VIDEO PROOF OF WHITE POLICE OFFICER BEATING BLACK TEEN. ALL WHITE JURY DECLARES OFFICER INNOCENT.

About 1 minute into the video below shows a black teen face down on the ground getting beaten by white police officers.

The fact that the teen, 15 year old Chad Holley, is laying defenseless on the ground with his hands behind his head surrendering shows he is of no threat to the officers leaving their actions to be violent hate crimes. If they weren't deliberately beating him for his race, but because he was running from them for burglary just minutes earlier, still leave their conduct inappropriate and unnecessary. What led to their actions was none other than a society still poisoned with racism, no matter how subconscious that may be. Holley was beaten by at laest five officers while he lay there defenseless with no intention to fight back.

Andrew Blomberg was the first to reach Holley and in the video is seen kicking and stomping on his head and neck. Despite the video and expert testimony that "Blomberg’s actions were ‘objectively unreasonable’ and were ‘contrary to any legitimate police action,’” an all-white, six member jury acquitted Blomberg on Wednesday (Brown 2012).

The Jury that claimed the prosectuion failed to show evidence that Blomberg acted unreasonably really shows that to some people the life of a black man means nothing. This is not ok. The law needs to change to be more specific in what a police officer can and cannot do and when there is video proof of officers violating those terms they are to be punished. Those who enforce the law cannot be above the law. Also in an interracial case, the fact that there was an all white jury shows another flaw and injustice that ironically exsits within our "justice" system. This should never be the case.

Three other officers are still to be tried for their part in the incident. Drew Ryser is charged with official oppression and Phillip Bryan and Raad Hassan are both charged with official oppression and violating the civil rights of a prisoner (Brown 2012).

My interpretations of the incident were based on facts presented by an article written by Alex Brown on May 18th posted on thinkprogress.org.

THE GOP THINK IT SHOULD BE LEGAL TO FIRE SOMEONE FOR BEING GAY

-"If only gay people didn't exist."

Yes, this is true. Rep. James Lankford of Oklahoma believes its morally right to fire someone for being gay. According to Lankford, it's ok to discriminate against someone as long as they have a different viewpoint or makes different choices than him. To Lankford, freedom is all about him being able to have his own opinions and making everyone else live by his way of life. He thinks being gay is a choice. First of all, it's not. "Being gay is actually not a choice, according to the American Medical Association, the American Association of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, and all other accredited medical organizations" (thinkprogress.org). Second of all, even if it was, the American definition of freedom is for people to be entitled to their own practices as long as they do not cause harm upon anything or anyone else. Come on America, a law stating its ok to fire someone for their sexual orientation is only going to lead to more harsher forms of discrimination. It's just not right. With elections coming up, I hope everyone reading this post will focus on these human rights issues when supporting politicians.

WAR by Sebastian Junger Part V

Junger hits on yet another part of a soldier's life and how powerful it is to leave a man cheering at someone else's death.
He recalls an event, "The Scouts were watching a guy crawl around on the mountainside without a leg. They watched until he stopped moving... Everyone at Restrepo cheered. I couldn't stop thinking about the cheer; in some ways it was more troubling than all the killing. Stripped of all politics, the fact of the matter was that the man had died alone on the mountainside trying to find his leg. At one point or another every man in the platoon had been pinned down long enough to think they were going to die. I got the necessity for it (the killing), but I didn't get the joy."
So what does cause the joy? It's not simple enough for Junger to answer, and I definitely could not give you one answer. One soldier, Steiner, tries to explain it, "Fighting another human being is not as hard as you think when they're trying to kill you. People think we were cheering because we just shot someone, but we were cheering because we just stopped someone from killing us. That person will no longer shoot at us anymore. That's where the fiesta come in."
After hearing this, there seems to be a moral justification for the soldier's mindset. Even if you think its disgusting it's not their fault. War had made them this way. I want to go back to the American soldier who killed 16 Afghan civilians. How did that happen? Well it starts with situations like this, men learn to cheer at death because it really means they have saved themselves. But after months, or even years, classical conditioning kicks in and soldiers are conditioned to feel joy when someone dies. Killing becomes so normal you stop thinking about the reasons behind it. Soldiers start getting a good feeling when they kill someone, or see someone be killed, and that is what becomes addicting. Then America gets all fed up about an American shooting at civilians. Well you put him there to kill, you trained him to kill, don't act all surprised when goes overboard on the killing or on who to kill. Killing becomes conditioned into his head and it no longer matters who he is killing once that psychological change has already occurred.
One other thing in the passage struck me. Junger briefly hits on the idea that "Every man in the platoon had been pinned down long enough to think they were going to die."
Above I spoke on why I understood the cheer the soldiers felt at the deaths of others, this idea contradicts it. One would also think that since they all know what its like to be afraid for your life, they would have much more of a gratitude towards not just their own lives, but the lives of others. They would sympathise with the dead enemy's pain more because they have experienced much of what he has. Junger doesn't linger on this thought much, and I can't tell you why this isn't the case. If I had to try, I would say it comes down to the basis of human morality against survival. Morals will bend when one's life is on the line. One will do whatever it takes to survive, not matter how cruel it might seem. Even though they know what its like to be scared for your life, that might only make them cheer more at the enemy's death because it is one more relief for their own lives.

