Essay #3 Options Due July 17
Option One. Refute, support, or complicate Asma’s assertion that green guilt is not only a relative to religious guilt but speaks to our drive to sacrifice self-indulgence for the drive of altruistic self-preservation and social reciprocity. See Elizabeth Anderson’s online essay “If God Is Dead, Is Everything Permitted?”
Option Two. Develop a thesis that supports, refutes, or complicates the assertion Debra J. Dickerson, who wrote the “The Great White Way,” would find Michael Eric Dyson's essay "Understanding Black Patriotism" a complement to Dickerson's ideas about race, power, and hierarchy.
Option Three. Support, refute, or complicate Debra J. Dickerson's argument that race in America is more of a social fantasy than a reflection of objective reality.
Option Four. Show how the Jordan Peele movie Get Out builds on Debra J. Dickerson's argument that race in America is a cruel invention designed to create a hierarchy of power, one that can be seen in all its horror in post-Obama America. For sources, see NYT review , The Guardian review, and the Variety review.
Lexicon for Understanding Themes in Get Out:
Point 1: Appropriation: White people stealing from black culture: language, music, dance, style, art, etc.
Point 2: Fetishize or fetishization: White people wishfully thinking that black people are a super physical race in order that white people can justify their exploitation of black people evidenced by slavery, Jim Crow, and what Michelle Alexander and others call the New Jim Crow.
Point 3: Condescension or patronization: White liberals who think they are "enlightened" when in fact they treat black people the way a smug adult addresses a child.
Point 4: Whiteness as a mythical religion or the apotheosis (highest point of development) of self and American white people's religion of entitlement.
Point 5: Whiteness Love Affair with American Origin Myth of Innocence: The idea that whiteness, as a state of being offering Disneyland-like innocence, purity and entitlement, created the greatest country on Earth based on honor and virtue as a smokescreen from the evil, greed, and avarice that created slavery, racism, and Jim Crow.
Point 6: This romanticization of whiteness can be seen in the 5 remaining states (as of writing) that still wave the Confederate Flag over government buildings, erect statues of racist Confederate generals, name streets after racist Confederate generals, and conduct Confederate Army re-enactments in which people dress up in Confederate uniforms and re-live the days when Whiteness as Religion ruled the country without being contested by effete academic intellectuals and other unpatriotic Americans.
Option Five. Develop a thesis that analyzes the human inclination for staying within the tribe of sameness as explained in David Brooks’ “People Like Us” (very popular with students).
Option Six. Support, refute, or complicate Nicholas Kristof’s assertion that slashing food stamps is morally indefensible.
Option Seven. Addressing at least one essay we've covered in class (“The Wages of Sin” and “Eat Cake, Subtract Self-Esteem), support, refute, or complicate the argument that overeating, anorexia, and other eating disorders are not the result of a disease but are habits of individual circumstance and economics.
Option Eight. Support, refute, or complicate the argument that feminist-political explanations for anorexia, as evident in Caroline Knapp's essay, are a ruse that hide the disease's real causes.
Option Nine. In the context of “Our Baby, Her Womb,” support, defend, or complicate the argument that surrogate motherhood is a moral abomination.
Option Ten. In the context of “Unspeakable Conversations,” defend, refute, or complicate Peter Singer’s position that there are moral grounds for infanticide or “mercy killings.”
"People Like Us" by David Brooks
Related to David Brooks' essay is "We're Not in a Civil War, But We're Drifting Toward Divorce" by David French.
America is divided by cultural wars.
The Left sees the Right as white racists, homophobic, privileged, fanatical people who are devoted to helping the 1%.
The Right sees the Left as politically correct secular, anti-religious snowflakes looking for safe spaces, pushing mixed gender bathrooms on public schools, and being weak on terrorism, border protection, and national security.
In addition to giant political divisions, there are more granular divisions so that Americans find enclaves where people are their mirror reflection in terms of values.
Important Terms from Brooks' Essay
One. Characteristics of Tribalism:
Tribalism is the instinctive tendency to create tribes or cliques based on common values and beliefs of the tribe.
Tribalism contains implicit and explicit beliefs about the tribe's superiority to other tribes. Therefore, tribalism creates The Other and in doing so it creates a binary view of the universe: Us Vs. Them.
Tribalism sets apart its own group by denigrating other groups. This denigration is a method for making the tribe feel superior and entitled.
Tribalism sets itself apart from other tribes in the belief that it is preserving its purity and the integrity of its moral core. To allow "others" in is to make the tribe vulnerable to compromised or changed values. Therefore, tribalism tends to be exclusive.
