In this DLC podcast, you'll enter the world of Artificial Intelligence. You'll get the opportunity to sit down with one of the internet's most famous "intelligent" computers and learn what makes her "think."

Click here to listen to the podcast.

Mike Lambert
DLC Research and Development Assistant

As the cliché goes, many of these artists never lived a rich life, or even a comfortable one. Vincent Van Gogh is usually cited as one of the artists that became famous after his death. Van Gogh managed to sell one painting in his lifetime. Now, his paintings are fetching in the high tens of millions. “Portrait of Dr. Gachet," by Van Gogh was sold of 82.5 million in 1990, and the art prices continue to go up from there.

Portrait of Dr. Gachet by Van Gogh

In October 2006 “Adele," by Gustav Klimt was sold for 135 million to Ronald Lauder. Lauder hoped that this purchase would increase the prominence of his gallery in New York, Neue Galerie. A few of Klimt’s other works are expected to sell at around that price.

Francis Bacon’s works will be on sale in May this year and are predicted to sell for about 30-40 million, more than his works have ever sold before. Click here for more information.

Pablo Picasso, Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Cezanne, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Gustav Klimt are a few artists whose works are now valued in the millions.

One has to wonder why and how ‘art’ came to be so expensive. Though perhaps it has always been this way. Clearly, the artists themselves never see the money—though a rare few of them (i.e. Pablo Picasso) live long enough to benefit from their sales.

Art has never been cheap, whether it’s in its creation or its sales. Artists’ materials from pigments, to canvas to brushes, and now cameras and lighting and studio fees have always made its creation (and now the ownership of ‘high’ art) expensive, time-consuming, and unrealistic for many. Who is benefiting from the cost of these sales?

Also, some have questioned whether these works should even be sold, especially to private collectors and collections. Should one individual hold the rights to a work that holds so much cultural history and meaning? Should a price tag exist for everything?

This of course is an older question that is linked to the tradition of the artist’s paycheck, and paychecks in general.

Recently I 've seen a trend around me that’s slowly growing. That is Japanese drama (J-Drama). I have been asked “Have you watched this J-drama, that J-drama….blah blah blah” quite often.

Every drama I’ve ever seen has its own “thing” that gets you hooked, whether it is the graphics, the violence, the corny story, there is always something that gets you hooked. I’d say with J drama it is a little different, something that makes you watch one after another. So recently I started watching this drama called Hana Yori Dango (Boys over Flower), and amazingly enough I sat down and watched roughly about 10 hours of this drama in 2 days. That’s a lot of time I should have spent studying, especially since my major is mechanical engineering. Needless to say, I had to pull a few all-nighters because of that…

Afterwards, the question arose inside, of factors of this drama got me so addicted, more than episodes of Friends, Lost, and even 24. They’re all good dramas or series, but 10 hours in two days called for a response.

Hours of contemplating and I figured out the formula, it’s the invoking of many emotions that J-drama presents which allowed for this high level of addiction. In this drama that I saw, there was much anger, love, peace, you name it. These are all essentials to our daily emotional needs, as a student, studying does not provoke much emotion in a day, and watching these dramas makes up for it. It is something that I don’t always see in American series. They are usually very linear in a theme and through that do not make up for everything I need.

If you need to do something to take your mind off of studying or so, I would suggest watching J-drama.

Miyagi

Juli is a very popular band in Germany right now! You will hear their music being played on N-Joy Radio.

This is how to go about listening to this station:
1. Go to this webpage: http://www.n-joy.de
2. In the top left hand corner there is a link: listen live
3. Choose a medium!

It is as easy as these three steps. Enjoy!

Some argue that the past can’t be biased; as long as we accurately represent what has “really" happened, no one can accuse us of lying. But consider this: how do you ever know the entire truth? Everything we see, no matter how full of a picture we have, is still biased by our own hidden inclinations and our lack of complete understanding.

Take Washington State’s past governor election as an example: the number of votes counted was so close that at various times both Dino Rossi and Chris Gregoire were declared the winner. Quite literally, there can only be one winner; and quite literally, either Rossi or Gregoire received more votes. Yet, because of a host of controversies about certain votes not being counted, improper voting procedures, and charges of improper conduct, no one could ever be entirely sure of the outcome. In the end, Gregoire won and is our governor today, and the courts repeatedly ruled that she was, in fact, the top vote getter.

