Final Essay

Black America: Moving Forward

Black Americans are one of the most stigmatized groups in the nation. While most of the American population is well aware of the setbacks this group has encountered historically, it seems as though only a few are aware of the fast pace at which our social attitudes have greatly improved, and of the short amount of time it has taken Black Americans to be able to experience more authentic standards of equality. Imported as slaves and laborers in the 1600’s, the first black Americans came from Africa, and were treated as property by much of the white population. Since these inhumane times, both the standards of the black community and the attitudes of the country as a whole have changed drastically. It's important to recognize the remarkable social and economic imprint that Black Americans are making, as the entire nation moves towards overall improvement.

Following both the endurance and abolishment of slavery in the later 1800’s, Black Americans continued to encounter many obstacles because of their slavery embedded roots. The well known issues of segregation and discrimination proposed many new obstacles upon their new found, and rightfully granted, liberty. The limitations of their past also affected them in terms of their knowledge, education, and their experiences. During the early to mid 1900’s when segregation was most prominent, finding a source of employment and income was very difficult. More often than not, their level of education only allowed for low paying jobs like laborers. Many women (about 60 percent) found source of employment as domestic servants (Zuckerman). Children, as much as 25 percent, were not enrolled in school. Instead they worked a full time, 55 hour week doing manual labor (Thomas 95). The dire need of supplement income often came at the expensive of the children’s education, and prevented them from receiving the schooling necessary to acquire a good paying job in the future. As a result of this inevitable rotation of setbacks, Black Americans regularly found themselves doing everything possible to simply survive. And while living a life in poverty, they remained an unforeseen seed in the eyes of the economy. The new life of liberty in the free world proposed a great challenge.

By today’s standards, the black society has significantly progressed. Particularly, exponential growth has been made in the realm of education. As of 2003 more than half (58.3 percent) of Black Americans had enrolled into college within a year of receiving their high school diploma (US Society African Americans). Of all of them within the work force (ages 25-64) only 10 percent did not hold an education level equivalent to at least a high school diploma (African American). It’s without question that Black Americans have made enormous advancements in education. By cultural standards however, education goes hand in hand with employment. It is in part because of this relationship that the work force has substantially benefited, improved, and progressed as well. The same 60 percent of females that were holding positions as servants 60 years earlier are now holding highly reputable, white collar jobs (Zuckerman). Recent statistics even show that the current overall employment rate for Black American’s is 75 percent, just two percent lower than White Americans at 77 percent (Harris). Not only do these accomplishments express the great levels of educational growth accomplished by Black Americans, but more importantly, it highlights the progress and positive changes that have been made throughout the rest of the country, and in the financial market of the nation.

In part this large impact we’re seeing today is also due to the dramatic adjustments Black Americans have demanded in the attitudes of the other, particularly white, American citizens. In the 1950’s, 55 percent of whites believed that back Americans should not be offered the same job opportunities. However, when this same question was asked only two and a half decades later in 1975, 97 percent of whites claimed to believe in equal opportunity (Zuckerman). If the subjects of the questionnaire given in 1975 had been lying about their true beliefs in equal opportunity, then the statistics are corrupt. However, regardless of how honest the subjects were, it’s significant to note that the overall indication, which strongly alludes to the fact that the attitudes of White Americans have changed dramatically, remains unscathed.

The education and income market are not the only places African Americans have embossed this country. Spectator entertainment has always provided a wide range of enjoyment by means of thrills and pleasure for the American public. In 1954 it was reported that of the 72,400 full time employees working in television, less than 200 of them were black (MacDonald 247). In today’s day and age, Black Americans are a top contributor to this industry. Some of the most well known entertainers include musician Michael Jackson, basketball player Michael Jordan, television host Oprah Winfrey, comedian Bill Cosby, baseball player Sammy Sosa, actor Will Smith, and professional golfer Tiger Woods. Each one of these well known entertainers are Black Americans, and viewed upon as role models by millions of people across the entire country.

Standing as proof of a changing society that’s tackled the many ethnicities of the county, much of the influential aspects we are seeing include social changes to the Black community as well. Professional Tiger Woods is a great example of exactly this concept in the entertainment industry. Wood’s professional career took off in 1996, at a time where there were only about 500,000 professional black golfers. Due to his representation and influence, over the optimal course of his career, the number of black golfers rose exponentially nearing 1,500,000 (Evans). As with Wood's, the vast majority of blacks excelling in the entertainment industry are not only proof of their own personal and cultural excellence and liberal growth, but as a part in the whole economy. Country wide they are overtaking, influencing and setting standards for many of the things that Americans enjoy and support; entertainment. It is America’s favorite past time.

