Affirmative Action: A Good Thing

“Minorities worry that if affirmative action disappeared, the same old discrimination would bar their entrance into good universities. One way to fix this concern is to drop racial categories on the applications. Who cares about our race? We are people.” (Gould 1) These are the words of a student named Anna Gould writing for a website called the Badger Herald. I could quickly answer her question about who cares about race, and the short answer is everyone cares. Do the minorities not care about race when they are discriminated against or their neighbors move out once they move into a white neighborhood, or do the white neighbors care? Would a person of color care that throughout high school they had to work harder for an A because their white teacher held them to a higher standard because the stereotype against their race is that they are smarter than whites? So then the clear answer here is yes. It is also the obvious answer. Institutional racism occurs everyday, and there are hardly any ways that the institution has tried to stop that, Affirmative Action is one of them and it should not be repealed.

This Anna Gould has the same thought process as many Americans today that are not people of color. They realize that there was racism, but they decided it would be best for everyone if they never talked about race and pretended like it did not make a difference in any decision making process. Such as an employer interviewing people for a job or colleges looking through applicants for enrollment. Colorblind people assume that we are already at complete racial equality, and if they talked about race, they themselves would be racist. “Not talking about race may avoid short term conflict, but in the midst of a society that is racially structured, to say talk creates the problem will keep people from discussing what is needed for solutions.” (Hitchcock 63) How can we solve a problem without talking about it? Not talking about the problem assumes that it does not exist, which is the worst way to solve something that does exist. They also assume that a person of color, if they worked hard enough have the same opportunities as a person who is white. In a stat given in lecture by Professor Roth-Gordon she claimed that 70% of whites believe African Americans “have the same opportunities as whites to live in Middle Class America.” (Roth Gordon) What people who cling to this colorblind thought process do not realize is that ignoring it only perpetuates racism.

In 1996, when California banned Affirmative Action the number of students that were people of color accepted by the public California schools fell off a cliff. The immediate answer to this by colorblindness would be, “They were basing their admissions off of accomplishments and GPA rather than just accepting certain races because of a quota.” When in reality they are accepting the students who went to they best high schools, had relatives who went to that school, or knew someone who had some kind of pull at that college to get them accepted. Who do you think lives in the neighborhoods with the best high schools, or has the money to send their kids to private schools? White people. What race is most highly represented by public colleges in CA, therefore their kids have a better chance to get accepted? White. Lastly, what race do you think is most connected with the type of people that could get their child into a $50,000 a year school? Yet again, White. Do you see the reoccurring trend? “Exceptionally high admittance rates, lowered academic standards, preferential treatment… These sound like cries heard in the growing fury over Affirmative Action… yet no one is outraged by legacies…” (Larew 419) It would be very hard for a legacy to be made if their parent wasn’t admitted in the first place due to their race.

These are some of the biggest factors that determine what school a child get accepted into, so I could make a pretty strong argument that institutional racism is being perpetuated from generation to generation.

Another argument that could be made to counter affirmative action is that the disparities that occur are because of class, not race. The most obvious rebuttal to this statement is look at the lower class citizens. Do you see the same percentage of African Americans in the lower class as in the higher class? After finding the obvious answer to the first question, then look if you see the same percentage of whites in the lower class as in the higher class? Shouldn’t that alone tell you that there is a problem with the current way we are living? “It starts during the infant and toddler years, when hundreds of thousands of children of the very poor in much of the United States are locked out of the opportunity for preschool education for no reason but the accident of birth and the budgetary choices of the government, while the children of the privileged are often given veritable feasts of rich developmental early education.” (Kozol 45-46) Money leads to education, education leads to employment and employment leads to money. It is a cycle that many people of color are left out of because they lack the ability to acquire education, employment, and money. This is due to no fault of their own, but it is due to a lack of opportunity because of institutional racism.

