Essay #2
Minimum of 2 sources for your MLA Works Cited page.
Choice A
Watch Netflix documentary Ronnie Coleman: The King. Considered to be the greatest bodybuilder of all time, Coleman is now on crutches, faces a lifetime of excruciating pain, must take opioid pain medication, may have to be consigned to a wheelchair, and by most accounts the abuse he took to become a champion bodybuilder is the reason for his condition. The film celebrates Coleman’s life principle to persist in doing what he loves, but doing what he loves comes with a price: excruciating, life-altering injuries. Is doing what we love worth it? In this context, develop an argumentative thesis that addresses the notion that in order to achieve exceptional success, we are justified to make sacrifices of our body, minds, and souls. Is Coleman’s current condition justified by his success and his heroic drive to do what he loves? Answer this question and be sure to have a counterargument section.
Choice B
Read LA Times editorial “Why not let homeless college students park in campus lots?” and develop and argumentative thesis that addresses the claim that community colleges are acting in students’ best interests by providing sleeping spaces in the parking lots.
Choice C
Read Elizabeth Kolbert’s “Why Facts Don’t Change Minds” and “What’s New About Conspiracy Theories?” and develop an argumentative thesis that addresses the connection between irrational belief and the failure to change people’s minds.
Choice D
Read Jason Brennan’s “Can epistocracy, or knowledge-based voting, fix democracy?” and agree or refute Brennan's claim that we need an epistocracy.
Choice E
Read Ibram Kendi’s “White Terrorists Give Political Cover to Other American Prejudices” and develop a thesis that addresses how persuasive Kendi is in making his case that white terrorism is rooted in mainstream racism.
Choice F
Read Atossa Araxia Abrahamian’s “Money for Nothing” and develop an argumentative thesis that addresses the author’s skepticism toward Universal Basic Income.
September 17 Essay 1 Due on turnitin; Ronnie Coleman; debate on providing sleepover parking lots: Read LA Times editorial “Why not let homeless college students park in campus lots?” and develop and argumentative thesis about the pros and cons of providing sleeping spaces for college students. Homework #5 for next class is to read Elizabeth Kolbert’s “Why Facts Don’t Change Minds” and “What’s New About Conspiracy Theories?” and in 200 words explain the connection between irrational belief and the failure to change people’s minds.
September 19 Go over Elizabeth Kolbert’s “Why Facts Don’t Change Minds” and “What’s New About Conspiracy Theories?” and in 200 words explain the connection between irrational belief and the failure to change people’s minds.
Homework #6 for next class is to read Jason Brennan’s “Can epistocracy, or knowledge-based voting, fix democracy?” and explain why Brennan believes we need an epistocracy.
September 24 Go over Jason Brennan’s “Can epistocracy, or knowledge-based voting, fix democracy?” and explain why Brennan believes we need an epistocracy.
Homework #7 for next class is to read Ibram Kendi’s “White Terrorists Give Political Cover to Other American Prejudices” and in 200 words explain how persuasive Kendi is in making his case that white terrorism is rooted in mainstream racism.
September 26 Go over Ibram Kendi’s “White Terrorists Give Political Cover to Other American Prejudices” and in 200 words explain how persuasive Kendi is in making his case that white terrorism is rooted in mainstream racism.
Homework #8 for next class is to read Vox essay “The case for and against universal basic income in the United States.” In 200 words, summarize the author's argument.
October 1 Go over Vox essay “The case for and against universal basic income in the United States.” Homework #9 is to read Atossa Araxia Abrahamian’s “Money for Nothing” and in 200 words explain the author’s skepticism toward Universal Basic Income.
October 3 We will watch a YouTube video that explains UBI. We will go over Atossa Araxia Abrahamian’s “Money for Nothing” and in 200 words explain the author’s skepticism toward Universal Basic Income. We will grade Portfolio #1, based on responses 1-9.
October 8 Chromebook In-Class Objective: Write introduction and thesis paragraph.
October 10 Chromebook In-Class Objective: Write 3 supporting paragraphs, your counterargument-rebuttal paragraph, and your conclusion.
October 15 Essay 2 due on turnitin.
Minimum of 2 sources for your MLA Works Cited page.
White Terrorists Give Political Cover to Other American Prejudices
Ibram X. Kendi
5 Types of Claims
Thesis statements or claims go under five different categories:
One. Claims about solutions or policies: The claim argues for a certain solution or policy change:
The citizenry needs to organize and unite to force the issue of global warming because global warming is an existential crisis.
America's War on Drugs should be abolished and replaced with drug rehab.
America's War on Drugs is an ineffective and morally bankrupt policy evidenced by _____________, ____________, ________________, and _____________________.
Genetic editing needs regulation to keep the ascent of designer babies in the realm of health while not allowing genetic editing to become solely a consumer product.
