I too have been a beneficiary of nepotism. My current internship is because my mom knew someone. I hear it more often than anything else, “its not what you know, its who you know.” Now, I have been on the good end of nepotism. I couldn’t imagine how frustrating it is to be on the other end. To be more qualified than someone for a job – one that a worked extremely hard for – and someone else less qualified got it over me because the parents knew someone. I am sure it is very demoralizing and it is a major flaw in the way our society works.

This was a very interesting lecture. I was wondering when we were going to get to affirmative action. I have always between skeptical about affirmative action. I have always seen it as a very hypocritical concept. If you think about it in a fundamental sense, it is hypocritical. The idea that two equal students applying for the same spot at a university depend on the universities need to meet a certain minority quota is in itself discrimination. Nonetheless, I understand its purpose: to promote equal opportunity for minorities.
Dr. Richards definitely opened up a new perspective for me on affirmative action. I didn’t realize white woman were considered a minority and, further, a benefit of affirmative action. In light of this, the statistics that he presents provide a shocking realization. White woman are the greatest beneficiaries of affirmative action. So these women go to college, get good jobs, and typically marry white men. Dr. Richards directly connects these benefits for white woman with white men. Therefore, it infers the affirmative action has done more for white people than it has for people of color. This blows my mind. Furthermore, most affirmative action beneficiaries are from the middle class. From this alone, I see affirmative action as a failed attempt to promote equal opportunity for minorities.
When it comes to equal opportunity, the most important factor is education. Today, our education system is failing. The Oprah clip of students from an inner city school and a suburban school switching schools for the day highlights this issue. The quality of our educational systems is drastically different between urban and suburban public schools. People that attend public urban schools are already predisposed to less opportunity because inner city public schools have less funding, less resources and thus worse schools, supplies, and teachers. I went to a public school in Lower Merion Township – a very wealthy township outside Philadelphia. We had an incredible amount of stuff. Not only did we have computer labs, each student was given their own laptop to use for their school work. Graduating high school was a given. College was a given. This is not the situation for most public inner-city schools. The graduation rate is significantly lower. The disparity of resources between urban and suburban inner city schools is the main reason for these differences.
I have thought long and hard about this situation. How do you solve this disparity? Well, people in rich areas pay more taxes that go to their school systems. In the city, there are more people (and thus more taxes) but also more schools. In additional, suburban schools receive less federal money while city schools are granted more. But still, all this money is distributed over many more schools. How do we solve this? How do arrange it so that all public schools are given an equal amount of resources?

People, like myself, do seem to forget about the history of the United States. We are a country of immigrants. It has been this way since day one. At one point or another, our ancestors migrated here for the same reasons that people continue to migrate here. Where as one hundred years ago most immigrants were from Europe, today most immigrants are from Mexico or Asia. I agree with you, people come to this country to chase the American dream. They want a better life for their families. I also thought it was very interesting to see the figures on how second and third generation immigrants learn English.

I have always been hard line anti-immigration. My reason for this is because I saw immigration as something that takes jobs away from Americans. Further, I believed that immigrants (both legal and illegal) cost the United States government billions of dollars each year. I understand that people came to America to give themselves a chance for a better life for themselves and their kids. I also understand that there are jobs in the United States that Americans won’t do. For example, many won’t work on farms or in restaurant kitchens. This is mostly due to the fact that it is hard work for little pay. I actually recently read an article about our Mexicans run the restaurant industry in America. If I was in there position, I would do the same thing. But from where I stand now (as an American facing graduation and a staggering unemployment rate and a national debt crisis), I see immigration as a problem.
As you can see, the extent of my view on immigration is not well founded. I did not realize how dependent business was on our immigration policies. I thought it was very interesting how Dr. Richards asked the class who was pro-free market economy (capitalism). He responded by saying that if you are, than you should be pro-immigration. If you are anti-immigration, than you should support a more socialist economic system. This connected some dots for me. Businesses look to increase profits and cut expenses. This is fundamental to conducting business. It makes sense for businesses to look for the cheapest labor available – and that is usually from immigrants who are just looking to make ends meet. This is also way businesses are out-sourcing labor (which is a whole different story). I felt that the example about pear farmers in California only reinforced this idea.
Part of me says that we should continue our free-market capitalist ways because it works. Another part of me says that we should maybe adopt some socialist principles to curb immigration and provide a better market for the common people in this country. The United States has one of the most (if not the most) drastic wealth gaps in this world and it keeps getting larger. Everyone has heard the phrase “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” This holds true in our society. Maybe it is time to adopt some sort of economic change to help spread wealth across the country to a greater percent of the population. This lecture aroused some serious dilemmas thought our country faces. It definitely changed how I view immigration and how it prospers in this country. The most shocking point uncovered in this lecture is without a doubt the connection between business and immigration policy.