Tribalism in its extreme form breeds excessive pride to the point of being narcissistic; the tribe believes the world revolves around the tribe's needs.
Tribalism relies on traditions, and over time these traditions gain a power. Questioning these traditions casts doubt on the loyalty of the person making the inquiries.
Tribalism values loyalty and conformity over critical thinking.
Tribalism is therefore breeding ground for Groupthink, which occurs when the desire to preserve harmony and coherence in a group is more important than critical evaluation.
Tribalism is resistant to change, either internally or externally. "Reformations" are often violent.
Tribalism encourages love matches to occur within the tribe. To date or marry outside the tribe is considered a betrayal.
Tribalism may teach fairness and equality, but see other tribes as either disdaining these values or teaching them inadequately, so that the tribe that deems itself morally superior does not grant fairness, necessarily, to other tribes.
Tribalism is understandable in the realm of intelligence. If your tribe reads real news and another tribe reads fake news, that's a non-starter.
Tribalism is healthy. We feel a greater sense of belonging and safety when we live among those who share our values.
Tribalism reduces stress. We are less anxious when we live among those who share our values.
Tribalism generates cooperation and reciprocity. We share and cooperate more when we live among those who share our own values.
Tribalism in its extreme form reinforces cognitive bias, the act of only taking in information that affirms our preconceived views. Facebook is an excellent example of tribalism creating cognitive bias.
Tribalism in its extreme fosters narcissism, the sense that you belong to the "special anointed" tribe and the other tribes are inferior.
Two. Types of Tribalism
Education Level
Zip Code
Sartorial (fashion)
Hipster
Racial Identity
Politics
Age or generation
Hobbits (comfort seekers who live in ignorance)
Hooligans (purveyors of fake news and fascist politics)
Vulcans (educated, rational thinkers)
Middle Class Aesthetics and Values (neighborhood rules and regulations about house, lawn, decorations, etc)
Three. Cognitive Bias
People sacrifice their critical thinking skills and create a subjective social reality by filtering information based on pre-conceived biases.
Their biases compel them to seek evidence and reasoning that confirm and reinforce their biases while they avoid evidence that challenges and contradicts their biases. Over time, their subjective social reality crystalizes until it becomes almost impervious to any kind of challenges from the outside. They in effect live in an indestructible bubble.
Naturally, cognitive bias compels people to seek others who are like-minded. As a result, societies exist as tribalistic clusters instead of diverse groups.
One. What explains our hunger for sameness in terms of the people we surround ourselves with?
Anxiety and Disconnection Vs. Belonging
We’re anxious and alienated from “people who aren’t like us.” We’d rather feel connection and comfort from being with “members of our tribe,” be it in education, politics, class aspirations, etc. We want to be around people who share our values and our way of seeing the world.
Such tribalism is both comforting and effective in making us happy.
We're Attached to Our Cognitive Biases
Here’s the killer fact we don’t want to confront: We’re happier by remaining in our tribe. We don’t want to be around people who don’t share our values.
Why?
Because we are hard-wired to be self-segregating based on interests and values.
If we’re hipsters, we want to live in a community of hipsters.
If we’re suburban consumers, we want to be around suburban consumers.
If we’re creative, we want to be around a community of artists.
People who shop at Trader Joe’s are of a certain educated and political ilk.
People who shop at Whole Foods are of a certain educated and political ilk.
People who don’t vaccinate their children hang out with other likeminded parents.
People who watch Fox News hang out with Fox News viewers.
People who watch MSNBC hang with MSNBC viewers.
People who like luxury watches create online watch communities.
The Internet with its millions of blogs is all about consolidating people of common interests. The same can be said with YouTube and its over 500 million channels.
If you’re a college graduate the chances are your friends will be college graduates.
If you’re not college educated, the chances are your friends won’t be either.
If you’re fat, your friends probably are also.
If you’re skinny, your friends probably are also.
If you're beautiful, your friends probably also enjoy a fair amount of pulchritude.
If you’re an MMA fighter or enthusiast, your friends probably are also.
If you’re a vegan, so are your friends.
If you’re sympathetic to civil rights and equal justice, you probably don’t have friends who harbor racist views.
If you’re against guns, you probably don’t hang out with outspoken members of the NRA.
If you’re an atheist, especially an outspoken one, you probably don’t have a lot of Christian friends.
If you think skinny jeans on men look stupid, you probably don’t have a lot of male friends who wear skinny jeans.
Foodies hang out with foodies.
Coffee connoisseurs hang out with coffee connoisseurs.
Gamers hang out with gamers.
Sommeliers hang out with sommeliers.
