The And Its Impact On Society Essay

Akers, R. (2006). Parental and peer influences on adolescent drug use in Korea. Asian Journal of Criminology.

America’s history is overrun with oppression and injustice based on race, ethnicity, and other traits that innocent victims have no control over. As a result, the reputation of the United States is forever tainted by it’s dark past, and still practices these surviving habits of hatred. Civil liberty issues faced since the establishment of the country have yet to be resolved because of the ever-present mistreatment, corruption in positions of authority, and the dehumanization of minorities.

In recent years, there has been increased discussion about the treatment of minorities in the U.S. While there have been numerous laws passed that protect their freedoms, many Americans maintain a negative mindset toward other ethnicities. Due to people’s reservations, our country has been unable to make substantial progress toward equality. In The Nation’s article, “The Truth About Race in America: It’s Getting Worse, Not Better,” by Gary Younge, the author utilizes factual information, historical allusions, and related quotes to effectively contend that race relations are worsening within the United States.

America has always been labeled the “melting pot” and the “land of the free,” but when one is analyzing the history and social norms of the country, these statements are far from true. America has thrived through the oppression of minority groups and social pressure towards these groups to conform to the majority culture. In any historical sense, from the near extermination of Native Americans to the racial profiling of Muslim individuals after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, minority groups have always been the victims and have always been viewed as different if they do not assimilate into the “typical” American culture. Numerous works of literature have successfully displayed the struggles that minorities face when attempting to conform. Two works in particular, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Alexie Sherman and When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka, tell stories of two different minority groups: Native Americans living in the 21st century and Japanese-Americans during World War II. While these stories are separated by several decades, it is clear that American culture has not changed, as each story exemplifies how difficult it truly is to leave old cultural norms behind in order to be accepted by the majority.

The United States has a longstanding history of racism and discriminatory policy, stemming from the colonial era. Generally, those who weren’t considered true White Americans faced blatant ethnicity-based discrimination and adversity in matters of education, human rights, immigration, land ownership, and politics. Specific racial institutions, characteristic of the 17th to 20th centuries, included slavery, wars against the Native Americans, exclusion from civil life, and segregation. It wasn’t until the mid-20th century that formal racial discrimination was banned, and majority attitudes began to see racism as socially unacceptable. However, our relatively recent racialized history has left an unfortunate impact on present society. The legacy of historical racism still continues to be echoed through socioeconomic inequality, and racial politics still remain a major phenomenon. Many argue that our government systems have shifted from means of overt racism to more symbolic, covert racism, and that this is reflected in our societal institutions, such as employment, housing, education, economics, and government.

Our racial ethnicity is influential in what we do in life, whether it be with school, personal relations, or even job opportunities. There are some, Americans today who hold racial prejudice against people of different color and ethnicity, which as a result narrows opportunities that minorities can actually have. In the essay “Race in America: “We Would Like To Believe We Are Over The Problem” Maryann Cusimano Love, an associate professor of international relations in the Politics Department at Catholic University, addresses the idea that “To get over racial problems” we need to acknowledge them as well as the history of difficult racial problems in order to move forward as a multicultural society.(387) Love reveals a study conducted

The United States, even though considered the land of freedom, has been struggling with lingering racism and discrimination throughout the 19th and 20th century. Democratic reform throughout the century were implanted to eliminate the “tyranny of the white majority” Yet many scholars like Tocqueville, Fredrick Harris and WEB DuBois have challenged these results. The reality is that the tyranny of white majority has continued throughout the 18th to the 21st century resulting in a society that has suppressed and constantly failed to integrate African American into the white society by neglecting the race, using natural prejudice, race neutral policies, and laws that benefited whites more than African Americans.

Our racial ethnicity is influential in what we do in life, whether it would be with school, personal relations, or even job opportunities. There are many Americans today that hold racial prejudice against people of different color and different ethnicity, which as a result narrows many opportunities that minorities can actually have. In the essay “Race in America: “We Would Like To Believe We Are Over The Problem” Maryann Cusimano Love an associate professor of international relations in the Politics Department at Catholic University, addresses “To “get over” racial problems” (Love 387) we need to acknowledge them as well as the history of those racial problems in order to move forward as a multicultural society. Love reveals a study conducted by The University of Connecticut which shows “19 percent of the 14,000 college

