If you take away body image, the majority of women are loving and caring creatures that are made to nurture and have multiple sides to us, we are not one dimensional; these are, to me, the major traits that tie together women of all shapes, sizes, and cultures. No matter what culture you are in or no matter where you live on earth, women since the beginning of time have been the caretaker of her family and the nurturer; I think it is in our DNA to be this way.

I think that no matter where you go in the world, there will always be that standard for what beauty should be, it’s not just in the United States. We are human beings and just like all the other animals in the world, as creatures we dress or look the part to be attractive to the opposite sex; humans do it with clothing and other materialistic things, peacocks do it with the bright feathers, and bees do it with their mating dance that they do.

I didn’t relate to the play in class at first because I didn’t understand the reason for why the girl wanted to get the breast reduction. She said that she wanted guys to like her and to me, guys like bigger boobs so I didn’t understand her reasoning, but if she had said something like, “I want to get a breast reduction because I have back pains and they get in the way and they are uncomfortable, then I would have been more understanding of the play but at the end I got the overall message.

Growing up around very diverse people all of my life, I realized that within this country, there are so many different preferences that guys and girls have for one another, especially when you look at it from a racial point of view. I know that the majority of black and latino men prefer women with a little meat on their bones; they don’t want a toothpick, they appreciate a women’s curves and big buts and boobs. White men on the other hand, the majority of them prefer smaller features on a women like smaller breasts and buts and not too curvy.

I have two roommates; one is Korean and the other is white (polish decent) and an Indian friend who comes over my apartment frequently. It amazes me who different our preferences are. The Indian one wants her body to be like the Korean one because she is curvy and the Korean one isn’t. personally I love curves and I would hate to have a curveless body. The Korean one wants the Indian ones skin tone because she would like to be permanently tan, but the Indian one wants the Koreans skin because in her culture, the lighter the better. I have decent size boobs for my size; I’m 120 lbs and 34C breasts, but I wish I had a slightly bigger but and my white roommate has a big juicy but, but she hates it and wishes for a smaller one.

I can go all day with this, but my point is that girls will never be satisfied with themselves and they will always want to look like someone else which is sad, but true. Plastic surgery doesn’t cure the feeling of ugliness because most of the time, they go back for more procedures. If people worried about inner beauty and not so much outer beauty, the world would be a lot different.

After watching this video, I honestly took a deep breath and held it in for about five seconds to prevent myself from shedding a tear. I took this video so personally because being a black female, I know exactly what the girls in the video were taking about. I wanted to cry because I was sad that many black, dark-skinned females in particular feel ugly; but what saddened me the most is that I am guilty of this in some way. Let me make this clear that I DO NOT think that I'm ugly at all, I actually think that I am really pretty, but I am guilty of conforming into what people think is pretty, which is how white people look like. Even though I have nice hair that goes down to my shoulders, I wear hair weaves most of the time, not because I don't have hair or because my hair is bad, but becauase I prefer longer hair on me and I feel more confident with longer hair.

I can't remember where there was ever a time in my entire life where someone from any race had called me ugly, at least to my face. Of course there were girls, black girls to be specific, that would hate on me just because I was such a pretty dark-skinned girl, which brings me to my next point that I want to share. Whenever I would get a compliment for being pretty, no matter what race they were or no matter if they were male or female, the usual response is, "you're such a pretty black girl" or "you're so pretty for being a black girl." At first glance, you would think and take this as a compliment, but what you are really saying is that as a whole, black females aren't attractive, but I'm one of the lucky ones that are actually pretty, and to make it even better, you're a pretty dark-skinned girl so you're really lucky! To be honest, for this reason, I would never use bleaching products for my skin because I feel like you can be dark-skinned and pretty.

I am saddened that many races don't find black girls attractive and I'm even more saddened that black girls, dark-skinned girls to be specific, aren't happy with themselves. The part of the video about the dolls made me really sad as well. I really went home, sat there in my bed at night before I went to sleep, and thought about whether I would have chosen the white or the black doll and honestly, I think I would've chosen the white doll only because most of my barbie dolls were white with long straight and flowy hair, which I loved to comb and style, and I never had that because my hair was big and kinky and not flowy. I feel that if my parents had embraced my culture more and had given me black dolls, I would have easily chosen the black doll, but since I was in a way taught at an early age that whiteness is more attractive and better in a sense cause that's what they mostly gave me, then the white doll is probably what I would have chosen.

Although I like my hair long and straight, I still love the fact that I am a dark-skinned female, I hardly ever had a problem with people calling me ugly or making me feel ugly or less beautiful then they are, which is probably why my self esteem isn't so low. People, especially people other than whites need to realize that there are all different types of beauty and that we all don't have to conform to more white attributes and features to feel beautiful.

