In my opinion, I found the whole “needy penis” lecture to be enlightening. Sam and his wife opened my eyes to certain aspects of our culture that I wasn’t aware of before. An example would be how we have male standards for sex and what we should expect to get from sex and how women and men should behave towards sex and labels such as “needy”. I completely agreed with the fact that we do live in a male standardized world. An example of this was how a couple would be attending the same even and the man would be in a more relaxed attire while the woman would be all dressed up. I personally am more of a relaxed person when it comes to looks but at times I do find that I feel sort of bad and even guilty to an extent when I go out dressed in some gray sweats and a white t-shirt (not going to the gym) with my hair in a sloppy ponytail. I actually feel fine and comfortable dressed like that but when I see other people around me on campus who look like they actually spent more than five minutes to get ready before they left their house that’s when the negative feelings start to come. I agreed with Sam when he said that the real question is basically why do we feel that way? I also am not a fan of heels at all for the fact that they do hurt when I wear them for more than ten minutes and when I was younger my mom and other female family members would criticize me because I never really wanted to wear them. I also do believe that some women dress the way they do in order to get attention from men. I have seen it with single women as well as women who are taken but my question to this situation would be: Why do women need to get approval for how good they look from men, and why are they trying so hard to please them in the first place? I think of Sam’s story in class about the girls who go outside in 20-degree weather in the shortest, tightest dress and the tiniest little jacket when I ask this question. Why subject yourself to such discomfort (same goes for high heels) for a group of people when they aren’t willing to change their standards and do the same for you? I also found it interesting the “warning” that Sam and his wife were giving to female students about how the male body works. They were saying that once males are erect and in the mood and ready for sex it is really hard for them to come down from that. It in no way gives a many any right to not understand the words “no” but at the same time I think more females need to keep that in mind before they enter certain situations especially if they feel that they are unsure about how far they want to go with a guy.

I believe that there is nothing wrong with interracial relationships. I actually believe that the best way to unite people is through love and loving someone and making the decision to start a family with them can be such a strong tie and also a strong bridge connecting one race to another. I think that parents and other family members can actually prevent this from happening but eventually taking away the happiness of ones child could be one of the hardest things for a parent to do. I actually like seeing interracial couples, it doesn’t bother me at all but what I don’t like is the fact that if there is an interracial couple, that’s the aspect of the relationship that most people tend to emphasize and recognize the most. Why is it so noticeable in our society if people from two different races love each other and it is not even noticed at all if two people of the same race love each other? It would be such a great thing in this world if interracial marriages and relationships were not such a big thing anymore. I would like to see two people of different races being able to have a relationship without race being the first thing people notice or comment on. I personally have never been in an interracial relationship. I think that if I had a chance I may give it a try but it’s not something that I’d be very open to and dive head first into at first. I think this is because first off it would be something very new to me. Also there are certain things that I can expect with dating someone of my race and certain aspects that I am used to and comfortable with. If I were to date someone of a completely different race from myself I would have to get used to new things and probably open up in a different way towards that person. I’m not sure at what point as a society we will reach this point though. The media also, in my opinion, has a big role in NOT promoting interracial relationships. On TV all couples are of the same race. Even on cartoons you will most likely see the black person paired with another black person and a white person paired with another white person. Very rarely have I seen interracial couple on TV unless it was a show that intended to make a point about that issue.

Just like Sam said in class, I thought the black and white doll video was one of the saddest videos we have seen so far in Soc 119. The worst part of the video was when the camera person asked the little black girl which doll she thought was ugly and which doll she thought was bad and she chose the black doll, then she asked her which doll she thought was more like her and she chose the same doll she labeled as ugly and bad. I have seen many instances where light skin or “good hair” among black people has prevailed and been preferred. Growing up I have been told many times that I was pretty or beautiful, and then the next thing that would come out of the person’s mouth would be that I have such nice hair, or how my hair is so soft and I must be mixed with Indian. The big question is however, why are these traits so desirable? Why do so many people favor and desire long hair and/or light skin? I have cousins whose mother is really dark and father is really light. Their son came out really light skinned and the daughter came out really dark just like their mom. They are 2 years apart in age. We were all having a discussion one day and the girl (my cousin) was saying how a lot of guys don’t like her because of her dark skin and she used to get made fun of all the time because of it. Every time she would get into an argument with someone the first insult they would throw at her is the fact that she is dark skinned. Her brother on the other hand says that he only dates girls with long natural hair. He has never dated anyone Black before and when we asked him why he just said he didn’t know why. Is it in the subconscious of some people to automatically think that dark skinned and short kinky hair is bad or negative? Since when are these traits “bad”? My younger sister who looks EXACTLY like me, in my opinion, never got the same compliments as I did when I was her age. The only difference between us is the type of hair we have. She had rough kinky hair and so my mother made her get a perm last year, whereas I never had a perm in my life and my natural hair is loose curls and waves. Family members and friends of my parents would come over all the time and tell me how pretty I was and they wouldn’t say the same thing to my sister or put any emphasis on it and I never actually gave it any thought until I joined Soc 119. I have always overlooked that as nothing but now I am starting to re-evaluate those situations as something else.

