[Priya]

Although we are generally taught that Europeans had superior civilizations, many recent findings have shown that many present-day Third World countries were far advanced while Europeans still lived in caves. Indian Ayurvedic medicine is thousands of years old, and the Indians, Egyptians and Chinese had mapped the stars and found the value of pi and discovered the Pythagorean theorem long before Europeans.

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Name : Priya, Gender : F, Age : 19, City : Berkeley, State : CA, Country : United States, 

[Priya]

While I acknowledge that you have worked hard to earn all that you have, consider this: you were probably brought up in a decent, middle-class neighborhood with good schools, caring parents, and decent health care. And individual lives do not occur in a vacuum; you had what you had as a child because of what your parents had, which is a result of what their parents had, and that goes back to the time when white people owned slaves and had them do all their dirty work while they reaped the benefits. Granted, you are not responsible for what occurred to those folks of color. But their present lives have not occurred in a vacuum either; they (not all but many) grow up in ghettos with single parents, high crime rates, and bad schools because of what was done to their ancestors hundreds of years in the making. Don’t you think this all has put you to some sort of unfair advantage? And if not affirmative action, what could be the solution to the numerous black and Latino ghetto-dwellers? Should we just leave them there and expect them to rise out of a system that has been constructed to keep them down?

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Name : Priya, Gender : F, Age : 19, City : Berkeley, State : CA, Country : United States, 

[Priya]

On the contrary, I think hyphenated identities are the ones that label people as the ‘other’; I often hear strangers being pointed out as ‘the Asian girl in the plaid shirt’ or whatever, but I don’t hear ‘the European girl in the plaid shirt’ or even ‘the white girl in the plaid shirt.’ Most likely it would be just ‘the girl in the plaid shirt.’ What is ‘white’ is taken to be normal or just plain ‘American,’ so if anyone’s sense of difference is being perpetuated by names it is non’whites’.

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Name : Priya, Gender : F, Age : 19, City : Berkeley, State : CA, Country : United States, 

[Priya]

As a second-generation Indian female who has been brought up in a sheltered, middle-class household, I have faced a lot of the same issues all other Americans face while moving away (i.e. having to adjust to a new environment, different people and different pressures). I don’t really think our experiences while going to college specifically are different from those of others, but in general, as fairly new immigrants we are forced to lead a double-life. I consider myself fully Indian yet fully American at the same time, which is difficult for a lot of people to understand. Many organizations within the university exist so we can meet other people in our situation, and we revel learning more about our culture while also experiencing the all-American college life.

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Name : Priya, Gender : F, Age : 19, City : Berkeley, State : CA, Country : United States, 

[Priya]

I beg to differ that homosexual people rub in their sexual preference any more than heterosexuals do; I see many more straight public displays of affection in clubs and other places, and some are rather vulgar and disgusting. You’re probably more struck by little signs between gay people because it’s more unusual in terms of media portrayal of what is “normal.” Straight people are constantly announcing and thereby normalizing their preference; even in educational books and videos, not only are examples demonstrated using Caucasian names and pictures, but people are always assumed to be straight. You never see examples of Mr. and Mr. Smith.

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Name : Priya, Gender : F, Age : 19, City : Berkeley, State : CA, Country : United States, 

[Priya]

Whether someone should feel guilty about their wealth is debatable, but it is a fallacy to say that our system of Capitalism is a meritocracy, one that rewards those who work hardest or are most skilled or intelligent. Of course, some people who are wealthy have worked hard to earn it, but there are countless others who have the ability but not the opportunity. A very large proportion of wealthy people have inherited it down several generations and have lived in environments more conducive to succeeding, and those who start from scratch at the bottom can’t possibly compete with them. Furthermore, I really don’t see how anyone can believe in Capitalism without believing in some sort of absurd racial bell-curve; how else can you explain the stark socioeconomic disparity between white people and people of color without realizing that exploitation is inherent in the system? The fact is the the Founding Fathers succeeded in establishing a legacy of white supremacy through Capitalism, which so many people trust blindly.

User Detail :  

Name : Priya, Gender : F, Age : 19, City : Berkeley, State : CA, Country : United States, 

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