askmrwood:As an individual, I believe that it is not right to follow egoism, because personal interests are things that are personal to you, that’s why it’s called personal interests. Having differences is a key element that builds our personalities. I believe, it is your beliefs to be biased, but there will always be others that see things differently and it would only be fair to respect that, no matter what you agree with. For example during the imperialism era, many first world countries began taking over smaller and weaker countries, not really thinking about the circumstances the weaker countries have. For example, Britain did not see India’s beliefs and didn’t care, but Gandhi was a man that understood India and tried to negotiate peacefully but Britain unfortunately did not see Gandhi’s side. Gandhi went out of his way sacrificed his own life for India.  Rosa Park wants us to understand that we have to represent for the better, for the next generations. Egoism is for the benefit, altruism is for the better of everybody. Rosa Parks believes it is important for people to be models for each other, so we can improve society and fight against intolerance, and egoism. I agree with Rosa Parks because she sees everybody’s beliefs and she believes  we should improve the world for the better and irradiate all the prejudice, intolerance,and egoism out of the world.

egoism: the habit of valuing everything only in reference to one’s personal interest; selfishness

• Most humans seem to fit the theory of egoism (see above). Is this wrong? Why or why not?
• Give several examples of what we’ve studied this year of how egoism has brought good into the world and…

askmrwood:

If you’d like to submit a cross cultural experience, please reblog this post just like you were going to reblog a journal post. DON’T MIX THESE UP! This is for CROSS CULTURAL EXPERIENCES ONLY!

Cross Cultural Experience

            For my Cross Cultural Experience, I spent my time with a good friend of mine who is also in A.F., Shial Shah.  During our time together, we went to a pot luck, a party or reunion where many of Shial’s relatives and friends spend time together. I noticed that there are a lot of differences (culture-wise), but also many similarities.

            On May 20^th, 2012 I spent a lot of time (5 hours) with Shial, at his house and at the pot luck. When I was at Shial’s house, I noticed the feeling of the environment was different. Of course on the outside, the house is looks and is normal. But on the inside many of the details are different from my house. First, the smell was different, the smell of Shial’s house has many scents of spices and a really faint some sort of flower. There were many paintings and other very beautiful visuals that makes me feel like I’m in a house in India. During the time, I asked him many questions relating to his culture and his life. I was really surprised in what I learned! Our cultures had many similarities.

            First off, Shail’s household consists of his parents, an eight year old sister, and him. There aren’t any major rules in the house, but the common ones like no shouting, keeping a clean environment, and of course respect everyone. They usually have dinner together, unless one goes out and have plenty of conversations about their day. After dinner, they would have a “Family Time”, where they spend time together doing an activity of some sort. This all came to me as a really interesting way to spend a day. I have many of the same rules in my house. But in my household, we usually finish dinner and our conversations and go back to our own little bubble. We do not really spend time together as a family, unless there is a special event or something extraordinary.

            When we arrived at the pot luck, there were many greetings and warm welcomings, which it didn’t make me feel like an outsider. I felt like part of the family. There were many foods that I have never seen before and right now I still cannot pronounce their names. Some of the foods were Panner Tikha, Palak Paneer, Puloaw, etc. After the food, we did many activities that involved everybody. We talked in a circle, talk about different cultures and different people, and of course, we played many sports like normal people. After, I asked Shail about his culture and what makes it such a great culture. He had many answers, but one that I really liked and remembered was that he said,” We celebrate many holidays with big festivals and we always try to relate things to the outside world”. I will always remember that day and treasure the memory of the pot luck with Shail.

            I have learned many things that day and connected Shail’s culture with mine. There were many differences, but also many similarities. We both celebrate American holidays like, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, and many others. The differences aren’t really by culture, but by our families’ personalities. My household is more lax about spending time with the family and giving personal space to each other as much as possible. Shail’s household share a lot more interactions. Cultures many be different, but people always have their similarities.

askmrwood:

If you’d like to submit a research paper on a genocide or racism event, please reblog this post just like you were going to reblog a journal post. DON’T MIX THESE UP! This is for Genocide and Racism Research Papers only!

 Rape of Nanking

            The Rape of Nanking, started in 1937, where the Japanese had many powers and wanted to conquer China. Resulting to invading a city in China, known as Nanking. They killed off many of the citizens and also raped the women and children of the city. China was poor and undeveloped at the time, they still tried to fight off and resist the Japanese army. The results of the resistance were futile and backfired to China. The Japanese were responsible for stealing, raping, and mass murder of the citizens.

While northern China was fighting off invaders, the Japanese launched a second attack and soon claimed Shanghai in 1937. More incidents surfaced and made things worse for China, Japanese soldiers would force prisoners to march into a nearby river bank and spray them with heavy-duty machine-guns. Shanghai was captured; right after the Japanese army moved up the Yangtze River and invaded Nanking.