The Drinking Contradiction

In class we've been talking about the drinking problem mostly among college students. That's right, parents pay thousands of dollars to send their kids off to party. We discussed how when you're drunk your brain is less capable, if at all, of making responsible decisions and therefore people enjoy getting drunk because they can do whatever they want without baring any responsibility for the consequences of their behavior. In today's society, students who drink in order to get drunk and not have to act responsibly, ironically are being incredibly irresponsible. It's one thing if you're out to dinner and accidentally have a few too many drinks. But, if you are purposely drinking not to have responsibility you are choosing to put yourself in a situation where you don't have to be liable for anything and that in itself is the most irresponsible thing a person can do. Their actions to get drunk contradict their reasons for wanting to be drunk. If your goal is ultimately to not have to be responsible, then whatever you do while under the influence you are most responsible for because you didn't accidentally get in that situation, you purposely did.

WAR by Sebastian Junger Part IV

Two more things soldiers uniquely expierience is a new sense of teamwork and with that, pressure.
Junger writes, "Errors were so catastrophic that every soldier had a kind of de facto authority to reprimand others...because combat can hinge on the most absurd details, there was virtually nothing in a soldier's daily routine that fell outside the group's purview. Whether you tied your shoes or cleaned your weapon or drank enough water or secured your night vision gear were all matters of public concern. If something happened the guy with the loose laces couldn't be counted on to keep his feet at a crucial moment. It was the other man's life he was risking, not just his own. There was no such thing as perosnal safety out there."
This shows the extreme form of teamwork and selflessness soldiers have. Soldiers learn to do things not for personal interest, but for the good of their squad. It's one of the many admirable qualities soldiers have. To the soldiers though, it's not about the morality of it. They often aquire these characteristics through the pressure of being a soldier in a combat unit.
Junger goes on to write, "The attention to detail at a base like Restrepo forced a kind of clarity on absolutely everything a soldier did until I came to think of it as a kind of Zen practice: the Zen of not fucking up. It required a high mindfullness because potentially everything has consequences."
At war, soldiers understand that when everything happens suddenly, there is no room for any margin of error. They need to be ready at all times because the last thing any soldier wants is blood on their hands. This type of pressure, that at any moment a firefight can break out and it's his duty to protect his squad, is what leads to the ongoing selfless mentality and teamwork. The metality of making sure one doens't mess up because it can literally kill others in his squad.
In Second Platoon, Junger takes note on a special sort of punishment that reinforces the importance of teamwork.
He writes, "The way to ensure no one fucked up was to inflict collective punishment on the entire squad, because that meant everybody would be watching everybody else." Junger then asks how the guys react to this form of punishment. The response, "There are no hard feelings after everyone gets smoked... they're more pissed that they all let each other down."
This punishment brings together the two quotes from above. It incorporates both the teamwork aspect and the pressure aspect. The punishment increases that feeling of pressure by showing the whole team is literally punished when one person messes up. Just like on the battlefield those can be punished by death from the actions of the fellow soldiers. On the contrary, one also has the power to save others through this level of teamwork that really has been implanted in these soldiers. The fact that they hold no hard feelings shows what great character exists within this squad, and probably many others too.

GLENN GROTHMAN, NEWEST SOLDIER IN THE WAR AGAINST WOMEN

As the GOP continues to limit the rights of women, The Colbert Report's April 10th broadcast shared this quote from a Wisconsin state senator, "Take a hypothetical husband and a wife who are both lawyers... the woman takes time off, raises kids, is not go go go... the husband is making two hundread grand a year, the woman is making 40 grand a year. It wasn't discrimination. There was a different sense of urgency in each person... you could argue that money is more important for men." -Senator Glenn Grothman, April 7, 2012.



Glenn Grothman speaking in March 2012 where he shares his
thoughts on why single parenthood is child abuse.



