Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
The importance of race in the United States
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: The importance of race in the United States
Political Interest
To begin, politics has been defined by Meriam- Webster as the study of activities that relate to influencing the actions and policies of a government or getting and keeping power in a government. Meaning in simpler terms the study of government and all things related. Before, deciding to major in political science I had a different altered definition of what I thought politics was. I believed that politics was just the study of the white house and the decision they made as it related to the next president or presidential debate, but once I decided to major in political science it was essential for me to understand what politics was in today society and how far we have come better yet, more importantly the role I play
…show more content…
Some to include living in a mostly white area, attending mostly white school, and being surrounded by a large amount of white people my understanding of or thoughts on several racial happenings has in my opinion made me a well-rounded the person that I am. I have throughout my high school years more importantly I’ve tried to be open to all people because in a world filled with so much hatred or political injustices seem to be directed at African American’s Its best to be educated and not just angry. Well, on another note during high school I began to understand my strengths and weakness. During high school I was extremely good at preparing myself for test and exams. You see I didn’t say actually learning the material. I would tend to learn just what I needed just to get me along to the next day, assignment, and or test, but in the long run well, more importantly in college that hasn’t helped me much. In college I have begun to hone in my studying skills and became more serious in my studies, mainly because now I’m paying for it out of pocket so just passing won’t cut it for me of my family who is paying for me to attend. I am grateful that I have learned this skill early on in my college career because I have seen firsthand how doing otherwise has hurt people and their academic …show more content…
My interest in political science are not fully developed, but after this class and with the help of some of my professor and my own drive I will one day be able to say with the upmost confidence that I am fully interested and dedicated to the study of politics. Furthermore, with some of my life experience, prior study skills, and with keeping myself informed I like many other student majoring in political science, I can and will be able to call myself a politically literate
Politics and its inner working can be described as the activities that determine the governance of a specific area, country, or continent. Imagine living in the United States during the 1800’s when there were two political parties, namely Federalists and Democratic-Republicans. Personally, I would choose to join the Democratic-Republican Party. As compared to the Federalist Party, the Democratic-Republicans had their policies centralized. They emphasized on agrarian interests that protected the rights of every single individual living in the United States of America. I would be very focused on promoting these facts to my best friends.
Eduardo Bonilla-Silva and Sue both demonstrate from their research that Whites do not comprehend the impact of their unconscious biases. These biases towards students of colour in a white-based post-secondary school environment can result in stress and weak interracial relationships. This is an issue since the significance of these everyday actions is not fully recognized and acknowledged. I will elaborate on a variety of examples, specifically the influence of the peers, and faculty.
This cognizance really ensued when I first started work as an educational therapist in a residential placement for severely emotionally disturbed teenage girls. Being in such a arbitrary position of power was difficult enough with people who have issues with control and lack of respect from elders but I also happened to be the only male ever in this position at the facility and a "white guy" to boot. Ninety percent of my clients happened to be Latina or African American. This ethnic flash point did not initially bother me because of my lack of awareness of its existence and my naive determination that it was not important for my therapeutic and educational goals. However, of course I had not really considered at that time what being 'white' really entails in this society. Consideration of one's identity is obviously key to successful educational and therapeutic interventions but it took the actual experience of being what I call "white-washed" to make me realize that skin color may actually have something important to do with one's perceived identity.
As an African American male, I experienced inequality, and judgment from individuals that have no idea what kind of person I truly am. As a youth, I received a lackluster education, which has resulted in me underachieving in a number of my college classes. It has come to my attention that other colored students are currently experiencing and receiving the same inadequate learning environment and educatio...
For example, I have an aunt and cousins of Peruvian descent, and an aunt and cousins of Korean and African American Descent. Being in such close contact with people of different races, I have always been more sensitive to racial issues than my peers. It also just so happens that this has most likely influenced who I choose to be around. I don’t necessarily gravitate to people who are like me. My best friend is black, Filipino, and Puerto Rican, and my other best friend is African American. Being so close to them has opened my eyes to systematic racism that goes on in America. These friendships have drastically changed my opinions in politics and other social situations. Their countless stories about being racially profiled and abused by different authority figures has opened my eyes to the inequality. I have also been very fortunate to grow up around many LGBTQ people because most of my mother’s best friends are part of the community. As well as this, I have a brother who just came out as gay. Being around so many diverse people growing up, I never really realized that some issues-more specifically racism and homophobia- were such big problems still. As a young child, I can remember being confused when I was told that my family members were so different from me. Especially my cousins who I knew I shared blood with. Since we didn’t have cable television, and all I watched were Animal
Prior to writing this essay, I really had not noticed the effect that race had on my life. That is, not until I was forced to look race straight in the eye. This was a very difficult thing to do because it brought back some unpleasant memories I thought I had locked away in permanent storage. I had to be brutally honest with myself and examine my inner most feelings on how race affected my life. Only then did I truly realize how race impacted my attitude, behavior, education, employment, and privileges
Therefore, universities have had to implement new measures that address racial insensitivity expressed by White students. According to Chao et al. (2015), in college campuses, student of color can hear every day racism comments, therefore, to create college campuses with a healthy climate, educators and psychologists must find ways to promote justice attitudes among non-Latino White students and foster racial empathy for targets of racism (p.95). They said: “White empathy refers to White students’ expression of empathy through a deep understanding of their fellow students’ experiences, especially those of racial and ethnic minority students suffering from racism”, (p.95). Educators and counselors must work together in helping students to better understand how to appreciate differences between groups. Chao et al., underlined in their study that to be able to understand individuals’ perceptions toward diversity, researchers have proposed the concept of openness to diversity (OTD), which refers to the appreciation of similarities and differences across cultural groups (p. 96). Open to diversity (OTD) also involves students ' interest to know more and more about unfamiliar cultures without assumptions. They said that “OTD moderates the relationship between White racial identity and White Empathy”, which means that when White students have greater OTD, they may be more likely to understand how minority students experience racism and when White students are less open to diversity, they may also be less willing to consider different perspectives on racial issues (p.
