N-word Blog

“Observers have made strong claims on behalf of the special status of nigger as a racial insult. The journalist Farai Chideya describes it as “the all-American trump card, l the nuclear bomb of racial epithets.” The writer Andrew Hacker has asserted that among slurs of any sort, nigger stands alone [in] its power to tear at one’s insides.” “And prosecutor Christopher Darden famously branded nigger the “filthiest, dirtiest, nastiest word in the English language” – (Pg/22-23).

I agree with Mr. Darden when he says the N-word is the “filthiest” word in the English language, but it is not because of the history this word is a disgust to many, there can only be one thing to blame and that blame should be put on all of us. When this topic is brought up about the N-word being so terrible I wonder what happen to other slurs such as gay, retarded, homo etc. and how we let them go by without turning our head. It is said that is because the N-word is so much more powerful (Ex: Boston Public) but whose fault is that. We are the only ones to blame for the word becoming a cultural disaster. No matter if we try to cover it up the N-word will always be there so why not embrace the word, by talking about it among classmates, workers, friends etc.; I believe by openly talking about the subject more than just on special occasions will bring about a better meaning to the word than just a racial slur that “tear(s) at one’s side.”

N-word Blog

“Observers have made strong claims on behalf of the special status of nigger as a racial insult. The journalist Farai Chideya describes it as “the all-American trump card, l the nuclear bomb of racial epithets.” The writer Andrew Hacker has asserted that among slurs of any sort, nigger stands alone [in] its power to tear at one’s insides.” “And prosecutor Christopher Darden famously branded nigger the “filthiest, dirtiest, nastiest word in the English language” – (Pg/22-23).

I agree with Mr. Darden when he says the N-word is the “filthiest” word in the English language, but it is not because of the history this word is a disgust to many, there can only be one thing to blame and that blame should be put on all of us. When this topic is brought up about the N-word being so terrible I wonder what happen to other slurs such as gay, retarded, homo etc. and how we let them go by without turning our head. It is said that is because the N-word is so much more powerful (Ex: Boston Public) but whose fault is that. We are the only ones to blame for the word becoming a cultural disaster. No matter if we try to cover it up the N-word will always be there so why not embrace the word, by talking about it among classmates, workers, friends etc.; I believe by openly talking about the subject more than just on special occasions will bring about a better meaning to the word than just a racial slur that “tear(s) at one’s side.”

Expelled

After watching the documentary “Expelled” my view is the same as is was before watching it; because this will not rest, I think the best way to go about the teaching of intelligent design is teach the controversy. The big key is that this issue will not rest. We are all going to have to come to a compromise somewhere and I believe this is the best way because it does not strictly teach one side or the other. Yes it may bring questions to people but in the words of Socrates what is living without question.
I found that both “Expelled” and “Flock of Dodos” was very redundant in saying the same thing over and over again but argued by different people. They argued constantly that I.D. has no proof therefore they can't really give any hard argument besides something’s being too complex to explain. Both films did talk about it all starting with one single organism, “Expelled” explained more on the topic and when argued about what happen before the one cell is where things get very hazy. Professor Richard Dawkins made a clear point that religion and faith in God were only barriers holding people back from the truth. His beliefs were strong that there was no God which stirred many emotions with many others. The one part of the film “Expelled” that was most interesting that the “Flock of Dodos” didn’t talk about was the Holocaust and relating intelligent design to Hitler and the events that happened throughout the Holocaust. When Mr. Stein walked through the cambers where many innocent people died it was hard to watch.

Crito

I believe with Socrates on the argument; it seems I can make more of a connection with him and how he stays true to the law instead of Crito trying to free Socrates just for his own reputation. “But why, my dear Crito, should we care about the opinion of the many? Good men, and they are the only persons who are worth considering, will think of these things truly as they occurred” – Socrates (Pg/43). Socrates brings up a good point that is not only pertains to his situation but to everyone everyday; he says we should not care what people think because most of them do not know.
The “Law and Justice” packet was all about doing what we as citizens believe in but respecting the law while doing so. In the “Crito” Socrates makes a very good case that is an example of law and justice by abiding by respecting the law even if it may be unjust, whereas Crito wants to free Socrates because he believes something must be done about the unjust law. It makes a very similar connection about having our own morals as does Socrates in which he can not go back on his word and take death over exile.

