In the article do you speak American by Robert macneil, macneil uses convoluted sentence structure, formal diction, serious tone, anecdotes, dialogue, juxtaposition, and allusions to depict how America has a multitude of diverse cultures and languages. Such cultures, when intermingled together, become the epitome of the word ‘America’. Macneil alludes how an "American" is not tied to a specific race, religion or language, rather, that to be an American is to be a part of a nation full of diversity and to embrace such diversity. Macneil’s ultimate goal in all this is to tell everyone that being different is normal, or more so if someone else is different, they are normal. Macneil uses a convoluted sentence structure to help exemplify the serious …show more content…
Mainly (Macneil 311) where we see a teacher instructing students in translating languages. She is able to teach this through a "jeopardy game", asking the students, "what language is it in", and "what linguistic feature is in" said language. “[Teacher: “What language is it in?” Student: “AAL” Teacher: “It is in African-American Language. What linguistic feature is in AAL?” Student: “Past-tense marker-ed” Teacher: “Past-tense marker-ed. That’s cool! And how do you code switch it to Mainstream American English?”]. This juxtaposition of “African-American Language” and “Mainstream American English” exemplifies the unique style that each individual culture gives American language. This style reflects back to the thesis, in particular the words “melting pot”. The dynamism of the paper is increased through implementation of dialogue. This dialogue transmits in a few lines what would normally take a paragraph to express. This decreases unnecessary filler within the paper and allows the reader to focus more on the concrete points that are being stated vs exorbitant …show more content…
These cases in history also show how American has not been accepting of diversity in the past as well. In particular, one quote stands out, “In 1979, a Federal judge in Detroit ruled that an Ann Arbor, Mich., school, ironically names after Martin Luther King Jr., was discriminating against black kids because of their language and ordered the school to remediate it.” This quote paired with another about “Oakland Schools” in “1997” enables Macneil to efficiently illustrate how America, while live with an abundance of different, still had its flukes when it came to social acceptance of being culturally diverse. This juxtaposed to modern day social standards gives an idea as to how far America has come with embracing and accepting diversity. The use of allusions can provide helpful context in a much shorter span than if the author tried to explain everything from
What we see coming out of this time is a dark stain on American Society as we know it, a time in which one group of individuals believed to hold higher power in all aspects of life and demanded that since they hold said power, this group demanded that they are to be treated better than the other group of individuals, the African Americans. The belief of the white people of this small town of Wade is the very definition of Racism. But amongst all of this, a young McLaurin, McLurin found himself in a predicament as a younger child when one incident with a needle set his train of thought into that of the older Caucasian population of the town of Wade.
King reminds the reader that racial injustices engulf the community by stating, “Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the united states. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known. Negroes have experienced grossly unjust treatments in the courts. There have been many bombings of Negro homes and Churches in Birmingham than in any other city in the nation. These are hard, brutal facts.”
Racism is an attribute that has often plagued all of American society’s existence. Whether it be the earliest examples of slavery that occurred in America, or the cases of racism that happens today, it has always been a problem. However, this does not mean that people’s overall opinions on racial topics have always stayed the same as prior years. This is especially notable in the 1994 memoir Warriors Don’t Cry. The memoir occurred in 1957 Little Rock, Arkansas and discusses the Melba Pattillo Beals attempt to integrate after the Brown vs. Board of Education court case. Finally, in Warriors Don’t Cry, Melba Pattillo Beals discusses the idea that freedom is achievable through conflicts involving her family, school life, and friends.
The Ocean Hill Brownsville school controversy was a case study of race relations during the 1960’s. This predominantly black area wished to have jurisdiction over their schools’ operations and curricula. In 1967, the superintendent of schools granted Ocean Hill Brownsville “community control” of their district. The Board of Education’s action was part of a new decentralization policy that wanted to disperse New York City’s political powers locally. Once in place, the Unit Administrator, Rhody McCoy, fired several teachers inciting one of the most profound racial standoffs in the city’s history. The evolution of the national civil rights movement parallels the changing attitudes of blacks involved in Ocean Hill Brownsville. In addition, evidence of differing theories concerning assimilation to the American ethnicity is portrayed through the actions of the participants.