If you're a gourmand who gorges on camembert, you probably hang out with other gourmands who wallow in camembert.
If you're a member of the cognoscenti, you probably hang out exclusively with other members of the cognoscenti.
If you're a Morrissey freak, you probably hang out with other Morrissey freaks.
We want to live in a bubble with people just like us. We feel comfortable being insulated from the “outside world.”
So let’s get real: There is no diversity. There’s only sameness.
Writing Option
Develop a thesis that analyzes the human inclination for staying within the tribe of sameness as explained in David Brooks’ “People Like Us.”
Sample Outline
Paragraphs 1 and 2, your introduction: For your introduction, get your reader's attention by contrasting your tribe with a tribe you would never belong to. You should be very specific and use humor to get reader's attention. You might write about hipsters, jaded millennials, yoga fanatics, foodies, survivors of some dysfunctional unit or other. You can come up with the term of the tribes involved.
You might even address our society's separation by looking at hooligans, hobbits, and Vulcans.
Or you might carve out a new tribe: Ashamed Rich Kids who wear hobo dreads and, avoiding bathing, pretend they're homeless even though you recently saw them driving a Mercedes to their palatial estate.
(200 words per paragraph for 400 words)
Paragraph 3, your thesis: Write a cause and effect thesis explaining why even well-intentioned, open-minded people tend to stick to their tribe. Come up with 5 causes. (150 words)
Paragraphs 4-8 would be your supporting paragraphs. Since this is a cause and effect essay, you won't have a counterargument section.
(5 paragraphs at 150 words each is 750 for a subtotal of 1,300 words)
Paragraph 9 is your conclusion. (100-200 words for 1,400-1,500 total)
Student Refutation of Tribalism as Evidenced in David Brooks' "People Like Us"
A student's best friend is not from her "tribe." Her friend is from a completely different tribe, and this makes the student reject the implication from Brooks' essay that we must "stick to our tribe" to maximize our sense of security, belonging, and happiness.
Argument
Tribalism, the instinct to "stick to one's kind," is a disease of the toothy, pinch-faced peasant doomed to a life of hyper-conformity, claustrophobic, oppressive traditions, close-mindedness, and blindness to the tribe's prejudices and other defects.
In contrast, a cosmopolitan, a student of the world, sees that integrity, values, and respect are not owned by one's tribe, but the individual. Therefore, we should value the individual, not the tribe.
Sample Outline for Refutation of Tribalism
Paragraph 1: Outline David Brooks' essay and explain the appeal of tribalism, that is to say living in communities of "people just like us." 250 words.
Paragraph 2: Write about a close friend you have who is outside your tribe and explain the reasons for your closeness. 250 words.
Paragraph 3, your thesis: Argue that while tribalism offers comfort and belonging, one must face that tribalism is larded with liabilities that compel us to reject tribalism in favor of cosmopolitanism, the belief that we are members of the world, not a closed tribe. 150 words, 650 subtotal.
The liabilities of tribalism you might cover in your thesis' mapping components:
One. blind conformity
Two. complacency
Three. blindness to the tribe's flaws
Four. narcissism
Five. close-mindedness
Six. closed-off effect to rest of the world
Seven. diminished value of the individual in favor of the tribe
Eight. Traditional fallacy: valuing tradition for tradition's sake but no real justification
Fiction that refutes tribalism: H.G. Well's "The Country of the Blind"
Movie that refutes tribalism: The 1998 film Pleasantville.
Body Paragraphs 4-7: 150 each for 600 and 1,250 subtotal.
Counterargument-Rebuttal: 150 words 1,400
Conclusion: 100 words: 1,500 total
You Need 3 Sources
One. David Brooks' essay
Two. "Is Tribalism the Worst Idea in History?"
Three. "You're More Biased Than You Think--Even When You Know You're Biased"
Four. "The Country of the Blind"
Five. Pleasantville
Six. "We're Not in a Civil War, But We Are Drifting Toward Divorce"
Tribalism Is Shrinking in Favor of Casual Nihilism
In 1999, the movie The Matrix prophesied that the entire world would succumb to The Blue Pill, a form of brainless intoxication in which people disappeared into a cocoon of blissful ignorance.
2011 a Turning Point in History as Tribalism Shrinks in the Face of Casual Nihilism
The prophecy became evident in 2011 when the smartphone, an opium drip machine hooked to the brain 24/7, started to build critical mass.
Now people are losing their tribal roots in favor of Casual Nihilism, the narcissistic exercise of curating fraudulent facsimiles of one’s existence, of fragmenting one’s brain, and of being ignorant of the insidious despair that ensues.
