap into the love of a family for support is something both a new college student and a lifer need to keep going each day. As far as family is concerned, C. is more fortunate than many people on the “outside” who’s families no longer support or keep in touch with them. Sat, 2 Apr 2011 01:59:16 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/27/family/#IDComment139261108 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/29/have-you-ever-witnessed-english-being-the-only-language-forced-to-be-spoken-119-blog/#IDComment139225908 The most interesting experience that I have had with language was when I traveled in Europe when I was in high school. We visited Paris, London, and Edinburgh, Scotland. While Scotland was perhaps the most culturally different place we went to, we had the hardest time with communication when we were in France, naturally because the national language in France is not some form of English. At that time I had just finished my 4th year of French language so I felt pretty confident but even I had communication problems. When I ordered a chicken crepe at a food stand, I ended up with a sugar crepe. The difference between me and most other people though is that I just accepted the miscommunication and ate the sugar crepe instead of blaming the Frenchman for not understanding my attempt at speaking French and making him to make me another crepe. I think this is one of the problems that Americans have with going to other countries. We always expect other people to know what we are talking about and what we want no matter what language we are speaking. We have this expectation that English is spoken everywhere because it’s spoken where we are from. It is true that most French students grow up learning English from the time they are small, because many of them need to know it to communicate with people from neighboring countries. That being said, why is it that we aren’t required to learn another language in the United States? We have a French speaking nation directly to our north and a Spanish speaking nation directly south. Talk about a double standard. My French language teachers had told me that as long as you tried to respect the French culture and tried your hand at speaking the language the French people would communicate with you in English if they could. Despite this courtesy, people on the streets still complained that street signs weren’t in English and they couldn’t read the maps they were given. It always surprised me when people would complain about some French people not being fluent in English; or French restaurant menus not having an English version or translation; we were in their country after all. When other people come to America, we expect them to speak English but when we as Americans go other places we are offended when people who live there expect us to be able to speak or at least try to speak their language. It’s no wonder people don’t like the United States when you look at it from this perspective. Language is something that people take a great deal of pride in, especially when it is as ingrained in their culture as it is in France. If we always expect people to speak English, then the culture that is attached to the other Latin, Asian, Middle East, and African languages will be lost as well. Fri, 1 Apr 2011 23:35:25 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/29/have-you-ever-witnessed-english-being-the-only-language-forced-to-be-spoken-119-blog/#IDComment139225908 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/22/what-do-you-think-about-interracial-relationships-119-blog/#IDComment137548007 We discussed interracial dating in our group this week and it was one of the most heated discussions we’ve had all semester. It was interesting listening to what people had to say and having only dated white people, I didn’t really know what I could contribute to the conversation. But after listening to other people talk, I realized I actually had quite a bit to say. I didn’t understand why people reacted to interracial dating the way they did and despite never having experienced it myself wondered what dating someone outside my race would be like. What kind of looks would I get? What would my parents say? How would my friends react? I would like to think that my parents would be completely okay with it, because my dad grew up in a place where everyone was of the same social class no matter what their race was and played football on interracial teams in high school and college. But my mom mentioned that she wasn’t sure how her or my dad would actually feel about it. I would like to think that as long as I’m happy my parents would be supportive. I bring up my parents, because I think the opinions of our parents have a pretty significant effect on who we date and who we are allowed to bring home. Personally I don’t know what dating someone of a different race would be like, but since we had that discussion I’ve been paying closer attention to interracial couples I see walking around campus and wondering what their friends think when they see them walking down the street. In discussion I heard that some people were frustrated by interracial dating if it was someone else doing it but they were all for it when they were the ones involved. This confused me, because it seems hypocritical to be for something when it benefits you but against it when it doesn’t. Is that the nature of interracial relationships today? Are we really the type of people that will scoff at others behavior when we indulge in the same behavior ourselves? I am not against interracial dating. I live my life with the philosophy that I am not for or against any type of dating. As cliché as it sounds I am personally for love. People say that we don’t choose who we fall in love with and maybe that’s true but just because we decide to date someone doesn’t mean that we should have to wait with bated breath for our friends or parents to approve of that choice. I think interracial dating is interesting, because people seem to have so much to say about it. Isn’t interracial dating just like dating someone from a different religion or ethnicity? We don’t talk about those types of relationships because I suppose most people don’t wear their religion on their bodies every day, but I wonder that if people have so much to say about interracial dating what would they