If I was ever asked to help people to illegally immigrate into the country, I definitely do not think I would do so. I agree with previous posts that they key reason I would not assist in this would be because it is illegal. If someone had asked me to help them get into the country legally, I would be much more inclined to help them get into the country by getting them in touch with the resources and contacts they needed in order to do so. Illegal immigration is without a doubt an issue in our society today, and needs to be addressed if we are ever going to make progress with this problem. I understand that there are some things that have been put into action in order to address this issue, but I really don’t feel that were making too much progress since there are still illegal immigrants entering the United States under the radar. I would not say that I have an issue with immigration in general because my great grandparents were immigrants from Russia and Czechoslovakia, but they did become legal American citizens and I feel that is necessary if you are going to try for better opportunities in the US.
It was a pretty amazing story listening to Eric tell how his family came to be in America. It seemed to be a very dangerous and treacherous journey, but I can understand why people would want to come be in America for its many opportunities for employment, education, and overall advancement. I know that there are many people in the world looking to make the move to our country, but once again I feel the best way to do this would be to go about it legally so that you can become a permanent residence of the United States and safely build a life in America. I do not think I could have the courage to put myself in that much danger to illegally enter people into the country like the man that helped Eric’s family did. I was also pretty shocked to find out that when they get into America they have fake IDs and social security cards made, because I was not previously aware of how they were able to get away with it. It did surprise me that it was a fairly simple task to remain here, once they made the dangerous journey here.
In conclusion, I would have to say that my answer to this question would be no. I would not help anyone illegally immigrate into the country, but I would help them if necessary if they needed assistance to legally make residence in the United States. There are a myriad of issues people have with immigration, but my main problem would be just that they are not here legally.

Today’s class given by our guest lecturer, Dr. Jones, was really interesting and thought provoking to me. Although the examples were fun and not very complex, they gave you a great deal to think about when you applied them to different life situations in the world such as diversity. His lecture was interactive and kept everyone interested in what he had to say. I figured that the stories would vary from person to person, just because the details would begin to deplete as the story continued to be told down the line of volunteers. Other than this first observation, I really did not know what to expect from Dr. Jones’ example.
At first, Dr. Jones began the example by reading it off of the projector screen to the first volunteer and the rest of the class. When she was able to tell the story to the second volunteer, I think she did a decent job with remembering the main idea of the story. As the story continued to be told from person to person, the details began to decrease just like I had suspected they would. The story ended up changing from an issue relating to an argument that broke out between a group of white kids and African American students, to a group of white kids at a university with absolutely no minorities. It was really interesting to think that the stories you hear from others are definitely being affected by this same trend on a daily basis, so unless it comes from the source it really is skewed and differs from what the actual facts are. At the end of the example, it was apparent that the story had varied greatly from the original. The last person to tell the story really knew nothing about the actual case. They had some completely different idea, that the main issue of the story was all about a scuffle between white kids at a big university of no minorities because someone threw a book through a television screen.
I think that stories end up getting changed through telephone because not everyone is going to remember all the details, so they kind of put their own spin on it and tell it as they remember it. It was really interesting to see it portrayed in front of our eyes so maybe we become more aware to not believe the stories we hear from people unless we are hearing it right from the source. I don’t believe that people intentionally change stories over time, I think it is just something that happens over time because people only continue telling the parts of the story that stick out most to them. Overall, I think Dr. Jones’ example was interesting, and helped us understand how most stories we hear come from telephone-like sources so we should not believe everything we hear.

After hearing this ratio in class, I thought it was a pretty crazy thought to say that they were willing to kill twenty nine civilians in order to get one bad person out of the way. That is a pretty insane ratio. I never even knew that they had guidelines as to the amount of people that could die who weren’t affiliated in the fighting. I was actually really appalled to hear that twenty nine innocent people is an acceptable number to die for one person. On the other hand, I understand that this one person could be causing hundreds of deaths in America and therefore by taking this one person out we could potentially be saving hundreds more lives that were lost in order to do so. It is really hard to think of it in this perspective for me, because I obviously believe that killing of any kind is wrong.
The one example I looked at when thinking of this ratio was Osama Bin Laden. Here we have a man who leads terroristic organizations that have caused thousands of deaths for Americans. He killed hundreds of innocent people by hijacking airplanes and causing mass chaos and death in our home lands. For me to sit here and tell you that from this perspective I still don’t believe in that ratio I would be lying to you. It is really an amazingly difficult topic to really choose a side on when you stand in the other people’s shoes and realize how it would affect you and the world around you if the script was flipped. The thought experiment where we had to answer from a Middle Eastern’s perspective opened my eyes because I never really thought of it in that way. I was one of those people who just associated bad things with the Middle East for the most part, because I never really thought about being someone who wasn’t involved like a regular kid our age. I was one of those American’s that was scared into believing they were out to get us, because of things we see on the news such as that “Jihad” video.