As long as Americans refuse to do America's dirty work and as long as America relies on immigrant labor for billions of dollars in revenue, America must adopt a sane, moral, humanitarian immigration policy that gives rights, decency, and dignity to the immigrant labor it uses on a daily basis.
A critical thinking professor seen gorging shamelessly at one of those notorious all-you-can-eat buffets should be stripped of his accreditation and license to teach since such a display of gluttony evidences someone whose lifestyle contradicts the very critical thinking skills he is supposed to embody, such hypocrisy has no place in higher education, and educators in such high-profile positions must be sterling role models for their students and the public at large.
Two. Claims that critique the success, failure, or mixed results of a thing that is in the marketplace of art, ideas, and politics: a policy, dietary program, book, movie, work of art, philosophy, to name several.
Book Review
In her book iGen: Why Today's Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy--and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood--and What That Means for the Rest of Us, author Jean Twenge attempts to analyze the causes of a dysfunctional generation, but her analysis lacks rigorous support, is larded with over simplifications, and ignores economic factors that are afflicting our youngest generation.
Jason Fung's The Obesity Code is an invaluable book for learning to incorporate a ketogenic (low-carb, high-fat diet) to regulate one's insulin, stave off diabetes 2, and live a more healthy, vibrant life.
Essay Critique
James Q. Wilson's polemic in favor of more access to guns is a catastrophe waiting to happen. If Wilson's gun laws are enacted, legal gun owners will kill innocent people in the line of fire, more and more legal guns will get into the hands of criminals, and the police will get so beefed up with guns and search and seizure policies that our country will turn into a military state.
Three. Claims of cause and effect: These claims argue that a person, thing, policy or event caused another event or thing to occur.
The desire for the death penalty resides in the child's fantasy that revenge can turn the tables, the delusion that sociopathic murderers will be deterred by the threat of capital punishment, and the primitive believe that society needs public spectacles of death in order to maintain the social order.
Notice in the above analysis of the causes behind some people's support of the death penalty there is an implicit argument against the death penalty.
Another Thesis Example
In spite of being proven grossly ineffective and even harmful to education, standardized testing remains the darling of administrators and politicians because it makes billions of dollars for the test makers, it provides a false bandage hiding deeper, systemic problems of structural inequality in education, and it makes know-nothing administrators and politicians feel like they doing something valuable when in fact the contrary is true.
Four. Claims of value: These claims argue how important something is on the Importance Scale and determine its proportion to other things.
Global warming poses a far greater threat to our safety than does terrorism.
Passive use of social media is having a more self-destructive effect on teenagers than alcohol and drugs.
Five. Claims of definition. These claims argue that we must re-define a common and inaccurate assumption.
In America the notion of "self-esteem," so commonly taught in schools, is, in reality, a cult of narcissism. While real self-esteem teaches self-confidence, discipline, and accountability, the fake American brand of self-esteem is about celebrating the low expectations of mediocrity, and this results in narcissism, vanity, and immaturity.
"Connecting" and "sharing" on social media does not create meaningful relationships because "connecting" and "sharing" are not the accurate words to describe what's going on. What is really happening is that people are curating and editing a false image while suffering greater and greater disconnection.
White Terrorists Give Political Cover to Other American Prejudices by Ibram X. Kendi
One. Rise of White Terrorism Since 2016
Kendi observes that since 2016 presidential election, white terrorism is on the rise.
We read that 78% of domestic terrorism is from white supremacists in 2018.
We read that white supremacy propaganda has increased 182% in 2018.
Kendi makes the reasonable conclusion that white supremacy-induced violence is a mass social ill.
However, too many white people, Kendi claims, see white supremacy violence as a “fringe problem.”
Central Argument
It's convenient to see white terrorism as "fringe" because this delusion shields us from unpleasant truth: Normalized racism encourages violence against people of color. In other words, there is a marriage of normalized racism and white terrorism. There always has been since our history in the days of the KKK, America's first terrorists.
The KKK's racist worldview was embraced as "mainstream" by many whites and continues to be embraced today in some regions of America.
Venerated and respected organizations (not respected by me) such as The United Daughters of the Confederacy published racist textbooks for schools and championed the KKK.
The above is a very specific example of mainstream racism encouraging the terrorism of a terrorist group: the KKK.
Two. In the face of evidence that white terrorism is a pervasive threat, white killers like Dylann Roof are treated with kid gloves compared to blacks who aren’t committing acts of violence.
We see articles about how the police took Dylann Roof to Burger King and accommodated his hunger and made him comfortable.
It is not normal for police to treat Dylann Roof with the white glove treatment, which speaks terribly about racist double standards in America.
