White Privilege

I believe that white privilege will decline throughout the year in America, but it will take a while. Just take a look at the people that run our country. In the Senate 80% and the House of Representatives 79.8% of the people in power consist of the white race. Both of the House and Senate also consist of approximately 80% male. Even though the white race has become the minority in America, it will not necessarily completely defeat white privilege until congress has more of a balance between races and genders. The United States did not elect its first black president until 2008. That is 231 years strait only having white males as the commander in charge. If it is believed that America will not have white privilege in the next 20 to 30 years, white privilege will continue to be an ongoing factor until the power of America has a balance of both gender and race from top to bottom.

There has been talk of increased gun control for years but nothing has come about it. If the gun laws become too strict, people will revolt against the country and it could possibly be the coming of a second civil war. Our government does not want to see that happen, and if individuals of power think that the people of America will stand idly by as they have their guns stripped from their possession, they are wrong. The right to bear arms is given to the American people through the second amendment,  and organizations like the NRA will never allow the government to take away the people’s right to such an activity. The NRA will not lose influence in politics because it has such a large following and a large amount of members all across the country. Individuals that enjoy recreational activities such as hunting or trap shooting will all become members of the NRA if the government threatens increased gun control because that will make it much more challenging for government to pass a bill enforcing higher gun control.

Another argument that always goes around in times of talk of increased gun control or the possibility of guns being confiscated by the government is do guns kill people or do people kill people? Of course guns make it much simpler for a person to kill another individual, but that’s the key to the comment. People kill people. I know plenty of people just around this area that have more guns that you can count with both your hands. And to my knowledge none of which have ever killed another human being. When there is a murder that occurs, what is the first questioned asked; who shot the gun or what kind of gun was used for the violent act? Of course what individual committed the crime because it is simple, people kill people.

All people of all different cultures are taught several very important concepts through pop culture such as movies, television dramas, or songs. Most men in romance movies are white males that save the day and get the beautiful woman in the end. Movies of such nature can also help to create a false sense of entitlement in areas such as the work force, education, power, and women. No matter what people think, white people still have more privileges than black individuals. With a higher rate of being arrested white people are still the minority group in prisons. Problems that occur in our society include white males thinking that just based on their sex and race that they are entitled to more than any other person.

White privilege is reality, it will continue to be a reality until not just the United States population recognizes whites as a minority, but when congress and the judicial system realizes whites as a minority. If or when congress is predominately black, Mexican or Asian: there could possibly be a terms such as black privilege, Mexican privilege, or Asian privilege. White males are often thought to be most likely to be mass shooters because they have a false sense of entitlement. When these white males realized they cannot have every they feel they deserve, they will take down as many people they can with them. The NRA was created to protect the gun rights of outdoor enthusiast and hunters, just because there may be stricter gun control laws do not necessarily mean that they will take away fire arms completely. Even if guns were banned in the United States, the individuals that are going to be committing crimes or have bad intensions will still be able to get their hands on firearms. Guns are like drugs, just because they are illegal does not mean they will be off the streets completely and crimes involving these weapons will continue to occur. I believe that the future is not much different than the present and if history has taught us anything guns will continue to be a right of Americans.

White privilege will continue to be a factor for years and decades to come therefor gun rights will be around the prolonged future. When we as white people become the minority, the future is unknown and no one person can guarantee what will become of our nation or our world. All I know is that our country has been run by white males throughout every year that that we have prospered. There have been large numbers of other races in America for a long time and white males continue to be in powerful positions. I believe that white males have run our country forever, in the beginning there was white privilege and it will continue to live on for many years to come. All of those brilliant minds coming together to create the Constitution gave us as American the right to have guns and use them personal benefit as long as it did not hurt other individuals and that will continue to occur. Finally I believe that the NRA is way too large and powerful to ever lose their influence because they have such a large amount members that vote for people supporting gun rights.

Freddie Gray

I believe that society let Freddie Gray down. He was born into a difficult situation of poverty, low income, and high crime rates with poor sanitation everywhere. Already being born with a birth defect is challenging enough but having to do it under all of the other circumstances is asking someone to succeed is nearly impossible. While Gray was growing up he suffered from excessive amounts of lead in his body, and living in the home environment it continued to get worse until the amount of lead in his blood before he turned two was seven times the level that is thought to cause permanent brain damage.

To just make his life worse, Freddie was enrolled at a school where they had inexperienced teaching and most of those teachers would be gone from school 10+ days out of the year. The education in this community is very poor and therefore makes it even more difficult for anyone to get out of these bad communities. Freddie Gray was dealt a bad hand by society, but that is no excuse for his actions either. He used illegal drugs and was having run-ins with the law quite often. The suspicion that the police officers had when they arrested Gray were probably justifiable. If Gray was known by name for some of law enforcement, he was probably not completely innocent.

