Outline for Jim Crow Museum and "This Is America"
Paragraph 1, your introduction, summarize the definition and function of Jim Crow as explained in the Jim Crow Museum video.
Your thesis, paragraph 2, is to argue that there is a comparison between Jim Crow 1.0 from the museum and Jim Crow 2.0 from "This Is America."
For paragraphs 3-7, you might want to consider these comparisons:
One, violence against African-Americans becomes normalized.
Two, African-Americans appease white America by playing passive, subservient roles or entertainment roles.
Three, violence is a weapon to intimidate African-Americans.
Four, stereotypes are used to limit African-American opportunities.
Five, media becomes a tool to deliver propaganda to maintain Jim Crow beliefs.
Paragraph 8, your conclusion, is a restatement of your thesis with emotional power.
Essay Assignment 4: Due November 25
Option A
See Monica Lewinsky Ted Talk video “The Price of Shame” and John Oliver video on “Public Shaming” and develop an argumentative thesis about what type of shaming is good for society and what kind of shaming cannot be defended. Consult Conor Friedersdorf essay “John Oliver’s Weak Case for Callout Culture.”
Option B
Read Kajsa Elas Ekman’s essay “All surrogacy is exploitation” and write an argumentative thesis that supports or refutes her claim.
Option C
Develop an argumentative thesis that addresses the human inclination for staying within the tribe of sameness as explained in David Brooks’ “People Like Us.” Consult Vice video about social media and tribalism; also consult Brian Klaas video on how tribalism in social media is undermining democracy. Also consult the role of Backfire Effect and tribalism.
Option D
Develop an argumentative thesis that addresses the claim that community college should be free. Be sure to have a counterargument section. For research, use Rahm Emanuel’s “A Simple Proposition to Revive the American Dream” and Jay Mathews’ “Maybe tuition-free community college comes at too high a price” and any other credible sources.
Option E
Support, refute, or complicate Harlan Coben’s argument from “The Undercover Parent” that spyware is a legit and compelling safety measure that parents may need to use for their children’s computers.
Option F
In context of Alfie Kohn’s “From Degrading to De-Grading,” support, refute, or complicate Alfie Kohn’s assertion that grading is an inferior education tool that all conscientious teachers should abandon. In other words, will students benefit from an accountability-free education? Why? Explain.
October 21 Essay 3 Due on turnitin. See Monica Lewinsky Ted Talk video “The Price of Shame” and John Oliver video on “Public Shaming” and develop an argumentative thesis about what type of shaming is good for society and what kind of shaming cannot be defended. If we have time, we will go over Kajsa Elas Ekman’s essay “All surrogacy is exploitation” and address essay strategies. Homework #10 is to read David Brooks’ Atlantic essay “People Like Us” and explain why we gravitate people who share our values.
October 30 We will go over “People Like Us” and watch two videos about social media and tribalism from Vice News and Brian Klaas. If we have time, we will go over surrogacy essay topic. Homework #11: Write 200-word paragraph that explains the free community college debate covered by Rahm Emanuel’s “A Simple Proposition to Revive the American Dream” and Jay Mathews’ “Maybe tuition-free community college comes at too high a price.”
November 4 Go over free community college debate. Your homework #12 for next class is to read Harlan Coben’s argument from “The Undercover Parent” and in 200 words argue if spyware is a legit and compelling safety measure that parents may need to use for their children’s computers.
November 6 Go over “The Undercover Parent.” Homework #13 is to read Alfie Kohn’s “From Degrading to De-Grading” and explain in 200-word paragraph how Kohn supports his claim that grades are bad for education.
November 11 Veteran’s Day Holiday
November 13 Go over “From Degrading to De-Grading” and Alfie Kohn’s “Why Can’t Everyone Get A’s?”
November 18 Chromebook In-Class Writing Objective: Write an introduction, thesis, and two supporting paragraphs.
November 20 Chromebook In-Class Writing Objective: Write supporting paragraphs, counterargument-rebuttal paragraph, conclusion, Works Cited page.
November 25 Essay #4 due on turnitin.
Option A
See Monica Lewinsky Ted Talk video “The Price of Shame” and John Oliver video on “Public Shaming” and develop an argumentative thesis about what type of shaming is good for society and what kind of shaming cannot be defended. Consult Conor Friedersdorf essay “John Oliver’s Weak Case for Callout Culture.”
Excerpts from Conor Friedsorf's essay, "John Oliver's Weak Case for Callout Culture" (parenthetical headings my own)
(Friedsorf rejects Oliver's thesis)
After a brief survey of excesses culled from local television-news reports, the host said, “You may be expecting me to say that all public shaming is bad, but I don’t actually think that.” In his estimation, “misdirected internet pile-ons can completely destroy people’s lives.” But if public shaming is “well directed,” then “a lot of good can come out of it. If someone is caught doing something racist or a powerful person is behaving badly, it can increase accountability.”