Moral Inversion and Gaslighting
We see a sort of moral inversion where the “endangered are seen as dangerous” and the dangerous paint themselves as embattled victims entitled to commit acts of violence against people of color in the name of “self-defense.”
Stand Your Ground laws allow white people to shoot people of color because they can claim they felt threatened.
Reality
The reality is quite different.
Terrorism in America is from white supremacists.
Mass shootings are largely from white males.
White terrorists are continuing the legacy of terrorist groups such as the KKK and other movements that have been at certain times beloved by white America.
Three. What is Kendi’s major claim?
Kendi is arguing that we must not create an imaginary gap between mainstream racism and white terrorism. We've normalized everyday racism by saying, erroneously, that white racist terrorism is a separate fringe phenomenon.
He is arguing that there is a marriage of socially acceptable mainstream racism and Alt-Right white racist extremism.
White terrorism is not crazy unicorn that exists in its own isolated universe but a predictable extension of mainstream racism.
In other words, mainstream racism is fuel for white extremism; therefore, Kendi is arguing that mainstream racists and their apologists are accountable for the growth of white racist terrorism.
Four. What are examples of how mainstream racism creates white terrorism against people of color?
For decades, mainstream racists, those who are accepted as legit and not seen as crackpots, have been normalized by a racist society that accepts their racism.
The President of the Confederate States of America (1861-1865), Jefferson Davis, espoused a variety of odious, perfidious, racist beliefs. He believed, for example, that Africans were created by God to be enslaved and to be treated with violent punishment when they rebelled. This violence fueled the terrorism of the KKK, a terrorist organization, against people of color.
Jefferson Davis enjoys high veneration today with a variety of schools, memorials, and statues dedicated to him.
Throughout history, America has treated as normal racist acts that are anything but normal.
Examples:
One. We can drive along streets and avenues named after champions of slavery. No other country has monuments to their fallen figures. Germany, for example, doesn’t name streets after Nazis.
Two. We can walk along cities with statues of champions of slavery. Germany doesn’t have statues or flags paying tribute to Nazis done in the name of “preserving our history and our heritage.”
Three. Mainstream racists look at Civil War as an honorable fight of the South against “Northern aggression” and for “state rights.” This racist mythology has been accepted and is part of mainstream thinking in many parts of America.
Four. Children in the southern states attend hundreds of schools named after slave owners and champions of Jim Crow racist philosophy.
Five. In Germany after World War II, the German government educated its citizens, starting in elementary school, by teaching about the evils of Hitler and the Nazis. In contrast, after the Civil War, a group calling itself The United Daughters of the Confederacy went on a mission to rewrite American history and taught books giving praise to the KKK to school children among other things. Today this organization continues to enjoy mainstream approval in their community, yet they are full of racist, crackpot ideas and they use logical fallacies and obfuscations.
The UDC published books and builds monuments praising KKK, they receive tax breaks, and they romanticize The Lost Cause, the idea that whites had reached their height of existence during plantation days when they enslaved people of color.
United Daughters of the Confederacy enjoyed mainstream support of society as this Vox video shows.
John Oliver makes a persuasive case that Confederate symbols are the best example we have of the marriage between mainstream racism as a way of normalizing violence and dehumanizing people of color, which is the aim of white terrorists.
Suggested Thesis for John Oliver video:
John Oliver's Confederacy video supports Kendi's claim that mainstream America continues to normalize the terror of racism evident by the following:
One. Gaslighting: "You can't change history."
Two. Being conveniently ignorant in one's opinion to put a sheen of the benign over evil.
Three. Narcissistic denial of racist past by being "wounded, injured, and offended at the dishonor of one's heritage." This is a moral inversion.
Four. Mainstream political support that romanticizes racist icons.
Suggested Outline
Choice E
Read Ibram Kendi’s “White Terrorists Give Political Cover to Other American Prejudices” and develop a thesis that addresses how persuasive Kendi is in making his case that white terrorism is rooted in mainstream racism.
Paragraph 1, Summarize Kendi's key points.
Paragraph 2, Develop an argumentative thesis that supports or refutes his claim that there is a marriage between mainstream and extremist white racism against people of color.
Paragraphs 3-6 are your supporting paragraphs.
Paragraph 7 is your counterargument-rebuttal.
Paragraph 8 is your conclusion, a powerful restatement of your thesis.
You must have two sources for your Works Cited.
Whataboutism is using faulty comparison, red herring, and non sequitur to deflect from the matter at hand. Users of this fallacy are essentially arguing this: "You can say So and So A is bad if you haven't addressed So and So B, so there's no point in addressing any moral issue."
Example:
Speaker #1: "Spousal abuse is a problem."
Speaker #2: "But what about animal abuse? How can we worry about spousal abuse when millions of animals suffer everyday?"
How can we address X if we haven't addressed Z?
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