His quote seems to contradict himself. He seems to be making a point that in this hypothetical situation is not discrimination because the woman is working less than the man. However, if "money is more important for men" then he would not need to use his hypothetical situation because it would be true in all cases. So according to him, women are always the stay at home moms who always work less than their male spouses. But don't worry, cuz it's not discrimination. Oh wait, that kind of generilization that women do not work as hard as men actually is discrimination.

Don't listen to me though, Glenn Gorthman, a male, seems to think he knows women best. Especially the part about how women don't really care about money. And as a man, he knows how important money is for men. "They need it to get the ladies, appareantly they don't have any" (Stephen Colbert 2012).

FLORIDA GUN OWNERS HAVE MORE SHOOTING RIGHTS THAN OUR SOLDIERS AT WAR

The Trayvon Martin case has engulfed the nation and brought to attention not only gun ownership laws, but "use of force" laws too. The Stand Your Ground law, a law only a state like Florida would have, allows George Zimmerman to get away with murder because he was protecting himself from what he believed to be a threatening situation. He saw a black kid holding skittles with his hood up walking through his neighborhood and shot the kid, because he fit the stereotype of previous burglars in the area. According to this Think Progress article, the U.S. law, Rules of Engagement, allows soldiers to protect themselves from threats, without abusing their weapons or force. Soldiers have to approach a threat in the following order:

3.G.(1)(A) (U) Shout verbal warnings to halt;
3.G.(1)(B) (U) Show your weapon and demonstrate intent to use it;
3.G.(1)(C) (U) Physically restrain, block access, or detain;
3.G.(1)(D) (U) Fire a warning shot (if authorized);
3.G.(1)(E) (U) Shoot to eliminate the threat.

(thinkprogress.org)

These steps in removing a threat seem more logical because they make killing somebody an absolute last resort by providing four previous steps to deter the threat. Trayvon Martin was shot, his life taken from in a matter of seconds, when he was unarmed, on public property, and without the oppurtunity to beg for his life. The law that allows this needs to be abolished. The Stand Your Ground law is a law that is up for interpretation depending on the case. In a society where racism still exists, a law that allows one to interpret what murder is in unjust and unconstitutional because it allows people to tear away at the fourteenth ammendment that states, "nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

WAR by Sebastian Junger Part III

"Combat was a game the United States asked Second Platoon to become very good at... Society can give its young men almost any job... They'll suffer for it and die for it, but in the end, it will get done. Soldiers themselves are reluctant to evaluate the costs or war (for some reason, the closer you are to combat the less inclined you are to question it), but someone must. That evaluation, unadulterated by politics, may be the one thing a country owes its soldiers. One American soldier has died for every hundred yards of forward progress in the valley, but what about the survivors? Is that territory worth the psychological cost of learning to cheer at one's death? As for a sense of purpose, combat is it... Almost none of the things that make life feel worth living back home are present at Restrepo, so the entire range of a young man's self worth has to be found within a firefight. The men dream about it.... some of the men worry they'll never be satisfied with a 'normal life' -whatever that is- after the amount of combat they've been in."
Right after this passage O'Byrne goes on to admit "I like the firefights... I know, saddest thing in the world."
What makes men enjoy firefights? Well like the passage states, its the only thing that really ever happens to soldiers once their out there. Their actions in a firefight give them a sense of self worth they might other wise lose.
This passage contains an interesting idea, what I believe to be a main point of the entire book. The fact that the closer the soldier are to fighting in the war, the less they think about the political parts of the war. To them, every firefight is a struggle for survival and chance to prove one's worth. When your life is on the line, things like political goals seem way less important. In fact, this is probably why soldiers don't even think about those at all. Outside the war it's easy to have a political view on what you want to achieve. However, the soldiers are surrounded by the consequences and therefore all the political views come into question. The firefights become a game for them, and if they survive and kill the enemy they win. Then, when they consider all the American blood around them, no matter how much enemy blood there is, it starts to feel like a loss. That's how Junger portrays the soldiers thoughts. To them it comes down to life, death, and character. To everyone back home, it's about land and driving the enemy out. The sacrifices made to achieve this are intangible to them and therefore they are worth it. Besides for all the death, the surviving soldiers also have to way out the benefits or war with the costs of their psychological well being. As stated in the passage, "they'll never be satisfied with a 'normal life'," shows how many of the soldiers have ruined their chances at living a normal life back home.


"Once that first bullet goes past your head, politics and all that shit just goes right out the window."
~Black Hawk Down (2001)

WAR by Sebastian Junger Part II

Farthering my thoughts on what being in a war does to someone, I came to learn about how soldiers cope with the ongoing precense of death, loss, injury, and pain. Junger asks O'Byrne, a solider stationed in the KOP, to describe his war mentality after his first few months.

