The United States Of America

The documentary “13th” is very telling about the problems with the prison system and society's view of African-Americans. After the end of slavery, the economy too a hit because of the lack of labor needed for the industries. To solve this problem, people turned to prison workers, because it was cheap labor that weren’t protected under the 13th Amendment. This amendment abolished slavery and indentured servitude, but left the clause of criminal punishment. Because of this loophole, and because whites were very much still in control of society soon after the 13th Amendment was passed, police forces began going after African-Americans in order to fill prisons and satisfy work forces.

Cultures using hyphenated forms of “American,” such as Mexican-American, African-American, Asian-American, Native-American and many more is a step in the right direction for culture acceptance. With this positive move in the world, there could be a change in how cultures view themselves, leading to how others view them. The multicultural society has to take into account for this change because without their acceptance it would just be hate. Bharati Mukherjee in her essay “American Dreamer,” asserts, “WE MUST BE ALERT TO THE DANGERS OF AN ‘US’ vs. ‘THEM’ MENTALITY.” Although Mukherjee has a great point here, I have to disagree. I don’t feel that we have to be aware of the ‘US’ versus ‘THEM’ mentality with the change in cultural acceptance.

Of the many tribulations that plague Americans today, the increase in the amount of African American men and women in prisons is unbelievable. It would be naïve to say that the increase is due to the fact that more African Americans are committing crimes now than before. When in actuality it has very prevalent connections to a systematic plan to incarcerate a race of people by creating harsh drug laws to

Underachievement, lack of inclusion, and backward progression within society is a trend that engulfs African American men constantly in the American society. There is a continuous struggle to break the persistent mold. Although many feel that the United States has overcome its racist history, the legacies of slavery and racism still affect our policies and practices today. Of the nearly 2.1 million adult men and women imprisoned in the United States, roughly 70% are persons of color (Minton, 2012). Within the criminal justice system, people of color are imprisoned disproportionately due to racist laws, are denied access to the rehabilitative options given to Whites, and are harassed and mistreated by U.S. agencies.

A problem in the United States today is that there are too many people in prison, especially African American males. “African Americans are incarcerated in state prisons at a rate that is 5.1 times the imprisonment of whites” says FARS News Agency. Many conservatives say “ do the crime do the time”, but are African-Americans committing as much crime as the incarceration reports tell us? Michelle Nealy’s Diverse Issues in Higher Education “Black men: left out and locked up” informs the reader “There are an estimated 1.5 million African American men in prison and another 3.5 million on probation. Black males make up more than 70 percent of the total prison population, even though they make up only 6 percent of the U.S. population.”(Nealy). Majority of African American men are put in an environment where there are high rates in poverty, availability of drugs, low employment rates, and low graduation rates. These are all important factors to consider because they all

The book Race, Incarceration, and American Values describes mass incarceration as essentially a legalized form of genocide that is slowly destroying the fiber of African American families and communities. It provides explanations for the origin of mass incarceration as well as the reasons for the disproportionate level of African Americans in the prison system. Glenn Loury, along with Pamela Karian, Tommie Shelby, and Loic Wacquant discuss how America has let fear and greed cause an inequitable landscape for citizens who have the misfortune of being born the wrong color and of the wrong social-economic class. The principals of equality and freedom on which America was founded has become nothing more than smoke and mirrors. Maybe the pride America displays to the World as a Global power incapable of wrong doing is what is holding it back from recognizing the mistakes it made and undergoing to process of change. Or, maybe it is what we fear most. It is what we know in our heads and hearts; but never dared to say. That it is a careful crafted system to keep those with power in power!