I feel the same way about living and learning about other cultures but I have a problem. I am afraid of change. I am not scared of other races and cultures. I am simply satisfied with my culture and where I live. Since college, I have changed quite a bit. I have been forced to venture out of my comfort zone. I feel this has made me a better and more intelligent person. In fact, I am starting to learn Japanese. I hope to travel to Japan one day because I am fascinated with their culture and love sushi.

The beginning of the class lecture was very interesting. It was enlightening to see the percent of people who want to live in more diverse communities and people who want to live with many immigrants. These figures have multiple implications. It didn’t surprise me to see that a higher percent of democrats want to live in more diverse communities than republicans. We do have certain prejudices against members of political parties. For example, the idea that republicans are anti-immigration and democrats are more liberal in that respect. These prejudices seem to hold somewhat true here. It was further interesting to see the difference between high school graduates (46%) and college graduates (62%). What happens in college that makes people more comfortable living in diverse communities? I think the answer to this question is simply further education. College students further their understanding of the world by attending college. Classes such as the class we are currently taking open our eyes to what the world is really like and help us break down the false beliefs that were engrained into us from childhood. I believe college gets us to think for ourselves and base our beliefs off what we KNOW and our experiences. It is hard to say that people are around others of different races in college, especially after seeing figures on the distribution of race at Penn State University Park in a previous class. The figures on people who prefer to live in a community “made up mainly of people of their same racial ancestry” are even more interesting. For white people, 23% said they would prefer to. About 9% of black people and 21% of Hispanic people said they would prefer to as well. I am a little confused here and am not sure if I completely understand these figures. These figures tell me that a small population of white, black, and Hispanic people would prefer to live with and around people of similar racial ancestry. I would think otherwise. I thought people of all racial groups were uneasy about being surrounded by people of different racial groups? I remember this topic came up when we were talking about the diversity (or lack thereof) at Penn State. Penn State puts many minorities in Pennypacker hall because it is ultimately more comfortable for them to be around people of the same race. These two ideas seem contradictory (which is why I believe I may be misinterpreting the data from this part of the lecture). Nonetheless, I found this information to be very eye opening. These figures really surprised me, especially those about living in a community with immigrants and the hypocrisy that is present. I enjoyed this introduction to multiculturalism.

I remember seeing that video of that black vs. white doll questionnaire in high school. I remember being disturbed then. But I never really grasped the significance of that video until seeing it in this lecture. It is shocking. It is more shocking to take notice at how early these kids begin to think that black or brown skin is "disgusting." Kids to absorb everything which is the reason that these issues are an on-going cycle that begin at a very young age. I too never realized how easy culture and ideas could be put into kids minds.