"Numb," he said. "Wasn't scared, wasn't happy, just fucking numb. Kept to myself, did what I had to do. It was a very werird, detached feeling those first few months."

"You weren't scared of dying?"

"No, I was too numb. I never let my brain go there. There were these boundaries in my brain, and I just never let myself go to that spot."

It is hard to get close to someone in war when the probability of losing that person is so high. If you love someone, their loss pains you. If you detach yourself from feeling anything towards someone, it is then much easier to cope with their death. In fact, you probably don't have to cope at all. In war, when death is so normal, soldiers can either constantly grieve over the recurring losses, try and push those feelings away, or just separate themselves from it all. The easiest way to separate themseleves from it is by doing what O'Byrne talked about. Becoming numb. Denying yourself from having any feelings at all is a kind of preventative coping method soldiers like him use.
When you take all of that into consideration, the actions of the U.S. soldier in Afghanistan who killed 16 civilians becomes understandable. Not excusable or justifiable, but understandable. Combining the adrenaline from the firefights with the absence of being able to feel for other people, that soldiers actions seem a little less surprising. I mean as a soldier, America sends him over there to kill. Not only is that his job, but it's all he can do to feel any sort of masculine power or pleasure over there where there's no women or even any sort of recreational activity. Uberfacts tweeted "Shooting a gun causes the same chemical reaction in the brain as a passionate kiss." Shooting a gun becomes more than a job to many soldiers, but addictive in the sense that it makes them feel good while living pretty bad conditions. It's important to look at not just what people do, no matter how horrible, but why they do it. If we can understand what causes it then we can stop these problems. Unfortunately today's world requires young men to make these kinds of sacrifices, become soldiers, and accept the side effects of everything that comes with it. That's why it is important to know who you are and have a strong sense of self before putting yourself in these moral bending situations. Also it's important not to judge those who do even what seems as pure evil, because there's always an explanation. I believe Junger does the American soldiers justice in his novel by showing Americans back home the side of war they don't usually see.

WAR by Sebastian Junger PART I

War is a non-fiction book about one journalist, Sebastian Junger, telling his story of when he followed a platoon based in a remote outpost in Afghanistan. His goal: to show what war is. Not what it is to those back home, but what it is to those fighting in it.
He follows Second Platoon, part of Battle Company, who arrived in Afghanistan late May of 2007. Thier base was called the Korengal Outpost, because it was in the Korengal Valley. Known as the KOP, it was thought to be one of the most dangerous outposts in all of Afghanistan. That's not the only thing that set this platoon apart. Its dangers didn't only come from the Taliban, but also from games within the platoon.
Junger writes, "In Second Platoon you got beat on your birthday...before you left....when you came back. The only way to leave Second Platoon without a beating was to get shot. No other platoons did this; the men called it 'blood in, blood out'... the violence took many forms and could break out at almost any time. After one particurlarly quiet week- no firefights, in other words- the tension got so unbearble that First Squad finally went after Weapons Squad with rocks. Men wound up bleeding and heated after these contests but never angry; the fights were a product of boredom."
I believer Junger shares this story to show what happens with the mixed effects of war and boredom. At war, soldiers spend all their time anticipating a firefight, or being in a firefight. Either way, they are constantly living under an adrenaline rush. The soldiers of Second Platoon, being stuck at an outpost in the middle of nowhere in a foreign country, on top of them living under this constant adrenaline rush, release the tension build up with violence. I mean, they're in war. Violence is their job. Without anything else to do, it makes sense they would use it recreationally as well.

GERSON INSTITUTE

Their motto: Everyone has the power and tools to heal themselves, they just need to know how.
Recently, I was in San Diego, CA and had the incredible oppurtunity to volunteer at the office of the Gerson Institute. The Gerson Institute is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing education and training in the Gerson Therapy, an alternative, non-toxic treatment for cancer and other chronic degenerative diseases. The Gerson Therapy is a natural treatment that activates the body’s extraordinary ability to heal itself through an entirely raw diet.
At Gerson, I spent an entire morning preparing lunch. Every hour or so I would get handed a fresh juice. It was a great experiance all around. One specific moment, however, I will remember forever. In the kitchen I was joined by this woman who brought all this positive energy into the kitchen by energetically singing along to the soulful music playing on the radio. At the end of my time in the kitchen Eric, my mentor, asked me how old I thought she was. I guessed about 40 years old. She was 67 and has had cancer for six years. She has not used any sort of chemotherapy or western medication, but does the Gerson Therapy. The cancer has not spread and she is a healthy woman with tons of energy. I knew eating raw will make someone look younger, but I was amazed by its effects on this woman with cancer. I eat extremely healthy and I try and eat mostly raw, but this moment reminded me the power food alone has on someone and has driven me to want to become as close to 100 percent raw as possible.