Just as they did in the times of slavery and forced immigration, Black Americans continue to leave a mark on the nation. Not only have they progressed in terms of their education and job fulfillments, but accordingly as citizens, in status, and in the entertainment industries. With such substantial changes already being made, we can only expect further progression from Black Americans as individuals and as a group in its entirety. After all, with the first time ever black president we are experiencing history as we know it. A larger imprint and continual shaping of America in the future is only to be expected.

Works Cited
(images from Google Images)

Works Cited:: Black America: Moving Forward

Works Cited

“African American History Month” Bureau of Labor Statistics. Feb 2009: United States Department of Labor. Web. 2 December 2009

Corlett, J. Angelo. “Surviving Evil: Jewish, African, and Native Americans” Journal of Social Philosophy. 2001: 207-223. Academic Search Premier. Web. 2 December 2009

Evans, Farrell, Lipsey, Rick. “Color Code” Sport Illustrated. April 2007; G40. Academic Search Permier. Web. 2 December 2009

MacDonald, J.F; “Black Perimeters – Paul Robeson, Nat King Cole and the Role of Black in American TV” Journal of Popular Film and Television. 1979: 246-264. Academic Search Premier. Web. 2 December 2009

Thomas, Sue. “Second Home: Missouri’s Early Schools” University of Missouri Press. 2006: Web. 3 December 2009

“US Society African Americans” About the USA. November 2009. Web. 2 December 2009
Zuckerman, Mortimer B. “A Hard Look at What Works” U.S. New & World Report. Nov. 2003. 83-84. Web. 2 December 2009

Aubrie

Hello again Aubrie! I’m so glad to see you again because I loved reading your writing so much... one of my favorites for sure.

I enjoyed reading and re-reading your blog posts. Overall, you are a great summarizer when it comes to referencing/acknowledging other in your text. You keep it short and direct, but write in a way that isn’t boring. All of your posts also had great organization which helps your writing flow smoothly, and always seemed to have creative/original ideas.

You had a lot of good blogs to pick from for your final, but here are my three favorites you haven't already used:

1- Religion and Moral Identity;

I really enjoyed reading this blog. While I think overall some of your other blogs were written better, I loved the approach that you took with this one. I was caught by pleasant surprised with the strong points you made and thought it was awfully clever for you to break it down the way you did… especially after having already done reviews for other peoples writing on the same topic. If you choose to expand on this one, I know it will make for a strong and very intriguing paper.

2- Is Monogamy the Key?

I remembered this one from the original blog peer reviews. I thought it was great then, and I think it’s one of your best overall. This blog complements all of your best writing techniques- your ability to summarize, organize, and maintain relevance and a smooth flow.

3- The Fracturing of a Family

This blog was also written very well- and the intro is great. I love the second sentence, and think it could make for a great opener. Because it has an overall theme of staying connected (now from a distance), I think this would be a fun one to use for the final. I feel like there are a lot of things you could do with this one expand it in more dynamic ways too!

After reading everything, the only suggestion I have for you for the final is about your citations- which you do a great job of referencing in your text and using to support what you write. However, you most always use direct quotes and hardly ever use paraphrasing (although I did notice towards the more recent post you started to do it a bit more). While I think that direct quotes can at times make for a stronger piece of support, paraphrasing can help keep it consistently written in your own voice. Regardless, whichever blog you choose, I’m sure it will be great.

Good luck with the final- and thanks for all the reviews this semester! Have a good last few weeks and enjoy break!

Susan

Hi Susan! I loved reading your semesters work. I think you’re a great writer and have a fantastic ability to show your personality within it. Overall I really enjoyed all your blogs which were all really well organized, readable, and cited properly. Your titles were always very good too- informative and never deceiving. :)

Of all of your blogs (that you haven't used), these are the three I’ve picked out for you:

1- Move Over Miley!
I really like the direction you took with this blog. It was creative and interesting. Like most of your post, it was written and organized very well too. It has a strong opinion/viewpoint, but it doesn’t come off as a personal opinion which I think helps credit it as well. Aside from everything that’s great about it though, I think it would be a fun one to add “dynamics” to too if you chose it for your final!

2- More than Just Reproduction
I like that you took a different side to the author your summarized in this one. The topic makes for a compelling argument, and you held a strong stance. The blog itself already has great structure and organization… and there were so many great concepts you used to support yourself, I think that with just a little bit of references to back up your personal statements, it would be a really great essay!

