I am having a hard time relating to any of the questions from this week so I will answer this and then probably just talk about how I feel about the lecture on Tuesday. I think it is a lot easier for a gay child to come out to their gay parent because they are exactly the same as their parent. The parent has gone through the same thing that there child is now going through. They understand the feeling and the potential difficulty of coming out to friends and family. Especially since this parent has done that, the child would feel comfortable coming to them to talk about how they feel. For a gay child to come out to a straight parent it is very different because a straight parent does not understand. They also might be very religious which would prevent them from fully understanding or being accepting of the child. For any situation it is a lot easier to tell someone something that they agree with or have firsthand experience with. This applies to this situation.
I thought this class was very interesting this week. I enjoyed watching the demonstration of the gay and straight couples doing different forms of PDA. I thought it was interesting to see people’s reactions to each couple. I know Sam said that people are more uncomfortable with gay people holding hands than with a straight couple making out in front of everyone. But with the reaction in class and what I experience walking around State College I do not agree with it. I get very uncomfortable when I see a couple making out in public whether or not it is a straight couple or gay couple. I see gay couples walking around downtown all the time and no one even gives them a second glance. But when a couple is making out on a bench right on college people are making faces and pointing and talking to the person they are walking with about them. Also there are a lot of girl friends who just walk around holding hands but they are not gay. I am straight but I am very close with my friends so sometimes we will walk around downtown holding hands and no one pays attention to us. Outside of State College I am sure there is a problem with PDA of gay couples but I have yet to experience more of an outburst than if there was a couple gay or straight making out in public. I would like to see more data on something like this and experience it in the real world more because it is interesting to see the difference in people’s perceptions and opinions.

Watching the what would you do video really got me thinking about what I would do in a situation like that. Watching it made me very angry as it did many people in the class, based off the reactions. My first reaction was off course I would say something. People started talking about how that would be their reaction as well and how most of them if put in that situation would actually not speak we would be quiet. But I really do think I would say something. If not to the man behind the counter I would talk to the Muslim woman who is being harassed. Something to help her feel better about what was being done to her and maybe try and convince her to leave the bakery because she didn’t deserve to have something like this done to her. I have been through some situations where someone was being attacked as a person. It was not based off race but rather weight. Although different reasons, the concept is still the same. Someone is being hurt and people need to step in and help them. I am not a large girl but I am overweight and one night I was out on my balcony with some friends and a guy walked by and we were talking to him and no one is exactly sure what was said but he started getting very angry at me and started to attack me personally. He was telling me I was a horrible person and didn’t know what I was talking about and I should just go away and realize that I will never be smart. When I defended myself he started calling me thunder thighs and telling me I was fat and ugly. Luckily I have a lot of self confidence so I was able to keep myself together and defend myself again and eventually I just walked inside and removed myself from the situation. The biggest problem was that none of my friends said anything to help defend me. Two of them said something to the guy about how he was wrong after I went inside but none of my four roommates backed me up. It was a very difficult thing to handle because it seemed like no one cared about me. I ended up getting very upset at them but after this class it seems like people just don’t like to jump in no matter how close they are to the person or how awful the things are that were said. Since this incident I have talked to my friends and told them how disappointed I was and how hurt they made me feel. I feel like they now understand that it is difficult to stand up for people but you have to do what is right especially if it helps someone feel better about themselves.

I think women who dress in bikinis or in less clothing than is always appropriate do not necessarily mean they disrespect themselves. When a girl is comfortable with themselves they might wear less clothes than another girl because they are alright with showing their bodies. Being comfortable with themselves is important in order to respect themselves. I am not a girl who would be comfortable wearing not much clothing but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t girls who would be. Respecting yourself is very important to girls because I have seen guys take advantage of girls who are looking for attention. They lead them on and then drop them when they are done with them. If a girl is respectful of herself she is able to determine what guys are right for her and who are also going to treat her with respect. Not wearing a lot of clothes though in certain situations can be seen as doing it just for a man though and is not respectful of herself necessarily. I have seen a lot of girls at the bar dressed in very little clothing in order to get the attention of a man. It is unfortunate to see girls trying to “put themselves on display” just to get a man’s attention. The girl should be comfortable with themselves in order to show the man their true personality instead of showing the man their bodies. In a bar situation it is seen as being appropriate to dress in as little clothing as possible and to attract men. But if a girl does she tends to think that she is going to find a nice guy, have some fun and maybe it will turn into something more. I have noticed that guys tend to find the hottest girl at the bar to take her home just to have fun. They don’t see it as anything more than just fun and don’t see it going anywhere because at a bar everyone is drunk and will say whatever they need to in order to convince a girl that he is a “nice” guy. He does not respect her. She needs to respect herself in order to have anyone else respect her. This can happen the other way around too. If a woman is dressed conservatively she might not respect herself which provides the same problem as before. I think it is alright for a woman to wear whatever she wants if she respects herself and feels comfortable with herself. She is better able to share herself with the world in a respectful way. Personality is more important in the way that people get to know us. If a woman allows a man to get to know her body before her personality that is where there will be a problem.

