Reflections on the Black Race Essay Example for Free

Reflections on the Black Race Essay That the issue of Obama’s racial background is much talked about in terms of his fitness for the US presidency only proves this: that we Americans have a long way to go in our pursuit of adherence to the ideals of our declaration of independence. After all the document held the fundamental equality of people, and everyman’s inalienable rights, to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The declaration did not favor any race in the universality of its coverage. So how come some people have raised the specter of doom for America once the black mestizo Obama wins the US presidency? How come a Democrat lawyer is doggedly pursuing, ostensibly as a matter of principle—that Barack Obma is not a â€Å"natural born American† and is therefore unqualified to run for the presidency of the United States. The Democrat lawyer claimed his motivation was his loyalty to the US constitution. (Refer to the You Tube citation in the reference below for this item). But Surname 2 one can sense a certain ferocity in his campaign that didn’t seem to jibe with his claimed adherence. The dramatic performance of this Democrat lawyer complete with reciting his monologue with the Philadelphia edifice in his background is obviously a public relations stunt of a deeply rooted racist. This theatrics however considerably lost its mantle after a considered US statesman and former Secretary of State—the full-blooded Republican Mr. Powell— endorsed Mr. Obama, making sure he stood for principle in supporting Mr. Obama. Mr. Powell was also bothered by the way his own Republican camp was hitting the dirt in their campaign of hatred against the black American Democratic candidate. (Refer again to the You Tube citation in the reference. ) Mr. Powell finally called for â€Å"a generational change†, and coming as it did from a senior Republican – for a long time, an unprecedented bipartisanship Mr Powell raised a very important gesture of statesmanship and concern for American welfare. (You Tube). . In his book Dreams from my Father, Obama in the first 20 pages described a life that started as a young mind, clueless on the lifetime struggle that was to be on his shoulders as a black mestizo. He described Kansas, as the dab-smack, landlocked center of the country, a place where decency and endurance and the pioneer spirit were joined at the hip with conformity and suspicion and the potential for unblinking cruelty. (p. 13). Take note of his analogy of the metaphorical duality of his environment when he described Kansas as a place of decency, endurance, and (pioneering) spirit on the upper side, joined in the hip with such negative traits as conformity, suspicion, and the potential for Surname 3 unblinking cruelty†¦ This fairly balanced assessment of his origins recognized the fundamental decency of the American people , but also noted the attitudinal duality to racial origins in his country of birth. In this book Obama explored the pervasive racial issues that he encountered in life, from childhood, to college, and by now he must have realized—to the present, when as the Democrat candidates, he stood on the threshold of American presidency. Despite this stature, he was still grappling with the race issue. As a young man, Obama was unmindful of the thought â€Å"(that )my father looked nothing like the people around me — that he was black as pitch, my mother white as milk. † (p. 16) It was an infinitely harder life for the common blacks. In Obama’s case he only started to become aware of the weight of his racial identity as he grew up. Obama as a black did not come from the underprivileged, but from a relatively middle class environment. Compared to what Obama went through, Brent Staples now tells us that ordinary blacks suffered even harsher environments. Consoling blacks, he reminded them of the historical movement toward their freedom. They came from a country that barely a few decades ago was absolutely racist, a virtual apartheid which situation started to collapse only after World War II. Staples said that only after the collapse did blacks start to move out of their sequestered world and into colleges, jobs, and walks of life that had been closed to them until then. Surname 4 Still, black Americans who came from successful, suburban and upwardly mobile families were regularly dismissed as white or inauthentic . In other words, Brent Staples also blamed blacks for wanting to further marginalize themselves and to inflict on themselves a marginalized status. â€Å"The authentic black experience, it was said at the time, was limited to the hard-core, impoverished upbringing that black people often chose to brag about, even when they had actually grown up with private prep schools in the lap of luxury,† was Brent’s assessment of the black mentality of the 60s. In other words, even Obama was unacceptable to these blacks because he was not authentically â€Å"black† in the poverty side of the issue. But another Republican Alan Keyes dished out another execrable crap when he opposed Mr. Obama in the Illinois Senate race back in 2004 saying Mr. Obama was not black because â€Å"he was not descended from slaves. † Clearly both black and whites think of blacks as having to be miserable in order to qualify for this racial group. The self-image of this group seems to be one that perpetually deprecates itself as always coming from the bottom. Mr. Obama himself, a would-be president of the United States has experienced the existential problem of how it is to be black in the world’s most prosperous country. In his book Obama disclosed how he coped with life as a black in a society dominated by whites. As Staples explains it: â€Å"He stumbled onto the mysteries of race in his own good time and pursued them in his own way. His quest took him to an impoverished community on the South Surname 5 Side of Chicago, where he worked as an organizer in an infamous public housing project before discovering his vocation as a politician. † And Staples sees hope that this division would soon be resolved with a greater understanding of the multiplicity of experiences among marginalized peoples in any society. Said he: â€Å"†¦ The hue and cry over Barack Obama’s identity stems from a failure by black traditionalists to recognize multiracial versions of themselves. Soon enough, perhaps by year’s end, however, the Obama story, which seems so exotic to so many people now, will have found its place among all the other stories of the sprawling black diaspora. † Surname 6 Works Cited Obama, Barack. Dreams of My Father. US: Three River Press, 1995,pp. 1-20. Staples, Brent. Decoding the Debate Over the Blackness of Barack Obama. (2007) The Editorial Observer. Retrieved October 19. 2008 from: http://files. meetup. com/427541/Blackness%20of%20Barack%20Obama%20. doc You Tube campaign against Obama . Retrieved Oct. 21, 2008. http://sayanythingblog. com/entry/a_video_that_could_change_the_election/