OK, the government settled the governor election in what they saw as the fairest way possible. But how about this for bias: we treat these two people, the gubernatorial candidates, as if they are more important than other people in Washington. After all, why should an individual who, essentially, does public relations and administrative work for our lovely state of Washington be given any more or any less attention than the CEO’s of local companies, who have a similar job description; and why should a CEO or governor be any more or any less important than a teacher in charge of a class or a homeless individual with no money or Bill Gates, the richest person in the world? Almost everyone knows who Bill Gates is but why should history treat one person as more “worthy" of study and knowledge than any other person? What makes Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, Billie Holliday and Buffalo Bill history that most people know and value, but relegates my middle school lunchroom monitor Bill to no statues whatsoever? I’ve only met the Bill I know, for all it concerns me the others haven’t changed one thing in my life.

Some have equated our current history standards with worshipping “the cult of the personality," whereby instead of looking at the collective values and ideas of a community or era, we focus our attention on a relatively small handful of well-known individuals who may or may not have held great influence at that time. Others have argued that “our" history is merely the study of “dead white males," and has little relevance to our own current society and the personal development of the majority of our people.

George Washington Carver

Who do you know: George Washington, or George Washington Carver? Carver, shown above, is often erroneously remembered as "that African-American guy who invented peanut butter" (he didn't invent it). Instead he developed hundreds of new processes and products that dramatically improved American agriculture, resulting in higher quality of life and less hunger in the following generations. Photo courtesy of Corbis Images.

Who ever considers the plight of the native peoples that Columbus enslaved? We only study how Columbus paved the way for European settlement of the Americas, and we even thank him with a national holiday. Who gives credits to the Nepalese who explored and climbed some of the highest peaks in the world? We ignore their achievements and claim that white Europeans were the “first" people to “discover" and climb the highest peaks of the Himalayas. And finally, when “dead white males" have broken out of the stereotype and devoted themselves to social and economic justice and equality for all, we tend to casually ignore those achievements and focus on their “valuable" contributions to history and the world. Everyone knows that John Steinbeck wrote books (The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men among them), but his struggle to write about the horrific injustices facing poor Americans and people of color and bring these issues to a wider audience tend to be forgotten--even though social justice is a central theme in his books! Everyone knows that Albert Einstein wrote many amazing scientific reports, and famously concluded E=MCsquared, but who remembers his commitment to ensuring world peace and his grave concern of wars, violence, and refugee problems worldwide?

In summary, everything is more complicated than it appears. We must understand history to understand where we are today, but remember that history is in the eye of the beholder. To consider all sides and all ideas is impossible, and as history happens around us today we must take heed in drawing immediate definitive conclusions. Of course, as they say, if you don’t like history, go out and make your own!

Read this article about textbook accuracy in the US from the DLC Library so see how schools can help promote equality in learning. Especially relevant is the section (about halfway down) called "Accepted Biases."

It's good to be back. As you might have heard, I left rainy Seattle in early January for the sunny beaches and turquoise waters of Cuba for almost three months (I'm trying to make you all jealous here, is it working?). What I discovered when I arrived in the tiny island nation located just ninety miles south of Florida is that Cuba is a country that offers much more than sandy beaches to its visitors. Cuba has inherited from centuries past a rich ethnic diversity that is channeled into a unique and vibrant culture that matches its climate. For this first in a series of blogs that I'll be posting about my experiences in Cuba, I'll sum up Cuban history in a style that's short and sweet (something my Cuban professors would cringe at, since it took them a whole ten weeks!).

Oddly enough, it was Cuba and its surrounding islands (the Bahamas) that Christopher Columbus first stumbled upon in 1492 when on his fist sea voyage to find India. This "discovery" by Europeans of the tranquil island then inhabited by indigenous Cubans started a long period of colonization and exploitation of the New World that we are all familiar with. The first Spanish settlement in Cuba was not long after Columbus' voyage, and export crops such as sugarcane and tobacco grown on the island became high commodities in Europe. With massive crop cultivation arrived the slave trade, and this is where the roots of Cuban ethnic diversity were planted. Slaves were brought from Africa and mixed into the European and indigenous populations, creating generations of criollos (creoles), people born in Cuba of mixed African, European, and native blood. Today, the island's ethnic population is 51% mulatto (mixed black and white), 37% white, 11% black, and 1%Chinese.

