Hidden Poverty in America

A couple of weeks ago, I saw a commercial on ABC for a Diane Sawyer special called "Children of the Mountains Struggle to Survive," and in the commercial, I saw footage of people living in the Appalachians where conditions seemed almost identical to those of third world countries. When I think of poverty, I usually think of the poor people living in Africa, India, China where it is a struggle to provide multiple meals each day. I never realized that there were people in America living in similar conditions! I did not watch the program, but I read the report on the ABC website. The accounts of the lives of these children were tragic and resonated with our class's description of what characterizes a life of poverty. One of the main reasons these children are in these situations is their parents' addiction to prescription drugs, which makes getting and keeping a job nearly impossible, and without any source of income, the family is virtually stuck. Courtney, a 12-year-old whose mother is now trying to stay away from the drugs says "Honestly, I'd love for me, my mom, Bill and us girls to have our own home," she said. "But we do not have the money to do that. Bill is wanting to get a job, but we can't because we ain't got a car to get him back and forth." Their poverty, in addition to their geographic isolation, has greatly limited their freedom. 18-year-old Jeremy Hackworth dreamed of becoming an engineer in the military. However, after he got his girlfriend pregnant, he felt obliged to work in the mines and provide for his family. Once again, their poverty has limited their freedom and taken away their options.
At New Trier, students thrive on their freedom to choose their life path: most of us have a few colleges to choose from that we can afford to go to, and we have counselors who help us decide what we will major in as we explore career options. Our opportunities are endless, which in many ways is due to our families' wealth, because there is no way that these families living in the Appalachians would, without significant scholarship money, be able to afford a college education for all of their children.
After reading about the lives of these children, I cannot help but wonder why so many people are opposed to socialism. Why not have a system where everyone truly is equal? These kids are at such a huge disadvantage when it is not their fault, it is their parents'! Because our nation's economic system fails to provide the financial assistance that the kids need, they are basically trapped in a life of poverty.

Are We Living in a Post-Racist America?

As we discuss racism, slavery, and what the election of an African American present indicates about the status of racism in our country, I was curious to see some other attitudes towards the issue of race. I found an article written by a man named Dinesh D'Souza, who, in 1995, published a book titled The End of Racism. In his book, D'Souze did not argue that racism did not exist in America, but that it no longer dictated how black people should or had to live their lives. He now argues that Predident Obama was elected because he was "judged not by the color of his skin but by the content of his character." Obama's demeanor and conduct, and the fact that he is not a "race-hustler," is what sets him apart from, say, Jesse Jackson, who tries to turn vicitimization into self-profit. In essense, D'Souza argued that as a whole, America now sees past skin color and makes character judgements rather than racial, and this has allowed African Americans to live their lives as they wish without racial barriers.
With all the hype over how enlightened Americans are, now that we are being lead by a man who would have had to sit in the back of a bus a half a century ago, it seems that we are too caught up in our achievements to focus at another prevalent form of discrimination: that against gay Americans. Is it possible that in fifty years, we could elect a homosexual to be our president? Today, that seems virtually impossible. Just as we denied African Americans basic rights, we are presently denying gay Americans the right to wed. The American Dream consists of marrying the person you love, having a family, and maintaining a job to support that family. We are denying these Americans the right to fulfill the American dream. While gay marriage may seem radical now, electing an African American would have been unthinkable a hundred years ago. It is time that we open our eyes, stop congratulating ourselves on overcoming discrimination based on race, and stop discriminating based on sexuality.

Romanticizing: The U.S. Cellular Commercial with the Smiling Guy on his Cell Phone

This U.S. Cellular commercial really seems to romanticize the power and importance of a phone company. It makes the argument that this cell phone, by connecting you with other people, will spread love and make the world a better place. (The company’s latest slogan is “Believe in something better.” ) While the argument itself is somewhat ridiculous, because don’t all phone companies connect you with other people? the way the commercial makes the argument is over the top. It starts out with a guy receiving a call, which makes him smile. Then, other people see him smiling, and they smile too! And then a poster of a smiling mouth is unrolled down the side of a building, and balloons are released into the air, and clearly the world is a better place because this guy is smiling about a call, right?
This commercial makes a phone something it is not, and could not ever be. It cannot make people happy; it cannot make the world better. Maybe a conversation you have can make you happy, but it’s not your phone company that is making these changes, or releasing balloons. The commercial goes so over the top with the way this guy seems to lift everyone around him’s spirits that it loses its credibility. It also romanticizes the potential a smile has to change its environment. Sure, smiling can be contagious, if someone is smiling at you, but personally, seeing someone talking on their phone and smiling at their own conversation would not make me smile. Maybe this commercial would be more realistic if they had stuck with the idea of connecting people, but by bringing balloons into the picture and arguing they are making the world better, they make the company something that it is not.