My message to everyone else out there is that while everyone wants to be younger, thinner, as well as the best academically and athletically, what you eat alone can affect all of that. Logically it makes sense what goes into the body will directly affect how it functions. If absolutely no poison, artificial chemicals, pesticides, carcinogens, or anything else unhealthy enters the body, and an immense amount of nutrients is put into the body, one has to wonder what positive effects this can have on the body’s ability to function. Many environmentalists also admit it is better for the environment as well.
As far as all of the health problem in today's society brought on by bad eating habits, the reverse of that should be good eating habits. Not medicine. The medicine that drug companies provide to solve some of these problems come with hazardous and sometimes life threatening side effects. There has to be a natural way to get rid of illness without bringing on another one. The drug company corporations care more about making money than the common good of the people. They have successfully lobbied congress to make the use of food as medicine illegal in America. That is why researching this topic and proving eating healthy alone can make a difference is essential to the progress of human health. The Gerson Insitute is working to change this, and unfortunately they have to practice in Mexico and Hungry because their work is illegal in the United States. This is wrong in itself.

AFGHANS STILL FURIOUS ABOUT ACCIDENTAL QUR'AN BURNING

As of this post, six Americans have been killed in an Afghan response to what they see as the U.S. burning of their Islamic holy books. As soon as Afghans heard two copies of the Qur'an were burned by American soldiers, they broke out into crazy riots around U.S. bases. According to a March 1st article from CBS News, shooters include both Afghan men in army attire as well as one in civilian clothing ("Afghan Gunmen Kill 2 U.S. Troops", 2012). Of course if these protesters weren't so radically insane and took a second to understand and evaluate the situation, they might realize their reaction is absurd and only makes them look savage to the rest of the world. The U.S. did not burn the Qur'ans to make a political statement against the religion of Islam. The copies the U.S. had were being investigated for having hidden notes in it by terrorist groups. The U.S. has issued many apologies and only got rid of the Qur'ans to prevent anyone from using any of the potentially dangerous notes inside those particular copies.
I'm not sure how these Afghans find a moral equivalent to accidentally burning a Qur'an for security's sake, with killing real people. If they hate the American soldiers so much our soldiers can leave and tell the Taliban to come back and oppress the Afghans again. The most ironic part is that in their Qur'an, the holy book they are making this whole big deal about, it states it is against Islamic law to kill innocent people.

I understand these actions are those of some extremists and this post is not a view or stereotype of all Afghans, just the individual people (extremists) that have been rioting and shooting at the American soldiers.

THE END OF WHITE AMERICA?

According to this CBS news article by the year 2050 it is possible that whites may no longer be the overwhelming majority in America. The article gives statistics showing minorities made up 48 percent of American children born in 2008, compared to 37 percent born in 1990  (CBS News 2010). With this trend continuing it might continue to get higher before it caps. Now this article was back in 2010 and I'm not sure how the exact numbers look today, but it is interesting to think of an America where the minorities outnumber the majority. In this possible future, do you see our government positions still being occupied by an overwhelming ratio of white people? How about our top schools being mostly all white schools? Even if the white population isn't as predominant, will the white population continue to be the most dominant race in terms of social and economical class? Or will the minorities have a big enough population increase to finally give them the strength and opportunity to fight for their equal standards of living?
In a white yet 'unracist' America, incidents such as what happened at UC San Diego back in 2010 where a student hung a noose on campus, still exist. (For more information read this article). Now I understand these are college kids, and in the presence of their friends they may act in ways they normally wouldn't. Their morals might bend in order to be liked or seem cool. However, even though this kid was probably not racist and would probably be against the hanging of an actual black person, it doesn't excuse the act. Even without racist intentions the African American students, who make up only 1.6% of the undergraduates there, still feel the impact of discrimination. Through simple acts like these, they feel as if their race's suffering is still just a joke to white people. Maybe some day when White's are not in the comfort of being such an overwhelming majority they will start to think of consequences for their unintended racist actions. I think it will be good for America if the minorities were to become greater in population than the white majority. Not only will it embrace diversity within our culture, but maybe tear away at the core problems of racism in today's society as well.

