I felt weird after watching the videos of the American soldiers rolling over the guys car. As somebody who is involved in middle eastern culture I am appalled. All he wanted to do was provide for his family. If that meant he had to loot firewood, then that is what he had to do. Americans are too aggressive. As an American citizen who is very nationalistic, I see this as a job well done. They should not have been looting. It is stealing and I have never heard or come across a culture, religion, or government that allows such acts without penalty. As a neutral observer however, I see both sides. The soldiers have done a terrible thing by flattening his cars; but lets give them the benefit of the doubt. Who says that they knew why he looted? Maybe they were just given orders to police this land and saw this as an easy way to show dominance. To let them know who is the boss in these parts of town. As far as they are concerned this was a relatively way to deter other looters. On the flip side he should not have looted firewood. But his family was freezing and he needed to keep them warm. The worst feeling to ever experience probably is having a family and not being able to provide for him. In the end you will do whatever you have to do so that they can live a life that is at least decent to you. It also helps to have a way to escape the depressing situations at home; and that is where the car comes in. That car was his livelihood because the only thing it required was gas. Once it had its fill of the clear odorless liquid it will take you anywhere you desire. But since he got caught looting, all of that was taken away. No more escaping. No more heat. No more of a lot of things. The answer to the question presented in the blog: I feel the same. I am proud to be American because I don’t know what I would have done in that situation. I would probably roll over his car in the tank because it is the easiest way to solve the problem. Humans are inherently lazy. I feel sorry for the Arab family because that man was just trying to provide for his family. If we were all faced with that problem we probably would have taken similar actions. Unfortunately it does not matter anymore. “Justice” has been dealt. I can only hope that his family can prosper after one of their major means of survival has been taken away.

No. This is not something that I will constantly think and/or worry about as my family expands over time. I wont worry because this seems like one of those fears that will consume you and turn you into one of those paranoid weirdos who always blow everything out of proportion. In the future I want to have three kids and the only way to make sure that there is no sexual abuse in their life is to stalk them. Ideally, I would need to have gotten married to have these three smaller versions of myself running around. I guess I would have to stalk her as well because that is the only way I can really stop sexual abuse in my nuclear family. On top of these four people I have nine cousins to look after and this is only on my mothers side of the family. Now don’t get me wrong and assume that I will not even recognize that these events do not occur. I am just saying that you usually cannot pick out a person that would sexually assault somebody, which says to me that we would waste our time having this on the top of our list of worries. You need to build relationships and work with people to have a fulfilling life and if you are constantly paranoid about what could happen with these people who appear nice, then you will never be able to develop relationships. Heck with that logic your family wont even expand enough for you to really worry because all you will be alone (whether by choice or not). Then the human race dies out because we are too afraid of people getting abused that we cease to have children. Anyway, the point of my blog post is to show that sexual abuse will exist and that isn’t a viable reason for you to either stop giving birth to humans, or for you to discriminate on other people because they “look like they could be offenders.” This doesn’t seem like something I should be scared of so much as I should be aware of it. I am honestly shocked at how often this happens in our society and the fact that it is usually hidden so well. A huge part of it is knowing that one of the consequences of victims speaking is that it could rip apart their family and having to decide between keeping your family together and releasing yourself from a jail of sorts is a horrible way to live. Unfortunately molestation of all ages is a “normal” part of life and will always exist. But it is not something we should fear because then it will control us and deny a better lifestyle for the future.

That’s an interesting point to bring up. I never thought of the fact that we could be going through the 5 stages of denial as this crisis runs rampant through our school. My first question is: do we have to progress in order to go through the five stages? If so I’d have to say that we are not because it started with depression, then anger, isolation and then acceptance. Now that I really think about it, we can’t be going through the five stages because we haven’t bargained with anybody about it. That’s all I have to say.
In all honesty im tired of this whole situation. Its kind of –actually it is very- overwhelming. I am the liaison of communications for Penn State in my area. When it all goes down, I and I alone have to explain to the masses of people what happened. I have to answer the questions, read the literature, and do it with a level head (no matter how ignorant the people I encounter are.) Over the past week I have posted on blogs, read countless articles, talked to alumni, chatted with parents, informed friends (because they did not want to believe the media), and possibly argued the nation on the couple of things I believed.
1)We should not wear blue on Saturday because it simply feeds into the idea that penn state football is synonymous with sex abuse.
2)The Paterno situation was handled wrong. This was not about him. This was about Sandusky and what he did. Im not saying Paterno was right or wrong in the situation, but there was no reason for him to go out like that.
3)Why are Curley and Schultz getting off scot-free? Shouldn’t they get just as much publicity?
4)Where are the victims? Sure. They were abused. Wronged. Scarred for life. But we should have asked what they wanted to occur. Because now, whether they want it or not, they will be remembered as the people who took down a legend.
Because of these beliefs I have been called an idiot, moron, dumbass, selfish, and other things I do not think should be disclosed on such a site. So by now I am tired. Im sorry that I did not really do the assignment as intended but I simply just do not care anymore. Yes I still have pride and still deeply love my school but you can only go over a subject so many times before it loses all meaning to you. Now that action has occurred I think the rest of the nation is moving on and this will be over. Paterno’s firing was the climax and now we are riding out the end of the story.