School Rivalries and Racism

A few days ago, my brother, a freshman at New Trier, told me an irritating story about something that happened at his basketball game. His team had easily won the game, and as they were shaking hands, a boy on the other team slapped one of our team's player's hands and spat the word "Jew" in an extremely offensive manner. I have lived on the North Shore for my entire life and never before seen any acts, nor have I heard any comments, that seem racist, anti-Semitic, etc. But it seems to me that school rivalries bring out the worst in everyone. At the New Trier- Evanston games, kids in the New Trier section shout out rude things to the players on the other teams, things they would never say if they were to see the players on the street.
While school rivalries are meant to be fun, the things some students do remind me in many ways of America in the 1800s. Similar to how difference in skin color empowered whites over blacks and made it ok to enslave them, and after slavery was abolished, segregate and oppress them, is the fact that because two students attend different schools, they each have the right to hate the other and have justification for inflicting violence on the other. There have been countless reports of violence, even shootings, at basketball games between rival schools in Chicago. When people find a difference between themselves and another set of people, they use this previously insignificant difference as rationale for why they are better, why it is ok not to treat the others equally.
In Huck Finn, during Colonel Sherburn's speech to the mob that wants to lynch him, he says "The pitifulest thing out is a mob; that's what an army is – a mob; they don't fight with courage that's born in them, but with courage that's borrowed from their mass, and from their officers" (Twain 147). Like the townspeople would not have had the guts to lynch, or simply harm Sherburn by themselves, students get the courage to shout rude things and to start fights at games from the being in the company of kids from their school; that is where they get that strength, but as Sherburn says, it's not real, it is borrowed. Unfortunately, this borrowed power gives some students a false sense of power and a reason to act violently towards 'rivals.'
I'm not saying that we should stop having rivals; I just think that maybe we should take them less seriously and show the other schools some respect, because really, kids at Evanston and Loyola are no different from us.

Pledging Allegiance?

"I simply wish to refuse allegiance to the State, to withdraw and stand aloof from it effectually," Thoreau says in "Civil Disobedience." While the subject of whether or not the "One nation, under God" segment of the United States pledge of allegiance is often broached, few have questioned the idea of students being forced to pledge allegiance to the state. I found an article that discusses the "Under God" issue, and in doing so describes the Pledge as a symbol of nationalism; "In the burst of patriotism that followed the Sept. 11 terrorism attacks, bills to make the oath mandatory have been introduced in Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Mississippi and Missouri." (The article was written in 2002, but I found another article that stated that as of 2006, the law in Illinois was that "The Pledge of Allegiance shall be recited each school day by pupils in elementary and secondary educational institutions supported or maintained in whole or in part by public funds.")
And so, the Pledge of Allegiance is meant to be a symbol of our patriotism, but it seems as if the pledge itself and the laws enforcing it are almost brainwashing kids to accept whatever the United States government does. By pledging this sort of oath, we are subconciously being persuaded not to think for ourselves, but instead to agree to the government's decisions and obey them, rather than our own instincts. Honestly, I have never thought to question where our taxes (or my parents') go, or if we are doing more harm than good when we go to war. After hearing Kathy Kelly's perspective, mine has turned around completely, and I feel like I have heard the deep dark secrets of our government. Maybe I'm just influenced by the pledge and Ms. Kelly so much because I'm a very impressionable person, but either way, the pledge of allegiance, I believe, convinced me at an early age that the U.S. government was flawless. Hopefully, more people will start to question the integrity of the entire oath, rather than just the "under God" section.

Simplicity and Zen

The other day, I happened to notice a book in my house called The Zen Commandments: Ten Suggestions for a Life of Inner Freedom. Apparently it was on Oprah's Book List, which made me wonder if the idea of living simply and "in the moment" was becoming more popular as people start to realize how unnecessarily hectic their lives are. Zen, a form of Buddhism that emphasizes living a life of meditation and simplicity, very much reminded me of Emerson and Thoreau's ideas. Because I was not all that familiar with the guidelines of Zen, I looked them up online and found two "essential rules to living like a Zen monk" which bore a striking resemblance to Emerson and Thoreau's opinions. The first rule was to "think about what is necessary", because a Zen monk "doesn’t have a closet full of shoes, or the latest in trendy clothes." Thoreau would agree with these ideas, as in "Economy," when questioning the necessity of clothes, he says "Each generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new" (19). The other rule was to live simply, "And so to live simply is to rid your life of as many of the unnecessary and unessential things as you can, to make room for the essential. Now, what is essential will be different to each person. There is no law saying what should be essential for you — but you should consider what is most important to your life, and make room for that by eliminating the other less essential things in your life." Thoreau, who wishes learn what "the gross necessaries of life" are, aspires to live as simple a life as possible, and Emerson would not only agree with living simply, but also with the idea of spending time doing what is essential to you. In "Self Reliance," he says, "What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think" (23). If Oprah chose this book about Zen to be on her list, then simplicity must be gaining popularity in our chaotic world!

Obesity and Sugar Substitutes

While obesity has become an epidemic among Americans, the food industry has found ways to reduce calories and sugar content in many products. A major method of doing so has been the use of artificial sweeteners. However, by replacing natural ingredients with artificial ones, I wonder if we really are progressing and improving nutritional value. While fake sugars significantly reduce caloric values, there are side effects to sweeteners that may be more serious and worthy of our attention. I found an article that details the dangers of sugar substitutes, where it is explained that aspartame, the main ingredient in Equal and NutraSweet, has had more complaints than any other food additive available to the public, and studies have shown that it can lead to damage to the central nervous system and genetic trauma. Even though the recepients, (rodents), were receiving extremely high amounts of the sweetener, these results demonstrate that this is a potentially dangerous substance that we are putting into our bodies. And while Splenda does not contain aspartame, it is calorie-free because it's chemical composisition goes unrecognized by the body and cannot be absorbed; however, some scientists predict that after a while, our bodies will recongnize it and digest it as sugar (no longer making it "calorie-free").
Sweeteners and other food subsitutes seem to be a short-term way to cut calories and lose weight. I think that in order for this country to truly progress and improve the obesity epidemic, the American life style has to change. Substitutes allow us to continue to eat the way we have been eating, but instead, we must change our dietary habits to live healthier lives. Obviously, this would involve excersise and healthy eating, and not simply cutting a few calories here and there, but I think this would improve the American people's general wellbeing.