I don’t really have much to say about any of the posted topics this week but the most interesting one in my opinion would be the video entitled “Do arrests of different races occur more due to racism or more police in urban areas?” I believe both. There usually can be no “black or white” ways to look at situation like this because not all police are racists but the actions of some make that very hard to believe. I do believe that there are more cops in urban areas because crime is actually heavy in those areas but I also feel that if you put cops in the suburbs they would find a lot of crime there as well. Just because they’re not looking in those areas as much, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. I believe that it seems like cops in urban area mostly target black people for arrests and its easy to think that because black people populate urban areas so much. In some places it does seem like some police abuse their rights and harass black people who probably wasn’t even doing anything. Growing up in a place like Jamaica, New York and East New York, Brooklyn. I have always seen cops. I don’t just see them when someone is getting arrested or when something is wrong; I see them all the time in bodegas, in corner stores, in pizza shops, and just driving in their patrol cars. We seen cops so much that we don’t even question if something happened in our neighborhood when we see one, it is just the norm in my neighborhood, and as far as I could see my neighborhood is predominantly made up of minorities; West Indians, African Americans, Hispanics, Indians, and other Asians. I don’t know of any white people that live in my neighborhood. Therefore, it is very easy to see (my neighborhood being a great example) why people believe that the arrests made by police officers are sometimes out of racism. Sometimes it gets so bad to the point where some police officers take it farther than an arrest, the black individual is hurt or killed in this action and most times they are completely innocent. I have never seen any cases of police officers abusing any white person unjustly. I have also never seen police killing any white person. Maybe I am wrong and there might be cases of these incidents but I have never in my life seen anything like that. So after a while you have to play the race card in order to shed light on situations like these because to put it in the simplest way possible: it is just not fair. So my answer to this question would be both yes and no.

“I think that all the silence is worst than all the violence” is a great lyrical quote. I don’t think Lupe Fiasco meant silence as a literal thing, I think instead he meant it as people not speaking up and out against what is unfair and anything that could be considered as an injustice. Violence is definitely not a positive thing but he believed that it would be better than for the world to be silent. I agree with it, not because I’m a big fan of Lupe Fiasco, but because of the way I interpret it. I believe that this quote means that, although violence is obviously a bad thing, it actually means that people are fighting for something. It means that people aren’t being complacent and just accepting injustices; they’re doing something about it. If there were no conflict or fighting in the world then that means that no problems exist at all so no one would have any reason to fight or be upset. However, this is not the situation in our world today. If everyone stayed silent about every issue we have in the world then our society would not progress or improve in anyway at all. The oppressed would remain oppressed and no one would even have a voice to be heard. We would definitely be living in an unfair world if no one spoke up for what he or she thought was right or for what they wanted.
Imagine if everyone were to stay silent instead of fighting for what the right thing. So many things would be different right now and so many wrongdoers would get away with their unfair actions. This quote is not only interesting but it is important. Silence in the world would only mean that people in power would be easily able to take advantage of people with less power. An example of this would be the “King of the Mountain” discussion and display we had in yesterday’s class. The person in charge was implementing undesirable laws and rules for the people that had no power. Some of the people may not have liked the laws. This mirrors something that happens in the real world on a day-to-day basis. Nations make undesirable laws all the time and it is up to the people of the country to either stay silent about it or speak out about it. If they stay silent about these issues then that just means that the injustice will carry on in their country. However, if they decide to speak out about it that would be a great thing but as we have seen on history so many times before, this usually leads to violence, but at least he voice of the oppressed and people being treated unfairly will be heard.

