I think that Asians are a minority that are very present in today’s society, but not many people know about them. Because there are so many countries in Asia, there are in turn many cultures as well. Many Asians may look similar to one another but be from different countries and have completely different cultural customs. I think that in the U.S. most people group Asians together just like they group black and brown people together. I think this is particularly unfair for Asians because they are so different.
At Penn State, it seems that Asians group together just like other minorities. If one were to sit in the HUB, as I’m doing right now, they could look around and see the different groups of people who sit together. It’s sort of like the cliques in high school, except that instead of types of personalities, people are grouped together based on their nationalities. I think Asians may rely on each other more because for some of them there is a language barrier. When people first come to this country and they don’t know the language they want to be around similar people. It’s probably comforting to surround yourself with not only like minded people but with people that speak the same language that you do. If I were to visit Asia I would probably want to find other Americans because they could help me adapt to new surroundings.
I don’t know how strong Asian stereotypes hold because I can neither confirm nor deny them. I’m not Asian so I don’t know how true they are, but from the Asians I do know some are true and some aren’t, just like all stereotypes. I know Asians who are atrocious at math and I know others that are incredible drivers.
Asia will continue to become an increasingly talked about topic in my lifetime because the continent and its people are becoming an integral part of the world economy. People are going to have to understand Asia and its cultures if they want to find success in business.
I think if any race were to have the closest stereotypes to white people it would probably be Asians. Culturally, they may fit in most with white people as a whole. Asians are usually deemed studious, hard working and good with quantitative skills. I feel that looks aside, they could blend in relatively easily with the rest of society. Unless an Asian were very connected with his or her cultural upbringing, their day to day lives I feel are similar to what is “normal” in society. As far as I know, Asians aren’t discriminated against too often, but I’m certainly not speaking from experience because I’m white.

I agree that a female football coach, at any level, is monumental and groundbreaking. Natalie Randolph, who was named head football coach of Calvin Coolidge High School in Washington D.C. seems qualified for the job. She has grown up around football her entire life and has some playing experience. I wish her the best of luck and hope she is successful in her first few years coaching. However, I personally, wouldn’t want to play for a female coach not based on principle but based on the belief that she can’t be as effective as a male coach.
When coaches tell their athletes to do something, the athletes would like to think the coach could do it too or could complete the task at one point in their life. I can’t see Natalie Randolph truly motivating her players because of her voice. The sound of an angry coach can be truly terrifying and motivate a player to put 100% of their effort into a drill. When it comes to game strategy and calling plays, there is no reason Miss Randolph would be any worse than a male. She can analyze a football play just as well as anyone assuming she truly does have experience in the sport. Her experience is also questionable because she played for an all female team called “The Divas.” Most coaches played in high school and probably some level of college. Coaches with that kind of experience have seen every type of game situation and know how to react when they see something in a familiar scenario in a game. I don’t know that Randolph would gain enough in game experience from her time with The Divas to be a credible source of insight and analysis about an opposing team.
Having said that, I hope Coach Randolph proves me wrong even though she said that’s not her goal in her interview with Campbell Brown. Randolph has done a good job of at least publicly acting as if her being hired isn’t a huge deal. I appreciate that she wants her results to do the talking for her. One of my concerns is the dynamic of the locker room and off season atmosphere. A high school football team may only play 12 games a year spanning from September to November. However, they are training year round through off season workouts and lifting regimens. Will her players truly listen to her when she’s trying to enforce mandatory workouts in the offseason? I don’t know that Coach Randolph knows enough about workouts and lifting when at no point in her life has she lifted the same weight as her own players.
Natalie Randolph has the right attitude for her current state. She hasn’t won or lost a game yet. I hope, however, that she’s more intense around her players than the demeanor she gave off in the interview with Campbell Brown.