WRONGFULLY CONVICTED MAN SHOWS SURPRISING OPTIMISM

What would be going through your head if your final hearing in court for a crime you know you did not commit sentenced you to 30 years in prison? I got the privilege of hearing Terrill Swift speak, an innocent man who served 17 years in prison for the the rape and murder of a woman. After the police lied to him to get him down to the station, they then went on to lie again to get him to sign a false confession. He thought he was signing his innocence. Throughout Swift's entire presentation I was surprised with his positive outlook on the rest of his life. Instead of hating on the police, or trash talking a system that caused him this injustice, he spoke excitingly of the fact this that this tragic life experience showed him what he wants to do with the rest of his life. Locked up at the young age of 17, Swift now speaks to the youth teaching them their rights and most importantly to read the fine print. It's inspiring how someone can take something bad and see the good out of it. Swift is the perfect hope of a peaceful and progressive society. Instead of seeking revenge, he is focused on what he can do to prevent it from happening again to other people. It's nice to know he is not just stating a problem with our justice system, but actually working to stop the problem. I admire his selfless character and determination to help others even though he has been dealt a pretty bad hand himself.

Not that money is important compared to the years of life those wrongfully convicted victims have lost. No, that's priceless. But here are some interesting statistics to look at anyways. Wrongful convictions have cost Illinois taxpayers $214 Million in the past 35 years.

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION IN COLLEGE ADMISSIONS

Within the term "affirmative action" lies the word 'action'. Action is not passive. To take action means actually doing something to make a change rather than doing nothing and waiting for a change to happen. In terms of making colleges more diverse, affirmative action means they cannot just keep admitting people based on the typical GPA and test scores and hope it will enable a diverse campus. Race needs to be considered in the admissions process. Affirmative action needs to be interpreted as colleges taking action to make sure there are admitted students of all races. Colleges bending their standards to let in a wide variety of races is what is needed because it is the most effective way for colleges to withhold diversity within their campus.

Going past the interpretation of the literal term "affirmative action", there are plenty of reasons why colleges need diversity within their students. In Tim Wise's White Like Me he talks about the inequities between whites and blacks. He says, "If you conclude that the problem is with the system, then you are compelled, as a fair-minded person, to do something about it" (p.64). He is saying it's fine if you think as a race they are culturally less inclined to excel in education, but then as a good person you should also want to change that. That's where affirmative action comes in. If blacks know that colleges want people of their race, then they might not feel hopeless when it comes to college. If they knew they weren't only being compared to the grades of all the other applicants some with better educations, but their race and background educations would also be considered in the process, then the cycle could stop. More black people could get into college, maybe less qualified then someone else with a better background, but now if they work hard they can build a quality life for themselves. Their children and the future of their race will now grow up with a better education and you will see the inequalities between the races go away. So that maybe in 20 years colleges will be able to exclude race from admissions and truly judge every applicant equally since the top students would now be from a variety of races: white, black, Hispanic, etc. This will only be the case if the cycle is broken, and as mentioned before affirmative action can be a solution.

I also want to clear up one more thing. I've heard people say, "What about those black colleges? They can have those but we can't be fine with our colleges being mostly white?" Maybe they're referring to Howard University or maybe they're referring to a different black college. Either way there's a difference between black colleges and the idea of white colleges. Mainly because there's one significant different between the two races. Whites are a majority and blacks are a minority. A majority race having an institution in society with bias is threatening to those minorities because in being a minority you automatically have less power than majorities just by population size alone. However a minority having an institution bias to the majority is no real threat to the majority because a minority of the population that is also a minority in government power cannot possibly ever be a threat to the majority.

White Privilege

Tim Wise's White Like Me raises questions about race in a different way than you might have seen before. He's not arguing the obvious fact that racism still exists towards colored people in today's society, but that white people inherit a certain privilege for being white. I have to say, he makes a good point. This problem has much to do with the past, but the past is not the reason it is carried on today. Despite slavery and the civil rights movement, the oppression towards blacks today is solely because of how we act today. Wise gives the example of teachers today who are "blaming poor performances by kids of color on their 'dysfunctional' families or presumably defective culture traits." This idea of accepting a black man's failure because its not his fault, but his race's, is not only a burden for black students, but a privilege for whites. White students, just because of their skin color, are often given second chances because society tends to knows of the value white people contribute to society everyday. Skin color is one thing people can and do always notice about someone. Black men do not have the privilege of being society's norm when it comes to skin color, forcing them to tolerate people's unconscious stereotypes in their everyday lives. Looking to the past, to slavery, to the Jim Crow laws, and to the rest of our countries mistakes is important in understanding racism today. However, in order to fix it, people need to stop looking for excuses from the past and start looking towards their actions today. It might take a few years, or even 20, but if people started treating everyone as individuals and not as a race these problems can go away. The burden people of color face can be lifted, but it's going to take shifts in the media and in various parts of public policy. There is a privilege white people have, and with that comes the power to change the face of racism in our country. Now as white people, we just have to admit it and then choose to do something about it.

