Hidden Bias

This IAT test was actually very interesting to me. As I was not in the proper environment to actually take the test and get the results that I would be pleased with. There were many times that I made mistakes because I got confused due to the races switching sides on the screen. Anything that has to deal with categorizing things by pressing buttons I'm not that good at, but still believe that my results are not that different to what I actually believe. This test made me realize that there really is no way around the hidden biases we have. There are always those stereotypes and prejudices that we have and like it says on the homepage, http://www.tolerance.org/activity/test-yourself-hidden-bias, we learn them at a young age and they're very hard to get rid of. I think that it is bad to have these certain stereotypes and prejudices but according to the tests we all have hidden biases whether we like it or not. Most people I know around the area would double-check to make sure their car doors were locked in an area they don't know anything about, and I'm not saying that I wouldn't either because I even lock my car when I come into my house to grab something quickly and then leave again. I think that this test makes me realize that during the movie "I Sit Where I Want" many people were scared to sit with different people because it makes them go outside their comfort zone. I do believe that the documentary was really interesting and had a very good point behind it all, but I also think that it's very hard to try and get everyone to change their beliefs so quickly. I think that the group of students should have eased the students into becoming friends with everyone and then they could have sit with different people at lunch on their own. I think that by easing the students into becoming friends with each other first would've been more effective than just trying to jump right into sitting at the same lunch table with people that you don't know.

Steubenville Case

After reading about the case in class, I kind of forgot about the whole thing until the case went into trial this past week. This past weekend the two boys, Trent Mays and Ma'lik Richmond were found guilty of the rape of a 16 year-old girl. They were both sentenced to a year in a youth correctional institute and will have to both register as sex offenders, while Mays is going to serve another year after that for the distribution of nude photos. I think that this is a wake up call for Steubenville because everyone in the town thinks that these boys are perfect boys because they play for the football team. The whole town lives and breathes for the football team thinking that they can do nothing wrong. In the article I read about the case, it said that there were people that had walked in on the two boys with the girl but he did nothing about it. In the article it said that the reason he was not focused on the situation is because he was so worried about his friend not drinking and driving. I think that all around the country people do a really good job of letting kids know how terrible drinking and driving is. I think that kids are not prepared to handle any sort of situation if they experience rape. Hopefully that is something that many kids have to experience, but there needs to be some sort of way to tell kids what to do if they are in that situation. If this kid knew what to do when he was walking past, maybe the girl could have been helped earlier and been safer. I think that kids also need to have more knowledge on the situations that they're put in. No one thought to get this girl home safely, or call anyone she knew to come and take her home safely. I think kids are too immature to think about any of this which is the very sad part because if a minor is very drunk and non-responsive everyone just jokes about it and doesn't take into consideration that they need to be home safely with people that care about them. These issues need to be taken care of nation-wide and more kids need to be informed about the different scenarios they could possibly be in so they know how to handle themselves. 

Child Abuse

As we are ending our unit about sexual harassment, I read an article about a swim coach at the University of Utah, Greg Winslow, who allegedly abused multiple swimmers and sexually abused one girl. Since 2008, there have been written letters of complaints to the athletic department at Utah but there was nothing ever accomplished and the complaints were ignored. The University of Utah finally suspended him the end of February when he was involved in a sexual abuse case. It shocks me that it took the school so long to realize that the coach needed to be suspended and he needed to be investigated. The reason this is so surprising to me is that because of everything that has happened with Jerry Sandusky, that the University isn't taking these letters of complaints as seriously as they should be. Even though Winslow is not suspected of as many sexual assaults as Sandusky was, any sort of abuse is awful and should not be taken lightly. I think that both the Sandusky case and this case involving Coach Winslow is a wake-up call to all athletic departments in the nation because things are starting to get out of hand and it's not a good thing at all.