I understand where the people are coming from that believe that there shouldn’t be a big deal about discussing women’s menstrual cycle, but I personally feel that it doesn’t really matter if we discuss it more or not, because the world isn’t going to change or accommodate to females more, so there really isn’t a point in discussing it more other than educating the males that you know in your life.

I got my first period when I was 12 years old in the seventh grade on Valentine’s Day during my lunch period; I will never forget that day. Unfortunately, I am one of those girls who suffer tremendous pain during the first two days of the menstrual cycle. When I start my cycle, I get migraines and cramps and I feel nauseous, usually I end up vomiting, and sometimes I even have feverish symptoms. I had to suffer with these symptoms for about five years until my mother finally took me to the doctor where they prescribed me with sodium naproxen pills which lessen my horrible symptoms.

Before I was prescribed the sodium naproxen, I would miss school because of the pain. I remember being in cheerleading practice one day in high school and I didn’t feel well because of my cramps; I had asked to sit out and surprisingly, my coach, who was a female, was insensitive to my situation and told me to continue practicing. From then on, I realized that the world, including females, didn’t care if I or any other female was suffering or not, so I decided to never discuss it to anyone anymore.

I was always taught to be discrete when it came to menstrual cycles by my mother; she called it being a lady. She always told me to never to let anyone know that I was on my period and to always make sure that I flush my tampon down the toilet and if I use a pad, to wrap it up with tissue nice and tight so you wouldn’t see any blood or anything and put in the bottom of the trash can.

Basically, as I grew up, I realized that our culture and the people in it tell women to be discrete about our periods, don’t mention it, and don’t use it as an excuse to get out of anything. I don’t feel shy about talking about the topic, I discussed it with my boyfriends before, but it would never be a regular topic of discussion. Personally, I wouldn’t have sex while being on my period; I think that’s disgusting for both the male and the female.

Although I do agree with what Sam was saying on how it isn’t any different from discussing on how your hair grows or how your nails grow because it is something completely natural, I think that the main reason why people don’t like discussing periods is because it’s not only about blood, but its blood that comes out of your vagina; most people, male or female feel a little uncomfortable with discussing anything that has to do with private parts.

I believe that the comment that created the uproar in class was the text message about “the loud black girls in the HUB” made by a white individual. To be honest, I felt some type of way about the comment being a person of color. My first reaction was shock because I wasn’t prepared for the comment, I thought that everyone was going to be respectful on their responses because Sam had said no “sophomoric comments” and I thought that everyone was going to be adults about the situation, but then the shock wore off within seconds of reading it because honestly, I would expect a white person to think that about black girls. I could honestly say, being a black girl, a lot of black girls are loud so I agree with the comment BUT I think that it was an ignorant comment because not all black girls are loud and as a matter of fact, any race could be loud. I live across from a house full of white guys and they are always loud screaming for no reason, singing songs and making ruckus. Sometimes I even hear them use derogatory terms like “faggot” but I still act civilized and I’m not rude to them and I don’t make rude comments to them like the student in class did; I mind my business.

I feel like the person in class that made that comment just needs to get over stereotypes because as I said before, any race could be loud. Now, as to the reason why the audience made such a big deal about the black offensive comment and not so much about the white offensive comment (which I can’t remember what that was) is because people are more sensitive to comments that are offense towards blacks and because blacks make it a big deal when they are offended mainly because we feel that we deserve better. When it comes to me, I feel that other races, especially whites should be more sensitive towards blacks and white people owe black people respect due to our history. I feel that the least white people could do is speak highly of us instead of bringing us down with negative, ignorant comments because whites put blacks through hell in the past and now in this present day, we as a nation are trying to move forward and respect each other and show genuine love for one another, but we are never going to get even close to different races respecting each other with the negative thoughts the fester deep inside ourselves about people that are different from ourselves and negative comments that are thrown out there like the one about the loud black girls in the HUB. Open your eyes and throw stereotypes out the window. (that goes to ALL races)

P.S. I LOVE THE TEXTING IDEA DURING CLASS! :)

I completely agree with what both students were saying about how it should be our place to intervene and take action in any situation like the one that was displayed in Thursday’s class about the mistreated Muslim woman in the convenient store, because we would not like it if we were mistreated or in some sort of danger and nobody that was present did anything to help out. It’s not until something like discrimination happens to you until you realize how cold the world could be; being a black individual, I know how it feels to be discriminated upon although I must say that I do believe that black men have it much worse than black females.

I’ve noticed that in the experiment, they didn’t show any black customers come into the convenient store and I am curious is to how they would react to the discrimination situation. One would initially think that they would intervene and help the Muslim woman out because blacks as a whole face discrimination on a daily bases and they know how it feels to be discriminated upon, but a lot of black people that I know, especially black men would not intervene.