“Minority students who are qualified have to endure and fight the second-guessing and white patronization that come along with preferential policies. The real shame, though, is in allowing unqualified people to take places for which they are not ready.” (Gould 1) This statement along with others made throughout Anna Gould’s paper lead me to believe that she is calling Affirmative Action reverse discriminatory. In other words, she thinks that Affirmative Action helps the minorities but make everything harder for the majority. Specifically she states, “allowing unqualified people to take places where they are not ready.” This assumes that the unqualified people are the people of color. It also assumes that they are not good enough and they should just leave those hard jobs for the white people to do because after years of inequality and benefitting from being white, they most definitely are ready.

What Anna Gould is missing and anyone holding on to their colorblind beliefs is, Affirmative Action is institutionally the only thing that has been created by the institution to stop institutionally racism. Basically, it’s the only thing made to help out racially discriminated groups and white people want to put an end to it. Because if it is helping people of color, it is hurting white privilege, and whites will go through any means necessary to save that. Sadly, whites already have, with Affirmative action being banned in five states since 1996, including Arizona in 2010, it is starting to look like white privilege will win yet another battle.

Unfortunately, whites do not realize that Affirmative Action is not meant to hurt white privilege, it is meant to help get rid of racial disparities. It tries to eliminate the consistent inconsistencies inside America, ranging from the corporate America to the Scholarly America. If we leveled the playing field for people of color, there would be an equal representation of all people in every aspect of life, eliminating privilege and disparity. That, if nothing else is the American Dream.

Book Review: Crossing the Rubricon by Michael Ruppert

Crossing the Rubicon
By: Michael Ruppert
In Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at he End of the Age of Oil, there are three main points where Mr. Ruppert tries to blame the entire tradjety of September 11, 2001, better known as 9/11, on the acting Vice President at the time, Dick Cheney. At first glance this seems to be a bold if not insane accusation against the Vice President of the United States of America, but Ruppert does make a few points that will make you think.
The first point of Ruppert is Dick Cheney had the Ability to pull off this plan if he wanted to. According to Ruppert, Cheney was acting as Commander in Chief on 9/11 due to the terrible threat on the United States. This means he was in control and was calling the shots. Ruppert also has reason to believe that Cheney was leading a “completely separate chain of Command & Control via the Secret Service, assuring the paralysis of Air Force response on 9/11. The Secret Service has the technology to see the same radar screens the FAA sees in real time.” (Kane) Ruppert claims that President Bush was kept out of a leadership position on purpose by the Secret Service men around him as he was reading to school children the morning of 9/11. He also claims that the Secret Service, acting through Cheney, had control over the FAA, Airforce (including the Fighter Jets), and President Bush. One question I would ask Ruppert is “Why?”
Why would Cheney and the Secret Service go through all of this trouble to attack his own country? The answer, according to Ruppert, is simply Oil. Cheney’s plan was to start a never-ending war to take control of the Middle Eastern oil and use it for American purposes. Ruppert claims that there was a peak in the oil reserves around the world from 2000-2007. After 2007, oil will become more rare and extremely more expensive. "By way of confirmation, people in and close to the oil industry are reporting that increased drilling is not resulting as yet in significantly increased supply." (Ruppert) Upon hearing of this news, Cheney had to go into action. He just needed the right time to plan his so called “Attack”.
According to Ruppert, the “right time” was any time that Cheney chose because as of May 8, 2001, Dick Cheney was put into control of all training exercises of all branches of military and government. This means he could set up “fake” hijackings by calling them training situations just in case anyone would ever want to hijack airplanes and fly them into buildings. Cheney did call for these training simulations, except he did it on the morning of 9/11. Also, Cheney called for another training simulation that send all the fighters from D.C. into Canada and Alaska to train just incase an attack came from Russia. This meant that the Air Force could not do anything to prevent the hijacked airplanes from crashing into anything they pleased. Also, the Secret Service had control over the FAA flight path screens and put fake hijacked airplanes in the air to confuse air traffic control. At one point the FAA thought there was 11 hijacked airplanes.
All of this was put into motion by Dick Cheney and people taking orders from Cheney. He is guilty for singlehandedly putting this plan into motion and being successful. The scary part if these accusations by Ruppert are true, is that Bush and Cheney were re-elected the following term.

