More stuff!

    So we talked much about Diversity in the family and if it is fair to clump familys into race when studying them. Now different ways we look at diversity are
-class
-culture
-race
-socieo economic status
-ethnicity
-genetics
We used to study famiilys by their race for example "Hispanics are more likely to have big familys" but now it seems that the culture and family affect people more then their ethnicity and race. It is important to know where we came from and all that but id does not diffene who we are as much as it used to because we have so many cultures in the US. that have mixed in together so a person of Irish decent may have more of an American culure or something depending where they grew up and there for you can no longer acuratly clump familys or people of the same race together. In my mind culture plays a big part because that's what our parents teach us but the family seems to play the biggest role in who you are and how your family is when you grow up. Even if you don't like who your parents were you eventually, subconsciously become them. The things you do affect the people areound you and the things you do can last 3 or 4 generations after. Like a father who is often absent in the home, the trend generally passes down through 3 or 4 generations. Someone will hopefully finally see whats happening and decide to change that behavior. we can not underestimate your power to change family culture.
Identity comes from all these places but it also comes from maturity and experience.

Speaking of culture, I learned something interesting this week that's a little off topic but I still found it fascinating. I was talking to my friend who served his mission in Brazil. I held my arm up next to his and made a comment about how much darker he was then I and how me and my room mate were talking about going tanning. He found it funny because here we are always comparing how dark we are compared to others. In America we want to have darker skin, at least tan skin. To us its exotic and beautiful. In Brazil they compare who is lighter. They want the fair skin. When he told the people he was serving that in America we lay in boxes with special lights that make our skin darker they thought we were crazy! It was so strange to them that we try so hard to have skin that is dark. The people there with fair skin don't like to go outside and when they do they carry an umbrella so as not to tan. It really just shows that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and as humans we generally want what we don't have or cant have. They are born with darker skin, they want lighter skin. We are born with lighter skin and we generally want it to be darker. Very interesting.