The article “What Happened in Ferguson,” from the New York Times is explaning a topic that infuriates people due to social injustice. The article shows controversy with witnesses, some say Michael Brown charged towards the police officer (Officer Wilson), while others say he did not. I think this article shows social injustice, because the color of Brown’s skin probably affected the outcome of the situation. If Brown (hypothetically) charged towards Wilson, then why would the officer have felt there was no choice but to shoot him dead? Many are convinced it’s because of his skin color. There currently is a strong stereotype for african americans, which probably influenced Wilson and made him shoot out of fear. If there was a white teenage boy charging at the officer would he have felt in the same amount of danger? Would he have fired 12 rounds at the incoming boy? The article makes me realize how we haven’t come as far as we thought we had in terms of racism. There’s footage of protestors in the streets being taken out by tear gas, which looks similar to the protests for voting rights, that occured years ago. We do have a black president which is a major step forward, but seeing people shouting at officers in the streets really makes you wonder how much farther we have to go until we are all equal.
Buchanan, Larry. "What Happened in Ferguson?" The New York Times. The New York Times, 12 Aug. 2014. Web. 25 Nov. 2014. <http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/08/13/us/ferguson-missouri-town-under-siege-after-police-shooting.html>.
Imagine by John Lennon (excerpt)
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...
This excerpt from Imagine by John Lennon is about how much conflict there is in the world. It tells what the world could be if there wasn’t war, and tells the reader to imagine that. It traces war back to the division of the world by asking the reader to imagine no countries, and how that could mean “living life in peace”. The excerpt demonstreates injustice, because some of the army members are people who have no choice, because they really need the money.
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One day when I was walking down the street, I heard a man whistle to a woman. She was simply strolling down the street in jeans and a low hanging shirt, and hadn’t done anything to provoke this man. I watched in disgust as his eyes went up and down her body, and he shouted things at her. This is unfair to human rights, beacause you don’t see women whistling at men in tight shirts, or shouting for their number. This woman was only seen for her body, which is an example of something happening in this soceity that’s cruel and unfair.
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While watching popular TV shows my younger sister would watch on Disney Channel, I saw reocurring patterns. For starters, teens my age are generally white. They are skinny, wear flashy clothing, and never wear glasses (only “nerds” would wear those). They are portrayed as sneaky and are always hiding things from their parents. In every current Disney show there will be one episode where a main character breaks an object, or looses something. They will lie to their parents, and try to avoid any consequence. Eventually, they will get caught and are forced to fix their mess. Most of the teenagers live in big cities like Chicago or New York, and have loose parents who are willing to let them run around freely. These TV shows, give kids a strict image of how they should look, or what “pretty” should look like. Plus, there are many gender stereotypes. A typical girl character would buy shoes instead of studying, or a guy would play with trucks and throw dirt at his sisters. Looking back on the shows I used to watch on Disney, there are similarities and differences. For starters, there were actual african americans on the shows I watched. On Disney now, the only black person you will see is an extra in the background. Also, all the actors weren’t a size 0, which made kids love their bodies as they are. In addition, some of the episodes in shows would be relatable and would serve as advice, to educate and help kids watching. There would be episodes focusing on bullying, or even puberty. However, shows now and then have things in common. For instance, some of the older shows did include sneaky characters who would manipulate parents. Overall, the portrayal of teenagers is unrealistic and negative.
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One of my moms, named Jen, used to work at a law firm for many years of her life. During her time there, she worked on many cases involving social injustice, one of which being racism. Low income black families were being cheated out of their money by the owner of their house, and Jen worked hard to prove this was happening and ended up winning her case. She was able to get money back to the people who really need it. Because the families were black, the predatory lender took the little money they had.
Q: Did you always know you wanted to be a lawyer?
A: Nope, not until late collage.
Q: Why did you want to be a lawyer?
A: In collage I learned a lot about civil rights movement and womans right movements and I felt that some things in the world are really awful, and unfair, and I felt like it would be great to try to do something about it.
Q: What do you think the greatest social injustice problem is facing the world?
A: I would say racial and ethnic stereotypes, and the distructive actions people take due to these assumptions that the stereotypes are true.
Q: What do you do to try to fix these problems?
A: For 16 years I represented poor people in court for free, and I tried to educate people in community groups about their rights and now I run a program for City Collage students from low income backgrounds who want to become lawyers.
Q: What was your biggest case to help these people?
A: In 2011, I and four other attorney attorneyrepresented six families against a predatory lender and who also fraudulent developer of homes. We won 10 million dollars for our clients and created the first case law regarding this particular type of loan, which will help other lawyers help other families who were victims of preditory lending.
Q: Would you say you change the world?
A: I feel like during my times at legal services I represented 2500 people or families, and won almost all of those cases so I feel like I changed a lot of individual peoples worlds, but on a global level I don’t think the work I did made a humongous change except fighting the fight against injustice.
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I asked my mom named Lisa, about her opninions on social justice:
Q: How do you think we can fix social injustice problems?
A: I really don’t know, there’s just such a history in our country of salvery and anti-immagration.
Q: What do you think the biggest issues are?
A: One of them is definitely racism, I think everyone is somewhat racist today, but its not that simple because they deny it. Every white person has had at least one racist thought because of our history, and how we were rasied.
Q: What do you think is fair in the world?
A: Democaracy is the main prefered gov in the world i think this is a much better gover than kings and dictators and also there is all this social revolutions of the 60s: gay rights, womans rights, black luebration its open the door for people to disucss things like difference and acceptance of difference.
Q: What do you think is unfair about the world?
A: Biggest issue is economic difference rather than racial difference, the difference having money is of such high value in our culture.
I personally agree with what Lisa was saying, there is definitly a problem with racism, and there are so many people who are racist because of our history. I think preventing racism will be a challenge for the US, because while we have come far, there’s still a lot of racism today.
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On the news there are many heartbreaking events, and one I saw was about a fire. The newscaster explains how a fire taking over 40 homes forced people to evacuate, and some people had merely moments to escape. The building was left demolished, and all belongings were destroyed. It would be tragic to be in their situation, because they would have lost almost everything. To have to escape from your home before your burned alive, and then having to watch your home go down in flames would be heartbreaking. You keep photo albums, electronics, toys, and so much more in your house, and I can’t imagine all of that being gone in a second. And now the evacuees are left searching for a place to stay, and then a new home.
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