have to say about other types of dating? Fri, 25 Mar 2011 18:58:49 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/22/what-do-you-think-about-interracial-relationships-119-blog/#IDComment137548007 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/18/m-s-story/#IDComment137544235 This is such a different response than what I would have expected from an inmate. When the actions of potential inmates are faced with public scrutiny you would expect them to feel like bugs under a microscope and get really angry. I would imagine that in most cases, this is how a life sentence starts. Like M said, he spent a lot of time hating himself for what he did. To me this makes more sense than someone who committed a crime feeling remorse, but I guess after 30 years feeling angry would get exhausting. I’m in a bit of a quandary, because I kept getting chills while reading this out loud to my roommate, but I didn’t really know how to feel afterwards. When I went to Rockview with a class last semester and had the opportunity to spend time with the Lifers, we were prepped for the trip by being told that the men we were going to meet were going to talk to us about their lives. The discussion involved some of them telling us that they thought they shouldn’t have a life sentence or wished that they could get out as soon as possible. M’s perspective is so very different. He still feels remorse for his crime even though to most of us his actions would hardly seem worthy of his sentence considering the age he was when he committed his crime. He still feels remorse for just being present and not acting. I don’t know what to do with this, because what do you do with someone who you would expect to be angry at society for incarcerating them? The most surprising part of M’s Story for me was when he talked about wondering why he should tell his story. He doesn’t want any of the things that would come from telling it because he doesn’t want to subject other people to the pain he caused. The “movie cliché” line was particularly interesting, because again it’s not what you would expect from a prisoner of society. When I went to Rockview, I was filled with questions, most of them beginning with the word, “Why?” It didn’t occur to me until now that the men who spend their life in prison must get tired of explaining their crimes to people on the outside, because in each re-telling, another thing is remembered and pain that had perhaps started to heal begins throbbing with full force once again. Fri, 25 Mar 2011 18:38:30 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/18/m-s-story/#IDComment137544235 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/15/lgbt-families-theres-a-lot-of-fear-out-there/#IDComment135898748 This guy is an incredibly powerful speaker, but the importance of his message is not lost in his delivery. There is something to be said for the complexity of the family unit and what function it is supposed to serve for individuals. Some people’s families are the people they live with who they may have no blood relation to; a lot of kids are adopted, and some kids are raised by their brothers and sisters. Who has the authority to say what is the “right” way to be a family? One of my friends was raised by two women one of whom he lost to breast cancer some years ago and he is one of the most genuine people I know. That being said, he is 100% straight. So the argument that people with gay parents are going to grow up and be gay is not true. I know someone else who was adopted when she was a baby. I know kids with divorced parents and kids with one parent, and kids with four parents. This video brings to mind the movie Matilda. Though old, this film provided a powerful message about family and what it means to be a part of one. Matilda was raised in part, by two straight parents, yet they were never the family that she wanted or deserved. But when she met her teacher, Miss Honey who later adopted her, she finally had the love and the family she had always hoped she would. Today someone on the street wouldn’t see a 10 year old girl and a 30 year old school teacher and think, “Wow what a beautiful family.” But Miss Honey provided all of the things that Matilda needed of which the most important were love and a strong foundation for growth. As for the student who spoke, I think it is safe to say that anyone would be proud to have him as a son. It was interesting that in a way he quoted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the end of his speech when he said that the sexual orientation of his parents and no effect on the content of his character, much like Dr. King dreamt that one day his children would not be judged by the color of their skin but the content of their character. It seems that today, the content of one’s character is not the only thing they are judged upon. We are still judged by things that we cannot control and in some cases would never want to change. A family is what each person sees it as, and that is the way it should be, because the world would be far less exciting if each and every family was exactly the same. Fri, 18 Mar 2011 20:01:43 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/15/lgbt-families-theres-a-lot-of-fear-out-there/#IDComment135898748 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/15/how-do-irrelevant-racial-signifiers-affect-racial-stereotypes-119-blog/#IDComment135896010 The first time I went to visit my boyfriend in Philadelphia, he told me that he had made plans to hang out with two of his friends over the weekend. This was cool with me, because I hadn’t met many of his friends. My boyfriend told me his friend’s names were Rob and Dave and that he had known them since he was in elementary school. I was excited to meet these two guys, and couldn’t wait to spend some time getting to know Philadelphia and the surrounding area. When Rob and Dave came to the door I was standing there waiting to introduce myself to them. When my boyfriend opened the door two black kids walked into the house, shook my hand, and we started what would be one of the best times I had had in a while. After driving around the Philadelphia area listening to music and looking for a movie theatre to go to, we ended up at my boyfriend’s off campus apartment for a long night of Nintendo 64. Having grown up in a household with a female to male