The black men that I know of would not intervene because they were taught that if a situation doesn’t involve you, than stay out of it. This might seem harsh at first, but growing up in a rough neighborhood, that rule is essential because if you don’t mind your business and you try to be the hero, you might end up in a worse situation than with what you started with and dangerous acts might occur. Please take my explanation into consideration and realize that I am not saying that all blacks have this kind of mentality and all blacks come from rough neighborhoods where intervening in a situation that doesn’t involve them could become a matter of life and death, I am just putting another perspective out there and giving another reason as to why some people may not intervene.

While watching the footage in class, I wondered to myself whether the same outcome would have occur if the subject of the experiment was a Muslim man and I came to the conclusion that it wouldn’t be. I am confident that people develop more sympathy for females rather than for males. Women are depicted as more fragile and innocent than males which make us sympathize for them more. I think that more of the customers would have agreed with the cashier and even more would have not said anything to the cashier if the subject was a Muslim man rather than a Muslim woman. You also have to consider that most Americans are afraid or have second thoughts of Muslim men because of the terrorist attacks, not Muslim women in particular.

In general, I think we should all intervene when it comes to discrimination because it is actions like this that help us inch closer toward equality.

I think that most definitely, lesbians are more acceptable in society than gay men. I think the main reason for this is because of how men and women are portrayed within society; specifically within the media. The media, as we know it deals with exuding information and influences people by the mass by the use of television, newspapers, magazines, radio, and internet.

In television, especially in reality shows, women are portrayed as promiscuous and it is the norm for women to be somewhat sexual with each other. It is normal for women to express their love to other women and it is normal for women to say “I love you” to other women. Also in television, when it comes to reality shows, women kiss each other all the time.

In magazines like Cosmopolitan, heterosexual men have expressed many times in columns that their ultimate fantasy is a threesome consisting of them and two other females.

In radio, popular songs such as Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” tells the story of how she kissed a girl and she liked it and she also liked the taste of her cherry chap stick; she kissed a girl just to try it and she hopes he boyfriend doesn’t mind it. Songs like these are catchy, and have heavy rotation in the airwaves.

Looking at this situation from an AD/PR (advertisement and public relation) aspect, many advertisements display girl on girl action to sell their product; it could be anything from an alcoholic beverage to a flyer for a club or an event. Many people of advertising use this technique to sell and the sad thing is that it works, it seems like people like to see girl on girl action and prefer to see girl on girl instances instead of male on male.

Being in college, I have been in plenty of instances where I was at a party and girls would make out with each other just because they thought it was cool and that’s what they thought that they should do in order get attention in the quickest way possible.

It isn’t the same way for men though. Although gay men should be looked at as just the same as any heterosexual couple or a lesbian couple, they aren’t and I think that is because it isn’t broadcasted as much as lesbianism is. Gay men have been told for the longest to keep their gayness a secret; for example the law of don’t ask, don’t tell when it came to the military. Whenever something gay did come to surface in society and in the media, the majority of people felt offended and the situation became a controversy and many would speculate about it for example, the movie Brokeback Mountain.

Basically what I am trying to say is that all of this display of women to women contact within the media desensitizes people to lesbianism, and with that, they see lesbians as normal or not a big deal in contrast to gay men.

It is quite obvious that although this country has come a long way, there is still tension between blacks and whites. Slavery has somewhat to do with it, but I think that the way we truly feel deep down inside about the opposite race is what really divides us. I think that, generally speaking, whites have negative thoughts when thinking about blacks and vice versa.

I know that it isn’t good to generalize people, but in this instance I am, just to make my point easier to explain. I also don’t want to speak for all white people or black people, but I am about to speak for many blacks because being black, I understand how many black people think about white people off hand.

Blacks have tension with whites because we think your motives and intentions are bad. There is a logical explanation for thinking this way, and that is simply because of history. I know a lot of white people are going to think “well history is history, get over it and move on”, but what white people did to blacks will most likely never be forgotten. I say that the motives and intentions of many whites are bad, because as we all know, this land that we call America was not primarily owned by white people, it was the land of the indigenous people until Europeans (whites) came to America, took it over, killed many, and made people into slaves to work for them. From then on, white people made unfair laws in attempt to keep the black man down and make it harder for him to further himself in life. Whites treated blacks unfairly for many, many years and made them feel less than human. Whites made a mockery of black people and portrayed them as dumb and illiterate. Till this day, there are whites that display discrimination towards blacks in places like the workplace; a place that should be strictly professional and fair. Whites have always had that motive and intent to “stay on top” and keep other races beneath them. How can black people trust white people after all of that?