The balance of the segment did not substantiate his thesis.
(The author observes that self-righteous indignation and shaming of an odious personality does nothing to create accountability or change.)
As an example of the phenomenon’s ostensible upside, he alighted on Tucker Carlson, shamed most recently for resurfaced remarks that he made while talking to a shock jock. “He publicly called Iraqis ‘semiliterate, primitive monkeys,’ compared women to dogs, and basically said that Warren Jeffs, who is serving a life sentence for the sexual assault of his underage brides, wasn’t that bad,” Oliver observed. “Tucker refused to apologize, and all week long there have been trending hashtags like #BoycottTuckerCarlson.”
The case is “a good example of an internet pile-on being merited,” Oliver continued, setting forth these standards: “He’s a public figure, he made his comments publicly, they are appalling, and he’s standing by them.” Those are relevant, defensible metrics. (My own assessments of Carlson are here, here, here, and here.)
But it does not follow that public shaming achieves “a lot of good” or “accountability.”
(Public shamers feel good, but other than that, nothing is accomplished, so the bubble is merely virtue-signalling inside the bubble.)
In The Stranger, Katie Herzog argued that Carlson’s public shaming “may have made the public shamers feel good,” but that it “accomplished precisely nothing.” He did not apologize. He’s still on the air. His ratings aren’t lower.
What was accomplished?
It’s possible that the shaming’s overall societal effects were negative. Offensive remarks that would’ve been lost to memory were resurfaced in a way that perhaps upset some Iraqis, women, or victims of statutory rape, among others. The fact that Carlson declined to apologize while suffering no consequences perhaps undermined anti-bigotry taboos and surely did not strengthen them.
(The author claims that Oliver's shaming of a college students doesn't pass Oliver's own test of someone who is "shame-worthy.")
Oliver next turned to the parents caught bribing their kids’ way into college. “I’ve got no problem making fun of the parents doing that or the guy who ran that service,” he said. I don’t have a problem with such jokes either—though some of the parents weren’t public figures and it isn’t clear if they’re standing by their actions, so the aforementioned standards weren’t all met.
“Where it gets more complicated is with the kids,” the host continued. “How much is it fair to make fun of them? Well, I would argue one of them, Olivia Jade, is a public figure. She has nearly one and a half million followers on Instagram and has worked with all these companies. She has actively made money off her brand as a fun, relatable college student.”
He proceeded to show a video in which Jade talks about her lack of interest in attending classes. “Even before what we learned this week, that was a little tone-deaf,” he said. “Though not quite as tone-deaf as this sponsored post that she made for Amazon, in which she’s decorated her dorm room at USC with the letters OJ. And if you don’t see the connection between the letters OJ and USC,” he concluded, “maybe it should cost half a million dollars to get you in there.”
OJ are her initials, and O. J. Simpson attended USC.
It isn’t clear that Jade knew about her parents’ objectionable actions or that she would stand by them. Oliver nonetheless thinks she’s a justifiable target, because she’s a “public figure,” based on Instagram followers, and because she’s “tone-deaf,” having put her initials in a USC dorm room without recognizing a second meaning to those letters, connected to an event that occurred years prior to her birth.
I’m not taking a position on whether Oliver’s jokes were out of bounds, only observing that he didn’t actually apply a consistent “shame-worthy” test. Calling a teenager dumb isn’t doing any good or adding any accountability to the world.
“Now, I’m comfortable making those jokes. Am I comfortable with the whole internet piling on her? Honestly, that kind of depends on how and for how long,” Oliver said. “If it’s death threats and vile comments, then of course not.”
But aren’t vile online comments, at the very least, inevitable when an HBO host marshals his writers’ room to heap scorn and contempt on a teenager for laughs?
“If it defines her forever, that seems unfair,” he said. “The window for making fun of her is probably closing.” But isn’t being mocked by a major television show a determinant of how long a scandal defines a person?
In any event, Oliver snuck in another shaming standard: a window for mockery that closes relatively quickly.
“That is the difficult thing here,” he continued. “When joining in a pile-on, there’s a lot to take into account. When millions of people all feel the need to weigh in and do it potentially for years, the punishment can be vastly disproportionate to the offense. And perhaps the best example of this is Monica Lewinsky.”
The host admitted that he participated in Lewinsky jokes that he now regrets. Then he resurfaced a series of old Jay Leno jokes about the sex scandal.
“Those jokes have not dated well in any sense of the word,” Oliver said. “And they’re pretty rough, especially coming from a guy who just this week complained about late-night TV, saying he’d ‘like to see a bit of civility come back.’”
At that point, the segment took a turn.