I think it’s a combination of white people having more money than black people as well as judges and juries being more racist than they’ll admit in their judgment. I don’t think a judge looks at a suspect in a courtroom and instantly has that person figured out. A lot of reading goes into deciding a court case. There are so many factors that accumulate to reach a rational decision in a court hearing.
However, I think that some judges make their decisions based on what they’ve seen in the past. With experience, many judges and people who work in the judicial system can make a quick decision based on a quick impression of the suspect. A lot of black people are pinned for committing crimes, but that doesn’t mean they’re all convicted. Juries that hear the court case throughout the entire time have a series of judgments they make as the trial proceeds. Every little detail about the indicted person’s background, upbringing and their everyday demeanor and behavior tell the jury how to think about a person. Because the suspect may be black, the details about their upbringing may be less than favorable for the suspect themselves. A lot of black people live in urban areas. A lot of black people may have been brought up in a rough area where they were subject to drugs and violence. This does not, however, mean that all black people are drug dealers from the ghetto. Unfortunately, some members of the jury may feel this way. Many of the stereotypes of black people that have been suspected of committing a crime certainly affect the judgment of a judge and jury on at least the subconscious level. It’s best for everyone to take the least bias view they can of a court situation and try to judge each trial based on only relevant facts.
The fact that many black people can’t hire adequate lawyers I think is very relevant to the fact that blacks feel that they’re prosecuted and convicted more often than white people. Today, in American court systems, you can essentially buy your freedom, or a lesser penalty if you come with an excellent lawyer to trial. No good lawyers are inexpensive. Black people may have court supplied lawyers which are inexperienced kids right out of law school. A rich person can hire the best lawyer in their area for an exorbitant sum of money and essentially guarantee themselves a better outcome than had they gotten a cheap lawyer. Lawyers make or break a trial for the suspect and right now, it seems that white people can afford better lawyers than black people. Overall, I think racial stereotypes along with money affect the outcomes of trials in the American court system.

I can certainly understand why some people still don’t support gay marriage. For some people the thought of two people of the same sex together is revolting and for others it’s against their religious beliefs. Other people that oppose same sex marriage believe that the sanctity of marriage should be kept between a man and a woman. Others who are anti gay marriage think that it’s immoral for two men or women to be together and that marriage is a sacred bond that shouldn’t be tampered with. However, I do not adhere to any of these viewpoints.
Today in the U.S., one in two marriages ends in a divorce. I don’t see how marriage is so sacred in that case. Opponents of gay marriage need to come to the realization that marriage isn’t as sacred as it used to be. Just because a man and a woman get married doesn’t mean they’re in love and going to live a wonderful life together with a great family. Men and women marry each other for a lot of different reasons nowadays. Love isn’t always the priority. If straight couples are allowed to get married and have a one in two chance that they won’t stay together, gay people should get that chance too. However, statistics show that gay marriages are usually stronger bonds with the couples staying together longer.
Some people oppose gay marriage because they’re afraid that gay couples are going to adopt children. Gay couples should have just as much of a right to adopt children as straight couples. There aren’t any studies out that show that children of gay couples live troubled lives. Gay couples’ children won’t necessarily grow up to be homosexual either. They can go on to live “normal” lives just like children of straight couples.
For people that don’t believe in gay marriage because of religious reasons and find the bond to be flat out immoral, I’m not sure that I can see it from their perspective. No longer is the sanctity of marriage sacred. No longer is every straight couple an example of a perfect marriage. Gay people should have the right to be with each other and make it official.
I understand that churches won’t host gay marriage ceremonies because it’s against the ideals in the very book they’re conducting the ceremony with. However, gay couples should be allowed to be legally married in courthouses in every state of the country. This will take a long time and I think it’s going to take our generation to be in political offices for it to happen. However, I think in my lifetime gay marriage will be legal in most, if not all of the U.S. as it should be.

