Feeling like a fish in a fishbowl

So today in International Relations we were debating World Poverty, and our obligations as moral citizens on what we have to do about it. We were looking at two arguments, and one of them argued that we should give as much time and money as we can give, and keep on giving, until we come to a moral consequence that is of equal or greater value to the moral consequence of world hunger. Aka: give until it adversely affects your life.

This argument is oversimplified, but for the purposes of this post it works.

Anyway, we started talking about moral obligation, and somehow we got into Slavery and reparations. The funny thing is, we have one black guy (we're all from the US, by the way) and he was against Slavery reparations, yet there were several whites who were for it. And well, the discussion got heated, with one of the people saying "What, are you calling me a slave driver?" *Blinks* To be fair, he stopped after he said it he stopped and said, "That came out totally wrong." And the whole class laughed.

But the whole time our teacher just watched us, and he had a slightly quizzical expression on his face, as if he didn't quite "get" us Americans (he's Swedish). Now this happens more often than I'm always comfortable with. There are times I swear he just sets us up for these discussions just so he can see how those "crazy ignorant Americans" act. Now, I'm sure that isn't entirely true, but it felt that way.

In other news, both of my papers are in. Now I must begin Studying for my Swedish test coming up soon, and back to working on my proposal.