Plato - Apology

Let me relate to you a passage of my own life which will prove to you that I should never have yielded to injustice from any fear of death that is “as I should have refused to yield” I must have died at once. –Socrates (Pg/24)

This small passage was highlighted in my eyes as I read through the “Apology”. Socrates is saying that he should never have hesitated to do what he believes in only because he feared in death because it may have been unjust. Taking into consideration how it is interpreted in the dialogue I feel I can relate to exactly what he said but in a different context. I am trying to say I can related to the underlined “as I should have refused to yield” part of the passage. It reminds me of all the times I took those risks to do something and those times I didn’t take chances that were there because I thought it wasn’t a smart idea. The one reason I chose this passage it because it reminded me of something my grandmother told me once, “You’ll never know if you don’t take the chance.” It has been my life motto ever since because she was absolutely right, if we “yield” to the things we believe in or the chances that are in front of us we will never know what could have been if we don’t try. I try to take that into every decision I make, what type of life do we live if we don’t live every moment to the fullest.

Intelligent Design

We have to take the old with the new. After reading the articles, seeing “Flock of Dodos”, and discussing the topic of intelligent design and creationism I find it obvious to “teach the controversy”. I understand that teaching the controversy violates the separation of church and state because there is no way to get around taking about God just as we talked about in class. Not to mention an exception to this case is obviously out of the question, it is also obvious this topic will not just be dropped. Somewhere they are going to have to come to a compromise if anything wants to be accomplished and I see teaching the controversy or teaching both sides without a bias could be the painless way but also it could be the most effective to let the students decide on their own.
It is clear I agree with the professors from “Flock of Dodos” who say “teach the controversy”, and this is only me, but I can not stand the people who are so narrow minded that religion is the only true answer to everything such as some of the Christians interview in the video. I loved the example in “Inherit the Wind” when Drummond asks Brady if he ever thought it possible a day could be longer than 24 hours; I do not understand how some people can believe strictly one side without even giving the other a chance. If I’m not mistaken Allison said she was religious and she was able to see both sides instead of being narrow minded. At least she is willing to give it a chance that there could be something different than God creating it all in 7 days. I was glad she said that because it opened my eyes that I’m the same way and I can definitely see both point but something somewhere has to give.

Last Blog/1st Quarter

I think the most interesting theme in our class has been the “Law and Justice” topic we just finished. Inherit the Wind is really what got my attention for this theme because it was one of those books once I started to read I couldn’t put down. I could say I learned to always stand up for what I believe in even if it may be wrong, but we already do that, the theme more gave me the drive to go out and let my voice be heard; instead of just putting my two cents in I want to make it clear everyone knows what I think. It’s not just a lesson we learn in class and then soon forget I will be able to take it with me as I move on. The value of this theme brings me back to the “Law and Justice” article, “I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustices is in reality expressing the very highest respect for the law” – Martin Luther King Jr.

Law and Justice

“It’s your right to break the law when your conscience is offended; but then you must accept your punishment” (Pg/119).

The quote above is from the “Accept Your Punishment!” section from Socrate’s position. Law is explained as man made rules that are set and stone for what are to be abided by and the result of breaking these rules do have consequence usually being a fine or prison. Justice is defined as what is believed by our own conscience. The main message of this section of the article is we must respect the laws even if it means breaking them but then by serving the punishment to make our point clear not because we have to.
Both law and justice are most definitely necessary to make our country as fair as possible. Laws set the ground rules for citizens to determine what is supposed to be right and wrong. Sometimes laws are absurd and that’s where justice comes into play. Who knows where we would be if there weren’t those few who stood up for what they thought was right to make our country a better place, such as the article mentions Martin Luther King Jr. and how he made his statement by standing up for what he believed in and then serving his punishment to make it clear to his people. I believe there is only one change that has affected law and justice over time; we as a country have slowly cared less and less. People’s morals seem to be a lot less today than they were 30-50 years ago and it seems more or less like the domino effect where we let one thing slide and haven’t stopped since the start.