Casual Nihilism is poison for the human individual to blossom and find the real bliss: focusing for long periods of time and working hard on one’s craft.
That Casual Nihilism has replaced Meaningful Work as the paradigm of modern life is a tragedy that will ensue unspeakable disasters, including the failure to detect fake news, the failure to know how to repel marketing and government manipulation, and the general failure to grow up and be a fully realized human being.
“Prudence or Cruelty?”, 172 "Cutting Food Stamps Will Cost Everyone," "The Economic Case for Food Stamps," "How America's Welfare System Hurts the People It's Supposed to Help"
“Prudence or Cruelty?” by Nicholas Kristof (172)
One. What are the current statistics for food stamps?
47 million Americans receive food stamps to combat hunger.
About 5% of Americans have “very low food security,” meaning food can run out before the next source of income.
In one-third of those households, an adult “reported not eating for entire day.”
Fourteen percent of toddlers suffer iron deficiency. This can result in impaired brain development.
Impaired brain development and other health problems will cost tax payers far more than food stamps.
The essay’s author Nicholas Kristof finds it “infuriating” that a wealthy country like America allows this kind of hunger and malnutrition to go on. He expresses his outrage at a time when Congress is debating to slash the food stamp program.
Democrats at the time of this essay wanted to slash food stamps by $4 billion over 10 years; Republicans wanted to slash them by $40 billion.
More than 90% of the families who receive food stamps live below the poverty line. Nearly two-thirds of the recipients are children, the elderly, and the disabled.
Updates:
You can buy food online with food stamps (SNAP)
Kevin Drum of Mother Jones explains how Fox News uses wrong statistics and does so incompetently. MSNBC also discredits Fox News for what are essentially false statistics. Eventually, Fox News retracted its false claim, we read on The Hill.
Food stamp fraud continues to go down, we read in Time, March 30, 2017 issue.
Two. How does the government offer “food stamp” subsidies to the rich?
When they dine at expensive restaurants, the rich can deduct the bill as a tax write-off.
There’s controversy about feeding the poor but no controversy about the government helping to pay the expenses for the rich’s opulent meals, caviar, champagne, etc.
Additionally, the farm bill gives aid to 50 billionaires or companies.
More surprisingly, the government pays Kristof $588 a year to not grow crops on his wooded land in Oregon. He gives the money to a maternity hospital.
The author is outraged at a double standard that rewards the rich and punishes the poor.
Three. What counterargument does Kristof address?
He concedes that food stamps are not perfect. After all, they treat the symptoms, not the root causes, of hunger. He further concedes that we should “chip away at long-term poverty through early education, home visitation for infants, job training, and helping teenagers avoid unwanted pregnancies.”
However, he offers a rebuttal that food stamps are effective in many ways:
They reduce the number of children living in extreme poverty by half.
They give nutrition to the fetus and stave off long-term health problems to that fetus.
He concludes that slashing food stamps would be “a mark of shortsighted cruelty.”
Counterargument-Rebuttal Section Focus:
Your focus should be on food stamp fraud.
Here is an excellent New York Times article: "Food Stamp Fraud, Rare but Troubling"
Using the data from the above article, we could argue that people who use anecdotes to support their argument are committing the anecdotal fallacy, which states that it's easy for us to remember egregious personal examples than plain facts. The personal examples of "hellacious" food stamp fraud do exist, but they don't negate the 97-99% of food stamp users who are benefitting legally from the government aid.
Other Sources
"Cutting Food Stamps Will Cost Everyone" in The Atlantic: The writer Chin Jou points out that childhood obesity will result from SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) cuts and that childhood obesity is more costly to tax payers in the long-run.
"The Economic Case for Food Stamps" in The Atlantic
Most Welfare Dollars Don't Go the Poor
"How America's Welfare System Hurts the People It's Supposed to Help" in Reason Magazine
Essay Option
Support, refute, or complicate Nicholas Kristof’s assertion that slashing food stamps is morally indefensible.
Main Counterarguments:
Food stamps create lifelong dependency. Rebuttal: 87% of recipients will work within a year.
Food stamps create rampant fraud. Fraud is only about 1%, so we should not use anecdotal evidence.
Sample Outline for a 5-Page Essay
Page 1 is Your First Paragraph: For the introduction, you frame the debate: Why some people like Kristof advocate food stamps while others want them to be cut. 250 words.