Compare and Contast Essay: John Updike’s “A&P”

Langston Hughes and John Updike are very different writers. They are from very different backgrounds; Langston Hughes’ mother couldn’t make enough money to pay for rent, so they had to live with Langston’s grandmother. John Updike was not rich, but his family lived in their own home when he was young. Updike was born in the North and wrote about where he lived; Hughes was born in Missouri and wrote about wherever he wanted to. Where authors are born and raised has a big effect on the stories they write and the characters they create. The characters in John Updike’s “A and P” were complete opposites of the characters in Langston Hughes’ “Thank You M’am”

When you take the woman from “Thank You M’am” and the Queen from “A and P” you get complete opposite characters. In the short story, “Thank You M’am”, Langston Hughes describes the setting as a small town at night. Where there is a large woman walking home with a large purse, and he states “she has everything in it but a hammer and nails”. After the boy tries to steal her purse, he falls and the woman catches him and “shakes him until his teeth rattle”. This is saying that this woman has not been babied her whole life, she has to do things for herself and she is very independent. She is obviously strong from hard work, to be shaking that boy around like that with one hand. Then once she starts talking, Hughes makes it a point for her to be obviously talking with a southern sort of draw. In the story, it never states that she is black but you can make an immediate assumption of that just by the way she talks. She speaks as if she doesn’t have very much education, or she just chooses to speak that way, but she says she works in a hotel beauty shop, which doesn’t require a whole lot of education to work there. She is obviously not rich either when her home is described. She lives with other people, and in the last paragraph, it says she has a barren stoop which indicates the house isn’t the best in the world. There is one thing about her that is different; she is very generous to the little boy. It may be because she, in her own way, claims she has done things like what the boy has just done, but she isn’t rich and she feeds this child and gives him ten dollars. At the time ten dollars is not a small amount of money, but she just gives it to this boy whom she just meet as he was trying to rob her.

The Queen girl in the story “A and P” is obviously a completely different character than the woman from “Thank You M’am”. First of all, just the physical differences are astounding, the woman is large and probably 30-40 years old and works hard for her money. The Queen is a beautiful, thin, young girl probably about 19, the age of the cashier, and she never worked a day in her life. She is very gentle and walks slowly and daintily, she is in no rush, and she is enjoying a day at the beach. Mrs. Washington Jones on the other hand, seems like she is in a rush to go home, carries a huge purse, and shakes around a little child. The Queen is not carrying anything, she’s not even wearing shoes, and this girl must come from at least a semi-wealthy family, because she acts as if she owns the place. She walks into a grocery store with her straps off of her bathing suit, and no shoes on, and she starts strolling around the store. She is in no rush because she walks through about every aisle and then stops and asks the butcher where to go. This girl is the opposite of the woman in “Thank You M’am” in almost every way possible.

The boy in "Thank you Ma'm" is a young kid, who must be skinny because he falls to the ground when he tries to steal the purse, and he also has a very dirty face. Also, nowhere is this story does it say if the boy is black or not, but he could go either way. Judging just from Langston’s work I would say this boy is black because all the characters Hughes makes are black, unless they are the evil character in the story. Also, you can assume the boy is black because the woman relates to him very well, and she basically says she used to be in his position. She wouldn’t say that to him if he was a little dirty-faced white boy. Despite being homeless, or parentless, the boy has very good manners. He always says ma’m to her and treats her with respect. It could be because he is trying to win back her trust as it says in the story or he could’ve been raised that way and his parents just work all the time that’s why the aren’t home.