Inherit the Wind Blog

“Inherit the Wind” is about a man that had ideas, ideas that were different from their ordinary everyday life. This man (Cates) had to stand up for what he believed in even though majority believed he was wrong. I believe standing up for what we believe in is obviously timeless and universal. There is always going to be a few individuals who stand up for what they believe in and make our world a better place because they chose to do so.
Through reading the play and thinking about standing up for ourselves the first person that came to mind was Rosa Parks. On December 1, 1955 Parks refused to give her front bus seat up to a white man even though African Americans were supposed to sit in the back of the bus. She was sick of the degrading treatment she and many others received, "Our mistreatment was just not right, and I was tired of it" (Parks’ recent book, Quiet Strength, 1994). She believed she was to be treated right and for her it came down to a bus seat, but little did she know with that small act it moved millions. Without these few individuals like Mrs. Parks who stood up for what she believed in who knows where we would stand today.

Promoting Democracy

After reading if “Should Promoting Democracy Abroad be a Top U.S. Priority?” even though I do not think it should be our nation’s top priority, I had to agree with Joseph Siegle. Prior to reading the article I thought I would agree with Cofman and say it shouldn’t be a priority, but Siegle had good information and great points on why we should be promoting whereas I didn’t see really any strong points Cofman may have had. Siegle’s main point that seemed to be stated throughout his half of the article was “Democratizing states move to establish and strengthen these institutions of shared power tend to develop more rapidly” (Pg/43). He started off with saying, “a large amount of political science research in the 1990s suggests that democracies have historically been less likely to fight wars with other democracies” (Pg/41), which is understandable because when I think of a country that has an established democratic government the country handles its own by words instead of action. In other words things like to be settled verbally instead of by force.
There was one piece I took from Cofman, “Why, after all, should Arab democrats believe us?” Which I think does make a good point because the United States has degraded our credibility with others in the world, but we are still putting ourselves out there to try and help things move along even though it may not seem that way to many. It seemed as if Cofman was beating around the bush as to why we shouldn’t be promoting democracy to others. I found his best argument was that it is an enormous cost, but what isn't these days and helping others to have an established government which will provide for better living standards is worth it; Siegle claims, “it is widely recognized that almost all of the world’s prosperous states are democracies” (Pg/47). I do believe we should try to promote democracy best we can to other countries as long as we are very careful as to how we do so.

Blog #4

I agree with Andrew Sullivan who said torture is obviously wrong. I didn’t really have to read the article to come to that conclusion; I have always though that torture was morally wrong and it goes against what America stands for. Charles Krauthammer believes there are three types of war prisoners, first the ordinary soldiers caught in battle that “we have no right to disturb a hair on his head”. Second, the captured terrorist whom is defined as an unlawful combatant meaning he does not abide by the law, also hiding among civilians and targeting innocence. Krauthammer believes he deserves no protection which a lot of people would agree with as an instinct that this person is an awful human being who deserves nothing. Everyone can see that point, but once you get down to that they are human beings too and even though nothing can get lower than what they might do to innocent people they do not deserve to be tortured to any extent.
Finally there are the terrorists with information. Now as the author says this is where the issue of torture gets complicated he is absolutely right. This should be the bottom line reason that torture should without a doubt be abolished. We can all see Bin Laden being tortured and most would just look the other way because we all share the hatred towards him because of what we know he has done to our country. What about those that we aren’t sure of, those we have no proof for? Torturing innocent lives to try and get information is no different in my eyes than what terrorist do to other innocent lives. Krauthammer put a quote in this article I could not help but laugh over, “we do not descend to the level of our enemy”. How can he even think of saying such a thing when we Americans have taken innocent lives and physically and mentally destroyed who they once were?
Sullivan made two incredible points in his half of the article that really stood out to me. “The entire point of war on terrorism, according to the president, is to advance freedom and democracy in the Arab world. In Iraq, we had a chance not just to tell be to show the Iraqi people how a democracy acts. And, tragically, in one critical respect, we failed.” Now to me that says a whole lot in a couple sentences such as we have realized we failed why are we still over there and what else could we possibly be looking for? His last quote in this article stuck to me and relates to my first two lines, “If we legalize torture, even under constrained conditions, we will have given up a large part of the idea that is America. We will have lost the war before we have given ourselves the chance to win it”. That quote is pretty self explanatory and supports my idea that torture is cruel, inhuman, and no where close to an idea when I think of what it means to be an American.