Because I am white, no one wonders if I am associated with terrorists or feels nervous and pulls their belongings closer if I am alone in an elevator with them. Going to school I always had a sense of safety. Having brought white privilege to my conscious awareness, it raised feelings of guilt and shame, because I was ignorant to my oppressiveness for so long. These feelings empowered me to identify various ways in which I can challenge the concept of white privilege in myself and others. On an individual level this can be done by increasing awareness of privilege, reducing feelings of guilt, accepting one’s own role in perpetuating racism. Do not assume that all differences are the same, acknowledge and validate everyone’s experience, avoid assumptions, listen with compassion, and create safety and room for everyone. Additional ways to challenge white privilege consist of exploring resources produced by or about other races, developing relationships with people across racial lines, positioning oneself in a context where they are the numerical minority, and/or exploring the field of whiteness
To truly understand my “mental story” in its entirety, it is important to look back upon my mentality when I chose to take AP Government and also what I previously knew before my first day of class. Politics was never my subject of choice. When I toured Georgetown and almost chose to pursue it, I convinced myself that the political scene and Washington D.C was not all that interesting to me. However, as the political scene began to somehow consistently appear on nearly every television channel, I decided that government and politics were areas that I might find interest in. As a naïve sophomore, I decided I would dedicate my senior humanities to studying government because I lacked a great amount of knowledge. The information I did know was limited, however. I knew Political figures are in a constant pursuit of power, and that democracy is the rule by the people. On the other
I am an athlete, and also enjoy reading and watching political sitcoms. My parents are teachers who have raised me to work hard and have shared with me a lot of their political ideas and morals. Coming into this class I like to think I have a good idea of my Political Ideology and have a decent idea of the news that was happening around me. Through this class I hope to become more informed about the “Hot Button Issues” so that I can know exactly where I fall politically and become an informed voter. I hope these things will help shape me and maybe change my mind on some issues. Through all of this I am a liberal, socially and especially economically, considering both of my parents are teachers which is an underpaid profession ;this has influenced me to side with liberals on major issues or talking points such as abortion, same sex-marriage, and higher taxes on the rich.
Political efficacy refers to the degree in which an individual believes he or she has an ability to influence the government (Chan 2014). The decision to engage with politics is usually a result of one’s attitudes towards participation, in the sense that there cannot be a political action without some prior thought about a political issue. One of the common attitudes related to political participation is political efficacy (Caprara et al., 2009). Political efficacy is individual's faith and trust in government and their belief that they can understand and influence political affairs. it is commonly measured by surveys and is used as an indicator for the broader health of civil society. When an individual has low efficacy, he does not have faith in his
that politics is the art of ruling and being ruled in turn. In The Politics,
Coming from a family who didn’t even graduate high school, who is trying his best to get a higher education and display the obstacles being faced throughout my life. In addition, the society will question themselves to see that some certain people with a different race or ethnicity are going to college. Above all, it creates a grudge against the terrible comments about how can these people go to college or have a higher education. Even if you are different, “It’s not your fault you were born with white skin…”, or any skin color, getting a higher education is something that improves the social, political, and economic factors of the nation (Crosley-Corcoran 1). It doesn’t matter what other people tell me or anyone, we make our lives and improve our community. Life without education or ideas from different identities, will destroy the relations between race, gender, or other
What is politics? Throughout history, people have participated in politics on many different levels. They may have participated through a direct democracy, in which they directly governed, or they may have participated through a representative democracy, in which they participated by electing representatives. As citizens’, people have participated in politics to attain the things they needed or wanted, the valued things. Participation in politics has been the way that people have a voice and change the things that directly affect their lives. Throughout the course of history, politics has been the competition of ideas; they decide who gets what, when, where and how.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines social studies as, “A part of school or college curriculum concerned with the study of social relationships and the functioning of society and usually made up of courses in history, government, economics, civics, sociology, geography, and anthropology” (Merriam- Webster, 2017). By their definition, social studies involve interactions that form relationships and provide functions for society that are further explained by the different perspectives of the specific course. In class, Mr. Lewandowski explained to me during class that the definition of social studies is, “An interdisciplinary approach to looking at people and social issues objectively, to better understand why events happen and enable us to make informed decisions as a citizenry…” (Lewandowski, 2017). To him, social studies is a way of explaining why things happened in addition to being able to make important decisions by looking at different people’s opinions on social issues. My ultimate belief lies in a combination of both ideas. I feel as though social studies is ultimately the study of people, what they did, what is predicted they will do, their actions in shaping their environment, their actions towards creating a sense of order, and even their financial actions. All of these concepts come together to define social studies and the multitude of strands that are encompassed in