In my last blog post I actually answered this question. Americans will not do the hard labor that Mexicans are usually subjected to because it is not part of the twenty-first century American Dream. Sure, you could argue that the general idea is “work hard and you will make something of yourself one day”, but the idea of hard work has changed over time. In our parents of even grandparent’s generation that hard work might have been similar to that of these illegal immigrants; Blood, sweat, and tears will pave the way to your future. Unfortunately (depending on how you look at it) hard work has gone from physical labor to mental labor. In order to become great you do not have to get your hands dirty or stain your clothing with sweat. You simply need to develop calluses on your hands from holding pencils and pay attention to people who might or might not have anything interesting to say that did. Plus, you will spend about 98% of this time sheltered from the great outdoors because most academic disciplines have no reason to go outside. Our industrialized and diversified society has left us “soft” when it comes to the idea of hard labor and since it isn’t a necessary part of our survival we do not partake. As Sam said in lecture “immigrants are hungry”, they do what they have to do to survive. I remember when I wanted to become a better football player in my high school (I was probably the worst player on the team) and I had two choices after my freshman season: Either tryout for the varsity squad and get beat up by the best athletes in the school, or I could return to the junior varsity squad and become an all star on that team. I thought about it and decided if I really wanted to get better I needed to go up to the varsity field and play with the best to be the best. Fortunately for me, that turned me into one of the best offensive lineman in the county and was put on a list for the top 100 linemen in the state of Maryland. It probably helped that I tried out for the varsity team because in those three years I must have been teammates with and learned from over twenty Division I athletes. But I was hungry. I stepped outside of what I was used to and immersed myself in football nation. I had to speak the language and brought with me the work ethic similar to the immigrant. I even surpassed a lot of my teammates in skill because they hadn’t had to work as hard to adjust because they had been playing their whole life. I kind of understand what it is like to be that immigrant and if you don’t want it as bad as they do, you just cant do the work.

How do I feel about immigration? Immigration is the driving force behind this country. Without immigration a lot of responsibilities would not be undertaken because Americans do not want to do them. Sure, people complain that they are taking our jobs and if we didn’t have so many immigrants (illegal or not) then the job market would not be looking so bleak, but who aspires to be a construction worker, or a sanitation engineer, or be a cashier at a fast food place? The American dream never ends with you toiling as a clerk at Toys ‘R’ Us; It ends with you owning the whole chain. And if you want to own the whole chain and make a boatload of money, then you might as well give up that job to somebody that can put their pride aside and make the money that was offered to them. If you cannot get with that idea of thinking then that’s cool, but how do you explain being prejudice against your own kind. Let’s be completely honest about the fact that you too are an immigrant. UNLESS you are fully Native American, you had to leave your country and come to America as an immigrant. If you really want to be technical about it, you even came illegally. I mean it’s not as if your ancestors signed the right paperwork and attained citizenship. They probably settled on whatever land was “open” and or fought off whoever was on the land they wanted. Your ancestors were probably not any more welcome than the immigrants you are trying to shut out now. So I have yet to explicitly state how I felt about legal/illegal immigration into the United States and I am almost done with my blog response. Well here goes nothing! Immigration is a beautiful concept. While I understand why we cannot open the doors to the country and allow everybody in, we need to accept as many people into this country as we can. The idea of having a “mixing bowl” of a country is pretty sweet. We have the best of the best from all nations and I personally believe that this is one of the reasons why we have been so prosperous in the past. Without immigration the American dream would not be a powerful source of motivation as it is today. If we lived in a caste system all of our problems would be solved and nobody would want to live here. So I guess if you really want to think about it, the idea that you can always live a better life in America motivates immigrants to come here. In theory, all we have to do is dissolve the American dream and BOOM problem solved.