$75 FIRE FIGHTER FEE... IS THIS AMERICAN?

In America the government is supposed to be for the people. This explains the immense amount of taxes Americans already pay to their government, which is justified because the government uses that money to provide for the people. This is why I was disgusted to learn about an incident that has been happening in Tennessee. Fire Fighters standing by with the homeowners watching the house and all of their possessions burn to the ground all because the family did not pay the $75 fire fighter fee for their county. (I guess property taxes don't count.) "In a recent incident, the owners begged to make an exception, saying they were ready to pay whatever it took to put out the blaze. But they were told it was too late." (RT NEWS, 2012).
If you go on to read the rest of this article you will see that in California police and firemen watched as a man drowned and did nothing because he didn't have the right certificates for proper water rescue.
A few days after I learned about the Tennessee incident I was watching It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. When Dee was hospitalized for a heart attack, she was kicked out because she did not have health insurance. Dennis (her brother) did not know you had to pay for hospitals. He said "you don't pay firefighters to save your life, why should you have to pay for hospitals?" He had a good point, when it comes to saving a life, it shouldn't even be a question. Now I can go on to make an argument for universal health care, but I'm going to go back to my original focus. The way our society is going, Dennis is almost wrong when he says "you don't pay firefighters to save your life." The United States is straying more and more from it's original beliefs of human equality and on a government by and for the people. This problem raises awareness to the fact that our society values $75 dollars over a human life or doing the right thing. We are caught up in lawyers, lawsuits, and all these ways to get away with things all so we can have more money. The tragedy is that in doing so we give up our once most cherished morals and values.

If I Were A Poor Black Kid

I agree with the ideas expressed in this article. However, I also think it is easier said than done, and as hard as a middle aged white man tries to put himself in a poor Black kid's situation, he can never really understand what they go through. I agree with the fact that Black kids should try their best to access resources and take responsibility for making a better future for themselves. Like the article stated, even though it is way harder, the opportunity still exists. To add my own thoughts on the subject, I do not blame those kids who do not go above and beyond to give themselves a better life. It is easy to blame them for all of their failures because then we don't have to feel bad, but it is not a coincidence that particularly kids in poor black neighborhoods do not do as well academically as kids in nicer white neighborhoods. One of my classmates talked about how although there is a problem in some of the lower income school districts, it is not a matter of race. Well then I want to ask her why all the top schools in the country are white, and the worst schools are black? In Chicago, you've got white New Trier standing at the top, and the mostly Black neighborhood of North Lawndale school at the bottom. Same in New Jersey, you've got mostly white Princeton area school at the top, and all black Camden school at the bottom. New York City has Jericho at the top, and schools in black inner city  neighborhoods at the bottom. The list goes on and on and its astonishing how schools just miles apart seem like completely different worlds to the kids attending them. One things for sure, there's no way the kids attending the bad schools like their situation and there's got to be something contributing to this savage cycle. Start with segregation. These kids are not dumb, and can understand some of the obvious things around them. They have black skin, the kids in the next town have white skin, the white skinned kids want nothing to do with them, and their schools are exponentially better. These facts leave many Black kids feeling not only that white people are naturally better than them, but that by neglecting education from their lives they also think whites do not place any real value on them or think they can contribute to society in important ways, other than working the jobs that the White people don't want. Because after all, if the poor black kids got a better education they might take our white jobs someday. So not it is understood why a normal response from a black kids is, 'why try if no one wants me to succeed anyways?' For those of us who do want them to succeed, we can't blame them for thinking we don't when we don't do anything to show that.
So how do you fix the problem? While the article suggests ignorance within the poor black communities is the real problem, I have to disagree. Instead of trying to somehow convince every kid to walk long distances through bad neighborhoods to go to a Library where they can then teach themselves how to read, and to fill out numerous applications after applications in hopes of being able to get a donated used laptop, why don't we try and find easier ways to motivate these kids to do well in school. Maybe giving them teachers that express interest in their studies, textbooks in their classrooms, computers in their libraries, lab equipment in their science "labs", and offer classes that can prepare them better for college, then maybe they will start trying harder in school. Maybe if there were enough desks in the classrooms for every kid, every kid would show up. Maybe if they knew the odds of them getting into college weren't so slim, they would try harder. Think about it, dogs only do tricks because they know there's a treat waiting for them when they finish. The schools we give these poor black kids are in no way college prep. Maybe if we gave them better schools, they would feel it easier to get into college and more kids would show up and do well. Again, it's easy to blame those who do not succeed, but when such a high number within one race and economic class fail, the problem goes beyond the individual and the system has take part of the blame. Instead of saying, "well your lives are not equal and therefore you should work extra hard", we can try and make their lives a little bit more equal.
The main problem isn't that these kids were born lazy, but that they were never given the means to compete well in our society. If they don't know how to succeed, you can't blame them for failing. We (the middle class) can help others by providing them with this information. How else to show kids how to use tools like google and Wikipedia then by providing them with computers and assignments that require the use of these sites. You know, like what they do at those good white kid schools. Although the article makes an obvious point equivalent to "if all the fat people learned to stop eating crappy food and start exercising there wouldn't be fat people", it does not mean every fat person has the will power to start doing that. I hope this post gave you a realization that a bigger change in the system is what it's going to take to provide motivation for all kids, rich and poor, black and white, to succeed. Give those at the bottom the same resources as the kids who succeed, and see how that works out. Before you say you don't think it will work, you can't know because we've never tried it. Every integration attempt to bus kids from bad schools to better schools in our country's past was stopped because of complaints from rich neighborhoods. They can say they aren't racist, but when it comes down to it they ultimately don't want the black kids going to school with their kids. If it's because it might make their kids class size a little bigger than I won't call them racist, I'll call them selfish and greedy. I would ask them, well what about the poor black kids? Do you want to help them? If they are indeed good people and say yes, I would then tell to help someone means donating something of your own.
Giving a little of something you can afford to give up to those who don't have enough of it to get by. This can be money, time, or maybe even your classroom.