Cuba was an official colony of Spain until 1898, when the U.S. intervened in the Cuban War of Independence and officially annexed the country until 1902. However Cuba was largely controlled by the U.S. behind the curtains through puppet dictators for many years, becoming the hot spot for American jet-setters who came to live their vices in Havana- gambling, partaking in Cuba's top-notch cigars and rum, mingling with the "exotic" Cuban women…

This all came to an abrupt halt in 1959, when that guy we all know- Fidel Castro took power and the country did a 180 degree turn. Communism, a cozy relationship with the Soviet Union, and inevitably the Cold War roared in and Cuba and Castro became the great nemesis of the U.S. Castro remains an immensely powerful and revered figure in Cuba today- despite rumors that he's dead or dying- and its shaky relationship with the U.S. is perpetuated.

I'll stop here for now; I wouldn’t want to put anyone to sleep, as history can be tedious! The history I discussed here, when experienced first hand in Cuba, is so much more intriguing. I'll try to convey my intrigue with this incredibly interesting country through the coming blogs, but for now, some pretty pictures:

Posted by Becca Lewis, DLC Student Mentor

The incident, which happened five years ago during the Olympic Torch relay parade in Juneau, Alaska, did not occur on school grounds. Normally, the student, Joseph Frederick, who was 18 years old at the time, could not receive any disciplinary action for the event, since he was a private adult citizen expressing his views, whatever they may have been (he openly acknowledges that "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" was meant to be a nonsensical statement, not a religious or drug-related message). However, the catch is that his school had been let out early to watch the Olympic procession on its way to the 2002 games in Salt Lake City. Thus the parade became a quasi-school sponsored event, as teachers and administration were present, watching the parade along with the students and the rest of the city.

Frederick held up his sign during the parade, as TV cameras passed by, and waited for attention. It came in the form of his principal, who witnessed him unfurling the sign and told him that he had to put it away or face disciplinary action. He refused, and she immediately suspended him for 10 days. It should be noted that whatever one's views on drugs, religion, or the statement in general, Frederick had a clearly Constitutionally-protected right to unfurl the sign. The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech for everyone. Its exact wording is:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances" (First Amendment to the US Constitution, 1791).

So, clearly Frederick violated no law. The issue is that schools are allowed to restrict certain rights in their students in order to maintain an educational environment. For example, it's your Constitutional right to swear, wear a bikini, say bad things about your teachers, or pretty much anything else, as long as you're not in school. But once in school, if you become highly disruptive, you lose your right to speak freely. The courts have ruled that dress codes and student newspaper censorship, in some cases, are permissible in schools. On the other hand, in the most famous school censorship case, Tinker v. Des Moines, the Supreme Court ruled that students "don't shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate." In that case, high school students wore black armbands to oppose the American invasion of Vietnam, and were subsequently suspended.

Picture is an open source document from www.wikipedia.org

As of now, the student, Joseph Frederick, has won at every single lower level court against Deborah Morse, the principal who suspended him. With a ruling coming in the near future, we have yet to see what will happen in this important case affecting your free speech. I wager that the case is thrown out and the multiple prior rulings in favor of the student are kept. Keep in mind that the United States has among the harshest drug and alcohol restrictions in the Western world, where even mentioning drug paraphernalia (such as a bong), can land one in jail. Many people in Europe and Canada view American restrictions against drugs, especially marijuana, as wrong, cruel, and immoral. It should be noted that cannabis, the plant that produces marijuana, has been grown in North America since colonial times, both for the medicinal purposes of marijuana and the cloth you can make out of the plant's fibers. The US Department of Agriculture sponsored much research on cannabis until it was effectively outlawed in the 1930s (although not officially so until the 1960s). Given the long history of cannabis cultivation in this country, I think that suspending a student for using a slang word for a device that may be used with this drug is a gross violation of his rights. All of the lower courts have agreed; we'll see what the Supreme Court says.

But most importantly, what do YOU think???
Here is a pro v. con resource guide on the legalization of marijuana, from the SIRS resource in the DLC library.

Anyhow decide for yourself.