The day the Japanese invaded Nanjing was in December of 1937, the Chinese Nationalist army tried to fight back and stop the Japanese. But the Japanese were infuriated by their resistance; the Japanese troops destroyed their resistance and killed off all of their prisoners. After the murdering of the prisoners, Japanese officials gave permission to the troops to slaughter, rape, and steal from the population of China.

For many weeks, the citizens of Nanking had never stopping pain and agony. Groups of drunk Japanese soldiers would rape and murder women whenever they wanted. They treated the citizens as play things and showed no pity whatsoever. If the women did not possess any value, they would be killed off immediately. More than 20,000 women were raped and killed at the first few weeks of the invasion.

The Japanese soldiers were encouraged by the upper class leaders and officials to perform brutal and disturbing ways of murder. They would bury them alive, hack them to death with their extremely sharp objects, use them for battle drills, and burn them alive. The bodies of thousands of victims of the slaughter were dumped into the Yangtze River until the river was red with their blood. After stealing Nanking of any value, the Japanese started fires that demolished more than one third of the city.

The Rape of Nanking was absolutely terrifying. This was very similar to the Holocaust. The Chinese were the minority group toward the Japanese. They thought they could do anything to the Chinese citizens. Life in that era must have been terrifying, reading about this makes me wish that events like these will never occur again.

CITATION: Pasquale, Sue De. The Rape of Nanking, The Hopkins Magazines, 1997, web http://www.jhu.edu/jhumag/1197web/nanking.html 5/23/2012

askmrwood:

If you’d like to submit a movie review, please reblog this post just like you were going to reblog a journal post. DON’T MIX THESE UP! This is for movie reviews only!

Paper Clips

 In Whitwell, Tennessee, a middle school group was formed to understand an historical event, the Holocaust. The school knew little about the Holocaust and only knew that it was a real tragedy and it caused the deaths of 6 million Jews. As we all know 6 million is a lot and also unimaginable. As the students learned more about the Holocaust, they then began to wonder what 6 million was like. The teachers had no idea and had never seen 6 million before, so how they began researching a way to collect something easy enough to make 6 million.

The students and teachers researched facts and found out that the Norwegians wore paper clips as the Jews wore stars to differentiate themselves and make it as message to say that what Hitler was doing is wrong, but it was done secretly.  Soon it hit them that paperclips could be perfect for this project and so they started collecting paper clips to see what it looks like. They wrote letters and emailed as many as they could possibly think of, including family members, government, and actors asking for donations to help them collect 6 million paper clips. As excited as they were, 6 million is a really big number. The first raid of paper clips had an amount of about 100,000. This got their hopes up, thinking that collecting paperclips was an easy task. But as time passed, the donations lessened and paperclips weren’t coming in the quantity and the time. They began losing hope and calculated that it would take around 7 to 10 years for them to collect 6 million paperclips. 

They tried thinking of new solutions of the different ways to achieve there goal. This  is when the project became big, it started getting in the news and online, just everywhere. They began receiving letters and a whole bunch of paperclips that they never imagined they could. As they progressed, they also got letters from the president. Even some reporters came and started writing papers and decided to go visit the school and talk to the children and tried to give them a visualization of the Holocaust, they felt responsible and helped the students. That really awoke the students and made them want to make sure to do anything to achieve their goal. Later on, the school had no idea where to store the 6 million paperclips. The principle had this idea of getting an old railcar from Germany that used to transport Jews to concentration camps. The reporters volunteered to find the car and found one! It was transported to Whitwell and became a memorial in remembering the lives lost.  Seeing the students have patience, compassion, understanding, and tolerance was a part I will not forget. They are so young and so humble in ways that I haven’t seen in such a long time.

askmrwood: 

If you’d like to submit your Museum Write-ups, please reblog this post just like you were going to reblog a journal post. DON’T MIX THESE UP! This is for Museum Write-ups only!

At the Museum of Tolerance, I saw many heartbreaking things. Learning the details of the Holocaust and how the innocence were discriminated and harmed was hard to put in. The tour gave me a lot to think about and I learned many new and shocking things.   

One thing that definitely shocked me was that the highest cause of deaths was landmines. Although I knew that landmines are very dangerous and can kill instantly, I did not realize that it could be the highest cause of deaths. The one part of the tour that really bothered me, was walking and reading the posters of intolerance. The one with a picture of a Arabic person really showed me how intolerant people can be. Nine eleven caused many people grief and sorrow, but to categorize a type of community a terrorist group because of their looks and what they wear is horrible  This was hard to hear because I don’t understand how someone could be so cruel to kill because of what they think is right, especially killing innocent humans.

