Implicit Bias

This is the second time that I have taken the IAT. The first time I received the results that I had a slight preference towards African-Americans, and this time I got moderate preference towards African Americans. This is not as surprising to me because I have always preferred the look of African Americans, I never wanted the blond barbies as a child. My mom has always thought it may be "I want what I can't have", that since I am blonde and perpetually pale I am jealous of people who have dark hair and dark skin. I agree with her, to a point. I may have grown up in the suburbs of Chicago but I spent my summers in Charleston, SC and I was exposed to many more black people there than I was in Highland Park. I realize that this test doesn't really define who we are, many of our automatic reactions are incorrect and most definitely not what we truly believe. The environment that we grew up in is more familiar and automatically the one that we feel safer in, it isn't that all white people are racist, it is that they have seen mostly white faces their entire life.

America and the World: Americas Role in this World

A lot of people feel that America gets much too involved in other countries affairs and that we should keep to ourselves. I can definitely say that I do not agree with that. We shouldn't be starting random wars with any countries, and I think that is something that NO ONE wants despite what many people think. We shouldn't be a 'hostile' nation, we should focus our efforts in the world on specific causes that cannot be argued with. One thing that we can help is starvation in places like India and Sub-Saharan Africa. We should be able to send troops there, not to keep peace, but to bring food, water and other essentials. America is so lucky to have all these resources and one of the things that this country is founded on is that everybody should be given the opportunity to succeed. Many people in the world don't even have access to clean water and a sustainable food source. These are basic human rights and with our power and wealth we should be helping out those less fortunate. By doing this we are helping the world progress and become more innovative and educated. Of course, there is no clear answer of how to fix the problem of poverty, we should be doing everything to help out. One day all of these efforts will work, making the world a better place is easy if you have the resources for it, which America most definitely does. While it is true that we also need to be looking out for ourselves, I think that by helping out in the world we are helping ourselves. The more advanced the rest of the world becomes the smoother it will run, at least, that is what I believe.

America and the World: Russia and Europe

I think it goes without saying that we have been closer with Europe than any other part of the world. It makes sense because we have pretty similar ideals and social norms.  This partnership with Europe is really important, it stabilizes our economy and our political alliances. It may not occur to many Americans that we need to keep up this relationship because we rely on Europe as much as they rely on us. If Europe's economy collapsed, ours probably would take a large downturn if not fail itself. Something that would be really good for Europe, and in turn good for us, is if they became a more 'unified' EU. They are sharing a very small space in the world and their governments need to communicate better. I think they are moving towards this now, France and Germany seem to be getting over their bitterness towards each other and really coming together. Europe also really needs to start considering Turkey a part of them, invite them into the EU. Turkey is a key nation for us to be supporting. It would be much better for America if they did not go further into the politics in the Middle East, because we are on bad terms with the Middle East right now. Russia is also a big part of Europe that people often forget about. We may have been in a 'battle' with them for a very long time, but now that time is over and we need to kind of lobby them towards the western world because their values and political systems would fit in much better than they do in Asia.

"America and the World" America and China

China is the new world power and we shouldn’t be afraid to admit that. The world is infinitely more stable with more than one world power. The world would be even better off if the super powers played off each other’s successes. Since America was the only super power since the end of the cold war the world has actually been less stable according to many political scientists. China’s ascension into the world’s scene has been very smooth because they are not looking to overturn the current world order; they merely want to join them.  China may be huge for manufacturing but they rely heavily on imports of raw materials because they do not have much of that in their country. It should also be noted that they would have no one to sell to if they were hostile and looking to convert the world into one communist nation. And yes people in China don’t live in the same kind of free world that we do, I have a friend who moved to China because of her father’s job. They do not allow the use of facebook or personal blogs and they are very strict about the use of the internet. America shouldn’t be feeling threatened by China but we should embrace their willingness to be a part of this world and use it to our advantage. The Chinese leadership is very intelligent and they are always seeking to be more informed about the world as it is. It looks like they are looking for the open relationship with the world that would be beneficial to us, we should be wary of any personal secret relationships they make, but since they have not moved towards that it seems that we have nothing to worry about. China is up and coming faster than we could ever imagine and there is nothing wrong with that, America should look for ways that we can benefit from their rise. We cannot think of it as us losing jobs to them, but an opportunity to create more jobs in our country to work with, in tandem, with the Chinese. 

Second "America and the World" Blog

This blog will be focused on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The first thing that we must recognize is the inability for these two countries to come to a peace agreement by themselves. Their problems are too deep rooted for them to ever come to a settlement. America can serve to aid in these negotiations but it needs to go into this completely unbiased, America cannot favor either country more than the other. Many displaced Palestinians are still living in refugee camps that are breeding grounds for terrorism. While we may identify with the Israeli cause more we need to look back to our morals and realize that we cannot let people live like that. It is damaging to our image and if we were to help both sides somehow come to an agreement they would be much better off. Because of all the conflict in the area the countries have not been able to take advantage of economic opportunities that have risen in the Middle East.  Places like Qatar and Dubai are complete economic successes, if Israel and Palestine would focus less on each other they could become very rich countries, which I think should be a bigger priority for them. But the peace treaty that needs to be started by an intermediary, like the US, needs contain certain key points to work. These points are returning the countries to the 1967 borders so the land is more equally distributed, the peaceful sharing of Jerusalem and the demilitarization of Palestine. Currently Palestine only has 22 percent of its original land, while Israel has 78 percent, and both countries have roughly the same population.  There has very rarely been peace in Jerusalem and I think it would be a refreshing change if it was peaceful for once. And since Palestine is a pretty hostel country at the moment it should definitely be stripped of its military power. Yeah Israel has quite the military but they aren’t going to use it unless they are attacked first. 

America and the World: Chapter One

In the first chapter of my book, America and the World, which is a series of conversations between Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft, they discuss how we got to our current foreign policy crisis. They both agree that it started when the Cold War ended. When the Soviet Union fell we became the only remaining superpower in the world and we were riding high for a long time. As a country we did not pay enough attention to our foreign policy because we believed that we did not need to be aware of the rest of the world. But we didn't realize that the 1990's brought a change to the world, the world became closer than ever with globalization. People could find out what was happening all over the world in seconds, it was no longer just what happened in your local area that mattered. Both of these men agreed that 9/11 was our wake up call, that we realized that we needed to keep up with the world. We can't hide from the world behind our oceans, we had to get out there and keep up or we would fall behind. It was noted that we made a wrong move in invading Iraq and getting involved in Iran, but eliminating the Taliban in Afghanistan was the right thing to do because of the actual threat that it posed. One of the things that really stuck with me was that the UN is not effective anymore and that it does not work in the world that we live in today. The UN's efforts to help keep the peace in the world are futile and either they need to become more effective or they need to be disbanded because they will only end up hurting more than helping. I intend to go into foreign policy work in the future and all of these problems are worth considering because of the rapid changes in the world. America should be always looking towards the future and being more of a role model for the rest of the world instead of intervening in everything, if other countries can look at how successful we are then they can learn from our example.