The clerk, Sammy from “A and P”, is a teenager who has been working at this store for probably a year or more. He has a bow tie on and an apron with his name stitched on it and he knows everyone in the store. He seems like the stereotypical middle class boy, because the shop owner knows his parents, so they are still together and he still lives with them, at least that’s how it seems. He is very unlike the boy because, physically, he is older and Caucasian. Also, Sammy lives with his parents and is a middle class citizen. The boy doesn’t know where his parents are, it doesn’t even say he has parents. Sammy can just go home and eat dinner with his family, when the boy has to steal food or steal money to buy food for his family.

In conclusion, these characters from either story are complete opposites of each other. If it’s race, work ethic, social status, education, or morals, these characters have very little, if anything in common.

Essay for College Application: Vibrant Community

My benefits from being part in a vibrant community would be very outstanding. Many people can benefit from different cultures and ways of living. If a person would live the same way their whole life they would become stagnant and mundane. A person needs to experience different kinds of people and have varied groups of friends to become an active member of society. I believe that I can contribute to such a community by having an open mind to new cultures and beliefs. Also, by accepting other’s views one can start to relate to others and befriend others, and in turn, one can also grow from having different friends. If one has a varied group of friends you can have different experiences with different friends. In addition, one’s outlook on life can be changed by being friends with someone who has a completely different background than that person.

For instance, when I first joined the Williamstown Braves Tennis Squad, most of the players on the team were Caucasian, so when an African American player wanted to join everyone was somewhat taken back. However, there were no racial confrontations over that, everyone got along just fine, but everyone grew as a team because there were new cultures and experiences introduced to the team. Also, the player in question happened to be the best on the team, and everyone benefitted from his expertise.

A person that doesn’t know of any cultures but their own will not try to experiment and try something new. Such as when I was growing up I didn’t have a very good variety of friends, so we would hang out and the same places and do the same things all the time, so it would become very boring. Until I went to high school where I met new kinds of people from different age groups and backgrounds, and I made many new friends. When I started going to different places and experiencing different things, I realized that just by meeting new people, you can grow as a person.

What is the Right to Councel?

What is Right to Counsel?

The Right to Counsel is now mostly called the right to a fair trial and where even people who cannot afford a lawyer will have one provided to them by the state.

History of Right to Counsel

In Webb v. Baird, the Indiana Supreme Court in 1853 recognized a right to an attorney at public expense for a person accused of crime, grounded in "the principles of a civilized society," not in constitutional law. The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution states: "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right . . . to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense."

Landmark Case Brewer v. Williams (1977)

The man was arrested for abducting a 10-year-old girl in Des Moines, Iowa. His lawyer advised him not to make any statements until after consulting with him upon being returned to Des Moines, and the police officers who were to accompany him on the car ride back to Des Moines. The officers agreed not to question him during the trip. During the trip, he said he didn’t want to be interrogated without a lawyer, but instead stated several times that he would tell the whole story after seeing his Des Moines lawyer. However, one of the police officers, who knew that he was a former mental patient and was very religious, wanted him to say incriminating things by stating to him during the ride that he felt they should stop and find the girl's body because her parents wanted a Christian burial for the girl, who was taken away from them on Christmas Eve. The man eventually said where the body was and was convicted for murder. Then he petitioned for habeas corpus claiming he was denied the right to counsel. The Supreme Court ruled that he was denied his right to counsel and he didn’t voluntarily waive his right.

My Opinion

I agree with the Supreme Court’s decision because this man was obviously dinied his right to counsel because he said he didn’t want to talk without a lawyer. He had agreed to tell the whole story when they got back to Des Moines, Iowa.

Essay of Robert Browning: "My Last Duchess" and "Porphyria's Lover"

Robert Browning’s Theme

Robert Browning is known as one of the best Victorian era poets despite his many years being a playwright. The two poems, “My Last Duchess” and “Porphyria’s Lover” are dramatic monologues. Dramatic monologues are when a speaker speaks to a silent listener about an important experience in his/her life. Robert Browning developed his art of dramatic monologues from his many years of writing plays. They say these two poems are the best of Robert Browning’s career. These were the poems that everyone read and were very fond of in the Victorian era. The main theme in Robert Browning’s poetry is jealousy.