In conclusion, I realize that my position on this topic is really fuzzy. If I was still only thinking from my perspective, I would say that in some cases it could potentially be necessary to take out the big people causing the havoc such as Osama Bin Laden. Now that we have been shown to take it from the other people’s perspectives, I could see that this number is pretty ridiculous for those not involved. If people were coming into America and killing my family, and friends all to get to one person, this would definitely be a rule in the army I would not stand for.

After hearing this ratio in class, I thought it was a pretty crazy thought to say that they were willing to kill twenty nine civilians in order to get one bad person out of the way. That is a pretty insane ratio. I never even knew that they had guidelines as to the amount of people that could die who weren’t affiliated in the fighting. I was actually really appalled to hear that twenty nine innocent people is an acceptable number to die for one person. On the other hand, I understand that this one person could be causing hundreds of deaths in America and therefore by taking this one person out we could potentially be saving hundreds more lives that were lost in order to do so. It is really hard to think of it in this perspective for me, because I obviously believe that killing of any kind is wrong.
The one example I looked at when thinking of this ratio was Osama Bin Laden. Here we have a man who leads terroristic organizations that have caused thousands of deaths for Americans. He killed hundreds of innocent people by hijacking airplanes and causing mass chaos and death in our home lands. For me to sit here and tell you that from this perspective I still don’t believe in that ratio I would be lying to you. It is really an amazingly difficult topic to really choose a side on when you stand in the other people’s shoes and realize how it would affect you and the world around you if the script was flipped. The thought experiment where we had to answer from a Middle Eastern’s perspective opened my eyes because I never really thought of it in that way. I was one of those people who just associated bad things with the Middle East for the most part, because I never really thought about being someone who wasn’t involved like a regular kid our age. I was one of those American’s that was scared into believing they were out to get us, because of things we see on the news such as that “Jihad” video.

In conclusion, I realize that my position on this topic is really fuzzy. If I was still only thinking from my perspective, I would say that in some cases it could potentially be necessary to take out the big people causing the havoc such as Osama Bin Laden. Now that we have been shown to take it from the other people’s perspectives, I could see that this number is pretty ridiculous for those not involved. If people were coming into America and killing my family, and friends all to get to one person, this would definitely be a rule in the army I would not stand for.

During today’s class, I was definitely surprised by the results from the iClicker questions regarding how often people have witnessed or participated in racism or discrimination. I was shocked that when asked about discrimination against people of color almost 40 percent of our class said they had either witnessed or participated in these actions. Next, since we are in the middle of penn state’s pride week, Sam switched the question up and asked the same question but in regards to the LGBTQ community. Surprisingly the numbers were even higher for this which seemed to shock Sam in a way. I actually wasn’t too shocked by this statement because I feel that people think it is easier to come out and say something about the LGBTQ community and play it off as a joke. You are more likely to hear people saying using the terms “gay” and “fag”, then tossing around race terms such as the N-word. Why is this the case? I don’t understand why people are so cruel to the LGBTQ community, and find it easier to discriminate against them than other people. We are all people, and regardless of race, orientation, age, sex, or anything else we should all be treated as equals and not have these clear problems of discrimination still in our society.
Personally, I do see some instances of discrimination towards the LGBTQ community, but not publicly more behind closed doors. My best friend is a lesbian, and her girlfriend lives with us as well so I definitely am more aware of instances of discrimination or racism towards them since we are good friends. I feel like people always have to make stupid comments about who I live with because they themselves would be uncomfortable with the situation. It is really like just having any other two human beings, so I think it is pretty low that people have to pick on our situation just due to their sexual orientations. I often get questions asking how they are with each other, and how I deal with living with them. I would just like to let them know that it is really not a big deal, and making stupid petty comments won’t change my views on my friends in any way shape or form. I understand that people are uncomfortable and not knowledgeable about certain situations, but that doesn’t mean you should look down upon them or think that it is unnatural. The best thing you could do for yourself is become exposed to all different types of diverse people in order to become a more well rounded and respectful individual. For example, I know that I am not personally knowledgeable about cultures outside of my own so I intend to broaden my horizon and gain a better understanding of people unknown to me. The world could be a much better place if we just tried to make small changes like these in our lives.

