Race Stuff

I just finished reading an article from  the CBS News website that was written last year about how the "minorites" were to soon become the majorities. Although I had already known about this, it's interesting how America, a country filled with a white majority once holding blacks as slaves up until the mid-1800s is becoming a country where whites are no longer the majority. Although I don't think that this is such a big deal, it seems to me that people who write these articles are trying to make a bigger deal out of this than it really is. So what if whites are not the majority. Americans shouldn't be concerned about what ethinicity is the "majority" as much as they should ideally be concerned about illegal immigration. To me, if Hispanics become the "majority" race in America, so be it, as long as they are officially documented United States citizens, and not Hispanics who are fresh from the other side of the border.
Another article that I read, this time from CNN.com, entitled "Black and white, and a target of both" was about a black man, Don Lemon, who had discussed his hometown when he grew up. Although his grandmother made sure he did well in school, his town was split up between blacks on one side, and whites on the other, sharing the same grocery store, post office, etc.
"The whites, on the east side. We all shared the grocery store, bank, post office and such. That's where I first heard a white person call me a N***er."
He continued his story by explaining how the new town that his family moved to was pretty much all white, and some parents wouldn't allow their children to play with him. He then mentioned how the time when his intergrated "white" school was dealing with Ku Klux Klan protests, he was elected as Senior Class President, the 2nd one in history of the school.
I thought that this story was very insightful, on the idea that the South, while having a lot of racial tensions in the past, has made progress with being more racially accepting. With the video we watched in class last week,  regarding the murder of the black man in Jasper, Texas in 1998, the form of racism that was expressed through the murder was dampered immediately by arresting the three convicted white men who were involved with the muder of a black man. It was really the first time in the South where this type of arrest to any white person was made, and this was a huge strive for black people.
Then recently, we were told to go onto a website and see how racist we were. It started off with a simple survey of whether you prefer white Europeans or African Americans. Then the test portion consisted of hitting two keys on the keyboard "e" and "i" and associating certain words to the "bad" category on one side of the screen or the "good" category on the screen. Then instead of the good and bad categories, it was replaced with "African American" on one side and "White European" on the other side, and you would have to associate which pictures go where. What made things even more challenging was the combination of the "good" and "bad" words, and the "African American" and "White Eurpean" pictures. It was even harder when the two sides switched.
My end result, however was that I prefered White Europeans over African Americans, which I really found interesting. I honestly don't see one person as "black" or "white", but I see people of different races and ethnicities more as just a people. I don't have a preference or a point where I am comfortable or not around certain races. The reason why this is is because the grade school that I went to had a lot of diversity. Going to a majority white high school, it will be a bit harder to get used to being around a more diverse community of students, but I won't have a preference between any 2 or even 10 races.

Mock Trial Response part 2

It's very difficult for me to say that I have seen sexual harassment nor date rape in or around DHS. If there was a recent case, emails would be sent out to all of the students including myself, the teachers, and the parents. The DHS culture avoids having any relationship with these issue's because parents are very diligent if their daughter or son had any problems regarding their sexuality. Or at least my parent would be diligent if I had any problems with either of these things. I don't feel like DHS is the type of school that would have problems with either of these issues, there are other problems such as kids in my grade smoking and drinking various stuff, and much of which is illegal. Sexual harassment could be occuring at much bigger high schools, especially public high schools in Chicago. The reason for this is that parents of students who go to CPS high schools don't pay property tax for their kids to go to their high school. It is funded in a much different way than suburban schools. Somehwhat of the control here at DHS is lacking at these schools naturally. But if there was a case of sexual harassment, there would be a big deal out of it.

Mock Trial Blog Response Part 1

The first trial that occured in Issue's class was about a guy named David, who was accused of "raping" his girlfriend. This seemed like it was more of scheme for revenge, because the only direct evidence of anything relevant to the trial case was the note David had on has dresser from his class partner at school, who happened to be a girl.Other than that, there was no direct evidence that any "rape" occured, especially if it was stated that his girlfriend made gesters that would imply the want for sex, not the escape from it. I was very pleased to participate as a juror for this mock trial case, because I could tell from the start, the group arguing that there was rape had very little of anything to prove their point, which wasn't their fault.
    As for the case that I particpated as a memeber of the defense for, regarding lawyer Elyse Roberts, I couldn't help but feel that the case could have gone either way. In class, my group "won" the case because we did a better job arguing for our side, but the truth of the matter is that Elyse Roberts was doing worse on her works at the Bureau that she worked at, whether it was because of Kevin Murphy or not. However, the sexual overtones that Kevin made in his jokes were not just directed towards Elyse, but to many other members of the bureau. It could be said that Kevin Murphy went too far with his jokes, because although he had the good intention of making Elyse feel more comfortable, there was nothing done to stop him from annoying Elyse to a point where she struggled to do even close to well. I still feel that the bureau avoided making a big deal out of Elyse Roberts for two reasons: 1: She was new; and 2: The bureau didn't want to get into legal issues. This was a reasonable case of sexual harassment, and of course it was not intended to be that way by Kevin Murphy, but not locking the door to the office they shared while he was changing clothes, and making jokes that she was clearly uncomfortable with was not really appropriate at the workplace, and again: nothing was done about it soon enough.
At the same time, it's very hard to prove that a friendly invite to a party was part of the sexual harassment, because I still do not consider that Kevin was asking Elyse out at all. If the other male workers asked the female workers to this party that was referenced in the witness statements, then it would have been a more obvious example of sexual harassment.

My youtube account, ebpianodude, is back in action once more.

Now as much as I dislike sharing links that don't have any revelvance with what I have recently talked about on my blog, I'd like to share with you the link to my new (music) composition, "Modern Warfare 10." I wrote thhis over the past weekend, and I am very proud with what I have done. Of course, being a composer, I don't feel like this piece is completely finished, because it repeats the same overall idea two times. Although I was creative with the little guitar riff used in the COD: Black Ops theme, I feel like my work has only just started. Anyway feel free to view this link here, because even if it's not the greatest piece of music in the world, I could always use more views. If you have a youtube account, PLEASE comment on my video. Voice your opinion on what you think of my piece. Remember, there is no such thing as a good or a bad piece of music, but I want to know whether you liked it or not.