As a huge fan of the Hunger Games, books and now movie I felt it was only appropriate to comment on how disgusted with these twitter posts I feel. One of the twitter posts said I’m not racist but… This person is clearly only judging how they feel about Rue based on her skin color. The readers of the book fell in love with the character of Rue, her personality and the relationship she gained with Katniss. Watching a movie the readers should be in love with the same things. It is unfortunate that these people decided that just because she was a darker skin color than they expected that they now do not care about Rue’s personality or the relationship she created with Katniss or the fact that she was murdered. I cannot even believe that there are people who are still like that in the world. I thought we were growing out of these racist things. This is also the younger generation that is saying these things as well because they are on twitter. It is terrible that they are also announcing how they feel on twitter too because it is so public and can be very hurtful. They are not only attacking the character, Rue, but they are attacking the actress. This little girl should not have to deal with such hurtful things that are being said about her just from the color of her skin. The first time I saw a picture of her I thought she was the cutest little thing and I was so sad that I knew her character was going to die off and she wouldn’t be around for the other two movies. Thinking about it now, I would have thought that having such an important and positive character be black might make some racist people think twice about it because they fell in love with the person as opposed to the body of the person. The color of her skin does not make Rue any different than the Rue in the book and the Rue that everyone envisioned in their mind when they were reading the book. This should have been a helpful step in the right direction for people who care about the color of skin. But instead it feels like we have fallen back years especially since it is the younger generation who are normally more open about skin color and don’t care as much as their parents and especially grandparents. I was so sad reading these twitter posts and realizing how screwed up the world really is, especially since I fell in love with Rue the character and even the actress. I thought she did an amazing job and I hope to see her in more movies in the future.

I have never really been someone who sits down and watches the news. When I was younger my mom would watch every day at 6 but I always thought it was boring so I would leave the room and come back into the room when it was over. As I went to high school I thought it might be good to start watching a little of the news with my mom just to get an idea of what was going on in the world. I found the news ended up talking in circles and I didn’t get much information from it except for short clips. I started skimming the newspaper instead because they aren’t trying to keep people on the channel, I already have the paper so I felt like they are actually trying to give me information. In high school I had to get current events articles and write papers on them so I was reading the paper a lot more often. Once I got to Penn State I started reading The Collegian because I felt like it actually gave me information on events I cared about. It was more personalized to the life of a college student but also had information on events outside of our little world. I was starting to gain more respect for the media again. As a telecommunications major I applied for jobs in the news industry but everything changed this fall. When the scandal happened here at school, the Penn State students learned firsthand how skewed the media can be. The night Joe Pa was fired I was at a meeting. When I left the meeting there were a lot of students outside walking around in big groups. I walked past maybe one small group of students who were clearly intoxicated and were running and screaming “Let’s get on TV!” I went to a friends apartment and we turned on the news to get a feeling for what was going on. We were shocked by what we were watching and listening to. Every news station was talking about the riots outside with students running around, screaming and causing trouble. As I was watching the news I got up went out onto my friends balcony which was right above the so called riots and what I saw was the complete opposite. Everyone was just kind of standing around. There was maybe 2 or 3 people running around looking like they could be causing trouble but it was calm and the “riot” just had a feeling of sadness and confusion. I could not believe how different the story the news was telling was compared to what was actually happening.
Being involved and seeing firsthand how the media was skewed makes me very skeptical of listening to the media. I no longer feel comfortable applying for jobs in the news industry because I do not trust them and don’t want to be one of them. I can not listen to the media in regards to what is going on in the wars and over in Iraq because I get different information from people who have actually experienced it. I think the best way to get information is from people involved and who aren’t looking to gain anything from telling their story.