HIV Cure

In the news yesterday I read an article that said there is a baby that has been cured of HIV. When the baby was first born, doctors used a series of shots to prevent the HIV from spreading throughout the body and hiding in certain places they wouldn't be able to find later. They routinely did these tests for 18 months and then the family temporarily stopped coming to treatment. When the family came back several months later there were no signs of the virus in the child's blood. With this news coming out it gives an optimistic outlook in the medical field that they are one step closer to accomplishing a goal that is very important to the world. This is a very good sign because if doctors can notice these things when children are just born, we can go to Africa and help stop the disease in newborns to stop from spreading the disease. If we go to Africa and teach the doctors and medical personnel there what steps to take when trying to cure the newborns, it will help them decrease the population of HIV in the country. 

Drew Peterson Murder

Drew Peterson is someone that is widely known in the Chicago-land area. He was a respected police officer who ended up being sent to prison for 38 years because of the murdering of his ex-wife Kathleen Savio. What shocks me the most about this situation going on is that the law enforcement didn't do much about the murder in the first place. Until Peterson's current wife disappeared, they didn't even consider that he might have killed Kathleen. They ruled the death of Kathleen an accident but then when they realized that Drew Peterson might have actually been capable of murder after his current wife Stacy Peterson. The other day Drew Peterson was finally convicted for murder and sent to jail. After hearing things here and there about the trial it's satisfying to know that he is finally in jail for his wrong doings. There have been many issues in the trial but what led the courtroom to ultimately decide that he was guilty were his actions the other day. Right before he was given his sentence he screamed into a microphone, "I did not kill Kathleen." putting a lot of emphasis on those five words. After screaming like that it showed the lead state prosecutor, James Glasgow, that he was capable of killing someone. He went on to say in this article, http://news.yahoo.com/peterson-screams-then-gets-38-years-murder-012012133.html, that by saying what he did the court was able to see the real Drew Peterson, the one that killed his ex-wife. With Drew Peterson finally being sentenced it makes me feel more safe to know that he is finally locked away after doing a horrible thing to his wife even though he claims that he never did.

College Athletes

Recently in the news I read an article about how three football players from the University of Alabama were arrested for robbery. This shocks me that three players who were a part of a national championship team felt the need to do something against the law. I know it's hard to live as a college student because you do not have a lot of money but athletes at many universities are given special treatment. They are able to have extensions on work and are given tutors to help them with their school work as well. What I don't understand is that the students that are these three students are one of the few privileged students on campus but they don't think that they still have enough to make them happy. Being an athlete is a privilege and you are always put on the spotlight, especially someone like a college football player that just won the national championship. The football players on campus are supposed to be role models for younger boys and going around and robbing places. As an applicant of the university, his shows me that the town of Tuscaloosa is not a town where I would feel safe. It's really important to me that where I go to college next year I feel safe and secure. I don't want to go to school where three of the "big men on campus" are robbing places in the area. In the article it also said that another football player was suspended for hitting a kid and then stealing his wallet and then breaking into a car later. This definitely turns me away from attending the University of Alabama because of how dangerous the town sounds and how something like this could happen on campus.

Grammy's

I was listening to the radio the other and the DJ's were saying that this year CBS put their foot down on how revealing the clothes are for the performers. The DJ's started to joke around about what Rihanna was going to wear, was she going to wear a turtleneck? After hearing them talk about it for a little, I played back in my head the previous Grammy performances that I've watched. Most of the clothing that the performers wear are very revealing and I never thought about how inappropriate their performances are until now when talking about it in class. When we talked about Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction at the Super Bowl many years back, we talked about how people kind of brushed it aside but that was not the right thing to go because the Super Bowl is a television special that many people in the nation watch, including little children who saw Janet Jackson's bare breast while trying to watch a football game. These two cases relate because The Grammy's are something that are really fun and entertaining to watch. They honor our favorite music artists and I know that I've been watching them since I was in elementary school. The Grammy's are something that should be family friendly because a lot of people in America are watching the special to see their favorite artists win awards and to see different artists perform their hit songs. I appreciate what CBS is doing this year to not the costumes as revealing as they have been in the past, but we're going to have to wait and see until tonight if the performers follow their rules and wear less revealing clothing.