The census has a tough job in that is has to collect accurate data and do so without offending anyone. However, I think people should be able to write in whatever race they are and not be constrained to what is given on the survey. People are a mix of races and being confined to just a few options is generalizing people into categories they don’t necessarily belong in.
I agree with the statement in the article that the census both reflects and forges our understanding of race. Do people believe they’re a certain race because they truly think it or do they think they belong to a race because it was an option given on a survey or at the beginning of a standardized test? When people talk about their own race or the race of others they often use the terms that were at the beginning of the SAT’s or a survey they participated in. People don’t list off the mix of nationalities they come from and then determine their race from there. Instead, people commonly refer to what they’re used to seeing. If in surveys there were no options and people had to write in what they thought they were,,what would people say? If the media and society didn’t generalize people into white, black, Asian, or Hispanic, how would people refer to themselves? I think there would be many more “races” that people would refer to if there weren’t already a few broad categories that existed.
I found Ann Morning’s research to be very interesting. She found that out of 138 countries with censuses, 15 used the word “race.” And of that 15% of countries, almost all of them permitted slavery at one point or another. This shows so many countries’ obsession with categorizing people based on the color of their skin. When slavery was legal in the U.S., it was imperative for the government to identify people by race so they could separate voters from non-voters, slaves from free people and citizens with rights between people with no rights. Today, the government doesn’t want to people to fill out a race so they can identify slaves, but that data is still crucial to understand our society and culture. Marketers use that information to segment people based on demographics. The media uses it to add another element to their stories that either prove or disprove peoples’ preconceived notions about certain races.
I think it’s interesting to note that the census is considering doing away with the term negro altogether. Years ago negro was an acceptable term for black people and now it’s considered not only outdated but offensive. The term reminds people of the 1950’s when restaurants had signs that said “Negroes Not Allowed.” Maybe black will be considered outdated and offensive in fifty years. Regardless it’s interesting that the census bureau wants to generalize people into broad categories but doesn’t want to step on anyone’s toes while doing it.

I think David Brooks makes some good points about the overall theme of the “White Messiah” in so many films. I saw Avatar and the underlying political themes about modern society are glaring. It’s hard to go into the movie and come out only remembering the action sequences. Brooks criticizes Avatar for making too many assumptions about the differences between a land’s natives and the white people that invade it for their personal gain. However, these assumptions come from somewhere, don’t they? All the films about the “White Messiah” draw their plotlines from the plotline of this country. It’s not random or fabricated from thin air that natives live primitive lives, while the “white man” is corrupted by modern day technology and other distractions.
Avatar does a good job of presenting the story from two sides. The white men are merciless in their quest for resources on the planet. They came with an army and excessive artillery “in case” they needed it. However, it’s clear the Marine commander would look for any excuse to bring violence upon the land and its people. Meanwhile, as Brooks pointed out, the natives are a peaceful and simple people. The overall theme of the movie is what should be critiqued, if anything.
I think Brooks started to look too deeply into the movie when he saw the white Marine as the tribe’s “White Messiah.” He did indeed help them defeat the Americans and became one of them in the process, but a lot of that is for the plot. The natives took a long time to warm up to him and he wasn’t their hero from the beginning. They didn’t want his help either. It’s not as if the natives were helpless and their only hope was Jake Sully, a Marine from Earth. If one were to look that deeply into the plot it can’t be said that the Sully helped out the natives and received nothing in return.
He learned about nature, found modern day amenities to be unnecessary and cumbersome, and learned to become truly in touch with himself. If he hadn’t gone through this transformation where he rides giant birds and hunts dinosaur-like creatures, he wouldn’t have been able to help out the native people in their final battle against the blood thirsty humans. However, these plot details are exactly that, a plot. A movie has to have personal struggle and drama for it to be a movie. It is fiction, after all.
I do agree with John Podhoretz’s view that the plot existed just to facilitate the action of the movie. James Cameron didn’t spend ten years crafting the perfect script. He just needed dialogue between action sequences featuring helicopters exploding.