Slavery in the United States Essay example -- Slavery Essays

Slavery in the United States In the history of the United States nothing has brought more shame to the face of America than the cold, premeditated method of keeping black people in captivity. People from England who migrated to America used many different methods to enslave black people and passed them down through the children. These methods were quite effective, so effective that these â€Å"slaves† were kept in captivity for over two hundred years in this country. It was the rain of terror that kept black people in fear of their lives for so long. The invention of the gun back in the fifth-teenth century was the main reason that these people were able to go to another continent and enslave so many people. These people from Africa were mistreated very badly right from the start both mentally and physically. They were packed very tightly on ships for months at a time chained to each other with no place to go to the bathroom, little water to drink, and hardly anything to eat. As the population constantly increased in the colonies during the 1600’s, so did the demand for slavery especially in the southern colonies where the big plantations were. These plantations were very lucrative since the owners had free manual labor and they could keep all the profit from the crops for themselves. They also had to justify what they were doing to themselves so what they did was tell themselves that these slaves were barbaric and not smart enough to be civilized. These slave owners also owned huge houses in the middle of their plantations and thought of themselves as noblemen. In acuality, it was the slaves who were living nobly while the Europeans were living barbaricly. The Europeans who owned slaves also thought that the sl... ...un power is what created slavery. Keeping the fear in the eyes of the slaves is what kept them working under such poor conditions everyday, while their friends and family could be sold away at any time or place. Learning English and being able to read and write is what educated these men and women. Once they were educated enough, they could secretly plan escape routes to the north and finally get some sympathy for their people which would eventually lead to the Civil War. This war was about right and wrong. There is a moral way to make money and then there is an immoral way to make a living. Slavery is the number one event in our country’s history that has disgraced and put shame to our culture. Even though not everyone owned slaves, one bad apple spoils the bunch. Hopefully people will learn from history, and immoral actions or events like slavery will not take place again.