Or you might know someone on food stamps, and you can tell a compelling story about this person or family that will catch the reader's attention. (also 250 words)
Paragraph 2: Develop a thesis with a concession clause: (150 words, 400 subtotal)
Thesis Sample That Supports Kristof
While I acknowledge that there is some fraud, abuse, and dysfunctional dependency created by food stamps, we must continue to provide them to the poor and disabled because it is not fair to punish innocent children, providing fetal nutrition saves the tax payers over the long-term, we cannot have the double standard of subsidizing the rich with tax write-offs, essentially paying for 30% of their "business meals," while making the poor starve.
Or a Sample That Partly Supports Kristof
While Kristof makes compelling points about our moral need to provide food stamps to the poor, his essay fails to address the dysfunctional components of a food stamp program that needs deep reform in matters of imposing limits, making mandatory job training as a requirement for food stamps, and stronger barriers for preventing food stamp abuse.
Or a Sample That Excoriates Current Food Stamp Program
The current food stamp program is a farce rooted in moral bankruptcy evidenced by its disregard for any kind of conduct so that people receiving food stamps do so in a limited manner while achieving job training; its racist policy of setting a low standard of behavior resulting in marginalizing entire communities that forever cannot participate in the American Dream; its indifference to the underground economies that are created by the rampant abuses; and its policy of making recipients afraid of making too much money on their own for fear of being cut off support.
Paragraphs 3-6 are your supporting paragraphs at 150 words each. (600 plus 400 is 1,000 subtotal)
Paragraph 7 would address your first counterargument and rebuttal. 200 words (1,200 subtotal)
Paragraph 8 would address your second counterargument and rebuttal. 200 words (1,400 subtotal).
Conclusion: Dramatic restatement of your thesis in 100 words. 1,500 grand total.
Sample of Two Counterarguments and Rebuttals
My opponents will argue that there is food stamp fraud, and that is just reason for cutting food stamps for all. However, my opponents are misguided when we consider that food stamp fraud is less than 3%. (updated: now it's down to less than 1.5%)
Examples of Counterargument-Rebuttal Statements
While author X makes many compelling points, her overall argument collapses under the weight of __________, ___________, ___________, and ______________.
My opponents will point out that X, Y, and Z. However, their points fail to be convincing in light of A, B, and C.
The above would have to be developed into a paragraph that would be about a half page.
Secondly, my opponents will argue that food stamps create a cycle of dependency. However, while there are abuses, most food stamp recipients are employed within a year. It should also be noted that many full-time American workers don't get paid enough money to feed their families and, as many Walmart employees will tell you, they need assistance. Therefore, it is greedy companies like Walmart that are bilking the tax payers, not poor Americans.
The above would have to be developed into a paragraph that would be about a half page.
Your Conclusion:
A conclusion should be an emotional restatement of your thesis. You want your conclusion to be powerful and emotional so that it sticks with the reader.
Your Works Cited page:
Your MLA Works Cited page should have 3 sources. At least one of those sources should be from the El Camino Library Database.
“The Great White Way” by Debra J. Dickerson
One. In the first paragraph, Dickerson writes that the president will struggle to explain what race is to space aliens. She suggests that no one knows what race is, yet it is the “central drama” of America.
Why is race, which is such a vague and confusing term, our nation’s obsession?
No one knows what race is because the whole notion of race is fake.
In fact, the whole the notion of race in America is the first "fake news."
People are freaking out today about all the fake news going around, but African-Americans have been the victims of fake news since America's beginnings when lies were told about the identity, history, and purpose of black Americans.
3 Groups of Americans and Only One Can Identify Fake News for What It Really Is
Hobbits: who wish to stay uninformed and ignorant. They conform to whatever "norms" and practices there are. Their goal in life is to not rock the boat.
Hooligans: Believe and spread fake news and try to shape policy based on fake news. The white supremacists were the first to spread the fake news of race in order to justify their ownership of slaves.
Vulcans: rational, educated people who develop informed opinions, consider opponents' views, and see world events in the context of history. Sadly, Vulcans are becoming a smaller part of the population.
Back in the days of slavery, the voices of Vulcans were eclipsed by the voices of Hooligans, a group of white supremacists who delivered the first fake news.
Two Types of White Supremacists
There are two types of white supremacists, the psychotics, the ones who really believe in it; they are 7 on the Evil Scale because they're dumb enough to believe in this fake news.
Then there are sociopathic white supremacists who invented the fake news of race all the while knowing that the news was fake. They invented race because it was a money-making opportunity. Their motive was purely money-driven whereas the white psychotics' fake news belief was religious and ideology-driven. The sociopaths, who were willing to exact cruelty on black people knowing full well that race was complete BS, score a 10 on the Evil Scale.
If there is a hell with lower and lower compartments, then the white sociopathic racists will go in the worst chamber.