3- Money Makes the World Go Round
To me this topic is quite boring/difficult to write about, but you did such a good job writing about it without bringing in the bore and actually making it interesting that I chose this one. Like your others, it was well structured. It maintained a consistent voice and read really smoothly too. I like that you involved the current economy because it’s something we’re all currently aware of/involved with. Given its current status, this may be a good one to write about too as I’m sure you’ll be able to find recent articles on the topic. A last thing I liked about this post was the concluding sentence- it was one of those ones that left a kind of lasting impression.

It’s apparent that you’ve been a good writer since the beginning of the semester. As your blog posts became more recent though, your writing style seemed to change (improve!). However, you never compromised the initial way you wrote, you only added to it. To me it seems like it became more established (for lack of a better word), and thus much more relative, informative, and persuasive. Being that said, after reading all your posts my only suggestion is to be weary of the way your personal opinion translates to your final essay. Like I said before, you have strong opinions, which are one of the things I like most about your writing. Just make sure to continue writing the way you have been most recently and not to let them overtake your writing.

It was a pleasure reading your semesters worth of work. Good luck with the final, and enjoy a much needed (for me anyways) winter break!

Week 12 Blog Reviews

Whitney:::

In a Perfect World

I thought that this was so good! It was so easy to read, and you did a really good job summarizing reading and explaining both ends of the spectrum. Your intro was terrific too. It totally drew me in. I really don’t have much to say except that I think you should have given you’re viewpoint (the same one that was in the conclusion) in your intro too! Regardless of that though, really good job.

The Fascination with Finance

Dang! I really like both of your blogs this week. As with In a Perfect World, I thought that this too was written really well and don’t have much critique. Your writing has a way of coming off both intelligently and appealing. It’s clear that you understand what you read, and when you write and reference it you write it in a way that’s easy for readers to comprehend. It’s great.

Ashley:::

The World of Money

I really enjoyed this blog. You did such a good job referencing and writing in a way that was appealing. I really like your opening statement was defining what ‘finance’ was... And I like that you did it from the text rather than a dictionary. I just don’t prefer dictionary definitions much I guess. My only suggestion would be to consider revising the sentence with the phrase “most money and money”. Really good job though!

Goverment: Creating a Protection from One’s Own Self

Good blog. I really enjoyed this writing. You had so many good and justifiable points- I think it could become a really great essay if you found and cited some scholarly references that supported your statements. I have just a few things to say about the paper. There were a few spelling/grammar errors (government in the title) that you’d probably catch next time you edited should you choose this for an essay. And my other comment is about this statement from your conclusion: “Although many expect dangerous acts to come from persons outside our country, as we can witness by experience, from the Oklahoma bombing to last week, loose security of citizens allows them to do anything that they wish.” I thought this was just a tad hard to make sense of. Good job!!

Nicole:

Freedom of folly

I agree with your stance on the subject that government should resides somewhere between the two ends of the spectrum. Overall your blog was easy to read. You had good ideas. I think if you chose to expand/revise this and use it for an essay, you consider taking a more academic voice in writing it. Perhaps you could do this merely by sourcing outside your personal opinion. Good job!

Some Kind of Purple

I can remember the counteless times I've heard my mother say “too much of anything is never a good thing.” As I’ve grown older, I’ve found her infamous words to be an everlasting piece of advice. While of course the words usually spilled from my mother’s mouth in reference to the amount of material things I had, or in the amount of freedom she gave me, I find the statement to be true in politics as well. Especially in regards to government control and libertarianism as discussed in “Politics for the Really Cool” by Josh McHugh, I think that too much of either (control versus anarchism) is not a good thing.

Let’s take a direction that's different yet still very similar from McHugh and his discussion about cryptography by looking at the Patriot Act. The Patriot Act is an enactment passed by President Bush following the tragic events of 11 September 2001. Some of the provisions of this decree include increased accessibility of the government into personal records (medical and financial), telephone conversations, and e-mail communications. It also allows for financial transactions to be regulated, and makes foreign intelligence assembly in the U.S more permissible.

Given the Patriot Act and what it stands for, it could not better exemplify the idea that neither too much control nor too little government is optimal. Essentially, the act allows enforcement officials to pry into and invade the lives our country's citizens. It strips away from citizens’ freedoms and provides more power to political practices. The government now has power sufficient enough to monitor how an individual spend their money, copious enough to note what books they're buying, and amplible enough to oversee who they're speaking with. This is our government taking a step in the authoritarian direction.