For instance, in Robert Browning’s poem, “My Last Duchess”, in which a duke killed his former wife because she was cheating on him with a count, shows jealousy. “Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands; then all smiles stopped together” (Browning 856). These are the words of the duke who says that she was smiling at the count and he was smiling back then he had to give order to kill her out of jealousy (Browning 856). The duke is a very egotistic man who said “I chose to never stoop” (Browning 856). When he says this he means that he won’t just keep letting this women push him around and cheat on him so he chose not to stoop and put her to death. This man is a man who can jealous easily and he inferred by their smiles at each other that they were automatically sleeping together and immediately had her killed. The poem never exactly stated that the two were sleeping together but the duke obviously thought so when he gave his order that he bragged about. This duke is so cocky and arrogant that he is bragging about killing this woman to the count’s agent. The count is the man that she was suspected to be cheating with. Then here is this duke who doesn’t care because he is so sure of himself that he can brag about killing a man’s lover to a man who works for the count. This poem is loosely based on the life of Alfonso I, the duke of Ferrara, and it has some of his direct quotes in it from that time. Some listeners said most of what is said in this poem was either said or written in letters by the duke.

Also, the poem “Porphyria’s Lover” written by Robert Browning has themes of jealousy in it. “That moment she was mine” (Browning 858). This is said because sometimes she is another man’s. This woman has just left a party where she was with other men and now trekked through the wind and rain to be with the man she claims to love. But, she had no idea that this man was plotting to make her love his forever. “And thus we sit together now, and all night long we have not stirred” (Browning 858). This was his way of keeping her from other men. He was so jealous that he decided to kill her so he could sit with her and not worry about her stirring to go to be with other men. He says that he debated before he killed her whether or not to, then he takes her hair and wraps it around her neck and strangles her with it (Browning 858). This man was so desperate for this woman love to only be with him and so jealous of the other men she was with that her decided to make her his permanently by killing her at that very moment.

However, the theme of these poems by Robert Browning is opinion, and there are some critics who have different opinions of the theme of these poems. Also, there are critics who share the opinion of jealousy as the theme for these two Robert Browning poems. An essay by Lois A. Marchino shares the opinion of the theme of “My Last Duchess”. Lois A. Marchino even uses the some of the same citations as previously stated in this essay. For example “She should have known better, he says, and ‘I choose/ Never to stoop.’” (Marchino). This reinforces the fact that the theme of “My Last Duchess” is in fact jealousy. It can be very wrong if on person writes it, but if another writes about the same thing and uses the same quotations then it is that more likely to be true. Also, when part one of this essay was being written, there was no knowledge that Marchino’s essay had been written so the idea was not stolen. “The final characterization the duke gives of his former duchess reveals his obsessive possessiveness and jealousy. He acknowledges that she smiled when she saw him, but complains that she gave much the same smile to anyone else she saw. His next statement reveals that he caused her to be killed: ‘I gave commands;/ Then all smiles stopped together.’” (Marchino).

This statement implies that the Duke was very jealous because of the smiles his duchess would give to people. She had argued that she gives the same smile to everyone but that did not sway this duke. This Duchess’s argument was probably true, because she did walk the streets smiling at everyone but jealousy clouded this duke’s mind. He then gave orders to have her killed without even thinking that the smile that she gave to that painter was the same smile she gave to everyone else. The painter in question is the man who painted the painting of the duchess that the duke is showing off in the beginning of the poem.

