Blog #4

Article Title: FBI reports hate-crime increase in 2006

In today's society you would think that hate-crimes would be decreasing instead of increasing. In my opinion I think that we should be more accepting of people and not discriminate against people because of the color of their skin, or because of the lives they choose to live, or because of their ethnic background. To me I think that we should all be treated equally. Now I know that in today's day and age we are not here yet, and this article made it even more clear that we are not getting any closer, instead we are stepping backwards.

This article was very interesting to me. I didn't realize how many hate-crimes are committed not only in the Seattle area, but all around the world. The part in the article that interested me the most was, because a black student sat underneath a tree that white kids normally met under they hung a noose. I could not believe this. There is no reason why anyone should have this much hate towards someone, and this is completely disrespectful. The other thing that I found amazing was the kids who hung the noose received no punishment. They were sent home from school and that was it. What is it that we are teaching our children when we do this. When they are not punished for something they don't see that they did anything wrong. To me this is completely inappropriate, and to not punish these students is not teaching them anything.

This article was kind of an eye-opener to me I can't believe that from 2005 to 2006 the percentage of hate crimes nationwide went up 7.8%. I think that our society needs to be more accepting of people and stop judging and acting on these judgments. To go into a building and start shooting at people because they are Jewish or any other ethnicity other then your own is ridiculous. To me I think that there needs to be stronger punishments for people who commit hate-crimes and they need to realize that this type of behavior is not going to be acceptable in our society.

The biggest question that I have for you is what are you doing to help our society move away from hate-crimes like the ones that are described in this article?
archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?
slug=hatecrimes20&date=20071120&query=Race+and+Ethnicity

Sorry this did not all fit on one line!

Word Count: 392

Blog #3

Article Name: Some gays oppose bill to prohibit bias on job

This was an interesting article to me! I have talked about gay rights before on my first blog, and now I am going to do it again. To me this is an important issue that needs to be talked about, we have no right to stereotype people as different because they are not like others, and we have no right to be prejudice towards them because we don’t agree with who they are. This article was interesting to me because when I have talked about gay and lesbian rights I never thought about transsexual people. To me we have no right to discriminate against one group. I think that it is interesting that Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass said, “What I have learned in the past month was that we weren't yet at the point where we could wish away this prejudice, against transgender people”. (Seattle Time Article) What I learned about Frank is that he is a gay man; to me I think that he should be one that would want to fit this battle for the transgender people, because he knows how it feels to have people judge him and stereotype him. I don’t think that we will ever be at a point where we will be able to “wish away” prejudice acts. I think that there will always be someone who will be prejudice towards someone because they are gay, lesbian, or transgender, but to me they are people just like anyone else. I just don’t understand why someone should have to worry about losing their job because of who they are. I think that it is wrong that in 31 states they can still fire someone because they are gay, lesbian, or transgender.

To me these are people just like you and me are, they are doing us no harm, but yet we feel that we should be allowed to fire them because we don’t like their way of living and who they love. I ask you this, if the ways were switched and you had to worry everyday that your boss could come in because he found out you were in a heterosexual relationship and he had the right to fire you over this how would feel? Would you worry every time you saw your boss? Would you wonder why it is that people treat you the way they do, and look down on you because of the person you are? I know that I would be worried, so why should we do this to others. They are people just like you or me, and they deserve the up most respect just like anyone else.

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archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=gayrights14m0

&date=20071014&query=issues+with+prejudice

Sorry again I am having troubles with blogger and not being able to get the font small enough!

Blog #2

Article Name: 8 states seek sex offender data from MySpace.com

This article stood out to me because a lot of people in our society use MySpace.com to talk with friends and others. To me I think that Myspace is a very scary thing, it opens up so much personal information about someone that anyone is able to read about. Now I know that you can protect your pages by making them private, but that doesn’t stop anything. This article to me made MySpace even scarier, I have a 14 year old sister who has a MySpace account, and she is willing to talk to anyone. To me how am I suppose to know that the wrong person isn’t going to send her a message. What happens if a sex offender like this article talks about contacts her? MySpace says that they do their best at removing sex offenders blogs, but people can create any screen name they want to and do not have to use their real names, how many people out there do you think are sex offenders that don’t use their real names, or how many of those people are potential sex offenders that are looking for someone to talk to.

I think that having a MySpace opens your life up to others, it can be a way of communicating, but so is the phone and e-mail. To me I feel that allowing 14 year olds to have MySpace is too young, in the article it states that they being MySpace.com can only monitor the 14 year old’s pages if they put their correct age on there. How many kids do you know who won’t portray that they are older than they really are? To me I think that all 50 states should want to seek out the sex offenders that are on MySpace. Like I said before there are so many people who use MySpace.com and open themselves up to having others know about their personal identity. I think that the people at MySpace should do whatever they have to do, to protect our youth and everyone else.

archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug

=webmyspace14&date=20070514&query

Sorry I had to do it on two lines for the web page because I could not get it all on one line.

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