In the middle of a monologue acknowledging that he had engaged in unjustified shaming in the past and arguing that we all ought to do better now, Oliver proceeded to shame Jay Leno for hypocrisy.
“You know, like that time he did a bit with a fake book about Lewinsky titled The Slut in the Hat,” Oliver said, suddenly righteously indignant. “And if that’s what he means by civility, may I offer my new book, Oh the Places You Can Go Fuck Yourself, Jay Leno?! Look! Look how civil I’m being! Look how civil this is.”
One could argue that Oliver was holding Leno “accountable” for jokes he told in the 1990s that now seem cruel and unfunny. But Oliver could’ve criticized the old jokes while still treating Leno as he treats himself: as an imperfect but not malign comic who told jokes that are regrettable in hindsight.
Surely Leno ranks low on any list of evil forces in American society. He doesn’t warrant a “Go fuck yourself,” delivered here for the supposed hypocrisy of making uncivil jokes on a subject and then, a quarter century later, in a polarized moment, yearning for more civility.
And whether one feels love, disdain, or indifference toward The Tonight Show under Leno, it was arguably more civil on average than Last Week Tonight.
Indeed, Oliver regularly goes the “Go fuck yourself” route, and it isn’t because profane shaming does “a lot of good” for society—it’s because it’s popular. The conflict-hungry internet ate up the segment; it circulated with a telling headline that is often attached to viral Oliver clips: “John Oliver Destroys Jay Leno’s ‘Civility’ Plea With Clips of His Disgusting Monica Lewinsky Jokes.” Last Week Tonight depends on a formula that includes a villain, a punching bag, someone to “destroy,” so that audience members can feel that they’re part of a morally and cognitively superior in-group, perennially exasperated by malign idiots in the out-group. (The formula’s genius: Virtue-signal charmingly with mistake theory, then go viral with conflict theory.)
The show excels when a subject warrants anomalous opprobrium. But the show sometimes tries to shoehorn dubious material into the template of righteous, indignant, maximalist contempt.
Giving Leno the indignant treatment is no unforgivable sin. Comedians have thick skin, and maybe they’re owed some of what they dish out. But Last Week Tonight does an awful lot of segments that begin as a nuanced look at a complex matter, only to devolve into finger-pointing. The show indulges the fantasy that what ails us would be fixed … if only we could take that malign, hypocritical idiot and “destroy” him.
The same self-serving fantasy causes millions to dramatically overestimate the amount of good that public shaming can do.
Option A
See Monica Lewinsky Ted Talk video “The Price of Shame” and John Oliver video on “Public Shaming” and develop an argumentative thesis about what type of shaming is good for society and what kind of shaming cannot be defended. Consult Conor Friedersdorf essay “John Oliver’s Weak Case for Callout Culture.”
Sample Outline:
Paragraph 1, your introduction, summarize John Oliver's argument for the necessary role of public shaming.
Paragraph 2, your thesis, defend or refute Oliver's claim.
Paragraphs 3-6 are your supporting paragraphs.
Paragraph 7 is your counterargument-rebuttal.
Paragraph 8, your conclusion, is a powerful restatement of your thesis.
Example of an Essay That Never Uses First, Second, Third, Fourth, Etc., for Transitions, But Relies on "Paragraph Links"
Stupid Reasons for Getting Married
People should get married because they are ready to do so, meaning they're mature and truly love one another, and most importantly are prepared to make the compromises and sacrifices a healthy marriage entails. However, most people get married for the wrong reasons, that is, for stupid, lame, and asinine reasons.
Alas, needy narcissists, hardly candidates for successful marriage, glom onto the most disastrous reasons for getting married and those reasons make it certain that their marriage will quickly terminate or waddle precariously along in an interminable domestic hell.
A common and compelling reason that fuels the needy into a misguided marriage is when these fragmented souls see that everyone their age has already married—their friends, brothers, sisters, and, yes, even their enemies. Overcome by what is known today as "FOMO," they feel compelled to “get with the program" so that they may not miss out on the lavish gifts bestowed upon bride and groom. Thus, the needy are rankled by envy and greed and allow their base impulses to be the driving motivation behind their marriage.
When greed is not impelling them to tie the knot, they are also chafed by a sense of being short-changed when they see their recently-married dunce of a co-worker promoted above them for presumably the added credibility that marriage afforded them. As singles, they know they will never be taken seriously at work.
If it's not a lame stab at credibility that's motivating them to get married, it's the fear that they as the years tick by they are becoming less and less attractive and their looks will no longer obscure their woeful character deficiencies as age scrunches them up into little pinch-faced, leathery imps.
A more egregious reason for marrying is to end the tormented, off-on again-off-on again relationship, which needs the official imprimatur of marriage, followed by divorce, to officially terminate the relationship. I spoke to a marriage counselor once who told me that some couples were so desperate to break-up for good that they actually got married, then divorced, for this purpose.
