Friday, July 17, 2015

Ducks and Lectures

Today's morning sessions was much like yesterday's morning sessions where we could choose which room we wanted to be in. I chose to learn about the Israeli-Palestine conflict. I wanted to learn more about it because I had no prior knowledge; I've heard about it on the News, but I never knew the details. I was a bit confused during the lecture, but Elexis was able to clear a few things up for me because she knew some details. I learned the the main problem between the two countries comes down to land. Israel, over the course of many years, has been taking more and more land from Palestine, and it has reached the point that Palestine is just tiny dots on a map.


After this lecture, I went upstairs to learn about the disability justice and transgender justice. We first spoke about the stigmas related to disable people and transgender people, then related them to other minorities such as poor people or black people. I was actually kind of surprised to how many adjectives  were common across the board. I learned that the disabled community is stronger than ever and are fighting to get their voices heard, fighting against these stereotypes that they're dependent or lacking.

After lunch, we had a lecture on religion and I was particularly interested in this topic because I'm not a very religious person. We mainly focused on the difference between religion and spirituality. John Gilmore presented us with a complicated scenario that really made me think. He said, "if a homeless person was praying to god for extra help to survive, and you come along with extra money that you don't mind giving away, to you it's a coincidence that you had the Money to give, but to the homeless person, it's an act of God; who is right?

After class and a long day of thinking in depth, the cohort and I got together for dinner and went on the Duck tour. The tour consisted our touring Philadelphia, mainly center city, by land and by water. I didn't really like the land part of the tour as much as the water because the city was crowded and noisy while the water had a calm, romantic ambiance.
 
I'm very excited about visiting the Eastern State Penitentiary tomorrow and learning about mass incarceration.

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