Black Friday Madness

The friday after Thanksgiving is known as Black Friday because it is the day that all the stores that were in the red, meaning losing money, make money and go into the black.  On this day, stores across the nation open at midnight with great discounts and there are packs of people who wait to enter.

An hour before midnight last night, I went to Best Buy with my family to buy a new TV and was completely caught off guard by the amount of people there were.  I wouldn't be so surprised if this were a major city, but I was in the middle of nowhere in Michigan.  I didn't even know that many people even lived there.  I thought it was crazy that my family wanted to go an hour early, but there was a line around the block and people who had been waiting all day to go in.

This is just an average midnight crowd on Black Friday.

Fortunately, where I was, people were nice and well-behaved for the most part, but this was not the case everywhere else.  In Los Angeles, a woman pepper sprayed other customers to get a video game console.

I don't understand why anybody would ever harm others and risk getting in huge trouble for a $40 discount on a gaming system, but it still happens.  She wasn't the only incident.   The article above also mentions a shooting that took place in a Walmart parking lot last night in California.

The reason for this madness and chaos is simply because Americans care way too much about money and price.  As a society, everyone strives to have as much money as possible even if that means hurting others.

In our nation, we are all greedy and are all competing with each other to get the best things, which leads to a lot of unnecessary violence over things like a discount.

Penn State Cheats Joe Paterno

After 46 seasons as the head coach and 409 wins, more than any other coach in Division I college football history, Penn State fired Joe Paterno, 84, on Wednesday, just hours after he announced his plan to retire at the end of the season.  He was fired because the football program failed to report numerous sexual assaults performed by defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky during his years with the program in the 80's and 90's.

In 2002, graduate assistant Mike McQueary informed Paterno that he had witnessed Sandusky sexually assault a 10 year old boy.  Paterno then reported this information to athletic director Tim Curley, who now faces perjury charges for lying to the state grand jury, and university vice president Gary Schultz, who in response told him that everything would be taken care of, so he moved on and continued to coach.

Jemele Hill, who believe this was a justified end for Paterno said, "[He] should never have been allowed to coach another game."  She, along with many others, think that Paterno should've acted more responsible and done more to make sure this case was properly reported to the police.

I, on the other hand, believe Paterno did what he was supposed to do.  His job is to coach football, and it is the administration's responsibility, not his, to make sure that any violations are reported.

Could he have done more?  Yes, obviously, he could've reported the case to the police himself, but that's much easier to say in hindsight.  He did what he was supposed to do and moved on.  Do you blame the quarterback when the running back fumbles?  No of course not, and that's exactly what happened here:  Joe Paterno handed this case off to the administration, and they fumbled it by keeping it a secret, so he should not be at fault.

Penn State is simply using him as a scapegoat, just like Cubs fans used Steve Bartman as a scapegoat for their loss in 2003, as I blogged about earlier.  This is a common theme in America.  When disaster strikes, there needs to be somebody to blame and take it out on.  So even though Paterno didn't cause all this, it made sense for Penn State to blame him and fire him because he's old and doesn't have much time left and also because it makes it look like they have handled the situation by taking action.

McQueary, the assistant coach who informed Paterno of the incident and was even more knowledgable about it, however, is still with the program.  The reason for this is because in controversial times like these, there only needs to be one scapegoat, and it made sense for that man to be Joe Paterno because of his age and legendary status, which is now ruined.

Joe Paterno's great legacy will now forever be tainted by this one incident.  Personally, I think what Penn State did was wrong on many levels.  Paterno deserves way more than to be tossed aside in the midst of a season after all he has done for the program.  I understand why they'd want to make a change after all the difficulties they have faced, but Paterno gave them that opportunity by saying he planned on stepping down, so firing him, and by doing that blaming him for the controversy, was so unnecessary and unjustified.

What do you think?  Is Joe Paterno at fault?  Did the organization make the right move by firing him?

Owning Up

Last week, our American Studies class went to see Clybourne Park, as I blogged about in my previous post "Sorry My Brother, Can't Let You In."  Outside the theatre, there were voting polls that people could drop a slip of paper in to a glass box that everybody can see as shown below.  One of these that I found interesting is the one below that says, "I have told an offensive joke."  Roughly one third of people responded "no" to this, making the claim that they have never in their life said something offensive.

Now I don't know a thing about any of the people who voted in this poll, but I can guarantee that almost everyone who answered that they have never told an offensive joke is lying.  Everybody has told offensive jokes.  They might not mean any harm, but they will still say them.  I certainly have and don't know anyone who could honestly say they haven't.

So why did a fairly large population of people in this poll claim they have never told an offensive joke?

First off, these are open polls, so everybody can see which box people drop their vote in.  Nobody wants to be labeled a racist, so in public places like this, some people lie to avoid any awkwardness or conflict.  If this poll was done privately, I believe the results would've been very different because people are much more honest when nobody is watching, but in public they put on different masks to hide their poor qualities.

Also, I believe people voted no because everybody wants to believe that they are a part of the solution and not the problem.  Everybody sees racism take place, but nobody wants to think they helped cause it.  The people who say no to this have too much pride to admit that they have done wrong because they want to place blame on others and make themselves seem perfect when, in reality, it is very likely that they have said something offensive but just can't own up.

Everybody does some bad things.  Everybody says some mean jokes.  They can be very little and unimportant, but sill it shocks me that some people can't even own up to little mistakes that have no consequences.

Sorry My Brother, Can't Let You In

Yesterday, our American Studies class went to see Clybourne Park, a play which demonstrates how communities change over time because of race and wealth movements.

In the first act, a white family in a white community is selling their house to African-Americans, which some of the neighbors have a problem with because they think it will screw up the culture of the town.  Fifty years later, the community is dominantly African-American as people feared because a process called "white flight" took place after that one house was sold.  This is when white people flee a neighborhood because of the increase in minorities that live there.  In the second act, however, there is a white couple looking to buy the house, which would begin the gentrification of this town, which is when there is a movement of wealth into a poor neighborhood.

On the radio, I heard "This City" by Patrick Stump (ft. Lupe Fiasco).  Lupe's verse in this song reminded me exactly of the play.  Both artists of this song are from the Chicago area, so I assume this is about Chicago, but even if it's just about any city in general, it applies very well to what has happened with Chicago communities and relates directly to Clybourne Park.

cropped with SnipSnip

Lupe says, "Parts of my city, certain colors can't step", which shows that Chicago right now is like neapolitan ice cream, a term that was frequently brought up in Clybourne, because it is a bunch of culturally different communities living so close to each other but never interacting due to racial barriers.

Much like the people Clybourne Park in the first act didn't want African-American people to live in their neighborhood and ruin their culture, Lupe makes the same point that people are being kept out of neighborhoods "because the property value might go down to something that's economically unacceptable", and nothing is more important to Americans than property value.  It's sad but true; things like property value have become so crucial to every American, and that is why some communities don't have the same privileges as others.

Interestingly and not coincidentally, Illinois is one of the few states that distributes tax money to schools based on the income of the people in the district.  This has led to many issues, and high schools in wealthy districts, like New Trier, benefit greatly from a higher income and can provide better services to their students, even though the Winnetka campus could still use a little bit of work.

Should money be distributed equally between school districts?

Personally, I think that all public schools should get the same funding per student.  Otherwise, it justifies people's fears of poor minorities ruining the value of their community because they actually are (in a very slight way but that is enough to cause widespread panic in people).

Equal distribution might not completely fix the racial boundaries that exist in the Chicago area, but it might help to form more of a homogenous blend of races rather than have neighborhoods set aside for one particular type of people as depicted in Clyborne and by Lupe Fiasco.