Now when it comes to white people, I think that they think that black people are beneath them, as I just explained, and that we should not be on the same level as them. Also, I think that a lot of white people buy into all the stereotypes that are portrayed in American society about black people for example: blacks are “ghetto”, they use a whole bunch of slang words, black men are lazy and black women are “nappy headed hoes” –Don Imus, etc.

It is our negative most inner thoughts about one another that keep racism alive and halts us a society to overcome the plague that is racism. In my perfect world, racism would be non-existent; but as we know, nothings perfect.

It didn’t take a movie critic or a columnist like David Brooks for me to realize that the movie Avatar had a deeper meaning. Although I did see the movie, and loved it for its three dimensional viewing, high definition, special effects and sound systems, not to mention the many different genres of films all into one (action, romantic, and a little comedy), I still was able to get a negative indication dealing with the plot of the story that was somewhat different from Brooks’. Brooks had said that the movie Avatar consisted of “the white messiah fable” that many other movies had used in the past in which stereotypical “white people are rationalist and technocratic while colonial victims are spiritual and athletic. It rests on the assumption that nonwhites need the White Messiah to lead their crusades” (Brooks).

The first thing that came to my mind after seeing the film was not that the white man was viewed as a hero/savior or the “messiah”, but as a killer and to me, this movie was a replica of American history. When I expressed my opinion to my friends at dinner after seeing the film together, my white friends didn’t understand my opinion at first and it turned out that the way that I was thinking about the film’s true meaning didn’t even cross their mind; they just seen it as more of a romantic film and they thought it “was cute.” I’m not calling them dumb or anything, but they weren’t thinking outside of the box and thinking deeper into what the movie could truly mean. On the other hand, my black friends understood my opinion more, and one of my black friends who is a male, actually had the same opinion as I did. Maybe it’s because I’m black is to the reason why I related this movie with American history, I don’t know. All I can say is that this movie reminded me way too much of how the white man came over to America back in the day and took the land of the indigenous people and killed many without any consideration, just like in the movie.

In the movie, the US military saw some land that they wanted and they were willing to kill the tribes that were already there without any remorse and claim the land as theirs, just like in American history. After reading the opinion that Brooks had to say, it made me further my thinking in regards to movies, and I realized that in a lot of films, white is always good and pure and black (or dark) is always bad and evil. For example, The Wizard of Oz, a movie that mostly everyone has seen, there is Glenda, the good witch of the north (white woman all dressed in white) and the wicked witch of the west (a witch all in black). Also in almost every movie where there is a variety of ethnicities in the movie, the black person always dies first, sad but very true. I know I am kind of getting farther away from the plot of Avatar, but what I am trying to get at is that all movies have hidden meaning and subliminal messages; it up to us to dig deeper into the plot of the movie and figure out what really makes sense to us as the individual because everybody perceives things differently.

This video gave me just a taste of what it might have been in America back in the day and I am horrified. Being black, I could not imagine going through the ridicule and torture that blacks are going through in Europe today and in the past in America. There is a clear sense of white supremacy in Europe and it is sad; they just can’t seem to understand that we are a human race and there is only ONE human race, not white and others, and not white and the “monkeys” as they called blacks. In the video, the people seem to truly believe that they are better than blacks and even go as far as to call them animals. If anything, these people (the people of Europe in the video) are animals and inhuman. I’m pretty sure that a mass majority of Europe, especially Spain, are Roman Catholic, and Roman Catholics believe in loving God and loving their neighbors and as expressed in the bible, if Catholics truly love God who himself is love, then our behavior towards ourselves and others will reflect this commitment. Basically the Roman Catholics are living in a humungous sin. It made me cringe when the coach of the Spanish team said “show that black piece of shit that you are better than he is”.The blacks that play sports in Europe do not deserve the treatment that they get from the whites of Europe. In my opinion, I think that the white people of Europe that discriminate and have hatred for blacks are intimidated. They are intimidated by the fact that people who they consider to be so low, are really good people that contribute to the world in many ways and are great at many things, for example football (soccer in Europe). When it comes to sports, some of the greatest players in the whole entire world are black as shown in the clip: Carlos Kameni, Marc Zoro, and Terion to say the least. Michael Jordan is considered one of the greatest if not the greatest basketball player and Tiger Woods is considered the greatest golf player of all time, both of which are black. When people envy another, they usually lash out in hatred; this is what I thought of when I saw the European sport fans badgering the black players. They envy the fact that black players are great, greater in many ways than they will ever be and for that matter, they hate on blacks. I wish that Europe, and other parts of the world that display immense racism would follow in the steps that the blacks of America did and overcome. The blacks overseas need to stick together and fight for what is right; equality, love, and respect. It makes me sad to know that I live in a world where my race is looked and thought of as different and below other races, I’m just glad that I am in America at this point in time and not anywhere else, because it could have been much worse for me and my people, like the blacks in Europe.

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