In part 1 of this lecture, Dr. Richards asked the white members of the class to imagine discovering at a very young age that you are a part of the “them” culture. So I did. At first, I tried to think about it from a non-white perspective. I had trouble putting myself in those shoes. Nothing really came to me. Then I tried something a little different. I am white and I imagined being very young again. I imagined a world where whites were in the minority; where white people were associated with crime and violence, ugliness, and other terrible prejudices. I imagined my parents telling me that most people out there that don’t have white skin see us differently. At this young age, I came to the conclusion that white was ugly and disgusting. Now the emotions were fluttering in. A feeling of uneasiness, alienation, and fear swept over me. Why was I able to understand these feelings entering this hypothetical situation being white and not black or brown? Maybe it’s because I have some experience being in the racial minority. I experienced similar feelings when I visited China a few years back. I just thought this was interesting and I wanted to share this experience.
Moving on. One statistic that really shocked me was lack of diversity that makes up the undergraduate students at University Park. In 2008, 83.2% or 31,599 of all UP students were white. I never realized this. Of course I was aware that most students at UP were white. You would easily realize that just walking around campus. But 83.2% is a shocking statistic. Dr. Richards proceeds to ask if we think UP is too white or not white enough. My response would be that it definitely lacks diversity. But then he compares the proportion of race compared to the population of races in Pennsylvania. They are very similar proportions. From this perspective, I would say that PSU UP is relatively diverse. Would you agree? I remember when I applied to college. On my application I had to mark my race. I would be interested to see how many applications PSU gets from people of the various races and judge that number against the proportion of students based on race at UP.
I thought that Dr. Richards did a good job of answering the students question towards the end of lecture 1. He described in great detail and depth the reason PSU places more minorities in Pennypacker halls versus other dorms in East. It makes complete sense and it is out of the interest of the student. But if I was a minority placed in a minority dorm, I think that I would feel offended and maybe somewhat secluded or alienated. It’s an interesting situation. Does anyone think that there is a better way for PSU housing to overcome these issues?

This discussion of feeling guilt for past racism that we as individuals had nothing to do with I thought that this was the most interesting part of the lecture. I find myself acting the same way sometimes but I never really thought of it as being patronizing. I must say it was never my intention to be patronizing but I simply felt guilty and I guess it was my way of just saying sorry for my ancestors racist believes and that I just want you to know that I don’t hold those beliefs so here, let me get the door for you…

A playful game of ‘Dance Around the Swastika’? Are you kidding me? These young innocent blond haired, blue eyed white girls are dancing and singing songs about white supremacy that they are just kids. They are being exploited by white supremacist groups around the country to preach their beliefs. It’s a shame. Now, it’s hard to blame them for their beliefs because it is obviously a reflection of their parents’ beliefs and the way they were raised. But the clips from their interview just made me more and more angry. By the end, I wasn’t feeling as much anger towards the parents as I was towards the girls. These feelings of mine intrigued me. I didn’t really understand why I shifted from blaming the parents to the kids themselves. Maybe it was because I heard such crazy things coming from their mouths. The one girl stated that she didn’t believe there were even six million Jews during the onset of WWII. I just wanted to bang my head against the wall. Maybe I am just being ignorant, but don’t people question things? Don’t these girls read books and do research and consider sources that go beyond their parents and whoever is home-schooling them? It really does bother me that there are people out there that can hold such deep strong feelings of hate without really ever understanding why that hate exists in the first place. The girls hate black people just because they aren’t white? Really? Like I said, I am probably just being ignorant but this class has showed me a lot of video clips that have evoked such strong feelings of disgust. In addition to this video, the video about the ‘Christian Warriors’ was insane. These people are brainwashed and I feel sorry for them. At the same time, it is hard not to feel angry. People truly believe these crazy things and pass these beliefs on to their children. And the cycle keeps repeating itself. How do you go about stopping this cycle? I guess education, like the class we are taking now. I never considered myself a racist of any sort. Nonetheless, I am aware of people’s color and the common prejudice against certain races. For example, I get nervous when I am the only white person on the subway. I think that any minute, I could be mugged. But since taking this class, I have learned many things that I think that hinder my ability to overcome this way of political correctness that I adhere to so tentatively. It will be something that I think about and reflect upon throughout the course. If there is one thing I will take away from this class, it is that there are a lot of crazy people out there.