I was not aware of the racism that occurs during soccer games in Europe and I found it appalling. The fact that fans taunt and ridicule their own team’s players for being a minority is truly shocking. I have never been to Europe, nor do I know anyone personally who is from the continent. I almost never watch soccer and I’m overall unfamiliar with the culture of the sport. However, I do know European soccer fans are passionate about their soccer clubs and there is a great deal of pride in their team’s success. Therefore, I find it shocking to see such behavior from fans when it’s sometimes players from their own team that they’re taunting.
Fans in the U.S. are also very passionate about their teams. However, at least in the public eye, the sports arena is one place where racism appears non existent. Many of the best American athletes are black. They’re idolized by people of all races and fans support them rabidly regardless of skin color. Racist organizations in the U.S. usually blame minorities for all of society’s problems, but sports are never mentioned.
The racism in Europe isn’t all that different than what occurs in the U.S. Sporting events are a different outlet for racists to bash minorities. That’s something we’re not used to in the U.S. but I wouldn’t say Europeans are necessarily more racist than a lot of Americans. We’re not used to seeing black athletes taunted because they’re too important to most sports fans to distract during a game. It’s odd for us to see fans scream obscenities at soccer players and hold up signs proclaiming their hate for people because it’s a televised event. KKK rallies aren’t on primetime television with tens of thousands of fans in attendance. That doesn’t mean the KKK doesn’t exist and doesn’t still display their bigotry. Racism is probably just as prevalent in the U.S., it’s just that we don’t see it occur because it’s not during nationally televised sporting events.
I do think that FIFA should have taken a more active role in suppressing what happens at soccer games. The displays of hatred are blatant and hurtful, driving some players to pick up a soccer ball in the middle of a game and threaten to walk off the field. FIFA should have seen this as a more serious issue and tried to shut it down sooner. Signs should be confiscated and fans should be kicked out if they throw things on the field. At an American sporting event there is a pretty low tolerance for fans acting too out of line. Spectators are kicked out of stadiums for throwing things on the field in the U.S. and I hope the players that threw bananas were thrown out of the stadium for doing that. Racism exists in both the U.S. in Europe, however in Europe it’s more publicized creating more of an outrage.

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My outlook on the earthquake in Haiti is agrees most with Lauren Mulvey’s original post. Haitians aren’t necessarily suffering because the earthquakes were part of “God’s plan.” All the people that are looking to God for answers, guidance or support during this time don’t have to adhere to the ideology that their entire lives play out according to “God’s plan” or that any disaster is “God’s will.”
One can call themselves religious and believe that God creates instances of extreme devastation and tragedy so that in contrast, cases of love and compassion can feel more real and genuine. If life was easy and there was no hardship or sadness, happiness wouldn’t feel the way it does to us now. For every emotion there’s an opposite feeling that strengthens how intensely we experience events in our lives. Acknowledging the devastation in Haiti has made many people feel immensely sorry for the victims, but also realize how much they have in their lives to be grateful for.
I also agree with Mulvey’s original post in that the earthquake in Haiti could be compared to Christ’s crucifixion because it has encouraged people to examine themselves on a deeper level. Suddenly the “bad economy” that is occurring in the rest of the western world feels unimportant. A lost retirement fund may be devastating to a working person in the U.S., but matters like that seem trivial now. Haitians lost the few possessions they had. They’re struggling to find the absolute most basic necessities needed for human survival: food and shelter. The amount of people killed by the earthquake is unknown but it is feared to be as high as 100,000. This extreme and unimaginable devastation has not only caused many people to examine their lives and what they have, but it has also set off a relief effort on a massive scale.
To further illustrate my earlier point that God may create tragedy to make experiencing opposite emotions that much more genuine, the relief efforts to help the people of Haiti has shown all that is good with the world. In a day and age when people have every reason to be cynical about how our society behaves, it’s nice to see examples of compassion every day following the earthquake. No one’s energy is used blaming government agencies for an inadequate response. Instead, people are channeling all their energy into focusing on those who truly need our help. Telethons are being held on television, the super wealthy of the U.S. are making astronomical donations, everyday people are giving what they can and doctors are flying to the island to give medical attention to victims. All this help is being sent to a country that was already considered one of the poorest countries in the Western hemisphere even before the earthquake hit it. People can blame the earthquake on God, but they should consider all the good that this tragedy has evoked from people that otherwise wouldn’t give a second thought to the Haitian people.