Why Race is Fake News: No Science
There is no scientific or biological view of race. There is however a social construction of race based on arbitrary forces so that the definition of race is always changing.
We read in Dickerson's essay: When white Americans wanted to exploit Italians, Italians were "black"; when white Americans needed Italians' votes to fuel their agendas, they granted Italians "white" status. Race is a canard subject to change in the service of the kleptocracy, a rule of governance that steals from its people.
This history of white America is a history of kleptocracy against black Americans. This painful truth is underscored in the magisterial essay "The Case for Reparations" by Ta-Nehisi Coates in which Coates covers every thing you can imagine that has been stolen from black America: identity, body, mind, soul, art, property, to name some.
Motive for Inventing Race: Kleptocracy
What remains is that race has always been defined in service of the kleptocracy, in which the powerful, who define their power based on racial identity, steal from the exploited, also based on racial identity.
Race is defined in the service of power.
Because people of color have traditionally been excluded from the American Dream and there is a history of genocide, slavery, and Jim Crow (segregation and racism), human rights violations that were rooted in the idea of race.
The violations were so egregious and heinous that the only way white people could rationalize these acts and appease their conscience was to construct a devilish idea of racial entitlements for whites and racial exploitation for blacks.
Conclusion: Race is "fake news."
To reiterate, African-Americans were the first victims of "fake news."
The Origin of Fake News: White Supremacy:
White Supremacy is a false religion designed to justify and rationalize the evils of slavery and Jim Crow. The results of White Supremacy are exploitation of black people and a mass psychosis of those white people who drank the White Supremacy Kool-Aid.
Genocide, slavery, and Jim Crow were justified by white people who, intoxicated by the doctrine of White Supremacy, felt entitled to treat others in the horrid manner of racism and all its resulting evils.
Today's Kleptocracy:
In our contemporary society, we enslave migrant workers in tents up and down the agricultural worksites of California and elsewhere.
In the United States, we imprison black and brown men for the same crimes as whites at a ratio of 10:1 even as the prison system has become a multi-billion-dollar industry that has created millions of jobs.
We have strict laws for drug offenses, but not alcohol in light of this fact: 80% of all drunk driving arrests happen to white men. In a white-ruled kleptocracy, this makes sense.
Ideas of Race Today
So race, even in its vague definition, is still a hot-button issue and points to a crisis of injustice and moral bankruptcy.
Race is not a physical reality, but it is an obsession because it's part of White Supremacy's obsession with the IDEA of race, and as Debra Dickerson shows in her essay, the IDEA of race is a psychosis of never-ending, arbitrary racial definitions that keep changing to conform to the needs of those in power.
Two. What does Dickerson mean when she writes that “race is an arbitrary system for establishing hierarchy and privilege”?
Ultimate Hypocrisy of White Europeans Who Came to America
The creators of White Supremacy, who escaped the tyranny of European kings knew the value of freedom. They talked about freedom. They preached about freedom. They sang songs about freedom. They wrote poems about freedom.
My God, those white Europeans loved their freedom.
But put on your brakes, ladies and gentleman. They didn't like freedom as much as they claimed apparently because they sure didn't give a damn about freedom for black people.
Or put it this way: They loved money more than freedom and they only valued freedom for themselves, not others.
White Envy
White profiteering sociopaths who were envious of the profits slave traders were making in Britain, Spain, Portugal, and elsewhere, wanted a piece of the action.
How Could The White Sociopaths Play the White Christian Farmers?
The white sociopaths whose only religion was money knew the white Christian peasants and farmers were too religious and too caught up in the command "Love thy neighbor as thyself" to embrace slavery, so the white sociopath conmen insidiously put White Supremacy, the belief that God and Jesus are white and that the world was made for white people, into the white peasants' Bibles and soon enough the peasants and farmers drank enough of this White Supremacy or "evil Kool-Aid," as I'm fond of calling it, and they were on board with the white conmen.
White Inventors of Race Were Conmen and Sociopaths
Here's an important point: The white conmen were too clever to be fooled by race. They knew that race doesn't exist, that race is a canard and they used race as a canard to fool the white peasants.
The white peasants actually believed in the Kool-Aid the conmen gave them.
Hell Revisited
The psychotic peasants would still go to Hell because there's no excuse for their "complicit ignorance," as I like to call it, but they're not as diabolical as the white sociopaths who invented White Supremacy for their own profit.
Review of White Supremacy
White Supremacy is an evil religion, a hybrid of Christianity and white superiority narratives, which states whites were put on Earth lord over everyone else in any manner they saw fit.
The false religion was the first fake news.