Dead Teen Walking

At first I didn’t see the two readings connecting at all, but after I asked it was a little more clear to me how they do connect. Both had to learn a sense of survival in the world. Cousin had to learn his survival on the streets with only his friends in which he thought he was doing by robbing with one of his friends. White Fang had to learn how to survive on his own and the motto of his survival was to kill or be killed. These were the words White Fang had to live by not only to stay alive but to eat too. "Out of this pack-persecution he learned two important things: how to take care of himself in a mass-fight against him; and how, on a single dog, to inflict the greatest amount of damage in the briefest space of time" (Pg 85/Chapter 3).
My opinion on placing teens on death row is a little cloudy to me still because there are a lot of things that come into play. We could say wait till they are of legal age 18, but like the discussion in class it’s not like when we wake up on our 18th birthday we feel way more mature. They could also just wait out the court date if the teen was close to 18. I don’t think that is right either. I guess I would like to see no death row period. I believe that everyone deserves a chance no matter the crime not saying they’ll pursue that chance but it’s worth a try in my eyes. I don’t know if anyone has ever watched Lincoln Heights a TV show on ABC Family, but they recently had a show about a boy that shot the main characters mother and killed her and he grew up and realized his wrong doing and was awarded that second chance. I don’t think White Fang had an impact on my view at the time I read the article because I didn’t really see the connection and the connection was made about the harsh upbringing but I don’t think that can be brought into play because what about all the others that had harsh upbringings that don’t do anything wrong. It’s a choice that is made by the individual although influenced by society it is our own choice.

"What Makes Us Moral"

While I was reading the first part the really showed me the connection between nature vs. nurture in this article was in the fifth paragraph where they used an example of a preschooler. The child knew not to eat in class because it was a rule set by the teacher which is an example of nurture because it tells how the child would eat in class if the teacher said it was okay, but the child is taught it is against the rules. The same paragraph it is talked about if the teacher says it is okay to push another student off a chair the child will respond “No, the teacher shouldn’t say that,” says psychologist Michael Schulman. This could be an example of nature because it is being presented as the child’s instinct to hesitate to push another child off a chair, but also it could just be the way the child is brought up on how they grasp what is right or wrong.
By reading this article my opinion only grew stronger on how it all depends and differs for each individual. Although, I am leaning a little more towards nurture after reading both the summer assignments and this article because I have seen in each of the readings that a lot of the behaviors whether good or evil is caused mostly by society. The only examples I think are nature can in one way or another relate back to nurture. In my mind I do believe everyone can be influenced one way or another, but for most once they are taught one way it is near impossible for them to switch making it seem as though the first way of behavior they were taught is their nature to others around them.

Summer Readings

The reading I liked the most was Lord of the Flies for many different reasons. The book started out slow, but as I read on I couldn't put the book down. Besides the book being intresting I thought I could relate to Lord of the Flies a lot more than White Fang because the main characters were kids and I could see why they've done some of the things such as wanting to hunt, swim, and just relax instead of building shelters and being responsible for a fire signal. What I found most interesting was how the kids had social problems on the island between them, the rest of the world had a huge social problem of their own. In terms of our topic whether or not if mankind is inherently evil I could see the message of Lord of the Flies how it seemed Jack and his tribe were just evil at heart where as Ralph and Piggy were drawn in by the rest of the guys. White Fang was hard for me to stay focused I just didn't find it that interesting just because the whole storyline wasn't the most exciting whereas Lord of the Flies was very suspenseful towards the end. It was also because White Fang was harder to see the message and to relate to because the main characters were wolves. All in all Lord of the Flies was just a more exciting book to read than White Fang.