In any language, Bush will face multiple protests against his visit. Mainly as a result of the Iraq War, the US and its leaders face highly negative opinion in most countries of the world, and Latin America certainly has its share of opposition to the President's visit. While the closer he comes back to the US the friendlier the governments tend to be, with Mexico being one of the strongest American allies, perhaps Bush should try some friendly diplomacy in all of the places he visits. What better way to show friendship than to address citizens of the host nations in their own language (except for Brazil), Spanish? Sometimes diplomatic rows can be caused by simple misunderstandings over language, and we don't need any more friction to be caused by items lost in translation.

Protest banners from 35 years ago in Uruguay; Bush will face a much bigger protest in 2007.

So, what could the President, or anyone for that matter, say to calm the people of Latin America? How about...

Deseo que el mundo viva en paz. (I want the world to live in peace.)

La democracia es un regalo. (Democracy is a gift.)

Buscamos las armas de alta potencia, !y econtraremos las armas de alta potencia! (We're looking for weapons of mass destruction, and we'll find weapons of mass destruction!)

Irak es un país seguro y prósporo por nuestros esfuerzos. (Iraq is a safe and prosperous country because of our efforts.)

With massive demonstrations yet to come, we'll see how Bush turns out from his trip of Latin America. But with an approval rating of less than 1/3 in his home country, and even below 27 or 28% according to some polls, he may not face the warmest reception here either. Nevertheless, speaking Spanish can't hurt and would allow anyone from the President to you or me to converse with 250 million neighbors to the south and the more than 40 million Americans who speak fluent Spanish.

So keep on practicing Spanish in case you want to engage in diplomacy with one of the close to 400 million Spanish-speakers worldwide! For extra practice, here is a link to the Digital Learning Common's library section, specifically access to the Grolier Spanish-language encylclopedia. (click on La Nueva Enciclopedia Cumbre and sign in) Read up!

Well, here’s a little information on my experience with airplanes. I had flown very little before I was 17 or 18. Then in senior year I was a finalist for a scholarship at a school in California and they paid for me to fly there. I decided to try school down there, and I racked up thousands of frequent flyer miles going back and forth each semester. Before this experience of making 4-5 flights a year, I thought that only rich people fly places. But once I started paying for my tickets and comparing choices, I realized that if you fly on reasonably popular routes and fly at slow times such as anytime Tuesday or late Saturday night, flying is by far the cheapest and best option. So, if any of you go to college in big destinations such as Chicago, California, or New York, and you pay attention to fares, you should be able to get round trip tickets for about $200. Taking the train to New York, on the other hand, would involve 2-4 transfers, take 3 days, and cost at least $300. However, for traveling from Washington to nearby destinations, such as Oregon or Montana, taking the train or bus will probably be the cheapest and easiest way to go.

The reason I believe this is important is because I never thought that I would be a “frequent flier,” but since the end of high school that’s exactly what I’ve become. Of course, these days I stay in Washington full time, but you may soon be traveling around the country to go to school. In fact, some careers involve constant travel, and you may very well end up in one of those careers—sales and marketing, publishing, consulting, journalism…tons of cool jobs often require flying. And sometimes your employer will pay for you to fly business class.

Speaking of business class, which means more legroom and extra features such as leather seats and in-flight TV, JetBlue has carved a niche in the airline market by providing business class seats to and from New York cheaply. The airline industry is extremely competitive, and almost every airline in US history has failed. Southwest is the most profitable airline, actually the only consistently profitable airline, and it has made its place serving smaller, local markets and avoiding many competitive airports in the Midwest and Northeast. Some airlines, such as TWA and Valujet, went out of business after major crashes kept fliers away, while others such as Delta and United have gone bankrupt yet not missed a day of service. In Washington, our homegrown airline is Alaska, which has entered the market providing the most service from SeaTac to West Coast destinations. JetBlue itself is less than 10 years old and mainly serves New York, and was seen by many business analysts as a nearly “perfect” business and airline until last week’s stranding of passengers. What do you think are the best ideas for new airlines? Maybe one of you will start an airline someday…

Hannah Arendt (October 14, 1906 – December 4, 1975) was a Jewish-German (later American) political theorist. She has often been described as a philosopher, although she always refused that label on the grounds that philosophy is concerned with "man in the singular". She described herself instead as a political theorist because her work centers on the fact that "men, not Man, live on the earth and inhabit the world".
She wrote a book called "Freedom in USA"

If you are interested in learning more about her click here.