Freddie Gray’s story is saddening that he did not get the chance to live life to its fullest extent. He missed out on countless opportunities because of birth defects, mental capacity, and environment. Although he had all of these mental problems, that does not give him the right to break the law. This is a case of the media trying to spin things in order to get it to sound like our system has a flaw and the police officers were completely in the wrong arresting him. I feel bad for this particular individual but we cannot change the past and hopefully the neighborhoods that have bad lead problems. There is going to be dramatic changes eventually within our society in order to avoid cases like this in the future.

Deviance

Smoking is thought to lead to more deviant behavior, sure as sex or drugs. To some individuals smoking is a gateway drug leading towards the possibility of participating in even more deviant activities. Although some situation this might be true, but there are individuals all over the place as a release or a way to just relax. Cigarettes may also be a way for a deviant individual to express that they are trying to be a deviant or even a way to get attention from some people that otherwise would not even notice there existence. Smoking has been banned in countless public places that offered that freedom just 10 or 15 years ago. With actions like this people are going to see smoking as a deviant action and possible convince certain individuals to stop smoking and prevent future usage of the product.

                The way I see it is doing something stupid and foolish just because our society allows them to. Cigarettes are highly addictive and if used early and often in an individual’s life, it could affect them in way or behavior and definitely in financial circumstances. Just like eye color or hair color and style, I believe that deviant behavior can be passed down, or even learned from generation to generation. And with the current young generation, it is scary to think how many deviants there are, what will become of our once great country? Will it continue to deteriorate? Only time will tell the story and deviance is a major factor in the future of our country as a whole.

"ME" Project

First of all, heredity affects me in the ways of athleticism and math I believe. Whenever it comes to doing anything with mathematics it has always come fairly easily to me if I just have someone explain the concepts to me I will catch on very quickly. Since my father is good with accounting and mother is a math teacher I think that has to be a reason that it is one of my strong suites because all three of her children were advanced in the subject. Also since both of them acquired degrees at 4 year colleges it makes sense that all three kids plan to follow in those same footsteps. As for athleticism sports has gone back all the way to my grandpa playing both basketball and football so I know that I have gotten some of the traits for being an athlete from heredity passed down through the generations.

Secondly, birth order influences me in many positive ways. My brother has always been a major part of my life because we shared a bedroom for about 15 years and he has been a great positive influence for me. Whatever his favorite teams were growing up I grew to like them just because he liked them and now I still continue to like all those teams. And I have always been more outgoing and social than my brother as most everybody can tell, but my sister is a different story because she is extremely outgoing and is also smart. I also like to believe that I am a risk taker because I like trying new things and to test the boundaries sometimes. I have learned a lot of my life skills just by watching my older brother and sister live their lives.

Thirdly, Parental characteristics have affected me because I was born when both my mother and father were in there mid-thirties and they had good discipline but they also had a good amount of freedoms too. They have pushed me to be religious in the Lutheran church body and have brought me to church for my entire life and enrolled me in Sunday school and confirmation. Both of my parents are in jobs that help people to better themselves and to grow people in different ways of knowledge, and both my brother and sister are going to school to try to help people. My parents have always pushed me to do my best in everything that I do, and if something does not come easy to me I have to try a little hard and push myself to succeed. They also did not force me to do anything that I absolutely did not like. And I can say that I was kind of babied as a child because I could bother my siblings and then I would cry or complain when they got me back and they would get in trouble with my parents. So you could say that I got my way a lot when it came to fights with siblings.

Lastly, the cultural environment that I have grown up in has been extremely friendly and accepting. Being citizen of Langford is like being in one giant family, because everyone knows who you are and you know who everyone else is. With an environment like this when you make a mistake or a bad decision everyone will know but on the other hand, if you do something good in or for the community you will get recognized by everyone in the community. So with all of that being said there is a lot of pressure to be good most of the time.

All of these are major factors to how a person grows up and what kind of person they will grow to be. All of these instances have different effects on everyone’s personality.

Vetrans Day Blog

What are my thoughts on murder charges during a war? I feel that unless you see something that could be a direct threat or see a sign or symbol that could be a threatening group seeking to do harm to you or your comrades, you have no right to harm someone. But on the other hand, people like me would not know how to react until we have been in there shoes or been there. Civilians cannot speak out about instants like this because they have no idea what this individuals have seen from gunfights to bombs blowing people to pieces right in front of them, all you are thinking about is survival.

When all of our servicemen come back from there will be people waiting to protest them because they want peace, when in reality, they have no idea what they are yelling about. They think they are doing well for countries and people, but in reality, this men and women just got done seeing some of the worst images that people could imagine. These people risked their lives to make sure other people of the earth are kept safe, the last thing they need or want is to be protested. This is where the quote "Citizenship is a duty, not a privilege" comes into play. The protesters or the American soldiers should be ashamed to protest our own troops. Our soldiers have given us freedom as citizens for over 200 years. If anything our troops need support coming back from war.