I consider myself to be at stage five in the racial awareness swag status chart that was displayed on Tuesday. (For those who were not present on Tuesday, this scale was used to show the stages as people of color saw them.) To be a stage five person of color you had to agree with two things:
1)Be able to have meaningful relationships are established with anyone
2)Have race remain a central lens through which you navigate the world
I do not have issues creating a relationship with anybody of any race at all; in fact I think that I have one of the most diverse suites at Penn State. I (black guy) have two white roommates and an Asian roommate. We even joke around saying that if we were to actually get the award for most diverse one of those white guys has to either become Indian or move out of the room. The second condition is one of the more interesting parts about being in stage five that I may not necessarily agree with is the idea that race is the central lens with which you see the world around you. Yes, I will admit that sometimes I change some parts of my personality because there are white people afoot. I will rephrase what I say and leave out parts of stories because there are white people around. But I do not see events happening to me because I am black. Being a minority at a PWI I naturally see race because its part of my life here at psu. I mean there are A LOT of white people here and things must be altered with my surroundings. I would say that my thought process makes me a stage six but I have no idea what stage six is. It was described entirely too vague for me to comprehend; a Nirvana of sorts. It was a spiritual journey through which you attain balance inner peace. (Kind of like Po in Kung Fu Panda Two). I know I am past stage four because I m past the stage of calling out hypocrisies in my own race. I mean I still call them out when necessary because of how my people think. There was even a point in my senior year of high school where my mother seriously thought I hated black people. Maybe it was because I strongly did not want to attend an HBCU, am against the celebration of black history month (as long as it is centered around the same four people), and strongly dislike the idea of any “black people movie”. (anything that shows black-white segregation and then cooperation and Tyler Perry movies.) They are either:
A)Too stupid
B)Too stereotypical
C)Or play on the fact that tons of guilty white people with black friends will see it as well as every black person that gets excited because somebody portrays our struggles.
Just cant deal with all of that.

Racial labels are used because race has become such a huge part of our society that it will find its way into things when it isn’t always necessary. It is almost like when people bring in their religion in a conversation that is strictly free of religious belief. I believe that we use these racial signifiers because it could possibly help us understand little tidbits about other societies and cultures. For example, last year during Pollock Palooza I was explaining to my roommate how the things that bring certain races together are interesting. The black kids seemed to appear wherever music was playing. Asian kids showed up in what was the “Corner Pocket”, as well as video game competitions. I (unfortunately) only saw latino kids smoking and white kids were usually seen drinking and or tanning on campus. Using these observations it portrays a certain part of each races culture whether they be right or wrong. Another way that I have used a signifier is when I am hoping that my race is doing its best to not embarrass itself as it has done in the past. One time my friend was telling me a story of unfortunate events that happened to him (without mentioning race because it honestly wasn’t important) and I asked if this person was black. If he says yes to that question then I am upset because the black race is not looking so good at this point in time. However if he says that they weren’t black, I do not care what race it is because as I black man I am unaffected. But remember, these are examples of how I use the signifier and others may not use the same reasoning. I usually assume that when a signifier is used when telling a story it is to endorse a certain stereotype of that people. In class Sam used an example of an Asian woman cutting him off and almost killing him as he is riding his bike. The only function of that woman being Asian is to propagate the idea that Asians lack the ability to drive (or at least drive well). Or another example is when my suitemate is talking about music and how he only wants to listen to black people express themselves. I ask why and he claims that only black people make good danceable music. Not all of the stereotypes have to be negative but here he is endorsing the idea that black people make the best musicians. He could have picked an era, or a geographic location, or a style, but instead he picked a race to describe how he felt. As long as it helps you learn about the world I see no reason to discontinue racial signifiers; Until it gets offensive that is.

Why do women sacrifice their comfort when going out and why don’t men return the favor? There are two answers to this question and I think I know what both of them are. First of all, comfort is relative and I am sorry that you are not comfortable when you go out and decide to wear short skirts and high heels. Nobody forces you to wear them and it seems like women partially do it because that is what is normally identified as “pretty”. Honestly, I do not need a girl to look fancy and be uncomfortable around me; So I am hoping that you don’t generalize my whole gender by saying that is what all of you guys want. In my opinion Drake was onto something when he said “Sweatpants, hair tied, chilling with no makeup on. That’s when you’re the prettiest. I hope that you don’t take it wrong.” On the flip side, men have been conditioned to not having to alter their appearance in such a way for the opposite sex. We don’t have make-up, so that’s one thing down. Heels are seemingly nothing more than an accessory to question a man’s sexuality in the twenty-first century. I guess the male equivalent to a girls dress would be a dress shirt, dress pants, tie, and dress shoes. Fortunately for us, anything that involves “looking nice” in college generally does not call for a tie; dress pants can be substituted for khakis (if not jeans) and by this time your shoes have been swapped out for a snazzy pair of Nikes. Then on top of all that when we walk into the room, these same (uncomfortable) girls compliment us saying that we look so nice. So sophisticated. So “like I gave a damn.” I mean, I guess I could wear a tuxedo to every party and be a little more uncomfortable; But why be over dressed to achieve the same result as the guy that jut wore a shirt he picked up at Old Navy with a pair of Levi’s? From what I can see, women make themselves uncomfortable to attract the opposite sex and do not expect the same in return. If you need to accentuate your body to attract a guy then maybe he isn’t the right guy. In all honesty 98% of the time that you are in State College you are probably wearing Penn State sweats and a Penn State hoodie anyway; so why tease him with something he will never see again. (Especially since its winter here three-fourths of the year anyway.) So until you institute a new socially acceptable dress code for guys this is the only thing I really know to say: Sucks to be you.

