Mentally Challenged In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

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“Our… notion of what is equal and what is fair frequently conflict.” (Nancy Gibbs) while equality is giving everyone the same thing, being fair means giving people more or less depending on their abilities and disabilities. If a society and its people make certain small adjustments to its quality of life for its citizens it is absolutely possible for thing to be fair for all people. A good example of adapting to help people with disabilities would be in the novel Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck's character lennie is mentally disabled and sometimes does things he does not mean to do like killing mice, hurting someone, or saying something he shouldn't. And because he is mentally disabled many of his actions are excused because he doesn't know any better and people forgive him because they understand this. Many other people who are mentally challenged are also excused of things they have done because of sympathizing and understanding people. In the American government there are several standards and laws that help to make things fair and equal for all citizens and protect the rights given to them in the constitution. One standard that was created to help make the death penalty unavailable for mentally challenged people is called the ”Lennie standard” inspired by the …show more content…

Many racial minorities are treated unfairly by a system of oppression that has been in place for hundreds of years. Things such as racial segregation in housing have been in place scene the 1920’s and are still in place today. In the article “Ending the Cycle of Racial isolation” the New York Times, it states that “... elected officials have often reinforced segregation through… the practice of building subsidized housing mainly in existing ghettos… ” , and even though many policies have been put in place to try and stop this it is still going on in very large numbers all over

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