Brian Brooks

I enjoyed Brian Brooks’ lecture the most. He talked about the human rights issue and I personally found that most relevant to my life today and was most applicable to the world around us. Compared to some of the other lecturers, I think this was the easiest to listen to and keep focus on because this topic applies to everyone. I thought it made people think about everything going around them and the problems our world is facing today.

            Brooks defined human rights as rights you have simply because you’re human. These rights apply to everyone, everywhere. Although they don’t always apply to everyone, they’re supposed to. We shouldn’t treat others as if they’re less than us simply because of their race, color of their skin, where they live, where they came from or where they work. This is especially topical today because of everything happening at The University of Missouri. We talked about it in class a little, but if people honestly feel as if their human rights are being threatened, something should be done about it. The human rights vary from rights such as the first, “We are all free and equal”, to “workers rights” and even to “the right to relax”. Although some seem more important than others, they are all still our basic human rights that each individual person is supposed to have. 

                                

            One of the human rights is that nobody has a right to take away these rights and freedoms, and I feel as if in today’s world these rights are very much threatened, especially in certain countries. We may not hear about them or they may not be on the front page in a newspaper but they still are happening all around us and we need to be aware of them.

            I learned a lot about the Dominican Republic. I feel as if many people don’t know a lot about this country, as I didn’t know much before this class. I learned there are more problems there than meets the eye. When we had to pick an NGO, I picked Operation DREAM, which helps kids achieve the education that their human rights give them. In my life, education is a given. Where I grew up everyone went to kindergarten, everyone graduated 8^th grade, everyone made it to high school and graduated and went on to prestigious schools such as Notre Dame, Indiana University, Cornell, Stanford, etc. Point is, we all were given the opportunity to go to school from our parents. However, in the Dominican Republic these kids don’t have the same opportunity. It was definitely an eye opening experience to follow this country throughout the semester.