This control factor is the very thing that calls libertarianism into view. Our country stands for its freedom and the liberty it offers to it citizens, but our independence and individuality can’t be 100 percent if our free will is taken away. While all of this makes the citizens of this country who they are, it’s interesting to wonder where we’d be if the government took a step back. Citizens would unquestionably have increased individual sovereignty. In such case, imagine the validity of the word "freedom" without the government breathing down our neck. On the contrary however, think about probable terrorists like Mohammed Wali Zizi and his affiliates or those alike. Imagine the damage they could have been done on the eight anniversary of 11 September 2001 had the government not had the authority to interfere at the lengths they did.

The Patriot Act strips away individual freedoms, but to get some you’ve got to give some. In exchange for what we’re giving up, we’re receiving a higher form of protection from the government as a whole. Just as the act allows us to foresee, too much government is equally as bad as too much anarchy. At the utmost extreme, if individual or even state sovereignty could not exist in the founding colonies, it’s hard to envision how it could exist amongst 50 states. Likewise, the United States would not stand for what it does if it politically existed with a structure similar to that in North Korea. Even downplayed at a libertarian/authoritative level, there needs to be a “happy medium” (with maybe just a little bit of lean to the left!). Individual sovereignty is important, even desirable. Yet, so is the bold protection of the government. Somewhere, the two need to meet in the middle.

Week 11 Blog Reviews

Nicole::

Immigration and the Economy weeds out the selfish people

I really enjoyed reading this. It was nice to read about an ethnicity that isn’t as readily thought of. I learned so much from what you wrote too! It had good flow, and great outside sourcing! My only real recommendation is to make you thesis a bit more identifiable in the intro. Also, maybe consider moving the citation in the intro to the third paragraph to work with the quote from Kenny. I don’t think it’d do any harm to the intro, and add to that what you have in the third paragraph. Great job!

Material Girl In a Material World

Like your other writings, I thought overall this flowed well. It had a consistent voice. I enjoyed your introduction, but I think it makes a stronger statement if you omit the very last sentence and introduce Twitchell's belief in the second paragraph. Good choices of citations throughout the body. In your fourth paragraph, you could consider changing the first sentence to one about addressing memories tied to material things, rather than singling out “positive aspects” since you discuss both the good and the bad associations in the paragraph. Good job. And one last thing- check if you're citing correctly (I need to check too!). I think need the name of the author as well as the page number...

Whitney:::

I Want It All

Cute picture! I like how introduced this writing with the 7 deadly sins. It was intriguing and inviting. Overall however, given the question of your thesis, I thought it this had a sort of biased tone. And while you brought up good points, I just didn’t get the feeling that the thoughts were complete, which made them seem less supported. For example: You said that “If people can’t have everything they want they cannot be happy” and that materialism has “brought us… security and happiness.” The ideas do support your thesis, but I think they also allure the fact that we rely on material things for security, rather than being secure in ourselves... and if that’s the case, is the security a good thing?

The Melting Pot

I like the direction that your writing took. I agree with you about the positive changes African American’s have gone through, and in that we should focus on the positive. Your intro paragraph was a bit of untidy though, especially with your summary of Maggs' essay and your thesis. I liked that you gave a mini-history lesson on African American's but was mildly surprised that that was what the overall writing was about. I also think your writing could have greatly benefited from some actual sources. And one thing be cautious how often you use “it is important to…(remember, think, note, etc)". Good job this week!

Ashley:::

African Americans: The Immigrant Leaders

I like the title for this post! It’s creative, yet very informative. I like that you researched and found other documents to support your writing, and wrote in such an academic tone. I got a bit confused on the direction of it all though. Was it to show how the progress of African American’s has out done the Mexicans, or to express the contributions to the economy by the African Americans in the work force? I felt like your thesis said one thing and your writing said another (or maybe even both). I also thought that citation at the end of the second paragraph felt forced. A few of your sentences made strong statements and perfect sense, but just didn’t flow well (“From beginning as slaves and working for no profit, African Americas have increased their contributions in the American economy in a large way”). I think with some minor editing this would make a great essay!

How Much Would You Pay For My Name on Your Chest?

I agree with you! You brought up a lot of good points, and used Twitchell (who you obviously understood) well. It’s interesting to think how different we are from Eastern cultures where family (and religion, and…, etc.) mean so much more than what money can buy! My only suggestion is about your organization. There are clearly 3 paragraphs, but it’s hard to differentiate between what’s really the introduction, the body, and the conclusion. For example, “Materialism I believe hurts our culture more than anything” reads (to me at least) like the start of a conclusion and it’s at the beginning of your body. Maybe simplifying your intro and lengthening the body would help? Also, maybe use the statement above (or one like it) as an intro for your conclusion. Just some suggestions!!