From beginning to end the reader is bombarded with all kinds of racism and discrimination described in horrific detail by the author. His move from Virginia to Indiana opened a door to endless threats of violence and ridicule directed towards him because of his racial background. For example, Williams encountered a form of racism known as modern racism as a student at Garfield Elementary School. He was up to win an academic achievement prize, yet had no way of actually winning the award because ?The prize did not go to Negroes. Just like in Louisville, there were things and places for whites only? (Williams, 126). This form of prejudice is known as modern racism because the prejudice surfaces in a subtle, safe and socially acceptable way that is easy to rationalize.
The reason Robert MacNeil wrote “Do You Speak American?” was because he wants to reach his audience, the educated and/or interested people of the United States that have some form of interest in the modern English that is being developed. Especially those who have seen the PBS version of this article. With this article MacNeil wants to convey that diversity in American English should be tolerated and accepted as a whole. MacNeil uses many examples to explain this why the diversity of the English language is essential and unique to the United States. He wants to prove that this is a good thing for the United States to go through.
Skepticism about government is, in many respects, part of the DNA of Americans. This skepticism is not without reason – the actions of American politicians in the 1960s and 70s caused much of America to wonder about the motives of elected officials. However, such skepticism is rarely brought up when discussing the government’s participation in denouncing oppression against the African-American community. Most assume the government enforced equal opportunity for minorities out of compassion and humanity. However, much like the other major actions of the government during that era, the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a groundbreaking law condemning segregation, was not devoid of personal motives. The Black community was not oblivious to this fact, and voiced its outrage through different mediums. Within the literary community, James Baldwin stands out as an author who especially attacked the government, claiming all the benefits his community was now receiving was not the result of compassion, but rather was the result of politics as usual.
Throughout his literature, James Baldwin discusses the issues of racial inequality within America and discusses reasons for the conflicts between races, proposing his solutions to the problems. One of the most important and recurring motifs between his works is the idea of history; the history of whites in western society and its origin in European thinking and the history of the American Negro, whose history is just as American as his white counterpart’s. The importance of these histories as being one combined “American history” is integral to the healing process between the two races. The 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision is a landmark event for blacks and whites alike, and the events following three years later in Little Rock, Arkansas mark the beginning of a long journey to fulfill the promise of equal education made by the Supreme Court. The 1957 events in Little Rock quickly became the nationally covered story of the Little Rock Nine, a legacy that still lives on today despite a James Baldwin prediction made in his essay “Take Me to the Water.” Specifically, nine African-American students were given permission by the Little Rock school board to attend Central High School, one of the nation’s top 40 high schools, integrating a formally all-white campus. During the initial weeks, these students were prevented from entering the school by US military summoned by the Arkansas governor. The Little Rock case drew immediate media attention and became a nationwide symbol of the civil rights movement. The story of the Little Rock Nine embodies James Baldwin’s arguments and observations regarding necessity of education as a crucial step to achievin...