There was a question on the test in reference to why white people don’t like to talk about race. It was something along the lines of which one of these is NOT the reason white people don’t want to talk about race and racism and I’m pretty sure the answer was something along the lines of white people think that everything they know is right and they don’t need to talk about it. One of the possible answers that jumped out at me was that black and brown people tell white people that they are wrong when a white person says something about race or racism so white people don’t talk about it because they are told they are wrong most of the time so why bother trying. This stuck with me because I feel like this is a big reason why I don’t necessarily talk about it all the time or often at all. In my experiences I have often phrased something incorrectly and have been corrected by a black person. Most of the time it isn’t nicely because I might have said something offensive without realizing. I do not know enough about the other race or racism to fairly or correctly talk about it with other people. This is a big reason I decided to take this class because I wanted to hear what other people had to say without necessarily having to talk all the time. I want to know the proper way to reference a black person when describing someone. Sometimes when I say the person was black my friends are like that racist and offensive because I am pointing out a difference. In my opinion I am using the color of their skin to differentiate between a different person and I don’t necessarily see that as racist, it is just stating a fact. But at the same time I do not know if it is racist and if stating this fact would offend someone. At my job this summer I asked my supervisor to describe the girl I was going to be shadowing since I did not know anyones names. He said he didn’t like to do that because it could be offensive. When I eventually found the girl I noticed she was black and wondered if that was the reason my boss didn’t want to describe her because he didn’t want to say she was black. To me it would have been helpful to know because I would have been able to rule out the white workers the same way I was able to rule out the men because her name was Vanessa. I think it is an easy way to distinguish a person but I don’t know if it is actually offensive. This is why I get uncomfortable talking about race because I don’t know what is right and what isn’t.

I have never heard of people being chosen for jobs solely based off of physical attractiveness and who has the best looks but I think attractiveness does have something to do with who people lean more towards. Everyone sees the outside beauty before the inside personality and job traits. We have always been told not to judge a book by its cover but it is very hard not to do that. The body, clothes, face etc are the first thing people see when you go up and meet a new person. Whether intentional or not that other person has already made some sort of judgment about you. If you are wearing a suit someone might think you are an important business man where as if you were cut up jeans and a baggy t-shirt someone might think you are unemployed and don’t take care of yourself. Even though that so called business man might actually not have a job and just came from a wedding and the cut up jeans and baggy t-shirt person is a CEO of a business on Wall Street and just wanted to get out of the suit for a little while. It is hard not to judge someone because it is how we have grown up. We use outward appearance to categorize people. In movies the “ugly” characters are normally evil whereas the pretty ones are usually the damsels in distress. It is engrained into our brains since we were little and it is hard to get rid of.
I think a great thing about a resume and cover letter is that you only have the person’s credentials to go off of. A job recruiter should be looking for someone who has the best credentials for the job and is most qualified, not who is the prettiest or looks the nicest. After they come in for an interview it might be appropriate to determine who would be the best fit in the company based off of their personality instead of just their credentials. The workplace needs to be somewhere where people are comfortable with each other and work well together. If the job recruiter does not think someone will fit in then I think it is appropriate that they should not get the job even if they are the most qualified.
I do not think putting a picture on a resume in order to choose the prettiest people is appropriate and I think it encourages making judgments about people before meeting them. It does not help racism or discrimination by making judgments based solely on appearances even if it is only on who is more attractive and not based on race, gender, or skin color.

