"You're racist"

When I thought about the question, “Would we approach someone who is racist?” Jay Smooth gives good reasons why you should. I thought his reasons are a reasonable way and yet, respectful way to approach someone who sounded a bit racist. Telling someone they’re racist might not always be a nice conversation. But the way Jay Smooth explains how to do it; it is a way that you may avoid all arguments. I think we should always let someone know when they sound racist and especially if they hurt your feelings with their comment. That’s when Jay Smooth comes in. He shows great ways to tell someone that they sound racist, instead of offending them by calling them something they may not be. That is why I really feel like everybody should watch this video, to get some knowledge about how to talk to someone. But his ideas of approaching people can be for anybody who wants to avoid pointless arguments. They can be for young kids, teenagers, and older adults. For me, the idea of confronting someone who is making racist comments is something important because it is really explaining on how you feel about it and how you may not want that to happen again. I say that you should always tell someone on what they did then what they are. To me, Jay Smooth makes complete sense and you can use his methods of approaching someone with rude comments. It is a way to do it with not only people who say racist comments, but people who say anything rude to you or so something that you don’t technically agree with.

The way Jay Smooth describes the difference between “what you do” and “what you are”, are fairly simple. Let me say the example he gave in the video, if someone snatches your wallet and you chase him, you are not going to talk to him about how he feels about being a thief but instead you are going to tell him what he did and how it wasn’t right of him to do it. Now let’s say if you have a conversation with someone and they start saying something about your kind of people and you tell him, “Oh man, you are racist.” Maybe that person didn’t mean to say that and it accidentally slipped out; you calling him a racist is going to stir things up and he or she is going to start this big argument about you calling him something he is not. Now let’s go back, and imagine this person says something about your kind of people, and you tell him, “Hey man, that wasn’t cool on what you said.” Now you are telling him on what he did instead of accusing him of what he may not be. That gives that person to apologize if it was an accident and he would understand you more on where you are coming from. That is what Jay Smooth is trying to make us understand. This is the right way if you want confront anybody. Because this doesn’t only imply on just racist comments, but on rude comments and any comments that anybody gives you about any topic. It is a way you can approach a teacher, an elder, a parent, or even your boss. Only because this is a respectful way of getting your opinion out about a comment or gesture they did to you. Just always do it without an attitude. Jay Smooth brought a good concept and we, all, should learn this and live by it.

Doll Face

Doll face is a video we all can relate too, a video where confuses you but it is a very broad term they're talking about. Doll face, once it began it was very strange and I was a little terrfied of what else was going to happen. But once I kept watching it, a bunch of things came into mind. But one main topic came to mind, and that was the media. The video of this girl being something she completely is not, just made me think of how many people are like her. How many people try to change their lives, their looks and the way they are just to fit in and to become accepted into this world? It is interesting how she keeps going closer and closer to the television and that just shows how, we people, would go to those measures to become what we see in the television. When she breaks and doesn’t reach it, we break when we are not accepted in groups or groups at school. We break, mentally. It feels horrible when you are not what everybody wants and take it from me I know how that feels. I know because everyone wants to fit into society and they want to be part of something. No one wants to be lonely. I know in my high school days I wanted to be loved and I would dress a certain way to catch the guy’s attention and what not. But at the end of the day that doesn’t fill the void in you and you still don’t feel accepted because it isn't the real you, the one who you are showing the world. I think the message of this story is what we see in the media is something that we as humans we can’t reach because we are not perfect, even the people who are in the media aren't perfect. But the media sets high standards and expects us to look a certain way and we can’t simply reach that. You can’t. You can try all you want but your results are going to be that you failed and break such as Doll face. God made us imperfect and we all have to realize that we are never going to reach what the media thinks we should look. We need to realize that we are imperfect and learn to love yourself because at the end life is too short to care for what the media thinks. 

Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it.
Salvador Dali 

Women

What we, woman, wear is a big issue to everyone; parents, friends, peers, and mainly society. What everybody thinks about us, is crucial sometimes. Yes, I think we do have the choice to wear what we want and we should wear it proudly. What society thinks is different; example, if a girl wears “booty shorts” society would call that a “slutty” outfit or provocative.  But honestly, I love wearing shorts and to be more honest I don’t care what society thinks of my shorts. That is what girls now-a-days are thinking like, “I don’t care what anybody says or thinks”. It is true; we have a right to not think we fit into those criticisms or that area that we are “slutty” by wearing short shorts. What society says is not what we really are by wearing certain things. Yes, there might be girls who are slutty and dresses like one but that doesn’t mean that every girl is one. I know there are some young girls who are so interested in being popular and being liked and she choices to wear fewer clothes to make guys like her and girls talk more about her. See from my experience being in middle school, I sadly was that girl who would want that negative attention and to get it, was dressing like an outcast; wear shorter skirts and lower tops. But I knew what society thought of me but you don’t care. That was the difference of how I was and how I am now. I used to dress a certain way to get negative attention from boys but now I wear a certain different clothes to express a way I feel. Now I know exactly what I am doing and how society thinks of us girls but now I know what the outcome of wearing clothes going to be like. Now I wear with confidence but not to get negative attention. At the end of this, we all have a right to express selves; some express themselves by the way they dress and some they just say what they feel. Sadly, our generation, girls are always being criticized but if we know that we are not what they think of us, we have a right to wear it all out and be proud of it.

