Today in corporate ethics class while discussing sweatshop workers:
random person 1: How do these Chinese people ever get rich, or go to college?
random person 2: They marry American men.
I was too flabbergasted to react. By the time my brain confirmed I heard what I thought was the most american-centric remark ever, the class had moved on. No he wasn't kidding about the "only-way-other-people-in-the -world-get-rich-is-by-marrying-americans" comment.
At a party discussing minimum wage....
random person 3: They should be happy with their crappy job and their crappy pay, its their fault they can't get a good job because they didn't pay attention in class. They are poor because they were sleeping in class while we were studying hard.
I think my brain was dulled by the effects of alcohol because it was only after that conversation that I realised it was the most ridiculous comment I have ever heard. If a rich kid flunked in class, he will still have a pretty decent life living off daddy's cash. People don't have a choice but to be walmart cashiers because they couldn't afford to go to college, or they have sick parents, or they just have circumstances in their lives beyond their control. People don't become poor just because they didn't study in class. That was something our primary school teachers tell us to scare us into going to school.
random person 4: Why should any company hire disabled people?
I thought about this one. At first i went by the argument that yes, a profit motivated company need not hire disabled people just like how modelling agencies need not hire ugly people. It's not efficient. But companies should hire disabled people just because they can. Just because it would make the world a better place. Just because hiring that disabled person is a bigger contribution to society than telling me to lick my yogurt lids and sending it in so you can send 5 cents to breast cancer research. If only the world works on the simplistic basis of: I am human and its my duty to make another human's life better. Oh wait....hiring disabled people isn't tax deductable. And it doesn't provide very good public relation material.
Today I met a middle age black lady in the gym today just after a white penn girl knocked into her and called her "bitch". The lady said this school contains some of the most ignorant people. Not everyone is ignorant. I have met heaps of amazing people here. On a normal day I would defend Penn students. But today I just nodded and said, "Yeah, there goes another ignorant rich penn kid. This school is crawling with them."
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