Day Ten

Today I was watching television. On the show I was watching there were people that were from the south. The people from the south were portrayed as typical "redneck" men with guns who worked on farms. The person that I was watching the show with said, "HA, I bet they're all related, ya know, cause southerners sleep with their cousins!" This is discrimination against a group of people based on where they live. This is a stereotype that is not accurate, and is derogatory. I was not personally affected by this incident. The person that made this remark was hoping that I would find it funny, which I did not. I think too many people believe stereotypes about groups of people rather than take the time to get to know individuals.

Day Nine

Today I did not hear much. I did hear more talk about Trump and how he needs to build a wall and kick out all the illegals. This again made me angry and uncomfortable but I did not get involved.

Today, I heard about the Trump incident, where he was caught on video talking about how he could grab women, "by the p****." Although this happened in 2005, Trump has always had a derogatory view towards women. In many interviews he has said that he does not respect women and constantly talks about wanting to be sexually involved with his daughter, if she was not his daughter. This infuriates me because he is setting an example that it is okay to treat women in a derogatory and degrading manner. So many males objectify woman and act like they are sexual objects, and Trump is just making this worse.

Day Eight

I was in the dining hall tonight eating dinner and I witnessed some rather appalling, sexist remarks by some sports players. They were talking about, "getting laid," at a party they went to, and one of them was talking about how he felt guilty about cheating on his girlfriend. His friend replied that, "They (females) are just bitches, love em and leave em man." This comment alone completely repulsed me, but what was worse was the sexual gestures he was making while he said it. The guy who made the disgusting remark left the dining hall about the same time that my friends and I did, and I saw him walk out with a female. They were arguing over the fact that girls could not play sports. I walked slow enough to hear the conversation taking place behind me. She was talking about how she was a talented softball player and how she was probably better than him at baseball. He scoffed at her and said, "Babe, there's nothing you can do better than I can, you're a women, you can't play sports and you can't drive, the only thing you could do better than me is cook, so you better hope you're good at that." I got this quote verbatim because I recorded it in a video to send to a friend and show how awful and sexist this man was. The female he was with slapped him to told him to, "go f*** himself," and walked away. He laughed it off to his friend. This was appalling to be for so many reasons. In the year and a half I have now been at Becker I have never heard someone say something so insulting and demeaning towards women. I honestly think that this guy thinks he is the greatest person in the world and thinks that acting this way is funny to others, when in actuality it is just derogatory and demeaning towards women. Although I was not personally affected the incident infuriated me.

Day Seven

I was with a group of people today and we were talking about gender. One person was angrily talking about how their are only two genders and how anything else is just, "not a thing." They went on to talk about how people are not transgender, and how they are either one gender or the other based on, "what is in their pants." He also talked about how sex changes are fine because then you are still basing your gender off of you biological body. Him saying all of this made me feel very angry and uncomfortable. I think the issue is that he cannot accept things he does not understand and therefore he deems it as wrong or just says that it doesn't actually exist. Just because you do not understand something does not mean it does not exist. There are such thing as transgender people, and people of other genders that do not conform to the two main genders, and they do not deserve to be discriminated against due to their gender. Most people who witnessed the incident were as appalled as I was at what he had said and backed me up when I tried to explain to him that he was wrong and that he was discriminating and basically being a jerk. I have previously witnessed many conversations about this topic, and whenever I have had the opportunity to, I have stood up for the people they were discriminating against.

Day Six

Today I was walking around Elm Park with some friends, and there was a homeless man sitting on a bench. Well, we assumed he was homeless, he was sitting with a carriage full of plastic bags, some that had cans, and some that held other things. I noticed as we got closer to approaching him and walking past him, my friends decided to take a little detour and go around him, without having to get too close. After I noticed this, I began to notice that many other people were going out of their way to avoid getting close to this homeless man. I thought that this was wrong, so I asked my friends why they avoided walking closer to the man. They explained to me that they were afraid he would attack us or try to steal from us, so I asked why they though this and none of them had an answer. They had natural prejudices against homeless people that had formed over time, and caused them to subconsciously avoid this man because somewhere in the back of their mind they assumed he was dangerous. Just to prove them wrong, I turned around and walked past him, and greeted him saying hello, he said hello back and told me to have a nice day and I told him to do the same. I then rejoined my friends. I explained to them that not all homeless people are dangerous and that they should not discriminate against people just because they are not fortunate enough to have money to provide for themselves. We do not know what peoples individual situations are, and we should not discriminate against them,especially for things that they cannot control.

Day Five

I was watching an animated television show this afternoon and there was a Muslim girl on it, her name was Isis. She was dressed in a burka, and was an exchange student. One of the male students was hitting on her and said, "I bet you were beheading guys back home." There are many jokes like this one throughout the episode, including many about her being, "the bomb." She starts going to various places and buying supplies, and the guys follow her, watching and trying to get her to date them. Due to the supplies she is buying they say she is obviously a hobbyist, which, based on the supplies she picked up, is supposed to insinuate that she is a terrorist. She ends up making a firework to set off at city hall. The white police start looking for her saying that because she is a Muslim female that she is going to City Hall to set off the firework and get gay married and that, "this is what president Trump was warning us about!" When the police get there they shoot her on sight as she sets off fireworks that say, "I Love America," with an American flag. She was wearing a bulletproof vest and says it is because, "before coming to America I read about your police, I expected this."
This is an example of xenophobia, since most of the characters are discriminating against the Muslim girl based on her obvious religion. This made me think about the way that so many people see Muslim people. When people see Muslims, many assume that they are terrorists, when that is almost never actually the case. Although I was not personally affected by the television show, it really affected me and the way that I see people.

Day Four

Today I was eating lunch with a friend and he saw a student walk in. The student appeared to be a male who was wearing clothes that were very feminine. My friend commented on the students choice of clothing negatively. He said, "jeez is that a dude or a chick," and I replied, "why does it matter, how that person dresses does not affect you." My friend proceeded to talk about how "cross-dressers are weird and should just accept that they are gay and learn to wear the right clothes." I explained how insulting that was and asked my friend how he would feel if he was told that he had to dress a certain way even when he wanted to dress a different way. I explained to my friend that he needed to stop having such a closed mind and learn to accept people how they are, then I got up and walked away and up to the person we had been talking about and nicely said I like your shirt, smiled and walked away.