The Dinner

Today we live in a society where it is acceptable for a white and black family to be neighbors, even close friends. This situation has not always been the case. During the 1950’s, the time that the Younger family was living in Chicago, whites and blacks were living completely separate lives and a majority of the blacks were living in poverty. Although there are significant improvements we have made, there are still things that remain the same. Many African Americans in Chicago today are still living in poverty, just like they were over 50 years ago. Two important changes have occurred during these years. Our race relations between whites and blacks have improved tremendously. Today it is completely acceptable for two different colored families to be living next door to each other. The second significant change is not as positive. The homicide rates per 100,000 people have gone up by almost 10 times the amount it was in the 50’s. Many sociologist believe that the cycle of multigenerational poverty causes violence in the mostly black communities, therefore raising the homicide rates. Even though as a city we have improved our race relations there are still problems such as the rising homicide rates and percent of people living in poverty.

Trimalchio hosts’ a farewell dinner which is a dinner given to gladiators who were about to face wild beasts in the arena. Trimalchio is a Semitic name based on the word for “prince” and he is a high living individual. However, a well-born Roman reader would not approve of his attitudes and behavior. You get a good sense of what Trimalchio is like early on in the story when he is in the middle of talking to Menelaus and snaps his fingers for a slave to bring him a pot. When the slave brings the pot to Trimalchio he peed in it, asked for water and then used the slave’s hair to dry his hands. (19) Trimalchio had many slaves, some of their jobs were miniscule(petty) that it consisted of them standing near the dining room door and saying

The news reporter in the video interviewed the children who witness their mothers getting battered by her boyfriend, or ex – lover. The audio for from the questions asked by the reporter was very troubling to hear about and the things they see and hear. In the video a young girl being interviewed disclosed how she heard her mother’s boyfriend state he was gone to kill her mother first, and then the children. To imagine how the child felt fear for each time the child heard or saw him and when the child did not know where her mother was is very horrific. The specific feeling when a child develops a negative intuition such as when their mother’s life may be in jeopardy, but the fact what if the children are watching is never taken into consideration.

Children need love and care from their parents and they repeat what the parents do. Because parents play a huge a role, in shaping a child's mind, they could make their children a normal person just like a kind neighbor who lives around them, or a murder who kills an entire family in the future. For instance, Perry Smith, from In Cold Blood, involved in the Clutter murder case. During his childhood, he had few traumatic events like his father beats him, or meeting abusive people at a children's shelter. As a consequence, his incompletely formatted ego led him to this murder case.

She has one friend named Stacy that knows everything about Nicole, they are best friends until one day Stacy is shot in a drive by and is killed. Nicole’s story is an example of marriage and family, poverty, and crime. Like Lisa, Nicole does not have parents that support their family or treat them right. Nicole’s step-dad is an alcoholic and abusive towards her. She is to the point where she has to lie to her teacher about her bruises so she does not get taken away. She feels like she is all alone and nowhere to go that is safe for her, not even school. Also, when her only friend Stacy dies in a drive-by, this is an example of high crime rates in poverty neighborhoods. In class, we talked about how there tends to be more crimes in the less wealthy neighborhood versus the wealthier neighborhoods. The kids that grow up in these very poor neighborhoods, tend to turn to criminal behavior because that is all they know. They have grown up around it their whole lives, and they have become accustomed to it. So maybe a drive by or gunshots in Nicole’s neighborhood are common for her and she does not even phase when she hears a gun shot.

”Us burglars, we said to Paps the time he caught us on the roof, getting ready to rappel. And later when pap’s had us on the ground and was laying into many… Joel nodded his chin toward pap’s who was unfastening his belt” (Torres 25). Pap’s punished all three brothers physically for putting their lives in danger and causing problems, but Pap’s should have tried to punish them some other way like grounding them, than abusing them. Since pap’s wasn’t educated, he probably didn’t know the long run symptoms of physical abuse which made the three brothers more violent towards one another and people outside, they became a delinquent as they grew older. Since all three brothers still had not reached puberty yet, they had a high rate of becoming violent like Pap’s as they grow older. “Children both genders who experienced physical abuse prior to puberty presented higher rates of abusive behaviors than those with physical abuse after puberty” (Martinez, Figueriedo, Albiol 511). Since the narrator and his brothers were mostly abused by their father before the age of puberty they had a higher chance of having abusive behaviors and that is exactly what happen. They become more violent towards each other and to the people on the streets. As the brothers grew older they ended up fighting each other more even over a small argument, especially Manny and Joel. One time when all three brothers were away from home hanging around on an old man’s

materialism. A dim cognizance of these traits lead her to blame herself for her father’s death. “I killed