Miyagi

Ahora hay que llevar un pasaporte para entrar los Estados Unidos por avión, aunque sea ciudadano estadounidense.

Got that? Now you must carry a passport to enter the US by air, even if you are an American citizen.

As North America has integrated, or become more and more open with the US-Canadian Free Trade Agreement, and the more recent and more famous NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) relaxing movement of people and goods between the US, Mexico, and Canada, people have gotten used to simply crossing the border and not worrying. As of January, however, you will need a passport to reenter the country if you are flying. This has created a headache for many travelers, who were used to making short, easy business trips throughout North America without worrying about a passport.

Famous actor Marlon Brando with his passport

What makes it so inconvenient for some people? For starters, the process for obtaining a passport takes 4-8 weeks, and costs more than $100. Plus, you must take pictures and go to a licensed passport provider (such as a post office) and fill outpaperwork, asking among other things if you have ever fought as a terrorist or militant against the people or government of the United States. Once you’ve paid and waited, there really aren’t any problems with the passport. But if you have a sudden need to fly to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, or you won a vacation to Mexico City, you’ll need your passport immediately. Then you must pay closer to $200 for expedited passport services, but because of the recent explosion of passport requests you may still have to wait 3 or 4 weeks instead of 3 or 4 days.

OK, if you live near the border, some of you may know, you can enter Canada or Mexico without a passport on boat, foot, or in a vehicle. I suppose if you were “Superhombre” and you cruzaste la frontera on your own flying power, you wouldn’t need anything. But this doesn’t always mean an easy sailing. If you appear to be in poor economic conditions or appear to be a “not-established” American (i.e. recent immigrant, not speaking fluent English, etc.), you may face especially tough scrutiny from the Canadian authorities, who sometimes suspect people of trying to sneak in and live illegally there. But as long as you have good, valid identification establishing yourself as a legal resident of the US, you should have no problem coming back home.

As for Mexico, if you choose to drive in to avoid the passport fiasco you’ll need a carnet de conducir internacional, and be sure to bring plenty of agua and gasolina/petróleo, because el desierto del Norte es muy escaso (sparse). And if you do fly, you’ll have to pay an impuesto for leaving of $25. So in the end, if you wish to travel anymore, it won’t be cheap! Not that I could afford it in the first place…

Here are DLC links about NAFTA
Here is an article about the passport changes

Josh
DLC Student Mentor

This week I wanted to talk about a more specific subset of this issue, mainly the terms “Hispanic” and “Latino” which have generated so much controversy in recent years.

HISPANIC
Literally, this term means of, from, or relating to Spain and the Spanish culture and language (“Spain” in this sense can mean only the Castilian parts, or all of Spain—including people who speak other languages). Today, in the United States, Hispanic is used almost exclusively as a racial or ethnic term, despite the fact that it has nothing to do with race or ethnicity. In fact, in Castilian Spanish the term hispano has none of the connotations it does in English; it has always referred to the language and culture, not ethnicity, as in hispanoparlante (Spanish-speaking) or el mundo hispánico. The only time you will hear “Hispanic” used this way in English is by academics, or maybe your Spanish teachers because he or she heard it so much in the college Spanish department, such as in classes about Hispanic literature abroad or Hispanic morphology (a type of language study).

Cesar Chavez is variously considered a leader of Hispanic, Latino, and Chicano farm workers, with dozens of other names possible--it just depends on your perspective.

In the United States, a senator from New Mexico urged the use of Hispanic for the US Census to classify Spanish-speaking Americans. This became popular in Nixon’s presidency, in the 1970s. Today the term is largely assumed to refer to people of Latin American, Spanish-speaking descent whether or not they still speak Spanish. There is a growing movement against the term, as people complain that it lumps all Latin Americans together, except for Brazilians who are excluded, or that it is inaccurate because Spanish and Hispanic influences came from colonization and don’t reflect the lives of indigenous peoples.

Just like Hispanic, Latino also has many controversies.

LATINO
This was proposed as a more neutral term, to refer to all Latin Americans regardless of Spanish-speaking ability. This stems from the use of “Latin” to describe southern Europeans, i.e. the Spanish, Portuguese and French who colonized the Americas. However, this once again ignores the plight of indigenous peoples who have no Latin ancestry and may not speak any of the Latin (Romance) languages—but they are still considered part of the “Latino race” by some. So, both terms have encountered growing flack.

