‘The pursuit of equality of the sexes is not only futile but foolish.’ Do you agree?

I absolutely love this piece.

‘The pursuit of equality of the sexes is not only futile but foolish.’ Do you agree?

Sexuality-based discrimination results in death of teen

On September 22, Tyler Clementi, an 18-year-old Rutgers University freshman jumped to his death after two classmates secretly recorded him making out with another man and posted the video on the Internet.

Tyler isn’t the only one – on September 19, Seth Walsh hung himself from a tree after enduring taunts that he was gay.

And still there are more.

In response to such incidents, Ellen DeGeneres speaks out, urging that we stop discriminating against gays, because “one death is tragic, four is a crisis”

Questions:

A prejudiced society is a society in crisis. Discuss.

Discuss the impacts of the media on the youth of today.

To what extent can the media be used to influence society?

I need help with general knowledge!

While there’s no substitute for regularly reading good newspapers and periodicals, there are several websites that provide particularly overviews of main issues, such as OneWorld.net:

OneWorld Guides
  learn about developing countries

 

    in our range of educational Guides

Aid	Environmental Activism
Capacity Building	Ocean Acidification
Child Labour	Population
Climate Change	Poverty
Food Security	Refugees
Gender	Terrorism
Globalisation	Trade and Poverty
HIV and AIDS	Tropical Forests
Human Rights	Volunteering
Migration	Water and Sanitation

 Thanks to Helen, for the link!

Task:
READ the guides, paying attention to the introductions used, for ideas on possible ways to start an essay.

Should universities use positive discrimination to increase diversity?

Affirmative action in education

Task:

Read some of the arguments for and against affirmative action in education, and give your view on the question, “Should universities use positive discrimination to increase diversity?”

“Why are indians so smelly?”

A shocking question?

How about this: “Why are black people so loud?”

These questions are, according to Google, the most common searches that begin with “why”:

The top searches beginning with "why " on Google Singapore.

Try it yourself: type in “why”, followed by a space, into the search box on Google Singapore, and see what common searches turn up in the prompts.

But Singaporeans aren’t at all unique in their racism – try this on the Google pages of other countries. Apparently, the world is united by racism.

HP computers are… racist?

Youtube comments:

jwolfenstein (1 hour ago)

There’s nothing to fix. Maybe an adjust in sensibility that would make white people not to be recognized. You can also try a different light, maybe from the side. I bet that a Korean with a strong white light straight from the front is not going to be recognized, and a Korean is not black skinned. Stop making this stupid allegations. HP may or may not be racist but it has nothing to do with a piece of software.

jwolfenstein (1 hour ago)

This is stupid. It has nothing to do with racism. The computer has to find out that there’s a face based on the differences from one pixel to the next. It doesn’t have human capabilities, it’s an algorithm. Take a picture of his face and analyze the color curve, then a picture of her face. You’ll see that the curve for the black guy is more flat. That’s not racism, that’s physics. His skin color with that lightning makes the picture less definite, there’s little contrast. More to follow.

caseyc82 (56 minutes ago)
@jwolfenstein Yes, it is computer error based on that, true. But this isn’t some shareware code written by a couple guys in their basement. This is a product released by a major corporation for the mass market. That means there were meetings upon meetings about it, testing and more testing, iterations and improvements made. And across the board, there was apparently neither a black person involved nor was that concern brought up. And THAT is racism.

(See this CNN report for the response from HP)

Think:
Is the racist claim a fair one? Why or why not?

Question:
Discrimination will never be eradicated from society. Do you agree?
Assess the claim that ‘advanced’ technology still leaves much to be desired.

Science, or discrimination?

Some blame it on discrimination – that whenever statistics show men earning more than women, holding higher-paying jobs or dominating certain industries (for instance, banking), this is evidence of discrimination in the workplace.

However, perhaps it’s not discrimination. Perhaps these results can be explained by hormones. In other words, that Science is to blame.

But are we merely shifting the blame to Science, so that we can guiltlessly continue discriminating against women? Or to justify employment decisions? Or perhaps to fuel societal stereotypes?

A kidnapper by skin colour

Today, I was pulled over by a cop. Why? Apparently, it is suspicious for a dark-skinned man to drive his white girlfriend home past midnight. It “looks like a kidnapping.” FML

- http://www.fmylife.com

Tudung issue revisited?

A full-time National Serviceman was sentenced on five days’ detention on Friday under the SAF Act for conduct prejudicial to good discipline. His trespass: a refusal to cut his hair or consume SAF food because he was a practicing Brahmin priest. Read the whole article here from CNA.

Does this reaction from the SAF contravene any human rights articles you know of? Should the bureaucratic rationalization of ‘uniformity’–used so fervently in the 2002 Tudung issue–apply here?

(Thanks to Derek for this piece)

Have race relations improved since the election of President Barack Obama?

What do people have to say about this? Check out the discussion thread here.