This generation seems to be the generation of creating opinions before learning the full story. Growing up talking to peers it was all about who was right and proving they were right even if they weren’t. It is all about who has the best argument for their opinion than who has the most facts. Many people don’t have good reasons for how they feel about things though. They seem to get some sort of thought in their head and no matter what anyone else says or what evidence tells them they are going to believe what they want to believe. We have a lot of stubborn people. I know this isn’t a very meaningful example but in high school everyone was all about Twilight, the vampire series. There were two sides to the thought process of the series, you loved it or you hated it. I talked to many people who hated it and when I asked them why they said I don’t know it sounds stupid so I hate people who read it. Umm, wait? They never read it? How can you hate something you never read? At this time I had never read it either but I did not have an opinion on the book. I hated how crazy people got over it and trying to push the books on me. I wanted to actually have a well informed decision of the book so I decided to read them. I decided that the books were dumb but at least I had reasons to back it up instead of just saying “uh, well it sounds dumb so it is dumb”. People need to understand what they are talking about before they make opinions and assumptions. This is how I would feel if someone rejected a religious text before knowing the evidence of the story. It is understandable that most people would automatically reject a religious text if they do not believe in that faith. I think in order to make themselves look educated they need to understand both sides of the story. Religious arguments seem to be some of the most heated because it is about what people believe, most of the time as long as they were born. It is something that is engrained into the brain and people do not want other people touching their beliefs or telling them they are wrong. Everyone loves to be right. I think people should give any sort of text a chance in order to be able to defend their beliefs. Not very many people are going to be interested in actually doing that because many people are too set in their ways to want to look at another side of the story.

As a white person I agree that I tend to shy away from talking about race. But at the same time I think it is a generalization about all white people. For me, I tend to shy away from it because I do not have much to say. I grew up in a predominantly white town and did not experience much interaction with other races. Most of what I know about other cultures and races I get from television and movies. Although I did not grow up with much interaction I am very open minded. I like to get to know a person before making judgments about them but that cannot always happen. In my discussion group today we talked about making judgments and I said that I have learned how to let go of the initial judgment made and be open minded. I think it is almost impossible for a person not to make a judgment about another before talking to them because we see before we hear. We take what we see and compare it to what we already know. This becomes a stereotype without even consciously thinking about it. What makes a person racist is when they take that initial stereotype they make and continue to think that way instead of getting to know the person.
I think there are more white people who live around mostly other white people which would explain why most people don’t want to discuss race because they don’t know too much. It is a tough subject to talk about because white people have never really been discriminated against in America in a negative way. We don’t know how it affects other races and cultures since we have not been through it. I know personally I do not want to offend them because I feel like they have had to deal with being discriminated against and stereotyped more than I have. I could be wrong but since I grew up around mostly whites this is what I have come to find in my experiences. I don’t like to state my opinions because I get told that I am being stereotypical or racist when all I am doing is trying to understand more and say what I feel and know. The smaller discussion groups intimidate me a little bit because I do not have much to say. I don’t know how to appropriately state how naïve I am while also trying to ask questions and understand more about other races and cultures and how they perceive white people. I like to shy away from it so I am not wrong because I could get into a heated argument without meaning to. I do not want to offend anyone and don’t know how to appropriately address people or bring up topics.

If immigrants are coming from another country and do not speak English I do not think that it is my responsibility to learn Spanish. Although I would love to be fluent in another language, I speak the language of the country. We do not have a national language but the government, schools, and stores speak English and that is what I need to survive in the country. There are many people who work at these places who speak Spanish who are able to communicate with the Spanish speakers. This is a good thing for the Spanish speakers who don’t understand English but because I speak English I am understood at all schools and stores. Don’t get me wrong I do not think I am more privileged or better than the Spanish speakers but I think if they are coming over to America as an immigrant and what to be a part of society they should learn the most common language. If I was going to go live in another country I would attempt to learn some of their language so I was able to communicate with the majority of the population.
One summer I went on a student exchange program where I visited six different countries in 3 weeks. On our way to each country some of the other students and I would try and learn some of the basic words or phrases in order to communicate with the locals even though some people could speak English. A lot of the people we met were able to communicate with us because they spoke English but they told us they appreciated us trying to learn the language. It is a part of their culture and it shows them that we respect their culture and want to understand it better. The language is the first step in doing that.
I was just a tourist, not in one country for more than a few days but I put the time and energy into learning the language of the country. If an immigrant is coming to America to live I think they should show that they respect our culture of at least trying to speak English since that is what most stores, schools, and the government speaks. In order to be a positive member of society they need to understand what the country stands for and to do that they need to know what we are saying. I do not think I should HAVE to speak Spanish because there are a lot of immigrants. But do I WANT to learn to speak Spanish since there are a lot of immigrants who speak it? Yes I would like to learn in order to communicate with them.