Designing my life plan!

Being in the Personal Development class it has showed me a lot of methods and helpful tips to motivate me to plan but also succeed in my life. Being in this amazing Bayan community it has showed me one thing, that if I ever need help I can not be afraid to reach out to my community for help. I know that if I do, even if I'm a little shy, they will help; even if they don't know me very well. I really need to come out of my shell and reach out to my community and I am really trying to. I have to push myself because I don't want to come off as a person who doesn't care about my community, because I do. That is my number one thing I learned. Another thing I have learned being in this community is, MOTIVATION. Motivation will help me get through each life step that I have. It will push me and I will succeed in life. With motivation, I know I will be able to push myself when I go through hard times; those times that I want to give up and forget about how far I got to get where I am. I know life will bring you those times and with a little self motivation and faith, everybody can get through life with a smile. Being in this community, I believe that my professors really motivate each of us because I know they genuinely want the better for us and that makes me want to actually make them proud of what I can accomplish. At the end, both Professor Aronson and Abuan have really pushed us but only because I know they see potential in each of us int the Bayan community. I really enjoy being a scholar and I just hope everyone can try enough to succeed. Trust in your own strengths and in the Lord!

I was not always happy being a Mexican...

In the past and sometimes even now I deny that I am Mexican. I always hated speaking Spanish and I would get easily annoyed of everyone speaking it around me. I would always say that I didn't like Mexicans and Tijuaneros (which are people from Tijuana). Where I was from, Moreno Valley, a lot of people didn't talk Spanish in school. So I am not used to having so many people talking it around Southwestern College. I would always say I’m a different ethnicity and that I wasn't Mexican. In reality, I love being Mexican and I absolutely love my culture. I wouldn't want to trade it for anything. I love the food and all but I have done many things to disguise from being Mexican. I would always say I was Filipino and/or African American. I felt as being Mexican was to plaid out (meaning everyone was Mexican). In high school, I would join the Black Power clubs and do their activities. At the end, my mother would always get mad at me for disowning my ethnicity. But I didn't care. Now, I would take it all back and do my best to make Mexicans look better and be prideful of my cultural. Mexican is what I was raised to be and Mexican is what I'm going to be until I die. This all ties in to the question from the Bayan retreat questions, "Have you ever done anything to disguise or hide your racial/ethnic identity?"

Some college advice

The advice "Sometimes studying hurts and that's a good thing" is something we, college students, can live by. I really agree with this because I know for a fact that we really do need to know that studying and learning is really good for ourselves. Our minds are like muscles in our body, we lift weights to get toned but what are we doing to our minds to get more educated? I really have to take this advice and actually study, read, and enjoy doing it. I don’t want to do it to become rich, I want to be more educated because education is power and we won’t get there if we don’t study.
When I entered college I got much advice from every single one of my family. My top advice is to get out of community college as soon as I can; that I shouldn’t waste my time there and go straight to an UC. Another one is not to get distracted and stay focused on what I want in the future. Lastly is to never leave things for the last minute. They are all useful to me mainly because I know that each of family only tell me this for my own good and to see me being successful. But I don’t have a hard time following their advice. I think any student can relate to these advises. They are very accurate because they go into every little thing that college students can get into. Students need to know all these thing to become a better student and finish college with ease.

Article; Advice for New College Students

Failures

My mother always told me failures can always be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how you take it. I completely agree with that because I believe it makes you a stronger person by pushing yourself to do things harder. If you fail and take it as how I did before, then you will take your failures as that you can’t do anything right in life. I think of failure for me, is disappointing your parents or in my case, my mother. Before, I always thought of myself as a failure; first because I didn't get into a UC straight out of high school like all my friends. Second, I would always get on my family’s nerves. Third, I never had a relationship with God. I always failed tests, always found myself alone and didn’t always make my mom proud. Then suddenly things changed once I started getting into church and changed my mind set of not being a failure but taking those failures to push me harder to succeed.
Failure to everyone is something negative and down breaking. Failures is something to remind you, you are not good enough and you can’t succeed in life. You have those negative people around all the time and that they only notice all your failures but not the good qualities you have. Because those who do take their life failures in a positive way, I don’t know how they do it, but they always find a positive route to go. They don’t let one bump on the road stop them from their dreams and goals. That is how all of us should be, be optimistic and have faith that you will succeed in life. You don’t see Walt Disney, Steve Jobs, or anybody who are successful take people’s negativity to the heart. We should do something about our failures and make something beautiful come out of it, instead of crying that we didn’t make it at least we tried and we can choose to keep going. I feel as that failure only brings your closer to your dreams and that with failure you are more of a human than ever.