In the United States, there was no such thing as "race" until slavery came along.
Before the fake news of White Supremacy, people in America did not have a consciousness of race or skin color. Race and skin color were inventions, or if you will, an elaborate fiction or fairy tale designed to justify genocide, slavery, and Jim Crow.
White farmers and slave owners drank the Kool-Aid and saw themselves as “good Christians” even as they exacted cruelty upon people of color. They were able to use White Supremacy (“I’m just doing what the good Lord ordained me to do.”) to assuage their conscience and perform heinous acts, which constituted the most depraved human rights violations.
Three. What attitudes did white Americans feel toward European immigrants from Ireland to Greece?
They were looked upon as subhumans that would takeover America as “mongrel hordes” unless the white Americans started breeding more.
There was a racial hierarchy with Anglo Europeans at the top, Italians, Slavs, Greeks, and Irish at the middle, and brown and black people relegated to the bottom.
Hostility was so bad against non-Anglo Europeans that 11 Italians were lynched in Louisiana in 1891.
The Anglo whites wanted to assimilate the southern Europeans into more jobs and get their votes, so they “promoted Southern Europeans to whiteness,” whiteness being equivalent to the gold card of freedom, respect, and privilege.
This privilege gave “fascist-leaning Italians” full respect while patriotic Japanese were put into internment camps.
One of the horrid things about southern Italians becoming full white Americans was in sharing white Americans’ hate and disdain for people of color. For example, we read that Italian Americans took delight in beating up black people.
This was their sick rite of passage into “being fully white.”
Four. How was FDR’s New Deal and Truman’s Fair Deal a sort of affirmative action for whites only?
The states could decide who got the New Deal money and it always went to poor whites, never to blacks. White liberals in the north allowed southern states to do with the New Deal as they liked, state by state. There was no federal enforcement so that all people benefited.
During the Depression, relief only went to poor whites. Poor blacks received nothing.
Blacks were not eligible for Social Security until the 1950s.
These injustices, which happened 70 years ago, give weight to the argument for affirmative action, Dickerson argues.
We did have affirmative action for the poor, Dickerson reminds us, but 70 years ago, it was only the white poor who received it.
Fake News and the movie Get Out.
Chris, the black protagonist, attends a white family's party and he is subject to a hailstorm of fake news about his identity, origins, and purpose.
Sample Thesis and Outline Comparing "The Great White Way" to the Jordan Peele movie Get Out.
Jordan Peele's movie Get Out cogently helps us understand Debra J. Dickerson's connection in "The Great White Way" between race as a fantasy and white privilege as a kleptocracy. Through the lens of Peele's film, this connection is evidenced in four major ways including __________________, _________________, ________________, and _____________________.
Paragraphs 1 and 2: Explain the connection between race as a fantasy and how this racial fantasy fuels white privilege and its aim to conduct a kleptocracy in which black Americans are its victims. (Two 150-word paragraphs for 300 words)
Paragraph 3: Argue that Get Out builds on Debra Dickerson's idea as it pertains to the racist fantasy of the black male, in which the black male is perceived as "superior physical specimen" on one hand and servile dolt on the other, the subtle racist jabs or condescending microaggressions that reinforce this racist notion of the black male, the self-destruction that afflicts blacks who try to assimilate in white society, even liberal white society, the denial of racism that whites enjoy boasting about in a post-Obama America, and how white America's racist ideas lay the groundwork for justifying the kleptocracy of black America: the systematic state-sponsored stealing of every ounce of body, mind, and soul from black culture. (150 words for 450 subtotal)
Paragraphs 4-8 (five paragraphs at 150 words each would give us 750 words for a subtotal of 1,200 words)
Conclusion: Show the broader ramifications for a movie about the kleptocracy and its relevance in a post-Obama America (200 word paragraph for 1,400 total).
You can consult the following movie reviews for your Works Cited:
NYT review , The Guardian review, and the Variety review. For an even more in-depth essay about the kleptocracy against black America, you might consult Ta-Nehisi Coates' essay "The Case for Reparations."
“Understanding Black Patriotism” by Michael Eric Dyson
One. What is the difference between black patriotism and “lapel-pin nationalism”?
The history of black people is the history of struggle, to fight against slavery, Jim Crow, unfair incarceration laws, unequal income distribution, to name some, and this struggle for a better country through the struggle is far more in-depth and arduous than people spewing easy slogans and clichés.
The history of black America is to fight the fake news and replace it with real news because the truth shall set you free.
If one is angry toward one’s country, its lies and morally wrong practices, then one has hope for change. True abandonment of one’s country is not expressed anger or outrage but apathy, and the percentage of people of all colors who stay at home on election days speaks to apathy.
