Affirmative Action

In this blog post, I'm going to be talking about affirmative action and if it should be used when doing college admissions. Affirmative action was put into place to help get rid of the discrimination that was present. All affirmative action is doing is creating even more discrimination. Discrimination is the act of favoring one group of people over another group. All affirmative action is is favoring a certain persons skin color when deciding if they should be accepted into a certain school. By using someones race to help decide if they should be admitted into a college is flat out racism. A person's race is not something that you have control over so it should be used in favor or against anyone. Not only is it racist, but it's not in the best interest of the schools. When a school is decided who to accept into their school, they look for the most qualified students. When using affirmativve action, it makes it easier for under qualified students to get accepted over students who are more qualified. After looking over all the different pro's and con's for affirmative action, the cons have outweighed the pro's. Overall, I think that affirmative action should be banned in all universities.

"White Like Me"

        After reading the chapter "Denial", I agreed with what Wise was saying. One big part that he talked about was about the denial regarding the privileges of white people. They're main reasoning behind this is the classic quote, "What about Oprah?". I agree with the author when he says that that is a ridiculous reason to prove that there isn't any white privilege in this world. There are obviously going to be some black people that "make it" but looking at a few individual success stories isn't going to give you a good or realistic picture of the larger social realities. Another interesting point he brought up was when he talked about the problems a "no whites" policy in hospital rooms would occur and the not so many problems a "no blacks" policy would have. He goes on to discuss the imbalance of whites and blacks in the medical profession and how whites have received more opportunities that are needed for the profession. He tells a story of a white man who went around to different hospitals trying to get a place where they would let it be a black free operating room. I was very shocked that he found a place that would do this. If it was the other way around, I feel like it would have been a completely different story all together.

Hidden Bias

Last week in class we took a test to see if we had any hidden bias towards blacks. It said that I had a slight preference towards whites. I wasn't that shocked by the results from the test. I'm not a racist person but I understand that its not that out of the ordinary to have a slight preference towards your race. Most people feel more comfortable around people that are like them. I also didn't really think that the test could be that accurate. I mean all you had to do in the test was say if a person was black or white and if the words were good and bad. I don't know how this could be a good indicator to find out if you have any bias towards a certain race. I know I messed up a bunch of times but that was mostly due to the fact that I was trying to go as fast as I could and not because I feel a certain way towards black people. Overall, I guess the test was pretty accurate with its results of me but I feel that they could have came to that conclusion after I checked off that I was white.

Death Penalty Final Response

         I would have to support Governor Ryan's decision to take everyone off of death row. I believe that he did the right thing by abolishing the death penalty in Illinois as well. We've heard many stories from victims families who didn't feel any better after the murderer was killed and to me that is a very powerful reason. Another big reason why I don't believe in the death penalty is because of the chance that the person could be innocent. This is showed by Governor Ryan in the very beginning of his speech. He mentions the many people who were wrongfully accused and forced to be on death row, one for over 17 years. Most of them were just young teens as well.
       When thinking about the death penalty, I always seem to go back to the old cliche "Two wrongs don't make a right". The death penalty in general seems very nonsensical to me. They are trying to punish people who are doing something wrong, so in order to punish them they commit the same crime that the other person did. This is a very hypocritical way of going about this. I also believe that killing the person doesn't benefit anyone at all. The person is going to spend the rest of his life in jail anyways so what is the purpose of taking another persons life.
          Overall, I completely agree and support Governor Ryan's decisions with the death penalty in Illinois. The death sentence is cruel and unusual punishment and shouldn't be legal anywhere in the United States of America.

Student Privacy in School

          In the case Board of Education vs. Earls, students were forced to consent with randoming drug testing if they were in any extracurricular activites. Two students and their families went against this, saying that it was in violation of their Fourth Amendment rights. The case was later brought up to the supreme court where it was ruled that students in extracurricular activies have a diminished expectation of privacy and the school was completely within their rights to administer the random drug testing. They also used the precedent from the Vernonia School District 47J v. Acton case. That case was very similar to the previous case in which the Supreme Court ruled with the school saying they were reasonable in light of the schools' interest in preventing teenage drug use.
           I disagree with the school and courts decision to allow random drug testing at the school. I find it a huge invasion of privacy to require students to give up their urine to the school administration. If students don't have any privacy rights in school then what do they have. If the school can take away this amendment right then what's stopping them from taking all their other rights away from them. I feel like when the school is given this power to take away their right to privacy, then it could lead to more restriction and the school will just get power hungry and take away all their rights.
          After reading the article about the drug sniffing dogs, I was even more against this whole scenario. Bringing drug sniffing dogs to the school is not only a huge disruption to the learning environment, but it could also bring up health issues with the students. Their could be multiple students with dog allergies so this could cause further complications. I feel as though the disruption this can cause to the school would be very bad. When the dogs are at the school, I would imagine that no one can focus and everyone's minds are just on the dogs and what they're doing at the school.

Speech Codes on Campus

When I opened up the slideshow I definately wasnt expected what I was about to see. I was in complete shock looking through the pictures. I couldnt understand how these students thought that it was OK to do the things they were doing. They not only made fun of African Americans in general, but they also poke fun at Omega Psi Phi which is Auburn's oldest African American Fraternity. This whole scenario would have been completely different if just a few students went to the party as certain African Americans, but they took it to a whole new level. The fact that they simulated lynching and wore Klu Klux Klan outfits was way over the top. The picture I just refrenced is shown below.

 The university said that they would continue an investigation with the situation, but I'm not sure with what the final result was. If I was in the situation of being part of the administration I would definately issue suspensions to all the students that were seen in the pictures taken from that night. The students didnt do this just for the fun of it. There was definately the thought of a personal attack on African Americans with these actions. If it was just for entertainment then I believe that they wouldnt have taken it as far as they did with the KKK outfits and lynching. I would be very shocked if the administration at Auburn didnt follow up on this and give out some disciplinary action to the students involved.

Never Forget

Reflecting back on 9/11 it doesn't seem like it was 10 years ago. I can still remember very clearly the events that happened that day. I was in the second grade and we were not aware of anything going on when we were at school. The teachers didn't tell us anything so I didn't find out about it until I got home. I walk in my door and I see the towers on the TV. The same thing on repeat over and over again. Plane hits the tower, the towers go down. Over and over and over again. I watched this in disbelief for a good while until my mom turned the TV off because she felt like I've seen enough.
         Growing up, I've heard many people talk about how different things are now that the attacks happened. Many people mentioning the airport security being different, some people even talking about refusing to ride on planes anymore. But to me everything is the same as it has always been. Since I was so young when this happened, I don't remember how life was before the attacks so nothing seems different to me.