Animals’ Roles in The Wars Essay

Written by Timothy Findley in 1977, The Wars is a novel that explores the theme of young human life under the pressing concerns during the war, specifically the First World War, seeing the world of soldiers turn into a world of violence, and how these soldiers have turned into brutes themselves. The character of Robert Ross, a nineteen year-old Canadian officer and whose life is narrated mostly from the third-person point of view, is revealed as a character that has a concern for animals—thus prompting Ross to save the horses which cost him his life in the end—amidst the brutal turn of events where death was almost certain in the killing fields. The birds, coyote and rabbits also symbolize certain events in the story.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Soldiers are typically known to be highly sensitive of their surroundings when in the fields for they cannot exactly pinpoint where and when combat might ensue or from what direction the enemy might be coming from. This is perhaps one of the reasons why Ross was able to notice the chirping of the birds while he and the rest of the soldiers were out in the war. Ross was able to take notice of the fact that each time the birds stopped singing, an attack from the enemy soon takes place. Perhaps it was mere coincidence, although one can strongly tie that event with the attacks that followed thereafter as birds are familiar with their environment more than the soldiers; slight changes in their environment, especially changes which have a lot to do with probable dangers; cause the birds to fly away. Taken with the context of the encounters of Ross with the birds, it can be said that those birds served as warning signs for the young soldier. Whenever the birds stopped singing, it is almost certain that Ross is about to encounter danger along the way. â€Å"The birds, being gone, had taken some mysterious presence with them (p. 81),† showing how the sudden absence of these birds felt rather unusual, as if to signal something bad is about to happen.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   It is unusual as well for man and beast to have a close relationship, especially when the animal is known to be a hunter and can be a threat to the security of man. But more than that, any relationship between man and beast can mean simple companionship to a deep friendship. As far as Ross and the coyote are concerned, it can be said that the animal accompanied the young soldier to a certain extent in the story. â€Å"One night, Robert ran with a coyote (p. 25)† and when the men were out for a drink the coyote also â€Å"drunk at the brink (p. 27)† of the water â€Å"and suddenly sat (p. 28).† An observation of these rather unusual events would tell us that the coyote acted as if it was a member of the soldiers. This is interesting as it presents a revealing irony one can not easily notice; soldiers in the war, as Ross himself has observed, are violent men who are more like beasts who wielded weapons to kill. With the presence of the coyote among the group, it can be said that they, too, were much like the coyote. The soldiers, in fact, â€Å"gathered like whispering conspirators around the edges of a bright sheet of water (p. 27),† a sly trait typical to that of coyotes.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   While coyotes symbolize how men in the war have turned into beasts, rabbits on the other hand serve as reminders for Ross to treat animals in general with respect as if they were human beings. On one occasion, Ross was hesitant to kill the rabbits as ordered by his estranged mother, Mrs. Ross, shortly after the death of Rowena, Robert’s older sister, since they gave him memories about his older sister and since Rowena owned those rabbits. â€Å"Rabbits had to die, and Robert had to do it (p. 18),† which presents one conflict in the novel—the conflict between the command to destroy the animals which pin back memories and the apparent weakness of the main protagonist to kill even animals. It can be said that if Ross decides to kill the rabbits, it was like as if he has killed the memories of Rowena. If he decides not to kill them, it proves that he is unable to even wield a weapon against these small animals, which is of course not a good sign for someone who would enlist in the army during the war. It also shows how Ross was more human than anybody else in the story, especially his estranged mother and the rest of the soldiers in his group. His inclination to preserve whatever memory remains from the departed tells us that Ross is not keen to destroy, or that he is not a natural â€Å"destroyer† of animal life which, ironically, cost him his life as he tried to save some of the Army horses after killing two of his fellow soldiers.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The point where Ross tries to save the Army horses was also the time when he finally turned to madness and prompted him to kill the lives of his fellowmen. Apparently, it is a contrast which tells us that insanity can push a person to kill other people yet care for beasts. That is because Ross himself has finally become a beast near the end of the story and, thus, he is now more than inclined to save his own kind rather than protect and preserve the life of other men. He is no longer the same man at the start of the story who was afraid to kill. This transformation can be attributed to the onslaught of the war, which seemed to have absorbed Robert right into it. As he was now unable to rise above the madness of the war, Robert Ross eventually turned quite like the rest of the army, willing to kill and die just so to save other lives although this time he saved the lives of horses.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The animals in the story offer an interesting insight into some important events in the novel, especially in terms of how the life of the protagonist, Robert Ross, always hanged in the balance of making crucial decisions. In general, the story is able to reveal how the lives of soldiers always deal with certain conflicts individually and together as a group. Findley’s novel is also able to show how young minds of young individuals tend to fold under pressing moments in their lives. Reference Findley, T. (1996). The Wars. Penguin: Canada.

Exxon Mobil Essay - 1950 Words

Exxon Mobil Exxon Mobil is listed as one of the worldÂ’s largest fortune 500 companies according to Fortune Magazine, 2006. Because of its size, I became interested in this company for my research paper on corporate social responsibility. Exxon Mobile has a rich history that dates back to 1859. It all started when two individuals drilled an oil well in Pennsylvania.†¦show more content†¦The company unfortunately had to pay an estimated amount of $2.1 billion dollars in clean up operations for the spill (Business Ethics, Exxon Valdez pages 396-405). After the Valdez incident Exxon Mobil realized that somethi ng had to be done if they were to shine in the publics eyes once again. They realized that they had to take on the worlds toughest energy challenges and develop a mindset of corporate citizenship. The term “corporate citizenship” according to dictionary.com can be defined as: The extent to which businesses are socially responsible in meeting legal, ethical and economic responsibilities placed on them by shareholders. The aim to create a higher standard of living and quality of life in the community in which it operates, while preserving the profitability of the company for itÂ’s stakeholders both within and outside the company. The 6 areas of corporate citizenship Exxon chose include: education, health, community development, environment, safety and worldwide giving. Exxon Mobil belie ves that the key to progress is education. When it comes to the communities they operate in they strive to be a responsible partner. In the area of education, their most important subjects are Math and Science. 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