Racism

Article I

After reading the first article, and seeing all the main points on whether or not racism is a universal idea or a western idea, I have come to the conclusion that it became a larger controversy shortly before and during the periods or African slaves in America. Before in ancient cultures, all people of all colors could be slaves and there was no racism involved in the determining factor who was, or who became a slave. Slaves were used for trading, bargaining, and also sometimes used as a currency. The term racism evolved from the fact that Great Britain used slaves as a trading tool to America, and only the black people were slaves and no other races were. In my personal opinion I believe that racism is a western idea because it started with the African people being used as slaves. Based on their skin tone, which could be due to the evolution of cultures and people as a whole. As it stated in the article, the term “slave” is branched off of Slav which is a group of lighter skin toned people. Over the years random groups would be selected for slavery, and specifically in the most recent years the African people. People that think racism has always been in this world are semi-right, but it has been on small scale levels, there have always been races of people that are inferior to other races. There are certain traits of individuals and people in general that make it difficult to avoid being judgmental towards groups of people.

Article II

This article states that all people are racist, and even though we do not like to think we are, we all have a voice in the back of our head that judges people that look different from us. As much as I would like to deny this, I cannot. I feel terrible about it but there are stories that you hear about people getting beat to death in inner city ghettos, and I bet the first thing that come to you is a group of black gangsters. And when I would tell you there are illegal immigrants all over the place in the southern states of the America, at least 90% of people would think Mexicans right away, but there could be people of races trying to cross the border, it is just all of the prejudices that we create in our heads. And there are also positive prejudices in the United States too, or generalizations like white people can’t jump, or all Asian people are geniuses. Racism can also be contributed to isolation of different races. Like in larger cities there are black neighborhoods, China town, and suburbs which usually consist of white people. With the separation of people throughout the world and all the different division of people, racism will be around until all of the world become a melting pot and all people look the same because they have children together to make a one race society and you cannot tell the difference because everyone has the same skin tone.

Article III

Racism still exists in the United States, and our country is still suffering from the fallout of slavery and the Jim Crow laws. The separation of races in our larger cities is more than noticeable. Our society has created racism and racial problems. One of the worst things for fueling racial problems has become the mass media. With the growth of the media, it is easier for people to hear heinous acts of terrorism due to racial difference. Like a white cop shooting a black teenager, even if the teenager was a major threat to the police officer. The major stories like this make it all the easier for people to become racist and form opinions on a race as a whole. The article states that all people should be judged on what kind of people they are and if it comes to a job setting, what kind of work they perform. That is the ideal way of thinking, but no matter what, there will always be racism. It is a part of vocabulary now, and as long as the media stays at the strength it is at its present state, racism will be around. It is so simple for people to turn on a television, or open up a computer and see a racially motivated story. Our society started out with racism since the beginning, and overtime the strength of it has grown and became a major downfall for our society.

Conclusion

I believe that racism is a Western concept because in times before there was slavery but it did not matter what your skin tone was or what you did, if you were a slave you were a slave and you would be sold and traded among people. Racism is a byproduct of the media. The media can blow up a racial story all over the country with the push of a button and all of the sudden it will start racial controversy all over the United States. Racism was started in Great Britain when they used African people to trade with and gain goods for their own benefit instead of selling slaves of their own people like it was done in ancient times, if it was not for the British racism may not have become as popular as it is today. I believe that because the mass media became such a major part of our society, it grew in every part of the world. Due to this reality, yes racism is everywhere because it makes top stories for news and it allows networks to receive the best rating and they could care less about the fallout that it could cause in towns like Ferguson where they twisted the story for dramatic effect and all of the people of the community were outraged and started to destroy the community because of the bad choices and actions of a couple individuals in on moment on one day.

Welfare

Truths	Myths
People live the same length of time	Children have improved nutrition
Welfare could make people lazy	Welfare makes people more motivated
Many democrats don’t support it	Democrats are the only supporters or welfare
Can’t afford shot or medical expenses	Long life because better medical care
People on welfare don’t have a lot of money	People with welfare have a lot of money
They are more likely to behave badly on welfare	They use the money for good
Could have a job but not enough income	Won’t have a job with welfare
People use it for what they want	People use it for necessities

 

Reagan claimed that the Government spending was out of control and without the lowering of government spending we will never progress as a country. He stated that is a necessity for American Economy to have a larger sum of money to create more opportunities to become prosperous. After a tax cut there was promising signs that it could be better in the future. Some of the decisions that he was making at the time to make it better in the future could be affecting the governmental flow. Because he believed that government spending was too high. Reagan cut down the budget which could possibly affect some of the roads or government lands because the budget is not as great.

I like Clinton’s bill because it limits the number of people that use the welfare program and do not work because it is free income. And it also limits the number of years you can receive money from welfare programs which will also save the government a good amount of money. And Clinton’s plan also states that you must have a job or be employed in order to receive government money. This prevents people from milking the system and helps people to get on their feet instead of just using that money.