As stated in a previous post, it would be difficult to distinguish if this was merely a joke or an act of white supremacy without knowing who did it in the first place. For someone to write that regardless is pretty messed up as a joke or not. The fact of the matter is that people do really tend to joke about race for a variety of reasons. I think one of the more important reasons is to kind of lighten the mood of this subject that could get pretty heavy at times. Also, by adding humor people sometimes try to make steps towards this not being such a touchy subject in society. In regards to the vandalism and its deeper meaning, we may never really know how this was intended. I do agree that I would hope it was a joke seeing as I have always viewed the idea of white supremacy as a thing of the past. I also think that Penn State as a whole is becoming increasingly more diverse and taking the right steps towards making racism a thing of the past. I have never noticed this on the rock wall, but I will definitely keep an eye out for it and also watch if it is written anywhere else.
I feel it is hard to move away from white supremacy all together since there will always be a group of people who still believe it. It is usually older people who don’t feel it necessary to change their views since they have lived their lives set in their beliefs. Times are constantly changing. There are always changes in our society’s beliefs, and over that many years there are drastic changes such as how people view different races. The best that we can do is make sure we pave the way for future generations to be free of our current racial problems. So far I feel that we are making pretty big steps toward becoming a more accepting and knowledgeable country about issues of race. Will race ever leave our world completely? It is hard to say. We will really need to see how we continue to progress as a society in the future. I personally hope we can move away from our ways and become better united. It would be insane to see a peaceful world in our lifetimes, but I don’t see it happening that fast.
In conclusion, we would all hope that this white supremacy vandalism was only intended as a joke, but we also must recognize that there are still people out there who hold these beliefs. Together we can work together to lessen the severity of our racial views, and move forward towards a more peaceful world.

PART 3: Freed slaves were faced with a myriad of disadvantages. They were faced with the hardships of finding work, food, clothing, and shelter. The way they were treated and cheated in life after slavery could hardly count as being “free” because they were still looked down upon in many ways. By being born into a family that was not affected by slavery, you were already at a clear advantage in life than most. I do at times feel guilty because as a white female, there were not many times in my life where I have faced racism or disadvantages for just being who I am. Recently, I had to do a project in which I first listed ways how I was discriminated against, and then list ways in which I stereotyped others or saw others fall victim to some form of racism. It was a really hard task to think of ways I have been discriminated against, but I had plenty of examples for how it has affected those around me. It definitely gave me a sense of compassion for others who have to deal with discrimination and racism.

PART 2: Growing up, I definitely was born with advantages compared to people in other parts of the world. I had a family who loved me, a roof over my head, food to eat, and my freedom. It really opened my eyes when we had a debate in class about how even though we may not have it all and feel that we are poorer as compared to those around us, there are people in the world that are far worse off than we are even if you were a homeless person living in the United States. I have always just compared myself to those immediately around me or in my area, but it is so true that when you look at your current situation as compared to those in say Zimbabwe, Rwanda, or Sierra Leon we are far better off even on our worst days. Understanding that can really give you a new perspective on the way you live your life.

PART 1 : When first examining my thoughts on this question, I really did not know how I felt regarding my position in life. After listening to Sam outline the various disadvantages that freed slaves go through, I definitely felt a sense of compassion for what they had to face even after entering into the free world. It’s a shame that even after all that they were put through it is still hard for them to get a good foundation for a prosperous life in the future. They are put at a major disadvantage in life when they never did anything wrong in the first place, they were the victims and remain the victims long after their enslavement ended.

I was extremely interested by the experiment we did the other day in class having to do with this topic. Sam let the girls come into the room unaware of what was going on and simply pick where they wanted to sit. He himself was surprised with the results. Almost every girl walked in, and randomly chose to sit next to the Asian woman even after she switched seats. If he hadn’t asked her to move to a different seat, I definitely may have felt that the girls were only drawn to that middle seat. Having her switch seats added some validity to the results we were seeing with most people being unconsciously drawn to sit near that particular girl. I feel that after this example, I definitely remain more aware of where I decide to sit in other classes now that we’ve covered this topic.
In Soc 119, I’m not really aware of who I choose to sit next to since I usually arrive pretty early and attempt to sit towards the aisle. I guess since I’m not particularly able to see who I would sit next to, I tend to watch who decides to sit next to me. I am white, and for the most part the majority of those who sit next to me tend to be white as well. I’ve noticed who I sit next to more in other classes, at the hub, or even on the bus on the way to class. It’s actually pretty interesting to watch now that I keep myself more aware of what I’m particularly looking for. I feel in certain situations, such as the bus, I’m not really subconsciously seeing who I should sit next to, but more just looking for a seat because I hate having to practically surf as the bus makes fast turns on the way to class. I personally feel that in more situations I’m focused more on how convenient it is for me to get to that particular seat. When I think deeper about it though, I wonder if there are certain factors that decide for me internally if I feel comfortable to sit next to that person. It is a pretty crazy thought to think maybe we even have ourselves fooled into believing were not worried about who we sit next to, and deep down internally we have another dialogue deciding what is and is not the place for us to go. On the other hand maybe what I said is the more legitimate reasoning – we just sit wherever is most convenient for us.
I would love to see more research done on this subject. I feel that overall I am pretty uncertain how I feel about this topic. During this blog response, I thought writing out how I felt about this would help me have a clearer view on how I think in my day to day life. I thought this would help me gather how I feel about certain situations like simply picking a seat, but my position remains unknown. I’m not sure what it is for me, I would assume that I focus where I sit based more on convenience then comfort. I will continue to really try to figure out what where I sit tells me about myself. It would be interesting to slowly discover if I do or do not have a latent prejudice.