The United States of America is known as a country of independence, liberty, and rights; within the lines of our national anthem the Stars Spangled Banner, it is clear to see how the phrases "the land of the free and home of the brave", symbolize the ideals that have been centralized into the American Society for hundreds of years. Despite being recognized as a world power; for its military structure and the "believed" system of possibilities in terms of self advancement, the United States of America houses a very dark and inhumane secret; a sociological failure that perhaps is called that way, given the as a nation, we neglect, fail to address, and persecute those that because of their inherited skin color, look different than the accepted sociological norm of whiteness. It is shameful, to me at least, that the term "American" is a representation of the world 's largest incarceration rate; it’s even more shameful, how we prosecute, isolate, and declare what President Nixon once believed was the proper measure to take on poor communities; the war on drugs. For hundreds of years, we as a country have idealized with what Mustafa Emirbayer & Matthew Desmond have identified in their book Racial Domination, Racial Progress the Sociology of Race in America, as a mistake; mistake that has cost thousands of minorities their reputations and has impacted not only their tranquility, but their overall success rate in the promised land of opportunities.

Growing up in America, children are taught by their grade school teachers to be proud of being American. They chant “Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492” and harmoniously sing patriotic songs such as The Star Spangled Banner while being utterly oblivious of America’s corrupt political system. It may not be until one is pursing their final years of high school, or perhaps even in college when they are aware of America’s history of possessing a highly restrictive political system. For minorities, America is not the land of the free. It is the land of oppression to progression, yet we still wear our scars and our heads up high. Struggles to expand the breadth of political and civil rights in the United States have been critical to fostering greater inclusion and equality for racial/ethnic minorities in America. Various reforms such as the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Acts were implemented during the civil rights era as they helped promote greater inclusion and equity to, but not limited to, African Americans and Mexican-Americans.

Modern America is advertised worldwide as a bastion of freedom and opportunity. In many ways, this is true. People from all walks of life find their place in America. However, there are also many instances in which America casts out people for reasons that can best be described as incredible. The country is hailed as a ‘melting pot’, yet the actions of its people suggest a deep intolerance for anything different. This intolerance is not something that can be easily corrected. In fact, the intolerance of people, in many cases, cannot be corrected. The issue of intolerance lies with individuals that perpetuate discrimination, but the solution does not. The only way to prevent the cancer of hate from spreading throughout the American body is to prevent it from growing in the first place: erasing intolerance in the younger generations, in preschoolers and kindergarteners, in order to provide a

We are the United States, where the people are given life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We are the United States: free, diverse, and equal. But what happens when one is not equal? What occurs when a minority of our population struggle every day to be heard about their lack of civil rights? And what happens when the majority refuses to listen? The lack of understanding that revolves around cultures in our country negatively affects how others perceive the culture and allows open access for groups to be discriminated against. Though through empathy, one can learn to understand each other’s experiences, understand the civil rights that are being deprived and learn to build a stronger and more equal society.

The single most defining aspect of any culture is its history, whether it be moments of triumph or failure. An optimistic hope, for any culture is that following historic occurrences, whether the outcome be positive or negative, lessons are learned with the hopes that history doesn’t repeat itself. In American culture however, every decade it seems, a different minority group is forced to fight for their rights, against those who are ignorant or unwilling to offer acceptance. A significant reason children are taught history, is so that as each new generation is brought up, they are educated of missteps on the part of their elder generations, so that the culture and society can grow and prosper. Society is hopeful that learning from these mistakes, will prevent similar occurrences in the future.

My name is Christi. I was born February 17, 1999. And I know I have been separated from my immediate family and selected to begin a new society on planet Fuji. I, along with four other children, was chosen to develop our new society into something livable. Our goal is a peaceful cohesive environment. I realize the opportunity I have to continue humanity is greater than mourning any losses; however, I will never forget the life I left behind. I have already shed many emotional tears for the loss of my mother, father and siblings. The memories I have will no doubt guide me into the future.

An individual’s role in society can vary with the number themes the characters exhibit. When there are signs of fate, cruelties, weaknesses, and desires for justice and catharsis the role of an individual becomes more complicated. In Antigone, most of those themes are shown thus a single person’s influence or role on society is very small and complicated to attain. However in The Lottery the society has most of the control and there is not many signs of those characteristics so the role of a person is simplified because they are nothing compared to the society combined. Finally, in The Penalty of Death, there are signs of many of the themes but since it is the societies influence against that of an individuals, it is simplified because