In conclusion, I want to reiterate the importance of embracing our diverse country and accepting all of those around us. You may strongly identify with either of the terms listed above; they may mean nothing to you; or you may consider them racist. Either way, I hope you all think about the effects of our words and how we can help to build a more just society free of prejudice and preconceived notions.

Josh
DLC Student Mentor

The shouting was horrendous that night last summer. The young man was flailing his arms and screaming all sorts of swear words and nonsense at the top of his lungs. Normally I would get as far away as I could, but he was by the entranceway to my apartment building. I was afraid, but I worked up the nerve to ask him to quiet down and leave. He started running around and threatening me, saying awful things that I can’t repeat here. When I saw a chance I got to safety and called the police; by then he had run off.

When the 911 operator asked me to describe the man, I said that he was about medium height, skinny, wearing this and that and with light skin. She then asked me what race he was. I said I don’t know, he was pretty light but my vision wasn’t that good. This wasn’t the time to launch into a discussion of how I believe that “race” is made-up and I don’t believe in classifying people based on certain “defining characteristics” that have nothing to do with the kind of people we are. But she needed an answer for the police report. She asked, “Was he a white guy, a black guy, Asian, Hispanic, or mixed?” Writing this, it just sounds even more ridiculous. There are thousands of different cultures and societies in the world and the United States, even Washington state, represents nearly all of them. How can we just say that there are four “types” of people (by the way, I realized later that she didn’t include the Native American/American Indian category that you usually see), and you’re either one of those groups, or maybe mixed? I ended up saying the threatening guy was white, whatever that means, because we know that “white” people have certain skin, hair, eyes, etc. so we can lump them all together…just like all “black” people are the same, and all “Asian” people and “Hispanic” people…right, you see how ridiculous it is.

(Speaking of "race"....Jesse Owens, an African-American athlete, won the long jump race at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The Nazi government, sponsor of those Olympics, believed in the superiority of the "Aryan race" and was dismayed by the victory of others)

Anyhow, in college I have learned that the continent with the most genetic diversity among its people is Africa, and that the Caucasus Mountain region (Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Chechnya) between Russia and the Middle East has the most language groups in the world. On standard US Census and other forms, the “Asian” category is by far the most extensive, covering every region of origin from Eastern Siberia to the Philippines to Kyrgizstan to Sri Lanka. If you are from one mile west of the “race line” between Iran and Pakistan, you are officially “Caucasian/European/White,” and if you are from one mile east of the line you’re officially “Asian” Until recently there was no option to mark multiple heritages, and there is a growing movement that includes myself to simply mark “other” or leave such forms blank. Officially I’m “white” or by some definitions “mixed white and Hispanic,” but the last time I checked I have somewhat peachy-colored skin and my family is from a hodgepodge of countries in Europe and the Middle East.

So, the question is, does our national fixation with issues of race and ethnicity mean we are all racists? I don’t mean that in the sense that we’re all a bunch of bigots, but I mean that should we even worry about what “color” people are? For example in France, the government doesn’t ask for racial information on forms or keep track of it, like for Affirmative Action-type programs or to monitor fair hiring practices. That doesn’t mean that France is an egalitarian paradise; there is certainly racism there, too. When I was in Spain, some people considered Castilians a different “race” from Catalonians, others considered all Romance speakers to be the “Latin” race as opposed to other Europeans being Anglo, Slavic, Nordic, etc., or some people see it as European and Everyone Else. In Commonwealth countries (formerly part of the British Empire, such as Canada, Australia, etc.) and the UK, because societal composition is different from the US, they have different “races.” Asian means from the Indian subcontinent only, for example, while Middle Eastern or Arabic are considered their own race (which is especially confounding because most people in the Middle East actually aren’t Arabic, most people who describe themselves as Arabic are technically from North Africa, and many people we consider Arabic are from Berber or other backgrounds that are simply lumped into one).

In conclusion for this week, remember to respect the diversity of all those around us. I do recognize that many systems of “race” classification are meant to help individuals and society, but I just want to caution people on relying on stereotypes or making generalizations about people. The most important thing is to be yourself and not let others define you.

Here is a Q&A that the Census did about racial categories
Here is DLC info on racism