     Joanna Drayton returns unexpectedly from Hawaii to announce her engagement to an intelligent, accomplished, world traveling doctor. The only problem with the intended union is that he is African American and she is white. The Drayton’s come face to face with their own principles and realize that their daughter is the way they brought her up to be – non-prejudicial. Turmoil and anxiety ensue as Joanna insists that her parents give their approval by the end of the night. A dinner with both sets of parents follows, where the parents must come to terms with the bi-racial marriage. This film gives an insightful look into the realities of interracial marriage and proves to be useful in examining the

In the movie boys of St. Vincent’s it shows how One of the biggest reason why child and adolescent victims may be reluctant to cooperate with the criminal justice system is that they are afraid of what their attacker may do to them if they report the attack, in the movie Brother Peter Lavin frightened the kids telling them that if they say something to the police they would end up in the street. Also when 10 year old Kevin Reevey say to brother Lavin that his not his mother brother Lavin “punish” him by beaten him, so we can assume that Kevin is terrified to say something against Brother Lavin because he is afraid of all the physical abuse he may receive thinking that if he speaks against brother Lavin the punishment is going to be even

The Frontline episode “When Kids Get Life” serves as a reminder for how the criminal justice system sometimes drops the proverbial ball when it comes to juveniles. Time after time, situations arise and are brought to the attention of the Department of Social Services. Whether they are overlooked or lost somehow, they are deprived of the help they need. The system fails children who are crying for help, and the results are sometimes fatal. Circumstances lead to the loss of life, not only for the victims, but also for the delinquents who saw no other way out. In other cases, the group mentality of juveniles equates to the responsibility of all members for a crime committed by one person.

Parents are supposed to shelter their children from the fraudulent outside world and keep their purity intact. Perry Smith, murderer of the Clutter family, had an upbringing that “was marked by brutality and lack of concern on the part of both parents.” Due to his childhood he “seems to have grown up without direction, and without ever having absorbed any fixed sense of moral values.” He felt no regret for murdering the family, only that he felt sorry that they were the ones “ that … had to pay for it.” While Dick considered Perry as innocent, “he had never been with a woman”, he believed Perry was a “natural born killer” who “attaches little real value to human life”. Perry’s tragic upbringing had turned him into a cold-blooded killer unaware of the beauty of innocence, which he so easily stole from the Clutter family the moment he killed them. Innocent people cannot be protected from the individual whose innocence is not present.

Noticing some early warning signs and not being scared to report them can help someone from making the biggest mistake of their life and saving people from harms way should start with the love shown from the parents. Having the parents be in the kids life knowing his or her surroundings at all time can be the key for prevention. Showing our kids love and attention will not make them want to do harm to others and having your child talk to you if something is bothering them. When you aren’t in the child’s life and not knowing what’s going on with them could easily make them feel lost inside and can turn to depression like our parents don’t care about them, a key fact is no matter how busy our lives with our job and anything else that we might do in our spare time parents should always find time to spend with our child each day, even if its only for a half hour, each time that we show love can be a key for our child not to do the unthinkable.

In today’s society there has been an increase in the crimes committed by juveniles. Most juveniles have underlining factors that have caused them to choose this type of lifestyle. Many children in the juvenile system have come from impoverish stricken neighborhoods and are festered with gang activity which has made them a product of their environment. The minds of adolescents do not allow them to see how they are affecting their lives. A study was conducted, and according to the article, “Adolescents in Adult Court: Does the Punishment Fit the Criminal?”, when children mature, they will look back at their past and possibly leave their surroundings. Think about two people committing the same crime, both with the same thought process and ability to make decisions, except one is a juvenile and the other is grown. Due to the lack of experience in decision-making or the time to evaluate the situation like the adult, the youth should be viewed as irresponsible. The fact that a child’s mind is still maturing should reassure people that they will not be the same person incarcerated a few years later.

Everyday we are hearing more and more about a child or teen that has committed some horrible act. On Tuesday April 27, 2004 a twelve-year-old Georgia boy was arrested for allegedly using “his hands to strangle a third grader who disappeared while riding her bicycle”(McLaughlin, 2004). In February, a twelve-year-old girl was beaten to unconsciousness by a group of adolescents and young adults while at a birthday party in Baltimore. The question we must ask ourselves is where are the parents? Sadly, in the case of the Baltimore girl, one of the young adults was the parent of one of the children. How do children learn that violent and socially deviant behavior is acceptable? Both of these scenarios

Family situations in which both parents are under mass amounts of stress and must work tediously to make ends meet are often inclined to have victims of child abuse in the home. Often because of troubled times economically parents reach a breaking point and enforce their anger onto his or her child, beating them physically. In many cases, parents take “teaching their child a lesson” to very high extremes, using the act of discipline to mask an act of physical child abuse. While many parents abuse under stress and frustration, some are too young or immature to handle the responsibilities of a child; not containing the capacity or patience to care for a young one often ends in abuse. As seen there many cases in which guardians cannot handle the tasks of parenthood, leading to acts of abuse. Whereas, there are also many cases in which parents suffer from disorders, increasing the probability of child abuse in a home.