7 Days of September

Watching the destruction of 9/11 and paying attention to it's effects on people for the first time since third grade was not what I expected it to be. As an eight year old it is hard to really understand what is going on. All I remember about September 11th was being walked home from school by my mom and going home and seeing images of the planes going into the towers on CNN. As a third grader it is really cool to see all the fire and explosion. It was like watching a movie. Now watching it as a senior in high school the experience is very different. The most disturbing thing to me is the sight of people jumping off the top of the building. I can't imagine a situation where I would ever have to throw myself out of a window a hundred stories above ground instead of waiting to be burned alive. I liked watching this film because it showed how not only New Yorkers but how the rest of America reacted to the attacks. When people watch documentaries about 9/11 most of the time it is just about the towers being hit and collapsing and the events of that day. I liked being able to see how the rest of the week unfolded because when it was happening I was too young to understand what was happening. I think that this movie gave a great perspective of what happened and how it affected America. After watching it I found myself feeling a stronger sense of patriotism and anger towards anyone that would want to do this to my country.

Speech Codes on American Campus

The students in the fraternities having race parties should be punished without a doubt. After all the things that went on in this country with the Civil Rights Movement and racism in our country it is amazing to me that people can still act this way. Based on the video we watched in class with the Harvard professor and the speech codes packet we read i don't think that they'd be able to be seriously punished since they were not violating the First Amendment. However, the university should be able to suspend the right for the fraternity to hold parties or even be on campus because the black face party is not only offensive but it could be considered fighting words and can incite violence between those white kids with the paint on their face and the black students on campus. I know that if I was attending that university I would not want things like that going on because I would not have to deal with the uncomfortable tension that comes as a result of this party. I also wouldn't like it because I would be worried about which minority they would go after next. As a Jew outside of the North Shore, I would be a minority and would not like to be targetted like the black students were in this case.