The American society, more so, the victims and the government have assumed that racism in education is an obvious issue and no lasting solution that can curb the habit. On the contrary, this is a matter of concern in the modern era that attracts the concern of the government and the victims of African-Americans. Considering that all humans deserve the right to equal education. Again, the point here that there is racial discrimination in education in Baltimore, and it should interest those affected such as the African Americans as well as the interested bodies responsible for the delivery of equitable education, as well as the government. Beyond this limited audience, on the other hand, the argument should address any individual in the society concerned about racism in education in Baltimore and the American Society in
Lost in America is a text on how the generations before us were set with a language barrier. Breaking this barrier could a have benefited us in countless ways. It starts from beginning to end, talking about how we begin to change our aspects for foreign countries. Douglas McGray states that students did not study abroad in the world war generations. America basically shuts its door on trying to learn different languages. This hurts us in the wars and foreign affairs. As time went on, this problem begins to get fixed and languages begin to enter the “American,” language. He writes “Lost in America,” with the experience and knowledge through other people. Every person learns through two ways: Through Experience or someone else’s experience. Douglas
After years spent and lives lost fighting to end segregation, today's society is bombarded with the knowledge that schools are considered "diverse" under false pretenses. The word diverse now carries with it an "eviscerated meaning...which is no longer a proper adjective but a euphemism for a plainer word that has now become unspeakable" (Kozol 408). When being interviewed by the media or those concerned, school officials sugar coat their true statistics of student populations. "In a school I visited in the fall of 2004 in Kansas City, Missouri, for example, a document distributed to visitors reports that the school's curriculum "addressed the needs of children from diverse backgrounds... and when I was later provided with precise statistics with the demographics of the school, I learned that 99.6 percent of the students there were African American"
“There is exactly one sentence about why schools should want to discriminate… It reads, ‘When the state’s most elite universities are less diverse, [a school official] said, it doesn’t provide our students with a level of diversity they need in order to learn about other cultures and other communities’…And that’s supposed to outweigh all these costs of discrimination; It is personally unfair, passes over better qualified students, and sets a disturbing legal, political, and moral precedent in allowing racial discrimination.”
These handouts outline what Professor Garcia will say and contain information that will be seen on the quizzes and exams. They contain certain terminology that the Professor will define and elaborate on. For example, the term “Tejano” is written in the handouts in order for the students to listen attentively for the definition. This kind of terminology is specific to the course, as it stands for a Mexican-American living in Texas. Specific language is important in a class like Chicano Studies 1A because it is a discourse community. Discourse communities contain six identifiable characteristics described by Swales, one of them which is that they have “acquired some specific lexis” (66). Using terminology specific to the course is a literary practice because it introduces you to the terms and language used by the community allowing you to be more familiar.
Sotomayor represents the Puerto Rican students that have an awareness of being unqualified in comparison to their white classmates. Her “deficiency of...written English,” a representation for other Puerto Rican students, is because of being raised in a culturally different background than a common upper-class white student’s background (110). The “deficiency” symbolizes the common sense belief that being white, and writing and speaking fluently in English, is a classification of the prevalent culture. Sotomayor, in her dissent in Schuette v. BAMN, explicates that “discrimination against an individual occurs because [of] that individual’s membership in a particular group” revealing that a Puerto Rican’s identity as a Puerto Rican, as an immigrant, as a minority part of the lower class, racializes them, creating drawbacks that are arduous and can be impossible to overcome, as in the case of her cousin Nelson, who being just as smart as Sotomayor, is burdened with an addiction that restricts him from succeeding (Schuette 45; Sottomayor 106). In 1972, Princeton, a prestigious school, was dominantly populated by upper class white males, causing the culture and heritage of many Puerto Ricans and other minority students to clash with dominantly white, upper class
This quote is symbolic of the expressed opinions and ideology of the founding fathers of America. History, especially the history of the American educational system, paints a contradictory portrait. Idealistic visions of equity and cultural integration are constantly bantered about; however, they are rarely implemented and materialized. All men are indeed created equal, but not all men are treated equally. For years, educators and society as a whole have performed a great disservice to minorities in the public school sector. If each student is of equal value, worth, and merit, then each student should have equal access and exposure to culturally reflective learning opportunities. In the past, minorities have had a muted voice because of the attitude of the majority. Maxine Greene summarizes a scene from E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime, after which she poses questions that many minorities have no doubt asked silently or loud. “Why is he unseen? Why were there no Negroes, no immigrants? More than likely because of the condition of the minds of those in power, minds that bestowed upon many others the same invisibility that Ellison’s narrator encounters” (Greene,1995, p. 159). Multicultural education is needed because it seeks to eradicate “invisibility” and give voice, power, and validation to the contributions and achievements of people with varied hues, backgrounds, and experiences.