ratio of 3:1, we didn’t stand in line every time a new version of Nintendo or Xbox came out. We had one game system in our house, Nintendo 64. My mom beat the Super Mario game, my sister and I spent hours playing Mario Kart and Cruisin’ USA, and my dad got lost in 007. So perhaps it was a long history with Nintendo 64 that made the time I spent with my boyfriend’s friends so enjoyable, or perhaps it was the fact that in those moments race didn’t matter. After the night was over, my boyfriend told me that he went back and forth earlier that day about whether or not he was going to tell me that his two friends were black before I met them. Obviously he didn’t tell me, but it wasn’t a big deal. If I am honest with myself, I was kind of surprised that my boyfriend’s friends weren’t white. But at the same time I was actually really glad that he hadn’t said anything about it. I think I would have made some sort of decision about my boyfriend if he thought I needed a warning about his friends. So, in this particular circumstance, a racial signifier was unnecessary and probably would have led me to think some way about his friends before ever even meeting them. If I had gotten a racial signifier from my boyfriend about his friends, as much as I hate to admit it, I probably would have made some judgments about his friends or tried to picture what they looked like. So by him not telling me they were black, I had the opportunity to get to know these guys as people and not as “black people.” Looking back, I am really thankful that I never had that signifier, because it would have just led me to think in a stereotypical way instead of just thinking for myself. I am also thankful, because after having spent more time with my boyfriend’s friends they are some of the coolest most open minded people I know. I even had a deep conversation about race with one of these guys recently that was really eye opening; so perhaps racial signifiers shouldn’t be used so that we can just learn to meet people and get to know them as people and not as “whites,” “Asians, “Blacks,” and “Hispanics.” Fri, 18 Mar 2011 19:46:06 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/15/how-do-irrelevant-racial-signifiers-affect-racial-stereotypes-119-blog/#IDComment135896010 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/07/who-am-i/#IDComment134359474 PART 3 These are small fish compared to J.V.G.’s lifelong captivity. So to some degree, we can understand captivity, but we have never been forced to spend time incarcerated and really understand the difference between being a true captive of something and being free. It seems that J.V.G. has found a place where he understands what it means to be free by becoming un-free, so to speak, yet he still seems to find what we are all looking for here on the outside, acceptance of oneself and an understanding of what it means to be “a citizen of the world.” Sat, 12 Mar 2011 04:22:55 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/07/who-am-i/#IDComment134359474 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/07/who-am-i/#IDComment134359446 PART 2 The subtle irony in J.V.G.’s letter is that he says his spirit is too immense to be held captive, yet he has spent the last 10 years of his life in prison. Perhaps it takes being a captive to understand what it means to not be held captive. Much like what Sam said about fish being the last beings to understand water. When we are born as Americans, we each have an identity to find and freedom to exercise yet I know from experience that most people feel like they are a captive to some force or another; for instance, a teenager being held captive by his parents’ curfews, or a woman being held captive by motherhood, or a student being held captive by the cost of living on a college campus. Sat, 12 Mar 2011 04:22:37 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/07/who-am-i/#IDComment134359446 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/07/who-am-i/#IDComment134359326 PART 1 Reading this letter provokes thoughts about what it means to be who and what we are. In essence, we are each a sum of all of our parts and the parts of all of the people and places that came before us. Instead of restricting our identities to only the bits and pieces of ourselves we show the world, J.V.G challenges us to become “a citizen of the world.” But what does that mean? To me, it means not only accepting, but embracing the history that made our world what it is today, both the good and the bad. We all come from a legacy of something. My mom likes to say that I came from a long line of strong women, which I would whole-heartedly agree with. I am Irish, German, and Czechoslovakian. I am all of the things that make up me individually, but what it seems J.V.G is getting at is that each person is all of the things that make up the world; we are all of the things that we didn’t know we were. To me, this is a beautiful and profound moment of discovery. Sat, 12 Mar 2011 04:21:44 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/07/who-am-i/#IDComment134359326 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/09/the-r-word-and-the-oblivious-others/#IDComment134037494 PART 4 There is a web project called Think b4 You Speak that attempts to re-define the way we use words. The website counts how many times certain derogatory phrases are used each day on twitter while expressing a goal of one day getting that number down to zero. The website shows how simple it is to make a single word mean something derogatory if we let it. The site aims to display this using images with quotes on them saying things like, “That’s so gamer guy has more videogames than friends” and “That’s so jock who can complete a pass but not a sentence.” As an educated society, we should be able to express, in words, how we feel using the definitions of those words that were originally intended. There are other words that can be used and provide better explanations for the things that we currently describe using words like “gay” and “retarded.” We don’t say “That’s so black,” because that’s offensive and a person cannot choose their race. If for no other reason than this one, we should not say, “that’s so retarded.” Fri, 11 Mar 2011 03:50:29 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/09/the-r-word-and-the-oblivious-others/#IDComment134037494