Hidden Bias Test

After taking the online Hidden Bias Test, the results suggest I have a slight preference to White people compared to Black people. I was surprised with my results, I really thought I would not show any bias towards race. I think reasoning behind all the errors were that my finger got so used to clicking one key that eventually when a word appeared that belonged to the other side I was automatically still clicking the key for the other side without thinking about the word or picture that appeared. I guess though there could have been some unconscious associations in my brain that connect negative words with the Black race because of stereotypes and jokes in my mostly white environment. Also the unfamiliarity with the Black race could cause some of my bias.
"Studies show people can be consciously committed to egalitarianism, and deliberately work to behave without prejudice, yet still possess hidden negative prejudices or stereotypes" (Teaching Tolerance).
This suggests reasons on why I was surprised my test showed a slight preference for White people. Although I am not racist in conscious decisions and judgements I make in my everyday life, it is still possible I have an unconscious bias mostly as a result of my environment.

Jon Stewart Investigates FOXCONN

FIRST WATCH THIS VIDEO

We've all heard about the harsh labor conditions for the workers overseas in countries like China. Our distance from the issue however leave us to just frown upon it instead of really caring or doing anything about it. The biggest thing I got from this video is that it would only be about 20% more expensive to manufacture here. I know it may seem like a lot, but a $200 iPhone would now cost $240 dollars. $40 dollars is a lot of money, but not when you are spending $200 to begin with. Then to think about how it might boost our economy, would mean it would probably come full circle and help you as an individual working in America in the long run. However in a world where it's all about the money, I don't see this changing anytime soon. So how about only buying things made in the USA? Boycotting is usually only effective if enough people do it, and in American society I also don't see this happening. Although the politicians in the beginning of the video may have made some uneducated statements, they are on the right track. The most effective way to get through to corporations is buy giving them what they love the most, money. Passing legislation to discourage outsourcing and giving them an incentive to manufacture in America under our labor laws, is perhaps a start to solving this human rights violation and even fixing our economy.

OBAMA SIGNS NEW LAW ON TELEVISION COMMERCIAL VOLUME

Finally, legislation passes a law that the common people will benefit from. How annoying is it whenever a commercial comes on and you have to mute the television because for some reason commercials are always way louder than the television program you're watching? Most of what we watch today might be recorded where we have the luxury of fast forwarding through the commercials, but the times when you have to watch the commercials is when you need it lowered the most anyways. When you're sitting around the television with your family watching the big game, commercials are the actual quality time where you talk to one another. With them being so loud it gets annoying. Well now, thanks to legislation, your daily lives have been improved. Obama signed the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation act on December 15, 2011. The act restricts the volume of commercials to be no louder than that of the program. Was this the most important thing that needed to be done? No, but it was a simple example of legislation seeing something in society that can be improved upon, and making a law improving it. To add on to the good news, this law happened just in time for all the annoying political candidate commercials that are to come with the new election year.  I am very excited about this law and it will definitely benefit the majority of us who probably watch a little too much television.