I agree with the saying "Your actions speak louder than your words" because  as we can see in the video "Non-verbal Communication: The Documentary" the 93% of our communication is based on non-verbal messages, which means that our body language and the voice take a lot of importance while interacting with others.The words are just a little part of the message, they don't always show what you really mean, or they can mean something you don't really think or feel, because is easier to fake the verbal messages than the non-verbal ones. For example, two years ago, in an important summit the president of Ecuador Rafael Correa greeted the president of Colombia trying to being polite, but everyone around the world realized that it was a really hypocritical greeting, and just because of the face he did while greeting him.

Things like that happen everyday; we are always expressing our state of mind and our perception of others by non-verbal cues. Another example is when we are sad because of something that happened to us but we are trying to hide this feeling, but there’s always someone who realizes that we are sad and when this person asks us, we try to keep lying saying that nothing is going on, but our facial expressions and our actions give us away.

If we are talking with someone and that person tells you something that don’t correspond with his actions, we will have to choose one of these two criterions (words or actions), and the most of the time we rather to believe in actions than in words, because is very easy to say something even if is not true, but is really hard to fake your expressions and your actions.In conclusion, “your actions speak louder than your words” because your actions are more reliable than your words because they can’t be faked, they are unconscious and they show what you really think or feel.

Before talking about the discrimination suffered by some minorities, we should have a general idea about when a group of people is considered a minority. According to Richard T. Schaefer (1993), a minority group is  a subordinate group whose members have significantly less control or power over their lives than members of a dominant or majority group.
There are also some common characteristics between the minorities, some of them are:

-Distinguishing physical or cultural traits, skin color or language.
-Unequal treatment and less power over their lives.
-Awareness of subordination and strong sense of group solidarity.

Keeping in mind this definition and these characteristics, we can easily classify the afro-Colombian people as a minority, and is a perfect example of how these kind of groups are discriminated against by the dominant culture.
Afro-Colombians refers to Colombians of African ancestry who are mostly concentrated in coastal areas. The main differences between them and the dominant culture are: skin color, artistic representations, ancestors, history and  food.
The racism is the main cause of discrimination of these people, it causes a lot of problems to this group. The idea of slavery seems to still being present in the mind of many people, and that causes outrages and prejudices in the society. Actually, the 90% of afro-Colombians live in misery, exclusion, discrimination and segregation.

The entire society needs to understand that all the human beings are equal, despite of their ancestors, skin color or beliefs; the afro-Colombians should be treated just like others, they should have the same possibilities of having a good education and then a good job, they shouldn't be prejudiced by others; they, as well as their culture, must be respected just as they are, they should receive tools in order to overcome the poverty.

We must always remember that they have given a huge contribution to our culture, specifically our artistic representations, so we should be full of gratitude with them. Apart from that, they facilitate an enrichment of our diversity.


http://academic.udayton.edu/race/01race/minor01.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afro-Colombian
http://www.banrepcultural.org/blaavirtual/sociologia/estudiosafro/estudiosafro5.htm

One of the most important consequences of the

globalization is the destruction of the cultural barriers, which means the rapprochement of countries and people around the world. Because of that, the international relatioships are becoming stronger and the people are opening their minds to the cultural differences, that's why is becoming more and more common the marriages between people from different cultures.

In all the marriages the differences and the tolerance take an important place at the development of the relationship, even if they are from the same culture, the way of thinking and acting of each person can hinder the success of it.

In a bicultural marriage, the differences are more noteworthy and they are reflected in almost all the situations when a decision affects both. Which one should give in?.

But these problems are not a bid deal when there is love and when there are desires of making a success of their marriage.  

In the other hand, the biggest problems have to do with the families. For example, in the movie "My big fat greek wedding" is clearly illustrated how can a family react when one of the members fall in love with a person from another culture, in this case a greek woman with an american guy. Everything that is included in the culture becomes an obstacle for them: the customs, the religion, the manners, the traditions, the language, etc. In the movie, the Toula's father was completely against this relationship, because he was not greek, and it caused a lot of problems between the members of the family. At the end, the love was stronger and they got married.

Something worse would happen if the families or at least one of them,were even more extremist with their culture, like the Indian culture or the Arabian one, that are completely unyielding, 

In these cases, is very important to be tolerant and respectful with the other person and trying to understand that the cultural diversity enriches our minds, and that there is not neither a right nor a wrong way of being, we are different but anyway equal.

I think is imperative to protect the endangered cultures and languages, because, as we saw in the videos, the differences make us unique, they identify us. The different cultures show us different way of acting and we learn of them values that we would never learn at being enclosed in just one culture.

We are not always right, we don’t have all the answers, but if we keep in mind that we are a complex multicultural group of people, we will maybe approach to these unknown answers, because there are many people out there full of knowledge that are not taken into account because of being part of a minority.  

On the other hand, the languages are like the flags of the cultures. Wed Davis said “Language is not just a body of vocabulary or set of grammatical rules, it’s a flash of the human spirit...", that means that each language represent beliefs, thoughts, traditions, history, identity; and if a language disappears all of these issues will also disappear. As Phil Borges said, every two weeks an elder dies, taking with him a language that will never be spoken again, because he was the last person in the world who spoke it. So, in some years we will lose the half of our diversity.

Many people say all the time that it would be nice to speak just one language in the entire world, but how could we choose this language? Would it be English, or Spanish, or French? It would be unfair with the rest of the people who don’t speak this chosen language, it would be unfair taking off their culture, are they less important? I don’t think so. So we have to respect the differences and be proud of the diversity of our society. 

My name is Eduardo Espitia, I'm learning english at the Universidad Del Norte, i've just started my undergraduate studies in civil engineering.
I'm studying english because it's very important in many respects. First of all, it's spoken in the whole world, if you travel to a country where the official language is not spoken by you, you can speak in english in order to cover your communication needs. Besides, it's required by the society, because of the globalization.
I also speak french; and when I finish my english course, I would love to learn another language.
Meanwhile, I will try to improve my english level and my communication skills.