I think the reason behind why women and certain races are more innocent than their opposition because of our own personal interests. Lets say that a crime is committed in State College PA; a rabbit was stolen in front of Findlay commons around 4:37 am. The Penn State Auxiliary Police bring out a few suspects and said “One of these people stole the bike and if you pick the right one you get it back. (I guess this is the punishment for being too much in a rush to lock the bike.)” In this lineup there are three girls (one black, one white, one asian) and four guys (one of each previous race and the fourth is Indian). The women would instantly be more innocent to me because no guy can accuse a girl of a crime and then ask her out shortly after. Nobody wants to blame a pretty girl for doing something bad. Why? Because in an ideal culture pretty girls are perfect and would not do anything mean to anybody ever in their life. Shoot, I would not even link the ugly girl to the crime because ugly people are supposed to have beautiful personalities and people with beautiful personalities don’t steal rabbits! I would not want to say that the white guy did it because white guys are seemingly infamous for white-collar crimes (Enron, Worldcom, Madoff) and this just doesn’t seem high profile enough for him. I personally would not want to accuse the black guy of doing it because I would not want to endorse the stereotype of my own people. Interestingly enough there are black people out in our society that will readily accuse one another for a crime pretty much because the stereotype exists. There isn’t a concrete reason behind why I wouldn’t pick the asian kid, its more subjective if anything. The asian kid (in my experiences at least) are usually doing something too cool to have time to steal something, especially the rabbit. So I guess it would have to come down to picking the white guy or the asian guy because of my perspective on our particular world. I am sure if it were another guy of a different race or a woman their views may be different, but I think that some of my beliefs are universal; especially the ones about your own race. One reason could be that you don’t want to pick people that you identify with because you don’t want that culture to be associated with thievery. Personally, I would not want to have anything I am associated with to be associated with such heinous things.

First off I would like to say that athletes are not made, athletes are created. The characteristics of an athlete are not physical ones at all but instead are ones of the human personality. Sure having big muscles, being tall, and fast, and jumping high might help you; but having determination, endurance, coordination, teamwork, and last but not least swaggar. (Yes I said swaggar. It’s a state of mind in-between confidence and cocky. The Oakland Raiders and the Miami Hurricanes of the past popularized the word.) Skin tone has nothing to do with your ability to perform at a certain physical activity but it may affect your acceptance in that sport. One example is in football there were no white running backs; Not because white people lack the skill, but because black people had always been running backs and there was no need to change. These prejudices made it hard for Tony Gerhart (Vikings), Peyton Hillis (Browns), and John Kuhn (Packers) to achieve the greatness that they deserve. Over the years I have learned that in the athletic world I have some advantages and disadvantages. In high school I was a tri sport athlete (Rugby, Football, and Wrestling) and learned that my huge frame helped me in many ways. In football I could easily overpower people and open up holes for the running back. In rugby I was hard to tackle and could catch balls where other people could not. In wrestling I had a low center of gravity and nobody could pin me easily. Plus if you got close usually could just push myself back up and pin you back. However one disadvantage of being a big guy was that I lacked the straightaway speed that some of the smaller people had on our team. What I lacked in speed I made up with my mental abilities. I had good teamwork skills so I would often do things to get my teammates open, make up new blocking schemes at the last minute to spring the running back, and coach my fellow wrestlers on the sideline to cheer them on. I was determined to be the best athlete I could be so I worked hard at my craft and excelled. The most important part of my game to me was my swaggar. In junior year of high school I got a random confidence burst and became so much better at the left guard position. I truly believed that we may fight for the first quarter, but the last three quarters were mine to demolish you physically and psychologically. In the end it all depends on you and how you feel about yourself. Id like to close this post with a quote: If you don’t believe in yourself who will.