Racial background is a key factor for mass incarceration in this country which leads to segregation. The U.S. holds over 2.2 millions convicts across all of its prisons. Michelle Alexander, a writer and civil rights advocate, mentions that out of that number “more than 60 percent of those in prison come from African American and Latino communities”(Alexander). There’s to be a direct correlation between an individual's race and their likelihood of going to jail. Ethnic minority groups are destined on being sent to jail at one point in their lives. As nowadays, prisons are being used as a tool to segregate minorities from the rest of the American society by dividing them and by placing them in jail. Alexander also mentions that “mass incarnation

There are those who do not like the idea that they are being better served than others are. It makes them feel guilty and upset; they will feel empathy and sympathy to those who never had the opportunities that they had. The minute one acknowledges that one has privilege, that individual must either act on that knowledge, or burry one’s head in the sand. Both in quality of education and in resources, those that are the most under-served are ethnic and racial minorities living in cities. On the other hand, those that are being best served are Caucasians in suburbs, who are disproportionately given the resources and money that urban schools need. Through political and racial attitudes that have persisted from our countries inception, these

.“Ships that come and go- I wonder where they’ve been and where they’re going when they leave. I wonder what they carry with them and what they bring. The other day when I went to the market, I saw stalks of sugarcane- one of the vendors said that it came from Barbados. Barbados is an island like Jamaica- maybe Thomas will take me there one day…”

Chapter 6 narrates the popular demand for a militarized “food dictatorship,” and the state leaders’ response to it. The poor Berliners challenged the market economy and believed that only a total militarized control of food distribution could serve their needs. Seeing the slow response of the authorities, the starving population found that the government failed to make their promise to reward their patriotism in the war. A byproduct at this time was anti-Semitism, separating “true Germans” from “the Jew” that were associated with profiteering (132-135). This chapter contends that the women of lesser means perceived the state’s capacity for controlling food distribution as a criterion to “adjudicate the government’s success or failure” (115). Consequently, the WWI Germany was not fully oriented to the military need and political loyalty, but full of dynamic altercation (115).

The victims of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2011 accept the president’s policy. Granting equal liberties also shows good will in changing this situation.

The Southern States of America was made up of the following, Georgia with Atlanta as the Capital of the new union, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, South Carolina, Louisiana, Tennessee and Kentucky. Although, Kentucky wasn’t a sure bet at this point, there was still a lot of work to do in that state.

The journey of how the United States of America became the United States of America is a very complex one. With America declaring separation from the Great English Empire, to the organization of becoming a free, sovereign nation and lastly, the migration and colonization of the now, western United States, including the great state of Nevada, has many components. The Declaration of Independence initiated the process of becoming a country of its own. This Document pushed the separation from England and showed the world that America was now its own nation. The United States Constitution laid out the blue print of how the United States would work. This was after a failed attempt of the Articles of Confederation. After the Constitution was created, the process of migrating west began in order to colonize the western region of the United States. Nevada had a big role in this because we helped President Abraham Lincoln gain a second term. The first chapters of the story of the Untied States of America were a dangerous, difficult and long one, but because of this, the people that live in this country today have the freedom of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

During the 1800s, the United States of America underwent some drastic changes. President Jefferson introduced a simple idea of expansion with the Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis and Clark Expedition; President Madison allowed the country to slip into the war of 1812 after complications with the impressment of American seaman by British navy in the Great War during Jefferson’s time. After the war, an “Era of Good Feelings” promoted national unity and Marshall’s supreme court decided many cases that promoted power of the national government over the states. The Monroe Doctrine told European powers that they must not interfere with events in the Western Hemisphere, and the creation of the national bank also took place during this time.

Probably to everybody’s shock, nobody could have imagined how poorly executed the 45th’s President Executive Order shortly after it was established. Any person, who is from one of the seven designated Muslim countries in the Middle East, are not allowed the right of entry into the United States of America. People like Syrian Refuges are ban indefinitely until the 46th POTUS reverses that order, who are seeking nothing but a better life. This affects everything from our aid in the fight against ISAL, to what message we send to the entire world. If one were to put their own feet into a Syrian Refuge, or simply a Muslim, how would one perceive they as human beings