            The part that really made me realize how horrible the Holocaust was to the victims was reading about a child that had to live through it. My child’s name was Elinor. She had no chances to escape from the Germans; she was caught in Poland and brought to a death camp. Her parents and her sisters were caught with her and separated soon after. Her mother was thrown into a concentration camp with her and her sister. She was gassed and cremated shortly after arriving to the death camp. She was one of the 1.5 million children killed in the Holocaust. I thought about how innocent Elinor’s mind was at the time. She died at such a young age, the age of 6 and she probably did not have a single clue of what was really going on. The holocaust must’ve affected her a lot mentally. Learning this story of such a young girl really made me think and tried to put my feet in her shoes.

            Another thing that I found interesting was the set up and appearance of the museum, a lot of it was replicates of the death camps. It really fascinated me when I saw the 3D image of the death camp Auschwitz. I was also really interested in the stories of what the guards did to the prisoners. The spread of the ashes of the cremated victims all over the floor, where you could be stepping on your own family’s ashes. They hung dead bodies at the entrance of the camp, where you could be watching the bodies of your family members hanging by a rope. I learned that the prisoners at the camp never saw a day of sunshine, literally. The thick and reeking ashes from the crematorium covered the air and created a layer of red sky. No one ever knew what time of day it was because it was just a bright red color the entire time.

            I think Hitler did what he did, on behalf of his own belief. He wasn’t naturally born evil, nobody is born evil. The things people hear and the things people say can easily influence one’s mind. The living environment of a person is very important. I think that the way people do things is based on their external environment. For example, if you live in the ghetto with many bad influences, there’s a chance your going to become a bad influence yourself. Influence is a very strong key to success, but also a key to downfall. 

askmrwood:Movie Review

 Apartheid’s Last Stand is basically about the segregation in South Africa. The blacks and Europeans tried ending the revolt in peace, but there were just too many protests. After 100 years, the blacks finally revolted against the Europeans because of the many threats given to them. They weren’t successful in the revolt and many the people were put in prison. The prison they were put in was isolated from the real world surrounded by the ocean. It was an island with surrounding ocean currents protecting those who were kept in, in. In the prison, the blacks were beaten, starved and tortured daily. Prisoners were forced to do hard labor work. Even while working the prisoners would spend so much of their time being inspected by surrounding guards, they would actually know them. Tensions started to ease between guards and prisoners, but their work and duty still had to be done. While they weren’t working, the prisoners spent most of their time wisely, being schooled. They were taught school course. A man started his education in prison and ended up finishing his high school education after his release from prison. In the communities, people were separated by color, whites were on one side and black on the other. In the communities people would have weekly meetings discussing about their worries. These people would vent to their community about how bad society really is. The community usually has had a loved one that were in prison and would discuss what life was like. Guards would inspect their deliveries and end up not giving it to the prisons because they were extra careful and never cared for the prisoners. I think that the majority of the guards was very cruel and did many unnecessary things. I think the guards should at least let the prisoners receive the letters from their loved one. Another significant event was on June 19, 1976, when South Africans protested in the streets. This result of the protest was the deaths of 600 young students, killed by the police. South Africa’s first president, Nelson Mandella, was put in jail after going against the government by relieving the truth. Mandella wanted to establish a “New South Africa.” Today, blacks in South Africa are scarred by whites because of all the threats and incidents they were put through. A man named Tokyo Walesex was interviewed said that they do not forgive the whites because of the damage they have caused. He said that blacks are emotionally and physically hurt and will not forgive them. This movie has taught me about South Africa’s history. This video was filled with information and many judgmental ideas. Tolerance was key in this movie.

askmrwood:

Tolerance: a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality, etc., differ from one’s own; freedom from bigotry.

• Why is tolerance such a difficult value for most people to have?
• Why do you think intolerance has existed since the…

Tolerance is very a difficult value for people to have and understand because every human being is different. Everybody has a way to live and a personality that comes with it. But unfortunately not everyone has the strength to acquire tolerance. People are very judgemental ever since we humans have existed. One example of intolerance is the Nazi’s led by Adolf Hitler. He ordered the killing of 6 million Jews and many others. He did all this because he thought he was better than all other races and discriminated all other races. Having tolerance changes the way of thinking. There is a lot of judging between the first and third world countries(mostly from first world countries). I think democracy and communism and every other government system have their differences but tolerate each other.

askmrwood:

*If your username for tumblr doesn’t have your first name, you will need to write your name at the beginning of your post so I know it’s you. That’s if you want credit :P*

Write a journal entry/blog post regarding what you watched in class today. Use the following guiding questions…

In the Congo there are all sorts of disturbing acts being committed; women and children are being raped and murdered. Families are being forced to flee from their villages and run to refugee camps. Dictators from neighboring countries like Rwanda and Uganda are fighting for the rich resources in Congo, because of greed the citizens of the Congo are being murdered and sexually assaulted. If the dictators had any logic and figured out another way to get the riches besides killing off everybody, everything would end peacefully( they could have traded food and clothes for it). I realize how greed can turn people into such selfish monsters that would do anything to get what they want.