In contrast, there is “My country, right or wrong,” which is a dogmatic credo of the ignorant peasant who subscribes, not to patriotism, but to jingoism, the act of cheerleading or being a fanboy for one’s country without doing the research or hard work concerning the relevant issues.
A jingoist is a Kool-Aid drinker or fanboy who blindly embraces all things that pertain to one’s country.
A true patriot, according to Dyson, is a critical thinker who wants an accurate diagnosis of America's ills in order to make a better America.
Two. What examples does Dyson provide regarding hypocrisy of patriotism?
Dyson points at the five deferments of Dick Cheney, hawkish on terrorism, who may have been hawkish when he was calling the shots, but when it came to him fighting he stayed home from the war five times. He really used those deferments but was eager to make others fight his war.
In contrast, African American critic of American racism Jeremiah Wright surrendered his student deferment and volunteered to join the Marines.
Subordination and Coordination (Complex and Compound Sentences)
Complex Sentence
A complex sentence has two clauses. One clause is dependent or subordinate; the other clause is independent, that is to say, the independent clause is the complete sentence.
Examples:
While I was tanning in Hermosa Beach, I noticed the clouds were playing hide and seek.
Because I have a tendency to eat entire pizzas, inhaling them within seconds, I must avoid that fattening food.
Whenever I’m driving my car and I see people texting while driving, I stop my car on the side of the road.
I have to workout every day because I am addicted to exercise-induced dopamine.
I feel overcome with a combination of romantic melancholy and giddy excitement whenever there is a thunderstorm.
We use subordination to show cause and effect. To create subordinate clauses, we must use a subordinate conjunction:
The essential ingredient in a complex sentence is the subordinate conjunction:
|
after |
once |
until |
I workout too much. I have tenderness in my elbow.
Because I workout too much, I suffer tenderness in my elbow.
My elbow hurts. I’m working out.
Even though my elbow hurts, I’m working out.
We use coordination to show equal rank of ideas. To combine sentences with coordination we use FANBOYS (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so)
The calculus class has been cancelled. We will have to do something else.
The calculus class has been cancelled, so we will have to do something else.
I want more pecan pie. They only have apple pie.
I want more pecan pie, but they only have apple pie.
Using FANBOYS creates compound sentences
Angelo loves to buy a new radio every week, but his wife doesn’t like it.
You have high cholesterol, so you have to take statins.
I am tempted to eat all the rocky road ice cream, yet I will force myself to nibble on carrots and celery.
I want to go to the Middle Eastern restaurant today, and I want to see a movie afterwards.
I really like the comfort of elastic-waist pants, but wearing them makes me feel like an old man.
Both subordination and coordination combine sentences into smoother, clearer sentences.
The following four sentences are made smoother and clearer with the help of subordination:
McMahon felt gluttonous. He inhaled five pizzas. He felt his waist press against his denim waistband in a cruel, unforgiving fashion. He felt an acute ache in his stomach.
Because McMahon felt gluttonous, he inhaled five pizzas upon which he felt his waist press against his denim waistband resulting in an acute stomachache.
Another Example
Joe ate too much heavily salted popcorn. The saltiness made him thirsty. He consumed several gallons of water before bedtime. He was up going to the bathroom all night. He got a bad night’s sleep. He performed terribly during his job interview.
Due to his foolish consumption of salted popcorn, Joe was so thirsty he drank several gallons of water before bedtime, which caused him to go to the bathroom all night, interfering with his night’s sleep and causing him to do terribly on his job interview.
Another Example
Bob dropped his peanut butter sandwich in the tiger’s enclosure. He leaned over the fence to reach for his sandwich. He fell over the fence. A tiger approached Bob. The zookeeper ran between the stupid zoo customer and the wild beast. The zookeeper tore his rotator cuff.
After Bob dropped his peanut butter sandwich in the tiger’s enclosure, he leaned over the fence to recover his sandwich and fell into the enclosure during which time he was approached by a hungry tiger, forcing the nearby zookeeper to run between Bob and wild beast. During the struggle, the zookeeper tore his rotator cuff.
Don’t Do Subordination Overkill
After Bob dropped his peanut butter sandwich in the tiger’s enclosure, he leaned over the fence to recover his sandwich and fell into the enclosure during which time he was approached by a hungry tiger forcing the nearby zookeeper to run between Bob and the wild beast in such a manner that the zookeeper tore his rotator cuff, which resulted in a prolonged disability leave and the loss of his job, a crisis that compelled the zookeeper to file a lawsuit against Bob for financial damages.
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