I am a big fan of comedy so this question has actually came to my mind before. I have seen Hispanic comedians make fun of all races, I have seen Black comedians make fun of all races, and I have even seen people from the Middle East make fun of people of all races and different ethnicities. In all instances the jokes have been stereotypical but at the same time they were still funny. As a Jamaican I haven’t felt offended hearing jokes about my ethnicity or culture, as a matter of fact I found it funny. If a white comedian was to make jokes about black people though I’m not sure how I would feel about that. I would understand if others would get offended however if white comedians were to make racist jokes about them.
White people are the only race who has offended and oppressed almost every single race in the past. White people, in the past, have more than oppressed, embarrassed, and hurt black people (slavery, jim crow laws, etc.). White people, in the past, have discriminated against Asians (Chinese exclusion Act and the Japanese concentration camps in California during world war two), the Native Americans (Trail of Tears, etc.) and they have discriminated against Hispanics and Middle Eastern people as well. It seems that white people has caused many people to be angry with them so for them to turn around and make racist jokes about all those people they have oppressed and offended doesn’t seem fair or appealing.
On the other hand though it all depends on how the particular group of people feel about these events and if they forgive white people enough to not feel offended by their jokes against them. I would also understand if the jokes of white comedians didn’t offend certain races. This is because some people might not be carrying around negative feelings for what happened to their people in the past. Maybe being able to laugh at these jokes would be their way of showing their forgiveness or their acceptance of the past.
It also depends on who is saying the joke, how they mean it, and their audience. The Don Imus incident definitely proved that not all racist jokes are funny and there is a certain line that shouldn’t be crossed. He claimed that he didn’t mean what he said to be offensive but he basically put down a group of girls in their time of celebration. He actually did more than that but that’s another story for another time. Another white comedian is Chelsea Handler. She makes racist jokes about all races including white and she is hilarious. I have never felt offended by her.

The conversation on the most beautiful race, in my opinion, was very interesting. First off I actually believe that there is beauty in every race and ethnicity and unattractiveness in every race and ethnicity as well. I don’t just believe that one entire race or ethnicity is more attractive than another and I don’t believe that one entire race or ethnicity is completely unattractive, but as they say “beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.” I have also noticed that some features that may seem to be ethnicity – specific might not actually be. I have seen black people with “Asian eyes” and I have seen Asians with wide noses so the features that make a certain group of people beautiful or unattractive might not be specific to just that one group.
The people who I find to be attractive are not necessarily the people who are my friends. For example, I think that a lot of Brazilian guys are attractive but yet I have no Brazilin males as friends. Actually I don’t have any Brazilians as friends as a matter of fact. Also, to be truthful, most of my friends are actually the same race or ethnicity as I am. I do have a few friends outside of my race but not many. When I was going to school in Manhattan, however, I did have a more diverse group of friends but the group of friends I have at Penn State are less diverse. I’m not really sure of the reason for this but I think the reason may be that one person of a certain race is more likely to know others of the same race. For example: if I have a friend that is black then there is a great chance that that person will know other black people to introduce me to, and the same goes for white and Asian.
It is true that around campus you usually see people socializing within their ethnic group. The black people socialize with other black people, white people socialize with other white people, and even Asians socialize with other Asian people and speak their language with each other. I think this may have derived from a deeper ideology like when people migrated to the United States they would try to find other people like them who shared their language, religion, or cultural customs and this behavior would be passed down to these people’s children and they would carry these habits to school and other place they would have to interact with the public. I don’t think this happens as much as it used to in the United States but I think that it is already so deeply rooted into people’s minds that it is almost like a tradition and tradition is very hard to break. I think that is why today you will see so many communities that are predominantly one race or ethnicity.

Stereotypes are made by people passing judgment on another group of people based on what they believe is done by the majority. I also believe that the examples we saw in class were a few of the “exceptions” to some stereotypes, meaning that there are only small amounts of people with those specific features or characteristics. For example, I am Jamaican and the most common stereotype about us is that we all smoke weed. I do not smoke weed though and neither do my parents, but at the same time I do know many other Jamaicans that do so it would be very hard for me to shoot down such a negative stereotype when the majority wins. Not all stereotypes do represent the behaviors or characteristics of the majority of a group of people however but what I find is that in America, tradition is extremely hard to break. So if Americans believe a certain thing about one group of people at one point in time then it is very likely that this thought will remain in the minds of many Americans for generations to come. This just shows how negative stereotyping can be at times (and yes I do believe that stereotyping can be positive at times. Ex. Indians make good food, Hawaiians are very polite, Tunisians are very kind…etc.), and most of their stereotypes are probably outdated, the assumptions they once made years ago are probably even less accurate today. When stereotyping becomes damaging however, is when people assume and spread negative things about a group of people. This can cause people to look down upon the group being stereotyped and even become close-minded which in turn may make the people being stereotyped defensive. I believe that stereotypes are still used today because people, especially Americans, likes to put labels on others and try to make everything clear cut and categorized, when in actuality most people do not even fit in the categories they are placed in. This is just as unfortunate as it is unfair. People really should not have to go through life labeled as something that they are not. Living in a place like New York I have been exposed to many stereotypes. One of the most common is that all people from the Middle East are cheap, which was so puzzling to me because two of my best friends in High School were Egyptian and Pakistani and they were some of the most generous people I have ever met in my life. I also wouldn’t even be able to count the amount of times I tell people that I am Jamaican and they look at me like I’ve just told the biggest lie and then says “Oh, you don’t look Jamaican,” not knowing that Jamaica is one of the biggest melting pots of the world. There is no set of characteristics indigenous to Jamaicans. We have people of all different shades, sizes, and personalities just like every other nation in the world.

SOC 119