Other pathological reasons to marry are to find a loathsome spouse in order to spite one’s parents or to set a wedding date in order to hire a personal trainer and finally lose those thirty pounds one has been carrying for too long.
Envy, avarice, spite, and vanity fuel both needy men and women alike. However, there is a certain type of needy man, whom we'll call the Man-Child, who finds that it is easier to marry his girlfriend than it is to have to listen to her constant nagging about their need to get married. His girlfriend’s constant harping about the fact their relationship hasn’t taken the “next logical step” presents a burden so great that marriage in comparison seems benign. Even if the Man-Child has not developed the maturity to marry, even if he isn’t sure if he’s truly in love, even if he is still inextricably linked to some former girlfriend that his current girlfriend does not know about, even if he knows in his heart of hearts that he is not hard-wired for marriage, even if he harbors a secret defect that renders him a liability to any woman, he will dismiss all of these factors and rush into a marriage in order to alleviate his current source of anxiety and suffering, which is the incessant barrage of his girlfriend’s grievances about them not being married.
Indeed, some of needy man’s worst decisions have been made in order to quell a discontented woman. The Man-Child's eagerness to quiet a woman’s discontent points to a larger defect, namely, his spinelessness, which, if left unchecked, turns him into the Go-With-the-Flow-Guy. As the name suggests, this type of man offers no resistance, even in large-scale decisions that affect his destiny. Put this man in a situation where his girlfriend, his friends, and his family are all telling him that “it’s time to get married,” and he will, as his name suggests, simply “go with the flow.” He will allow everyone else to make the wedding plans, he’ll let someone fit him for a wedding suit, he’ll allow his mother to pick out the ring, he’ll allow his fiancé to pick out the look and flavor of the wedding cake and then on the day of the wedding, he simply “shows up” with all the passion of a turnip.
The Man-Child's turnip-like passivity and his aversion to argument ensure marital longevity. However, there are drawbacks. Most notably, he will over time become so silent that his wife won’t even be able to get a word out of him. Over the course of their fifty-year marriage, he’ll go with her to restaurants with a newspaper and read it, ignoring her. His impassivity is so great that she could tell him about the “other man” she is seeing and he wouldn’t blink an eye. At home he is equally reticent, watching TV or reading with an inexpressive, dull-eyed demeanor suggestive of a half-dead lizard.
Whatever this reptilian man lacks as a social animal is made up by the fact that he is docile and is therefore non-threatening, a condition that everyone, including his wife, prefers to the passionate male beast whose strong, irreverent opinions will invariably rock the boat and deem that individual a troublemaker. The Go-With-the-Flow-Guy, on the other hand, is reliably safe and as such makes for controlling women a very good catch in spite of his tendency to be as charismatic and flavorful as a cardboard wafer.
A desperate marriage motivation exclusively owned by needy, immature men is the belief that since they have pissed off just about every other woman on the planet, they need to find refuge by marrying the only woman whom they haven’t yet thoroughly alienated—their current girlfriend. According to sportswriter Rick Reilly, baseball slugger Barry Bonds’ short-lived reality show was a disgrace in part because for Reilly the reality show is “the last bastion of the scoundrel.” Likewise, for many men who have offended over 99% of the female race with their pestilent existence, marriage is the last sanctuary for the despised male who has stepped on so many women’s toes that he is, understandably, a marked man.
Therefore, these men aren’t so much getting married as much as they are enlisting in a “witness protection program.” They are after all despised and targeted by their past female enemies for all their lies and betrayals and running out of allies they see that marriage makes a good cover as they try to blend in with mainstream society and take on a role that is antithetical to their single days as lying, predatory scoundrels.
The analogy between marriage and a witness protection program is further developed when we see that for many men marriage is their final stab at earning public respectability because they are, as married men, proclaiming to the world that they have voluntarily shackled themselves with the chains of domesticity in order that they may be spared greater punishments, the bulk of which will be exacted upon by the women whom they used and manipulated for so many years.
Because it is assumed that their wives will keep them in check, their wives become, in a way, equivalent to the ankle bracelet transmitters worn by parolees who are only allowed to travel within certain parameters. Marriage anchors man close to the home and, combined with the wife’s reliable issuing of house chores and other domestic duties, the shackled man is rendered safely tethered to his “home base” where his wife can observe him sharply to make sure he doesn’t backslide into the abhorrent behavior of his past single life.
Many men will see the above analysis of marriage as proof that their fear of marriage as a prison was right all along, but what they should learn from the analogy between marriage and prison is that they are more productive, more socialized, more softened around his hard edges, and more protected, both from the outside world and from themselves by being shackled to their domestic duties. With these improvements in their lives, they have actually, within limits, attained a freedom they could never find in single life.
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