Furthermore, there are also some critics who agree that the theme of “Porphyria’s Lover” is jealousy. “Browning shows how apparently reasoned justification is founded on misprision, on fantasy, jealousy, fear, and aggression.” (Maxwell). This is what Catherine Maxwell writes in one of her essays about “Porphyria’s Lover” in her essay she does not state that the theme of “Porphyria’s Lover” is jealousy, but she does mention it and it sounds like she is saying that jealousy maybe a reoccurring theme in Robert Browning’s works. “Browning's insane speaker in "Porphyria's Lover" strangles his lover either out of jealousy or insanity.” (Devi). In this excerpt, Gayatri Devi writes that the reason that Porphyria is being strangled in “Porphyria’s Lover” is because her lover is jealous. Lest one forget that this is a woman that has had many lovers and a man has good reason to be jealous. This man was insane with love for this woman and when the were sitting together cuddling or whatever it may be called, he was so in love that he had to kill her to insure that she could only be with him for the rest of her life. The rest of her life of course was only about five minutes long because she was being strangled and the lack of oxygen to the brain would only let her live about five more minutes, if even that long. This man was so insane and jealous of all the other men and also so in love with her that he probably watched her die while either kissing her or staring into her eyes which where filled with terror and a question of “Why are you doing this to me, I thought you loved me?” There are not very many reasons to kill the woman you love but jealousy is probably top on list. Robert Browning was very jealous in his own life that is why he wrote so romantically of killing because of jealousy because he couldn’t kill but he could write about killing.

In conclusion, Robert Browning main theme in these two poems, “My Last Duchess” and “Porphyria’s Lover”, is jealousy. The main examples were previously stated in this essay. Robert Browning made it very clear through the actions of the narrators of his poems that they killed their lovers/wives because of jealousy. In “Porphyria’s Lover” the man had killed his lover because of the fear and jealousy of her being with another man. Also, Robert Browning gave a few hints in this poem that this man may have been somewhat insane. In the other poem, “My Last Duchess”, the duke killed his duchess because she had smiled in a way that led to the suspicion of her having an affair with a certain painter. This was the painter that painted the painting that was being discussed in the beginning of the poem. This man was very jealous of everyone that his wife smiled at and had her put to death despite her countless arguments. Robert Browning’s moral of his poems and the point he was trying to get across is that he doesn’t take to unfaithfulness very well, in fact he hates it.

Works Cited
Applebee, Arthur N., and Andrea B. Bermudez. The Language of Literature. Evanston, Illinois:
McDougal Littell, 2006. 855-856.

- - -. The Language of Literature. Evanston, Illinois: McDougal Littell, 2006. 857-858.

Devi, Gayatri. "Literary Contexts in Poetry: Robert Browning's 'Porphyria's Lover.'" Nov.-Dec. 2006.
Literary Reference Center. EBSCO. 16 Jan. 2008 .

Marchino, Lois A. "My Last Duchess." 2002. Literary Reference Center. EBSCOhost. 21 Jan. 2008
.

Maxwell, Catherine. "Browning's Porphyria's Lover." 25 June 2002. Literary Reference Center. EBSCOhost.
21 Jan. 2008 http://web.ebscohost.com/lrc/

Division Classification Essay: Two Types of Learners (Visual and Verbal)

Division- Classification

There are benefits in learning if a person isn’t just one type of learner. It is better to be a mixture of both types. For instance, visual learners will come across hard times in a lecture environment, but if the person is a visual and verbal learner, than they will be able to learn equally in a lecture class or a lab. Most people are more of one type of learner than the other, so they have difficulties in certain situations, but also succeed in other situations. A reflective learner isn’t the type to working groups so if that person was put in a group with others then they would be thinking to themselves and not sharing and helping the whole group as an active learner would. On the other hand, reflective learners excel when studying alone or concentrating on the subject. However, if there was a student who perfected both dimension of learning for each classification, then that student would be fine in any situation that presented itself to that particular student. That way the student would have “the best of both worlds”. This is what every student should strive for not just excelling at intuitive learning, but also being a good sensing learner as well. That way each student would be able to learn well despite the situation.